Enlightenment era ideas of secularism have made many people believe that deities, spirits, or gods just represent concepts and ideas. Some also perceive paganism to exist to explain weather patterns as well. While mythology as well as various superstitions can be said to explain weather patterns from a perspective of mysticism, this explanation assumes that people followed religion without actually knowing or having their gods appear before them.

If you are going to be an occultist, you are going to have deities appear before you and physically speak to you at some point. Here you will realize that all of the attitudes that people seem to have about religion come from humanity themselves, and this is why people have the attitudes towards religion that we see in the modern world. Especially if you are calling upon goetic spirits or other entities known to work with humanity, it’s not a metaphor, they will speak to you in a very literal way or send messages directly into your mind.

I am not saying you should not be secular or atheist or whatever else because not everyone needs to concern themselves with spirits and gods, but those who choose to go down this path should know that they are as real as the flesh and blood people you interact with, even if you cannot see them with the five senses we temporarily have in this plane of existence. You may use tools of divination such as ouija boards or cards to play with them, but they will play with you right back.