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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occultist

play \ə-ˈkəl-tist, ä-; ˈä-ˌkəl-\ noun

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Recent Examples of occultism from the Web

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
Gravity’s Rainbow is packed with paranoia, rocketry and post-World War II occultism, and barely clocks in under a thousand pages.

— scott thill, WIRED, "After Watchmen, What’s ‘Unfilmable’? These Legendary Texts," 20 July 2009
Myths of Nazi occultism had a basis in the Nazi's short-lived ventures in archaeology and experimental missile and plane projects.

— david grossman, Popular Mechanics, "Nope, There Was Never a Secret Nazi Base in Antarctica," 14 Mar. 2017

These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'occultism.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.