Sometimes people are confused about the difference between the "occult" and the "esoteric". It's easy to see why. If you have no experience of the latter, but genuinely seek knowledge, you will come across bookshelves in libraries or shops where everything of this nature is mixed up together. Tips on how to develop your "psychic abilities" (read "imagination"); how to get what you want (again, read "imagination" and "wishful thinking"); and how to tell fortunes for profit and enlightenment, all jostle for space beside copies of "In Search of the Miraculous", Gnostic texts and mystical writings.
Everything that Ouspensky called "imaginazzione, impressonazzione, illusionazzione" is for sale alongside the truth. Beginners may be forgiven for getting confused.
How shall the serious seeker distinguish between them?
When we've been in the Work for a while, we develop a feeling for the false versus the true. We call it a matter of "taste". The Work, together with other mystical traditions, gives one a completely different taste from the world of the fortune teller and commercial psychic. Entirely different I's are involved. People may begin with the false, but if they have Magnetic Centre they will see through it and find their way to the Work.
The study of esotericism, whether esoteric Christianity, the Cabbalah, or the poetry of Rumi, is concerned with working on one's self and one's Essence. It shows how to separate the false from the real. Students learn to discern the difference between the False Personality and the Personality, and between these constructs and the real part of their psyche, the Essence. This is long and arduous Work, but there is no alternative.
In popular books on magic, Tarot, angel cards, and so on, this distinction is never made. Instead, the practice of wishful thinking is encouraged and the student is urged to believe in his or her psychic abilities, to see the unreal as if it were real. The truth that we cannot "do" is denied. Self-deception reigns.
What's more, when someone asks for a divination they are really asking for a shortcut to knowledge. It would be irresponsible for anyone in the Work to indulge them. The knowledge they seek can only be achieved by painstaking Work on themselves over long periods of time, and if people are told something before they are ready, they will not be able to act upon it. It's the equivalent of taking a drug to get high, a quick fix. Real knowledge exists, but must be paid for through spiritual Work.
So, in the Work, while we study the Tarot, the Cabbalah, Sufism, the Gnostics and other esoteric writings, we never perform divinations. Some Work students may find this ban difficult, especially if they have carried out such practices in the past. Nevertheless, they must be renounced if the student truly wishes for enlightenment. All genuine esoteric, mystical paths, from Zen to Sufism to esoteric Christianity, make the same demand.
I've personally known a number of Work students who began with the false, but in time saw why they had been asked to stop these practices. Those who were willing to persevere were grateful in the end, because they realized how dangerous was the path they had been treading before they met the Work.
What we do before we encounter the Work is not held against us, as long as we have not deliberately harmed another. The damage we may have done to ourselves, however, must be repaired by our Work, sometimes at cost to the teacher, who will have to expend more energy in helping these students.
Yes, we study the esoteric, but we use the knowledge contained in esoteric writings and arts solely in order to better understand ourselves and the nature of reality.
If we carry out divinations for other people, and especially if we make a charge for them, it inevitably feeds the False Personalities of both the practicioner and the client.
Feeding the False Personality leads to pride, vanity, deception and self-deception. And deception - lying - kills Essence. So those involved will destroy their ability to Work on themselves and will harm others.
While there may be some truth in the divinations that are given, the ability to see clairvoyantly is not within one's own power to manipulate, and readings often mix truth with error so that the end result is confusion.
And by cultivating these lower level, astral-plane phenomena, one is, whether knowingly or not, opening oneself to the possibility of being manipulated by demonic spirits that work through the psychic and seek to mislead and misinform. This is a very real risk. If allowed entry, these entities may cause the unfortunate seeker to crystallize wrongly and to become an "immortal thing". Such a person would be in Hell. They would see their error and long to change, but they would be unable to do so without much suffering and remorse. And even then, change would not be guaranteed. It could be too late.
Suppose, however, that an accurate result is given by a divination. What is the harm?
Firstly, the practicioner's False Personality will inevitably become inflated, his or her self-importance growing at the expense of his Essence. And secondly, the reader or the client may come to rely on such phenomena instead of seeking the truth through hard personal Work, which is the only way to enlightenment. Addiction to "magic" and psychic practices is a real mental illness. I have written previously about ritual addiction, and everything I said in that Post is also true of divination.
A rabbi of my acquaintance who lives in Jerusalem has worked with many such patients, and not all can be cured.
There is no shortcut to spiritual Work on oneself.
The Work is known as the way of accelerated completion, because illumination may be attained within one lifetime instead of during countless incarnations. But it is nevertheless a strenuous path, which demands huge efforts. The path of the psychic diviner seems like a shortcut, but it is a path that leads downwards and towards entropy. It is the exact opposite of the Fourth Way. The two are completely incompatible. This is the difference between the "occult", as it is popularly known, and the "esoteric", as studied and practiced in the Work and elsewhere.
There are, however, many people who do receive intuitions from a higher source without having recourse to methods of divination. They may belong to the Work, or they may come from another tradition. Such people claim no special powers. They use their knowledge for another's good and they never charge for doing so, nor would they advertise themselves or seek any praise for it. They keep silence about these matters, and you will not find them plying their wares for gain or recognition.
They know that the abilities they manifest come from beyond them, and are not owned by them. They are grateful to their Higher Power for enlightening them and for using them to help another, but they would never imply that it is due to their own personal worth or ability. Indeed, they sometimes go to great lengths to show others that they are, in fact, simply ordinary, powerless mortals like everyone else, so that they will not be perceived as some sort of "guru". Hence, it does not feed their False Personality.
That such higher guidance exists cannot be doubted. Anyone who attends a Twelve Step meeting will see it in action.
God often speaks through other people to help us, and whether we are the recipients or the agents of higher knowledge, we are humble and grateful. There is no pretense at special knowledge, and no ego-inflation.
In these conditions, there is no danger at all.
Question: If someone has practiced divination in the past, whether by Tarot, Cabbalah or any other occult method, could they later be authorized to teach the Work?
Answer: Yes, as long as they have renounced these practices. In this case, the knowledge they had acquired in studying the Tarot, the Cabbah, and so on, could be useful in the Work, as they could assist their own students in studying these complex subjects. I have known a number of such students who went on to become teachers and who have used their past to good effect. They can help students to understand exactly why the path of divination is opposed to the Work.
If they went back to practicing divination, however, their teaching permission would automatically be revoked. They would show they did not understand the difference between the occult and the esoteric, and that they were mixing up these different levels in an ignorant and dangerous fashion. They would mislead others, and endanger their own spiritual progress.
As the Dervish in "Meetings With Remarkable Men" says:-
Cursed be the one who does not know, yet who presumes to show others the way.
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