So, if study of the occult DOES lead to advance in the sciences, that might also suggest that metaphysics does likewise? I don't know. Just been jootsing it a little. There are cases where 'wild-ass guessing' has led to amazing discovery. All this could also lead to a notion that interrelatedness is essential for things to work in an optimal way. And, as stated by my now-retired DO, it is all connected---all are parts of the same piece: take one segment away, the whole thing grinds downward.

Occultism is a holist philosophy, putatively tied to ancient wisdom and sourced in mystic experience. Christopher Lehrich presents the occult as a style (I'm not sure if that qualifies thought or appeals to an aesthetic, or both – Ken and John didn't follow.) That is a radical rethink as previously I had thought of mystic philosophy as canons that would rise and fall but ultimately transmuted as science found footing; Astrology to Astronomy, Alchemy to Chemistry. That waves of the occult canon persisted to modern-day implied science hadn't broached (maybe can never broach) our ultimate origins and human experience. But if occultism is a style. Hmm. I don't know.

Science can never disprove a style, but occult style can quickly diffuse human thought. Fiction, computer, and role-playing games infuse our modern childhoods. Harry Potter is required reading to understand our children (and fun in a muggle sort of way.) Philosophy will never be rid of occultism when the study of magic, mysticism, and esoterica has to force an academic approach to what was an authentic and unquestioned style in the middle ages and before.

I wonder if the remains of our engineered world will cast the same spell as Hermes Trismegistus and the pyramids did to the ancient and middle age worlds.

As a child, I did a fair bit of fantasy role play and read 'The Sword and the Stone' (my favorite childhood book next to 'Stuart Little'). I also didn't realize the history of the Tarot, the Masonic and New Age movements. There is a call to occultism that is appealing and satisfying in its completeness. There will likely be more and other forms of it going forward, even in the best scientific case.

One meaning assigned to occult is: hidden. Humans are an inquisitive lot. Insofar as this has been the case, I think it characteristic that early people, wishing to examine all possibilities, also considered occult practice and thinking, when thinking about philosophy. They, too, questioned many things...not wishing to leave possibilities untapped; stones, unturned. It is not so surprising then.

Hobbes' nominalist mechanism constitutes a direct attack against occult causes and action at a distance. In this view, a token reference extended over all members of a set is equivalent to the claim that a miracle has occurred, so that many different things are brought into contact with the mind, which must also be ala Hobbes a kind of material thing, by reaching towards only a single one. Identification of set-membership is understood as proximate use of identical terms for different significations, so that different objects are signified by identical names and become practical bundles rather than theoretical sets analogous to those in mathematics. So there are universals, but not beyond the name itself which, only when put to use in signification, can really be said to exist; while that which it brings into distinct notice is a radical individual. The peril in such a view is that the truth of something comes to depend on what you call it, so that even the truths of mathematics would seem to be optional. The defense here would seem to be that the things themselves determine what they ought to be called, even if mistakes can be made in choosing their names. How is this so different from the alchemy of Paracelsus? Couldn't lead be called "gold" with equal accuracy under conditions of strict ostensive definition?