I see your point, sorry about that lol. Post work exhaustion on my end. I guess the point I was trying to make was to learn how to live every moment of your day as what you are, regardless if others can see the symbol on you or not. That kind of confidence does seem to attract people’s attention and, when you play your cards right, you may find friends you don’t mind showing that part of your life to, once you get a feel for them and if you decide to.
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Darkness rising has a point, everything we choose or not choose; everything we do or not do. It all has a price. The only true question is can you live with paying the price.
Very well said, @Nightsister
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I just say “I’m Spiritual” and that’s all
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I don’t, plus I know the Bible better than most Christians and can find some common ground.
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I can sit an argue all day with my family why I don’t follow God the god in the book is what you get one who consistently punish us for everything
I actually tried to rationalize my choice to some one in my family that matters to me and he decided to rationalize that
It’s not real you can’t call apone things and make a wish and it come true… You were probably just dreaming it because your subconscious mind wants to find away out of this situation so bad you just dreamt your way out
So me telling my mom may or may not go as planned my sister’s wouldn’t care my dad may my grandparents may disown me and I may lose all the support I have cause most are from church community so my thing is
Out weigh the good bad and ugly before you do so…
Who will leave you disown you who will turn their back on you
Or who will stay because they truely love and accept you for you basically
Lucifer cation is a tough path to be on when we are surrounded by ppl who judge those who are different
I have never needed to “come out” in any way. I openly wear an inverted pentagram pendant, and my BALG Belial t-shirt and I barely get even a glance from people, beyond a few compliments on the pendant.
Personally, I think very few care, at least in my neck of woods, so long as I’m not hassling them with “Smile, Satan loves you,” or “Back off, in the name of Lucifer” (things I would never say in the first place, since I am not of a religious mind).
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Eventually you stop caring what other people think and just openly do what you feel you need to do. A lot of people focus on judgement and anxiety too much, just do what you want to do as your spiritual or awakening path.
Some friends will judge you and leave you while others will get closer and want to get to know you more. The trick is to not sound crazy and be able to explain the history of your chosen path as well as maybe references to others that may be “famous” in popular culture where you live.
As for me, I just told everyone that I was a ritualist and that I’ve been dealing with energy manipulation my entire life as someone with a very over-active brain.
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At home I say “I’m spiritual” but in school I’m publicly out. First came out to my RE teacher about how I’m a pagan and she was heavily interested in what I had to say. Others however, my old friends who have since left school; have not been so enthused about it. IE accusing me of being in a cult
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I told my Mother when she was alive. It did not go down well and before I knew it, I had her telling other relatives of her age that I worshipped the Devil and sat on peoples graves at midnight doing rituals. Every stereotype from every bad movie she has ever seen.
All bullshit of course and very offensive.
The only other person that knows now outside of non judgemental family is one of my friends. Even he is scared shitless of it all .
I have learnt to keep things private so I don’t have to wade through hours of correcting peoples misjudgments.
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Hiya OP! Honestly, the only real reason people ‘come out of the broom closet’ is to make their lives easier, whether they seek communication, comfort, kinship, dialogue, awareness, recognition, etc. IME this is a symptom of one of the most deeply rooted problems in magical societies, and that is the issue of identification. People choose identities that limit their scope of potentials for the sake of interaction with others of the same physical species. They construe magic as a kind of sociocultural identity, occasionally engaging in politics and debate on its behalf, as if magic needs to be defended! 
If you want to look ‘legitimate’ to the non-magically inclined, you can position yourself as a researcher of obscure forces, collector of similar oddities across cultures, etc- don’t identify with/around the magic, but display the facts you’ve accrued, most convincingly with actual research done. IME even the magically inclined peoples tend to look at outliers funny though; I’ve learned the hard way that what I do is outside the scope of discussion with others (even though I tend not to label myself, those who know of my perceptions call me a shaman, but that’s not my role), so I stick mostly to magical facts that can be distilled with research and practice. Perhaps try a similar approach fitted to your understandings?
The reason why this is a mistake is because when identities are formed around a subject, that means thick observational bonds have formed, making it difficult to leave the resultant identity even if you know how. The scope of magic is vastly understated, even for those whose identities revolve around it, because we often forget our physical status in the verses for magical and manifest reasons alike. In other words, acting as if magic is only a matter of belief and that your belief is the only requirement is putting yourself in stasis; belief is the first and last step, but there’s a lot of other influences and forces between the ends demarcated by belief. People pretend that magic hasn’t always and won’t always exist, and that their belief determines their interactability with it. This can be fatally foolish! Belief just determines whether or not you perceive the force, not whether or not the force affects you. Force exists irrespective of belief, if you’re not using solely mental magic!
@Lockhart I agree up to the ‘and deserved’ part, magic always protects itself even if it isn’t in humanity’s best interests; by being direct about the information it’s not as if the path is laid bare, or that the proportion of magically skilled people will change, but rather more people numerically will be distributed among those lines. Let the occult be occult, but most of what constitutes modern occultism isn’t exactly occult (hidden interpretations of symbol sets), it’s just energetic processes not widely discussed. There’s no real reason to hide magical procedural information, in fact IME by circulating procedures that aren’t anchored in a system of magic or thought you can seed future concentrated currents by providing them an inspirational context.
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I never “came out” as a witch/necromancer but I did come out as a transsexual. When my dad found out I was going through female puberty and growing boobs he kicked me out. I was 14.
Sorry I know that’s a bit off topic, but not really since my “coming out” was worse than what I would get for a religious coming out.
Back on topic though, my best friend knows I’m a necromancer, other than her my boyfriend also knows. But other than them it’s not something that comes up in conversation with people in my day to day life. Like, why would it? It’s usually not something I feel needs to be said. My witchcraft supplies are on display in my home and my altar is leisurely just sitting there. I wouldn’t rush to hide stuff or throw a blanket over my altar if I have people over. Why would I? But at the same time I don’t randomly tell people “I cursed someone and he died” or “I go to the cemetery late at night to talk to spirits of dead people and take grave dirt home to my altar to have a link to those spirits”. My craft just isn’t something that I think I need to “come out” for. I understand some people might be treated different for their beliefs but imo it’s not the same as coming out as LGBT (which people actually lose their homes and jobs and get murdered for). As someone who came out and had severe consequences for being what I am, in my experience witchcraft just isn’t the same. At least not in 2019.
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I appreciate your post and I greatly respect the LGBT community and the challenges face, I’m BI and there are only 3 of my family members and my wife that know, I didn’t mean anything negative by using the term “coming out”, it was just what felt like a similar level of contraversy, thus the reason I put it that way. I’m sorry for what you had to deal with, if I came out to my dad as BI or gay he’d disown me, he just doesn’t get it and at the same time he wouldnt get my choice of the left hand path.
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i personally wouldn’t, who else is secretive with me on this shit
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I just don’t share it with anyone. I’d only share it with my kid when the time comes.
There was another post here from a “colleague” magician who shared her views with her intimate partner. Now that they broke up this would be probably a stone on her path to bring him back.
Neither a partner, nor a friend should know about my works or beliefs because to be honest - we don’t suffer from unknown people but from our closest one and I don’t think that we must infrom them that some day they could become the targets of our works.
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I feel bad hiding the occult from my friends but I belive it is something that they should discover themselves with their own curiousity and research.
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Truth be told, I’ve lucked out. I don’t know how, but I did. My whole family is all Southern. They collectively share some very strong religious values, but they have never forced them onto my brother and I. Well, my dad originally has had trouble, but ultimately, I’ve had absolute freedom to practice.
I know my family would rather me get into more traditional subjects and adopt more normal viewpoints. Beyond the occult, I tend to speak out against mainstream ideologies, both religious and political. I hold onto beliefs that are more about self-preservation, which contrasts the community centered values among my own kin. I show interest in law and psychology that fits into the self-preservation mindset I’ve described above. I listened to hiphop and reggae, and have this weird fascination with being around African Americans. No one in my family is racist, but no else feels this need. In general, I’m a pretty big contradiction to my family. But they love me anyway. If anything, I tend to be the one who preaches to them. Or I was. Today, I try follow some basic rules.
My family knows that I do something, but that’s it. With Nuclear family, I keep topics away from my dad as a show of respect. With my mom, I tell her but I don’t think she follows. With my brother, I keep topics away from him because it always ends up in an argument of science vs magick. With extended family, I just don’t tell at all. Mostly for the same reasons as with my dad. As for my dog, some rites have been interrupted by him barking at the stairs.
As for the surrounding area, I have plenty of complaints about the town. But religious bullshit isn’t one of them. There’s a church on every corner, but no one seems to force their beliefs onto others. Or as I’ve seen. Still, I try to lay low to avoid drama. I try to let Christians be Christians, assuming that their faith serves them in a certain way as my practices do for me. I still feel the need to talk about it, so I’ve learned that if I can avoid certain words, names, or symbols that are easily recognizable, I’ll be fine.
I’m not married, but I can’t say I can see myself marrying someone who doesn’t practice something occult related. If I had a child, I’m not sure what I’d do. I tend to think kids shouldn’t be exposed to magick till they’re at least in Middle School. And even then, I’d rather the exposure be controlled.
At my last job, I expressed that I’m Asatruar (which is an interest of mine). I painted myself more as a philosophy student than an occultist, and described Odin to be like Gandolph.
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I don’t think I would share it with anyone, unless the time felt right or it was the correct circumstances. My family isn’t particularly religious, but they would think I’ve gone off the deep end. Bonkers. Crazy. Same with coworkers. They know I collect bones and I’m spooky, and as basic as that sounds I can leave it at that.
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I think I have come out to my parents, or the parent that is still alive. He knows Im occult and have been.
I think he is relieved its not at the hands of a cult, though not particularly pleased I think.
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If they aren’t supportive, don’t support them. Family itself is one of the biggest problems in this world. Period. By far. End of story.
Just don’t care. Disown them. You probably have more honor and prestige anyway.
The Family-Unit is the problem. Don’t bother with them. Don’t have dinner with them. Never ever do that.
You will be happy you did so.
You will never regret that you did so.
Parents are abusive beyond all measure, and so is family.
The species need strength not dependency. The world needs strength not dependency. Family breeds dependency. No one can deny this.
(this is not an angelic perspective)
You will be happy you did so.
You will never regret that you did so.
The abr***mic faiths teach family it seems, and these are the most evil, despotic, and tyrannical beliefs in universal history.
You will be happy you did so.
You will never regret that you did so.
I will do a video on this in the future.
This planet cannot handle the weight of any more dependency upon it.
To me
Unless your building a brand, “coming out” and “occult” dont seem like ideas that belong together.
Live in truth always but only share what people are already initiated in to.
That means keeping things general, intentional and universal.
If you cant do this, its not worth being brought up.
Imagine an astrophysicist trying to give a 3 year old all the latest sauce.
In situations where more sharing is required-label it as something else.
like mysteries of the universe … the study of the brain … consciousness ect
A great example , that I actually learned about here, was a story of creators of NLP coming up with the industry in efforts to repackage some occult ideas to make them more palatable for the general public.
Idk if that’s true ,
but it does speak to the requirement of meeting people where theyre at.
If theyre more inclined, share over time- never abruptly.
And if all else fails, provide a reason.
For example,
Everyone can say theyre working on a book that has some creepy characters.
That way in the event somebody stumbles across your hellish book collection its just getting ideas for your characters.
Advertising you work with demons, occult , witchcraft ect ,
especially in a largely christian country ,
is the equivalent of proudly stating you approve of child sex slavery (for most).
Never forget people have been tortured for less.
Just my take
—Occulted.
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