It was Valentine’s Day, yet the general mood was one of warm-hearted platonic conviviality. We’d navigated the labyrinthine stairways of Pleasance to find ourselves part of a small congregation of earnest young occultists. Edinburgh’s Occult Society were gathered for an introduction to crystals — a benign initiation into what we thought would be a scary cult.
The truth could not have been further from the fear-invoking images conjured by our paranoid speculation in the days leading up to the meeting. The room was light and welcoming.
Upon entering, each attendee was given a choice of cards, each showing a crystal with its associated abilities. We were to choose one that resonated with us, before passing it along. One of us chose amethyst, in the hopes of obtaining good luck. The other struggled with the pack before choosing opal to sequester bad energy.
This selection was followed by an informative and comprehensive presentation delivered by a highly likeable trio of society members. Each represented the plurality of occultist identities available within the community which we were soon to learn about. With the aid of diagrams, pictures, and real stones, passed around and studied earnestly by attendees, we learned about these crystals.
We discovered that pointed crystals direct energy, flat ones may be held, and those carved into frog-shapes do nothing noteworthy at all. Dark crystals absorb energy, while glittery stones give good luck. Some stones are auspicious, some bring love, others help one concentrate. The list of attainable virtues included courage, virility, good communication, to name a few. With cruel irony, a sceptic might question why humanity had been struggling with its familiar woes for so long, if one only needed a prescribed crystal to absolve them.
It was clear that the Occult society had established a friendly and accepting environment. It was not a refuge for bullied outsiders, where one may find well-justified defensiveness or hostility. Nor was it yet another student group which demanded a manifestoed consensus from its members.
Jemima, the president of the society, was keen to speak with us. Occultism was, she claimed, a broad church of those keen to dabble in the spiritual and pagan. Under its umbrella, one might find dark hooded druids, agnostic crystal girlies, yoga fanatics, and nature-loving solstice celebrators. This night seemed to be most concerned with human wellbeing, buttressed by an undogmatic conviction in the strange and wonderful power yielded by stones.
Student journalists were not the only people there curious to learn more about the Occult Society. A social anthropology fourth-year was queuing behind us patiently as we spoke with the committee. The top brass of the Occult Society faced such interest with a witty bemusement and answered all our questions in good humour.
At one juncture of the evening, attention shifted towards a more personal realm of occult practice: palm reading. Crouched down by the side of the palmist, the wrinkles on our hands came under scrutiny. It was determined that the lines showed one of us would not find love until later in life — a misinterpretation, hopefully.
Further investigation indicated that these hands were better suited to holding a pen than a hammer, and that their wallet was destined to be lighter than their heart. The lines on the side of the hands showed their riches would come in the form of two children, who hopefully inherit their financial savvy from a source other than their palm lines. The prognosis was not an entirely flattering one, but interesting, nonetheless.
The final message? Occultists are, from what we experienced, an open and friendly lot. Despite the aesthetic wackiness, there is much to be admired. Their spiritual practices are strangely apt for modern times — both so brazenly unscientific as to circumnavigate reasonable doubt, yet mild and undogmatic. A sense of human goodness and community appeared to be at the heart of the society’s raison d’etre.
Images “tarot” and “tarot” by tamaki are licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.