Words

Occult

uh-KULT
Hidden, secret, supernatural, from Latin occultus, concealed, the past participle of occulere, to cover over.
Documented

The covered thing

Latin occulere (ob plus celare, to hide) gave occultus, hidden. Medicine still says occult blood, hidden in the stool; astronomy says occultation. The noun the occult, hidden arts, is a 16th-17th century usage. The celare root also built conceal and, by the Germanic twin, hell and hall, the covered places.

Assessment: Documented: the root family is standard; hell as the covered place is the prize.
Stories

The forbidden shelf

The cultural career: occult as the bookstore section of banned knowledge, censored sciences, and suppressed truths. Much of the shelf was never hidden by anyone, only outcompeted, which sells fewer candles.

Assessment: Stories: some suppression was real, most of the shelf is simply obsolete, but obsolescence does not move merch.
Interesting claims

Hell in the family

The etymological jackpot: hell descends from the Germanic twin of celare, the covered, hidden place. Occult and hell are cousins, concealment above and below, and every occult revival is, at root, an argument about what belongs uncovered.

Assessment: Interesting: the Germanic-Latin twinning is philology; the framing is this archive's.
Sources and further reading
  1. Lewis & Short, 'occulere,' 'occultus'
  2. Oxford English Dictionary, 'occult,' medical and astronomical senses
  3. Wouter Hanegraaff, Esotericism and the Academy (2012), on the word's career
Worth asking

Does the occult hide from us, or do we cover it over and call the covering knowledge?

Open in the interactive archive
GR8YFILES · competing origin stories, labeled by the strength of their evidence · readers 14+