By Grace Hui for Incentre
Words such as “Occult” and “metaphysics” are generally regarded with confusion, dismissal, aversion, and even fear in the context of our modern life. Perhaps, over time, the true meanings of these concepts have become diluted or corrupted - not handed down in the way they were intended to be and, hence causing this sacred and deeply powerful knowledge to be misunderstood.
There has been a lot of modern-day intellectual debate on how to define and categorise these concepts in a vacuum. Such debates, while not necessarily wrong, are incomplete. They do not account for the energetic experience of the ancient masters who have wielded these sacred tools and rituals with mastery over the self. They do not give due consideration to the consciousness of the expanded self but are confined to what can be perceived in the limited 3-dimensional mind, not realising that our perceptions can be misleading if we do not truly know ourselves.
As renowned 20th century inventor and visionary, Buckminster Fuller once said: “Everything we see is inside our own heads.” In other words, what we perceive is limited to the extent of our experience. This means that what we see may not always be the truth. Rather, our experience is coloured by our own individual opinions, feelings and thoughts which are in turn shaped by our own subjective traumas or fears.
Do we see things as they truly are? Or are they merely a reflection of preconceived notions?
As Rabbi Shemuel ben Nachmani once said : “We do not see things as they are. We see things as we are”
What is Metaphysics?
Many an academic scholar has struggled to explain this term. In the course of these attempts however, these academic scholars have sought to limit the meaning of the concept. It is difficult to explain this concept solely from the logic of the human mind simply because it is far more expansive than the finite limitations of the human mind!
The term metaphysics is derived from the Greek Ta Meta ta Physkia which means “the books after the books on nature.” When a librarian was cataloging Aristotle’s works, he did not have a title for the material he wanted to shelve after the material called “nature” (Physkia) — so he called it “after nature.” Originally, this wasn’t even a subject at all — it was a collection of notes on different topics, but specifically topics removed from normal sense perception and empirical observation.
In other words, metaphysics is not meant to be a reductive single topic that modern science now classifies things but rather, it is an all-encompassing exploration of substance, existence, causality, determinism, modality, ontology, possibility, nothingness and the list goes on. It is the search for : What is out there? What is reality? Who am I? What am I? Where do I come from? Where am I going? What is my purpose? Does Free Will exist? etc. Metaphysical questions concern aspects of reality that transcend experience.
Modern science is constrained by needing their answers to be based on observation, experiment, measurement and calculation. It dismisses the metaphysicians as armchair philosophers who are just lazy physics, long past its sell-by date - not for a moment realising that what you perceive with your five senses may not always be reality.
This is not to say that modern science is wrong or bad - it is simply that we must recognise that in its current form, it is incomplete.
In the ancient traditions, the study of metaphysics was a highly regarded pursuit, not at all the pseudo-science, it is deemed today. Great masters such as Pythagoras, Plato, and Aristotle, just to name a few were all metaphysicists. In these ancient traditions, it was understood that when it comes to reality there are questions that go beyond what would fit neatly into one limited branch of study. The modern way of presenting results in science does not take into account that what we are able to investigate with the blunt tools of our limited understanding may not be all there is.
At INCENTRE, students are encouraged to see things as they are - free from attachments of the mind or the limitations of our unprocessed traumas. Initiates are trained to undertake the journey of truly knowing themselves and their divine purposes. In such a way, there is complete mastery and freedom.
As Ipssimus Dave Lanyon from the Modern Mystery School, says: “Illusion cannot change reality”. Reality is that which is not malleable by thought and cannot be replaced. If you can change something with a thought, then it was never real. In other words, if we can just think differently and that changes our reality, then we were never dealing with reality - we were always dealing with an illusion. As such, opinions and thoughts do not represent reality. Even knowledge isn’t always real.
To illustrate this point, Ipssimus Dave gave the example of a wall. We can’t walk through a wall no matter how hard we try because the wall doesn’t care about our thoughts or our feelings. It doesn’t matter what our perception of the wall is. The wall is there and anyone walking will hit that wall. The rest is an illusion.
If we are unable to discern reality from illusion, how factual is our reality?
In working with and studying metaphysics, we are increasingly able to differentiate between that which is immutable and that which is malleable.
Metaphysics in its purest form is the pursuit of what helps us to break free from the limitations of our physicality so that we may reawaken our divine selves. It is the path of absolute freedom. Freedom from ideologies, freedom from opinions, freedom from the noise that clouds our judgments.
The metaphysician sees things as they are.
What is the Occult?
In modern popular usage, the term “occult” generally applies to topics such as Satanism, dark magic, witchcraft, and demonic summoning. It is usually viewed with suspicion and as something to be feared. Religions such as Christianity have, in no small part, contributed to the occult being viewed negatively as evil.
In an academic sense, everything that does not fall into mainstream science has become part of the occult which makes it a rather wide and non-specific topic. Subjects such as astrology, alchemy, kabbalah, divination, scrying, contacting or summoning angels and demons, ritual magic, certain historical secret societies or mystery cults, hermeticism, magic runes, talismans, some forms of mysticism, and esoteric religious practices, etc are now all placed into the bucket of what constitutes occultism.
However, the term “occult” in ancient lineages simply means “hidden knowledge”. Hidden doesn’t mean that it is some sort of dark magic or bad teachings that need to be feared. Ancient traditions such as the mystery schools were the guardians of these sacred teachings and such teachings were passed down via the oral tradition and via initiation.
Indeed, there was a time when we used to live by these teachings and think and act according to certain ways of mystery. However, this way of life was “lost” to the masses in the Middle Ages and the mystery schools were forced to go underground in order to preserve and keep safe these sacred and ancient teachings.
Because of the massive shifts in energy occurring on our planet today, the mystery schools are now releasing these ancient teachings for the first time ever to the public. The hidden is becoming unhidden. This is happening because we as humans are now ready. We are more evolved spiritually than ever before in our human history.
The study of the occult is not an airy-fairy, make it up as you go along process. It is a sacred and serious lineage-based tradition that has been handed down for thousands of years from teacher to student.
As a result of popular culture which sensationalises so-called dark magic, the public’s understanding of the occult has been confused with evil practices and new age ideas that have no grounding in age-old tried and tested ancient traditions.
For example, the Law of Attraction has become a very trendy concept. While not untrue, it is incomplete in itself. The Law of Attraction has been misunderstood as daydreaming your way into success. The age-old teaching in Kabbala however teaches that manifestation is all about idea, thought, plan and action.
The mystery school traditions are all tasked with the betterment of mankind through the practice of white magick, the anchoring of light in the world, and awakening the divine in each and every person. Nothing dark or evil and nothing to be feared!
Indeed the mission of the Modern Mystery School, and by virtue of that, INCENTRE, is to bring about shamballa or peace on earth through awakening the divine in every person.
The distraction of confusion
For any plan or mission to succeed, it needs to be unconfused and undistracted. All of these intellectual debates have created a cloud of noise that detracts from the genuine study of metaphysics and the occult. We have become disconnected from our divine selves.
An empowered person in full awareness of his or her own divinity and purpose sees themselves clearly. They are fully accountable for their own actions and triggers and fully embrace their power to create what they want with the full discernment of what is right for them. They are undeterred and undistracted by the paths or actions of others. They see things as they are.
The current messaging out there, especially on social media can be misleading and emotive. It is therefore imperative to always remember to come back to the self and to really know thyself.
In a nutshell
In order to have mastery over ourselves, we have to be empowered to truly know ourselves and our unique divine purposes. Through the exploration of metaphysics, the expansion brought about by working with pure energy, and the study of the hidden wisdom of the occult we can be empowered to see things as they truly are - no masks, no illusions.
Complete mastery and complete freedom.
