The Esoteric Scene, Cultic Milieu, and Occult Tarot

Danny L. Jorgensen

• Publisher: Taylor & Francis
• Year: 2019
• Print ISBN: 9780367349516
• eBook ISBN: 9781000691504
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Religion

Originally published in 1992, The Esoteric Scene, Cultic Milieu, and Occult Tarot examines beliefs, practices, and activities described as mystical, psychical, magical, spiritual, metaphysical, theophysical, esoteric, occult, and/or pagan, among other possible labels, by their American disciplines. The book is comprised using a mixture of field work and interviews and provides a broad overview of the esoteric community and the social meanings of occultism. The book describes and analyses social meanings of 'esoteric culture' as it is experienced, defined, structured and enacted by societal members and examines the sociological significance of esoteric culture as a formulation of alternative sociocultural realities. It provides a sociological understanding of esoteric culture and the cultural milieu.

Chapter 1

Observing and Participating in the Cultic Milieu

In 1975 I began looking for Americans who were making extraordinary claims to knowledge on the basis of unconventional practices. Eventually, I encountered expansive networks of practitioners performing what they called “magic,” “clairvoyance,” “divination,” “mediumship,” “meditation,” “witchcraft,” and “healing,” as well as other, rather extraordinary practices and rituals.¹ They most commonly described their doctrines and beliefs as “psychic,” “esoteric,” “spiritual,” and “religious”; but, they also employed the words “occult,” “mystic,” “magic,” “metaphysical,” “theosophical,” “intuitive,” “hermetic,” “new age,” “pagan,” “scientific,” and “philosophical,” among others, in this way. Although these Americans were geographically dispersed throughout a large metropolitan center referred to here as “the Valley,” they envisioned their activities in terms of a “esoteric,” “psychic,” or “spiritual community.” Over the next three years I studied these peoples’ beliefs and activities by way of a methodology of participant observation (see Jorgensen, 1989).

The fundamental goals of this inquiry were to observe, experience, and describe this socioculrural world in terms of the meanings ascribed to it by members, natives, or insiders. Since 1978 I have collected other pertinent information, and concentrated on analyzing and interpreting my findings. The results are reported in this book. It describes, analyzes, and interprets what Tiryakian (1973, 1974) called “esoteric culture.” This includes bodies of knowledge, especially theosophies, constructed and used by believers to define “reality” in ultimately meaningful ways, as well as practices, like meditation and divination, employed by practitioners to enact and accomplish their images of reality. Esoteric culture exists in marked contrast with the socially dominant exoteric culture, and it is distinguishable in terms of a lack of socially sanctioned legitimacy in Western societies. The occult tarot serves as a concrete illustration of a theosophically constituted body of esoteric knowledge, while its use by occultists for hermetic study, meditation, and divination exemplifies occult practices. Esoteric culture is distributed, structured, and organized, I argue, in the form of what Campbell (1972) called the “cultic milieu.” This social environment contains publics and collective behavioral audiences, as well as elaborate networks of seekers, practitioners, cults, sects, and collective movements.

A METHODOLOGY OF PARTICIPANT OBSERVATION

The methodology of participant observation I employed consists of principles and strategies for describing, analyzing, and interpreting human existence (Jorgensen, 1989; also see Bruyn, 1966; Speier, 1973; Johnson, 1975; Douglas, 1976; Marcus and Fisher, 1986; Denzin, 1989a). It takes as the paramount reality to be studied the experiences, meanings, and interactions of members (insiders or natives) of concrete situations and settings as viewed from their perspectives (see Schutz, 1967; Berger and Luckmann, 1966; Blumer, 1969; Douglas and Johnson, 1977). Participant observational inquiry is loosely focused and guided by general theoretical interests, casual, open-ended questions, and perhaps suspicions that constantly are subject to modification and change based on fieldwork. Specific preconceptions, prejudices, operational measures, as well as formal, definitive concepts, hypotheses, and explanatory theories are avoided, deliberately.

The researcher observes, interviews, and gathers rich, dense, highly detailed qualitative information in other ways, while cultivating trusting relationships, participating, and performing membership roles (see Adler and Adler, 1987; Geertz, 1973). Thick, descriptive interpretations, personal experiences, and other information, such as documents and artifacts, are recorded by way of fieldnotes, journals, analytic files, and other similar strategies. These materials are analyzed and interpreted constantly by way of an open-ended, dialectical process whereby study problems are defined, observed, analyzed, and interpreted repeatedly during fieldwork (Jorgensen, 1989; Denzin, 1989a). This hermeneutic process of discovery continues through the presentation of findings (see Agar, 1986; Becker, 1986; Geertz, 1988; Van Maanen, 1988). The ultimate goals of participant observational inquiry are to provide theoretical interpretations and understandings of human existence fully grounded in the experiences and meanings of societal members (see Glazer and Strauss, 1967; Douglas and Johnson, 1977).

At the outset of this inquiry I was incredibly naive about what I only much later learned to identify as “esoteric culture” and the “cultic milieu” (see Jorgensen, 1979). My original aim was to join a cult, but efforts to locate such a group resulted in a series of perceivedly unsuccessful starts. Eventually, other participants in this cultic environment defined me as a “seeker” (see Straus, 1976). Spontaneous performance of this nominal membership role enabled me to observe and casually ask questions without being too obtrusive. As a seeker, in other words, I was able to observe the cultic milieu, casually question people, and participate like other members without announcing my identity as a researcher. My use of this covert research strategy was an attempt to avoid disrupting the ordinary course of members’ activities. In this way I encountered a bewildering array of beliefs, practices, practitioners, and cultic groups. Perplexed by this diversity, I began focusing attention on how these phenomena were related and organized socially. This initially practical fieldwork problem eventually was defined as a major theoretical issue worthy of systematic investigation.

During early explorations of the cultic milieu I was introduced to the occult tarot, and the divinatory use of these unique, pictorial cards. I received several readings of the tarot, leading members to define me as a “client.” Performance of this membership role empowered me to observe and participate in members’ activities more extensively and intensively. It opened up and enabled me to see portions of the insiders’ world theretofore obscured from the standpoint of a seeker. Becoming more deeply involved, I decided to become an apprenticed “student” of the tarot so as to gain even more direct experiential access to the activities of practitioners and groups in what insiders’ called the “esoteric community.” Through these participant observational activities the occult tarot and its divinatory use become another basic axis of study.

Initiation to the occult tarot entitled me to become a “professional practitioner” of tarot divination in the community. This membership role provided a unique vantage point for experiencing and observing the insiders’ world of meaning and interaction. I thereby was able to observe and experience the members’ reality as a fully participating member. Performance of this role resulted in existential and self conflicts. I “became the phenomenon” of scholarly interest (Mehan and Wood, 1975), but I did not “go native” completely (as described more fully in Chapter Five). In performing the role of tarot card reader I passed as a member of the community, while sustaining a definition of myself as a sociologist, not an occultist.

In 1978 I left the setting of this fieldwork and concentrated on analyzing, interpreting, and writing up the results of this research. I struggled to reconcile the results of my fieldwork with seemingly relevant scholarly literature, and I expanded my previous study of esoteric and occult writings. As I gained greater distance from the fieldwork experience, it became easier to interpret my experiences and observations from a sociological perspective. Yet, sociological interpretation tends to distort and reify what I observed and experienced. I am convinced that the relationship between subject and object, knower and known, methods and findings, experiences and interpretations are linked in highly complex and inextricable ways. A literal account of these connections is impossible; but I will attempt to display, analyze, and interpret them so that you will be in a better position to evaluate my reading of esoteric culture, the cultic milieu, and the occult tarot.

EXPLORING THE CULTIC MILIEU

It is not insignificant that my intellectual interest in extraordinary claims to knowledge and socially marginal religious movements self-consciously derives in part from personal, biographical experiences (see Mills, 1959; Douglas and Johnson, 1977; Higgins and Johnson, 1988; Denzin, 1989a, 1989b). My ancestors were among the earliest converts to the new American religion formally instituted by Joseph Smith, Jr., in 1830.They participated in the Mormon experience on the American frontier, enduring hardships, trials, and persecution. Some of them succumbed to disease and the difficulties of frontier life, while others were murdered by intolerant American neighbors. With the assassination of their Prophet, they followed Brigham Young only to become bitterly divided by schismatic differences within this new religious movement (see Jorgensen, 1989, 1990a, 1990b, 1990c, 1991).

As a participant in a variant of Mormonism I not infrequently experienced and observed “gifts of the spirit,” such as “prophecies” and “healings” by ministerial laying on of hands. I sustained a cardinal identity as a “Josephite,” at least until I converted to sociology in college.² Even today, this biographical identity as a Josephite Mormon intrudes into my consciousness, influences my thoughts, feelings, and existence. Inexorably it is part of my social history and who I am (see Jorgensen, 1990a).

At the outset of this inquiry my previous experiences were generalized as an interest in what I thought of as “extraordinary knowledge.” What I had in mind was a study of some group in which people employed unconventional practices to claim knowledge of an extraordinary, non-empirical reality. I hoped to join such a group, participate in and observe the activities of its members. In this way I expected to focus attention on their accomplishment of extraordinary knowledge. Like other members of American culture I held stereotypical images of occultists based on movies, television, media reports, folklore, and exposure to scholarly literatures. Popular cultural images suggested irrational and mysterious beliefs, bizarre magical practices and rites, as well as odd and even deranged enthusiasts organized by way of highly secretive and sometimes criminal cults (see Shupe, 1981; Melton and Moore, 1982; Beckford, 1985). I suspected that these images distorted insiders’ views of their activities, and I endeavored to suspend preconceptions about contemporary American occultists. I intended to experience and observe these beliefs, practices, and adherents’ activities without hazardous prejudice about what I might find.

My interest in extraordinary knowledge claims was kindled during the summer of 1975 by a friend, Lin, who played an audio tape recording for me of a “channeling session.” This session involved a small collection of people who met on an irregular basis to receive messages from a “spirit,” or “multi-dimensional personality,” through a trance medium. The “medium,” I discovered, goes into a hypnotic trance and assents to a “spirit” who is presumed to communicate a message through her. Trance mediumship, I learned from scholarly writings, is common in many cultures, and readily observable in American spiritualism as well as other social contexts (see Bourguignon, 1973; Evans-Pritchard, 1973; Zaretsky, 1974). It has become popular in recent years within small cultic groups throughout the United States, partly by way of the writings of Jane Roberts (1970) who has attributed several books to Seth, the spirit who communicates through her.

With Lin’s assistance I attempted to contact the informal leader of the spirit group, the chairperson of an academic department at the university. I had an opportunity to talk with the medium, a doctoral candidate at the university, later the next summer, but I was unable to arrange attendance at a channeling session as originally planned. While this group was not entirely covert, they were suspicious of outsiders. Not just anyone was invited to attend their activities. These experiences were informative. I was surprised that such well-educated people would be involved so deeply in something as seemingly “weird” as conversing with what they believed were spirits. My failure to gain entrée to the spirit group, however, demonstrated that this was a false start.

ILLUSTRATION ONE: Star, Gareth Knight Tarot Deck. Reproduced by permission of U.S. Games Systems, Inc., Stamford, CT 06902 USA/ Copyright © 1985 U.S. Games Systems, Inc. Further reproduction prohibited.

In December of 1975, I made a more solemn commitment to investigating the seemingly strange and obscure world of psychic phenomena, spirit entities, mysterious forces, magical practices, and hidden wisdoms. I was living in a large municipality in the northcentral United States and attending the University where I was a doctoral student in sociology. Since I had nearly completed my course work and planned on taking doctoral examinations during the summer, I was in search of a dissertation project. I therefore began looking for a group to study.

I had little idea about where to find individuals or collectivities involved in these seemingly strange beliefs and practices. I started by searching public sources of information, particularly directories in newspapers, telephone books, and magazines, but I found little useful information. I also began making contacts with people who I thought might be knowledgeable in such matters by raising the topic whenever the occasion permitted and sometimes when it did not. This led to some interesting encounters with people who shared personal experiences with me. Many of the people I met expressed more than casual interest in extraordinary phenomenon; some of them told me fantastic stories about such experiences; and several of them devoted substantial portions of their free time to seeking enlightenment or developing “psychic” powers. None of them, however, practiced with an organized group.

Since everyone knows that sociologists study “groups” rather than individuals, I labored under the idea that I needed to find an organized collection of people to study. During the 1970’s there was a general, popular cultural perception that esoteric beliefs and groups abounded. I therefore found it more than a little disconcerting to be unable to locate even one cultic association suitable for study. Early in the spring of 1976 I began searching more actively for such an organization. Through Lin I learned of a study fellowship that held weekly meetings referred to as “Fireside E.S.P.” Literature provided by the group listed three different sets of activities: evening meetings, self-help (training) workshops, and a full-time clinic service. It seemed to be exactly what I had been hoping to find.

During the next two months, I attended two evening meetings, talked with members, and collected literature about the group. The ESP fellowship consisted of four core members and an untold number of regular and semi-regular participants. The leaders, a married couple, supported themselves in part through group revenue, which included a two dollars per person “love offering” at weekly meetings, sixty-five dollars for a clinic treatment, and from forty to sixty dollars for special workshops. The predominant focus of all activities was summarized by the motto “making the able—more able.” They subscribed to a baffling variety of esoteric doctrines concerning “vital energies, forces, and powers” to gain control of one’s person. ESP was an obscure cult that no one had studied before, and it therefore met one of my consummate requirements for a study phenomenon.

I was disappointed, however, with what I observed. The ESP fellowship was not involved with anything that seemed to me especially out of the ordinary, including several demonstrations identified by members as “extra-sensory powers, gifts, or abilities.” One evening, for instance, we joined hands in a circle and concentrated on generating a “psychic or spiritual force field” around the group. Later the leader rubbed his hands together, claimed to draw on psychic energies, and placed them on the bodies of willing members. They alleged feelings of physical relief, spiritual renewal, and psychic invigoration. His hands felt warm to me, but otherwise I did not even get a mild tingling sensation.

On another occasion, we employed a prism for occult purposes. Members were told to focus their attention on this translucent crystal, concentrate deeply until they envisioned unusual sensations, particularly colors. They were instructed to merge with this heightened state of consciousness, close their eyes, and enjoy an unusual adventure. Members found this psychic exercise exhilarating, and talked about it endlessly. I saw a few strange colors, but nothing more. Subsequently I realized that these indeed were actual demonstrations of extraordinary experience, even though they seemed pretty ordinary to me. At the time I was unable to envision them as especially exceptional.

On-going participation with the fellowship, it became clear, would require a considerable economic commitment. I also found this very disenchanting. My previous experiences suggested that spiritual enlightenment should not depend on dollars. I knew, of course, that more traditional religiosus organizations depended on the regular offerings of the membership. This situation, however, somehow seemed different. In the past, nobody ever charged me money for a prophecy, or a laying on of the hands, although I did tithe. In any case, I was not prepared to make the initial commitment of about one hundred dollars. I was planning on leaving this area within a few months anyway. Thinking I might go back sometime, I discontinued attending Fireside ESP.

Almost unknowingly I had observed several significant features of the esoteric scene. My experiences with the group were summarized in a field report and filed for later reference. Afterward, during my research in the Valley, I came to recognize features of the ESP group as significant and persistent dimensions of the larger esoteric scene in America. At the time, however, I regarded this portion of fieldwork as a false start and mostly worthless. And I hoped to do better in another field setting. The process whereby I gradually became a participant in the esoteric scene and learned employ occult ideas and practices for making sense of my experiences is described by Luhrmann (1989: Chapter 21) as “interpretative drift.”

UNCOVERING NETWORKS OF OCCULTISTS

In August 1976 I moved to the Valley, a large metropolitan center in the southwestern United States. I had accepted a part-time lectureship at the University, and planned on working on my doctoral dissertation. More importantly, this move afforded me the opportunity to be with Lin, the friend with whom I had become involved romantically. I therefore did not select the Valley as a setting for study. I selected Lin and she happened to live in the Valley where I also was able to find meaningful employment.

Since the Valley contained an astounding and baffling variety of nonconventional beliefs, practices, believers, and groups, it turned out to be a good setting for this study. As a center of unconventional beliefs, practices, and groups in the United States, the Valley clearly is overshadowed by the West Coast, but it is not too dissimilar from several other regions of the country, such as the Southeast and East Coast. Insofar as there is greater esoteric and occult activity in the Valley than in other regions of the United States, it may not b...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Original Title Page
• Original Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• List of Figures
• List of Illustrations
• List of Tables
• Preface
• Acknowledgements
• 1. Observing and Participating in the Cultic Milieu
• 2. The Esoteric Scene in America
• 3. The Esoteric Community in the Valley
• 4. Confederated Networks of Occultists
• 5. Becoming a Tarot Diviner
• 6. The Occult Tarot
• 7. Occult Theosophies of the Tarot
• 8. Interpreting the Occult Tarot
• 9. Esoteric Culture and a Postmodern World
• Appendix A: Esoteric Community Survey Form
• Appendix B: Tarot Card Reader Interview Schedule
• References
• Index