The Term ‘Occultism’

The term ‘occultism’ has been defined in a variety of manners since its first appearance in France (as occultisme), in the first half of the nineteenth century. The earliest occurrence appears to be in a ‘dictionary of new words’ by Jean-Baptiste Richard, Enrichissement de la langue française (1842), but it was thanks to the pen of Eliphas Lévi (ps. of Alphonse-Louis…