PURGE OCCULTISM

“Ladies and gentlemen, tonight we’re going to examine one of the most enduring ideas of modern culture: the belief in space aliens. For over a century, the public has been bombarded with stories of UFOs, crashes, alien pilots, and government cover-ups. But when we peel back the layers of this phenomenon, a very different picture emerges—one not of extraterrestrial visitors, but of human invention, misinterpretation, and manipulation. Let’s begin.”

Part 1: The Mars Craze – Fiction as ‘Fact’

In 1877, during the opposition of Mars, Italian astronomer Giovanni Schiaparelli observed what he called canali—meaning ‘channels.’ This was mistranslated into English as ‘canals,’ a much more artificial-sounding term. American astronomer Percival Lowell took this mistranslation and ran with it. Despite the fact that the so-called canals changed over time—a dead giveaway of optical illusion—Lowell published book after book claiming Mars was home to a dying civilization. By 1908, his ideas had…

The word church is surrounded by centuries of tradition, theological interpretation, and linguistic confusion. Many popular claims about its origins are repeated without question, but when examined carefully, the history of the word is far more straightforward—and very different from what many have been led to believe.

The Real Roots: Circle and Ring

The English word church traces back through Old English cirice (also appearing as circe and cyrice) and its related forms in Old High German (kirihha) and Old Norse (kirkja) [Harper, Online Etymology Dictionary]. These variants ultimately reflect the influence of the Old French cercle, which itself comes from the Latin circulus—a diminutive of circus, meaning "ring" [Lewis & Short, A Latin Dictionary].

The Latin term in turn derives from the Ancient Greek word κίρκος (kírkos), meaning "circle" or "ring" [Liddell & Scott, A Greek–English Lexicon]. From there, the chain of development flows naturally:

• Greek: κίρκος (kírkos) → “circle”

The Malleus Maleficarum (1487 CE), written by Heinrich Kramer (Institoris) with some association to Jacob Sprenger, was not simply a “general” witch-hunting manual, but rather an extension of earlier inquisitorial traditions that had long been directed against specific heretical sects in the later Middle Ages. Much of what is popularly claimed about it today is the result of modern sensationalism and projection, especially feminist reinterpretations from the late 20th century, rather than an honest reading of the text in its historical context.

Later renderings of the title — Der Hexenhammer and The Witches’ Hammer — are themselves products of modern publicity and romanticized notions of witchcraft, promoted mainly from the early 1900s onward. The original Latin title deserves closer examination. Malleus means “mallet” or “hammer,” in the sense of a judge’s gavel. Male- derives from the Latin male, “ill” or “bad,” while -ficus comes from facere (“to make” or “to do”), with plural endings forming “ones.” Thus,…

Abstract

For over half a century, occultism has metastasized from countercultural curiosity into a pervasive parasite infecting politics, psychology, education, and public life. Cloaked in the language of “hidden wisdom,” movements ranging from astrology and Wicca to Scientology and “energy healing” have masqueraded as profound while peddling incoherence, exploitation, and fraud. This paper traces occultism’s expansion from the 1970s to the present, examining its corrosive influence across domains, its hypocrisy in so-called “secret societies,” and the devastating consequences of its normalization. Far from ancient or profound, the occult is a cultural malignancy that thrives on ignorance, trauma, and cowardice in confronting reality.

1. Introduction: The Lie of “Hidden Wisdom”

• Occultism presents itself as esoteric truth, accessible only to initiates. In reality, it is a recycling bin of plagiarized myths, pseudoscience, and authoritarian theater.

• The word “occult” (Latin occultus, meaning hidden) suggests concealed profundity; what it conceals, however, is vacuity.