There's a really useful cross-fertilization. The academic standards of
evidence, the value of rigorous and logical argument and reasoning, the use
of primary sources; these, and other things are vary valuable gifts from
academia to the occult subcultures.
In my own Pagan community here in British Columbia, there is far too much
wishful thinking and wholehearted swallowing of myth as though it were fact,
plus holier than thou posturing, plus periodic bursts of anti-intellectual
self-protection by people that haven't read any of the primary literature.
Plus the "secret history" - Madame Blavatsky, peace be upon her, did not
discover the great secrets of the ages in a hidden Tibetan library - it just
doesn't exist, and the Great White Brotherhood, and the Great Ancient
Matriarchy, and so on.
In my identity as a Wiccan Priest, then, I find the academic outlook and
tools bracing and very valuable. As an academic I find the ideas of the
magickal persona, the constructed self, the techniques of ecstacy are
valuable "post-modern" (really, pre-modern) tools. By dissolving the
separation of the person from the object of study a deeper integration and
understanding can result and insights and goading to further study.
Best,
Sam Wagar
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