occultism

noun

oc·cult·ism | \ ə-ˈkəl-ˌti-zəm

, ä-; ˈä-ˌkəl-\

Definition of occultism

: occult theory or practice : belief in or study of the action or influence of supernatural or supernormal powers

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By 1960, anyway, the Surrealists were fishing in the murky waters of occultism, and the scientifically minded Oulipians had more than one reason to want to distance themselves. — Luc Sante, Harper's magazine, "A Crew of Variegated Weirdos," 10 Jan. 2019 The occultism is omnipresent, and the movie is less interested in scaring the pants off of you than in constantly nudging you about how near to your own reality this whole scenario seems to be. — Dylan Scott, Vox, "13 found-footage horror movies actually worth watching this Halloween," 19 Oct. 2018 Cult leader and convicted killer Charles Manson, who died on Sunday (Nov. 19) at the age of 83, built his own perverse mythology upon a foundation of occultism, race war conspiracy theories and, ultimately, murder. — Bryan Rolli, Billboard, "Music Journalist Legs McNeil Talks New Book on Charles Manson and the Dark Side of Late-'60s 'Free Love'," 21 Nov. 2017 This year, however, Halloween may actually get a little too spooky: The moon in Pisces highlights your eighth house, the area of your chart that governs death, occultism, and things that go bump in the night. — Aliza Kelly Faragher, Allure, "What This Week's Horoscope Means for You," 30 Oct. 2017 The items acquired by the museum included a walnut table, a Burmese chest in which Yeats stored manuscripts, a series of Japanese masks, and a collection of objects that show the influence of occultism and spiritualism on Yeats’s work. — Anna Codrea-rado, New York Times, "After Outcry, Irish Government Buys Yeats’s Artifacts," 27 Sep. 2017 Cotterill has a gift for tempering bad stuff — specifically, the baffling and chaotic political climate of communism circa 1980 — with gently ironic humor and frequent doses of slightly kooky occultism. — Adam Woog, The Seattle Times, "These crime-fiction novels deliver the goods," 3 Sep. 2017 Historian Eric Kurlander has recently written a book that takes Nazi occultism seriously: Hitler’s Monsters: A Supernatural History of the Third Reich. — Rebecca Onion, Slate Magazine, "The Nazis Were Obsessed With Magic," 24 Aug. 2017 With their portal-like, sculptural presence and ghostly images, the chic works of this rarely exhibited suite seductively conjure the menacing undercurrent of both nineteenth-century occultism and contemporary mass-media enchantment. — The New Yorker, "Sarah Charlesworth," 31 Mar. 2017

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