I've gone down the rabbit hole these last few months really trying to figure out the occult and from what I've read and experienced, I can tell you with certainty that it's real.
Occult practices are all based around exploiting parts of the human mind and body. It's like the lesser known features that don't generally get taught to people because they're either extremely difficult to actually practice or potentially dangerous (both are true)
The Freemasons knew about this stuff. Hillary Clinton and John Podesta hinted towards extremely specific practices all throughout the WikiLeaks. I don't even think most people picked up the that the time of day they were sending certain messages had ritual significance.
Anyway, this stuff is scary af but also very useful in the world. I've incorporated some of the safer practices into my daily routine (meditation, constant intentionality, thought-feeling separation) and I've noticed an insane change in my life. If anyone has questions about the occult I'd be happy to answer.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FUDdOR618xE&t=13597s
Mark Passio gives the best presentation I've ever seen on occultism. It's not often that I find a presentation on the occult that seems solid and sharable. I usually have to siphon off small clips of information that are worthwhile, then discard the rest as sensationalism or exaggeration. But this guy's got a full and coherent presentation, a lot of which is due to his delving into underlyng motivations for why people organize around such ideas. I've never seen someone demonstrate so well how the satanic worldview has been largely absorbed and unconcsciously adopted by modern society. There's a sense of ordinariness about it all that he introduces. Not ordinary in the sense of normal, but ordinary in the sense that it seems inevitable and understandable that certain perverse or deranged humans will gravitate towards this. Mostly narcissists and psychopaths, and other serious personality disorders, which then suck up a lot of weak but otherwise not defective masses at large.
I was absolutely about to post some of Mark Passios work, great recommendation! His lectures are bar none, Freemasonry to Ordo templi Orentis this guy knows exactly what he is taking about and will not bullshit you even for a second.