Spirituality deals with what is related to the spirit or the soul . The spiritual is sacred in many cultures and has been transmitted mostly through religious scriptures or traditions . And even tough in a pure humanistic and philosophical sense spirituality is considered as the training and realization of one’s highest self, in the religious sense it is sometimes defined as the search of the union with the divine. Basically , religion is the belief and worship and obedience to a supernatural power (or supernatural powers) considered to be divine and to have control of human destiny. Spirituality is actually more general than religion, but everything starts with the believe that there is more in the world than our senses can perceive .This sometimes leads to confusion between spirituality and the occult.
Etymologically the word occult comes from the Latin occultus, which means “hidden, secret, dark, concealed”. Religion, even-though dealing with the unseen, does not conceal its practices. It mainly deals with the role of the divine law in the unseen . The unseen is explainable with divine wisdom but the occult is beyond normal human logic, that is to say, is mystical. The occult has survived through various forms of supra-natural and psychic phenomena such as communication with the dead(mediums), magic, fortune telling, the casting of spells and the use of charm, astrology, etc…. It is omnipresent in almost every culture . And it is forbidden by all major world’s religion, especially monotheistic religions such as Judaism, Christianity and Islam.
Religion, on the contrary of the occult does not always have a negative connotation, unless used as a political tool such as in the case of Islamic extremism. It has been described by wise men as the highest in the worst suffering state and the unsatisfied in highest Lust. Thus religion has been used by political philosophies because its focuses on ethics. Spirituality, which is more general, does not focus on power but on harmonizing with the divine. Display of power is not spiritual even-though a spiritual realized being might as well overpower an occultist unintentionally. Occultism does not focus on ethics and even-though fought and discredited, has survived in various forms. It is worth mentioning that a spiritual realized being may have some understanding of the occult but not all those who practice occultism will have religious understanding.
Occultism has been considered by some scholars as the collection and usage of forbidden knowledge used for practices such as magic, incantations, divination and all that deals with spirits . Spirituality on the contrary focuses on the realization of one’s higher self . For most religious scholars occultism is evil.
Religions especially Christianity and Islam totally condemn occultism by stating that the occult bondage is from Satan. Thus the Scriptures will mention the evidence of the existing of the unseen and the ability of men of God to communicate with spirits. For example , according to Christianity, demon can possessed a person.
Mark 5:10-20 : And he besought him much that he would not send them away out of the country. Now there was there nigh unto the mountains a great herd of swine feeding. And all the devils besought him, saying, Send us into the swine, that we may enter into them. And forthwith Jesus gave them leave, be possessed!
And according to Islam, spirits also referred to as demons or jinns exits and can possess humans. And even in ancients Mesopotamia (Asyrians and Babylonians) or Egypt , demons were considered as non-human beings populating a parallel realm to humans as well as vengeful dead. The reality of Spirits was conveyed by almost every prophet. And this reality was used to explain the work of some black magicians.
Even though the link between the occult and spirits is clear is various religions, Sound religious knowledge is rather the weapon against occult practices than an instrument to acquire this knowledge.
Acts 16:16-18 and it came to pass, as we went to prayer, a certain damsel possessed with a spirit of divination met us, which brought her masters much gain by soothsaying:
Divination in general is considered an occult practice and forbidden by the bible as well as the sunna. Divination should not be confused with the consultation prayer(Isthikara ) practice by Muslims. Whereas divination is attempt of discovering the future as tough by supernatural power, istikhara is just a self consultation with faith and reliance on God for the future outcome of a decision or action. And that is definitely not the case with those who seek soothsayers because they have to put their trust in the soothsayers.
Imam Bukhari is reported to to have transmitted the following hadith:” And whosoever has sought the services of a clairvoyant or soothsayer, has in fact disbelieved in the message of Muhammad(pbuh).
And according to Islamic scholars, occult practitioner should be condemned event though what they do cannot harm any truthful believer without the permission of God.
It is obvious from Islamic scholars of various sects and from the words of the prophet, that the use of knowledge of the occult can be done by the contact of beings of the spiritual realm. However some beings of the spiritual realm could be evil even according to the Bible
John 4:1-3: Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God: because many false prophets are gone out into the world.
Ruqyah is mainly practice in islam for exorcism and in the Bible Jesus is know to have cured the sick with ruqyah:
Mathew 17:18: And Jesus rebuked the devil; and he departed out of him: and the child was cured from that very hour.
Mathew 12:22: Then was brought unto him one possessed with a devil, blind, and dumb: and he healed him, insomuch that the blind and dumb both spake and saw.
And the Islamic point of view is that the learning of the occult is an unlawful act. According to the hanbalis(An Islamic jurisprudence), a person who practice black magic becomes an unbeliever. Even-though there are scholars who are tolerant about the knowledge of the occult as far as it does not kill anyone and and aim for understanding and curing, it is clear from the sunna and the glorious quran that black magic is not accepted by God. In suratul baqara, the second chapter of the glorious quran it is said”… And they learned what hurt them and did not profit them, knowing well that whoso bye it shall have no share in the world to come.”
This is why iman Malik said that the punishment for practicing black magic is the death sentence.
The best way of knowing God is trough spiritual experience and realization. It starts with religion but religion alone is not sufficient. Philosophy has argued the existence of God in many ways but does not directly touches the depth of God’s knowledge. You need experience to realize this. Occultism should be avoided because in most of the cases, it leads astray
