In shipping navigation, an occulting light is mostly lit, with one or more regular short periods of darkness, in a continuous cycle.
The opposite of a flashing light, you get a blank of dark.

But most religions are mostly darkness with short periods of enlightenment.

Religion is more like a club, with particular rules and etiquette.
'Occult' is a general term for anything mysteriously out of the ordinary, or unexplained.

Some may consider dowsing as occult, and unexplained, like fortune tellers' skills.

If there was a satanic witch and a white witch, which one is more occultist ?

What is religion to one might be occult to the other.

very good point.

and something else, as a farmer and someone when the house grows, or when we add animals, i need to run underground water to get a hose to fill their bins.

even though i typically mark somewhere, as to where the location to those underground pipes are. sometimes the markers get moved over time.

i have rods (SAME KIND OF DIVINING RODS USED IN WITCHCRAFT AND OCCULT PRACTICES), that i walk along the area where i think i remember where those underground pipes were located.

when i get close to where those pipes are (somewhere to 5 to 7 feet below surface), those rods will spin in my hands and the long ends will spin and stop just after crossing over one another just above and over where the pipes currently running water are.

some might say, you believe in God and use these rods that witches and occult' use?

the rods i have NO WITCH or person of the OCCULT has ever used or touched in the first place.

and secondly, there is NO BETTER WAY above ground to find running water than using those rods..

A densitomer?
A metal detector?
Memory?

Do your rods levitate when they spin or do the break your fingers when they spin?

Then there is the old time practice of mapping out intallations and using simple geometry.

My sister has a horse farm.
They installed piping for exactly the same reason.
They need no rods or 'magic' to find the pipe they laid.
They have what is called 'blueprints' that shows them exactly where their underground pipes are.
There's no guessing, no need for divining.
The "Know" and it doesn't get any simpler.

Even if you don't know, thre are far better tools available in the real world than divining rods.
So what's the point of my response to your reply?
Yer full of it buddy.

If you actually think about it all are the same thing.
One type of delusion or another.
Does it really matter which delusion you adhere to?

Do I really need to go into the detail of my assertions?
With this group, perhaps...

Cult: a system of religious veneration and devotion directed toward a particular figure or object.
Particular figure, is there a religious icon that comes to mind?

Occult: supernatural, mystical, or magical beliefs, practices, or phenomena.
Mystical, supernatural, magical...anything ring a bell...eh, anything?

Religion: the belief in and worship of a superhuman controlling power, especially a personal God or gods.
Superhuman...supernatural...specific or particular figure or object....anything making a connection yet?

How anyone can not see the connection is beyond me.
Perhaps y'all are blinded by predetermined bias?

Dude, its all the same thing.

look mr obvious, i bought the property from someone else who done this work.
so i only had word of mouth, some vague references, and some knowledge where the water company ran water to the residence, nowhere else once the previous owner put up buildings and then ran pipe that needed water to them.

so i used those rods and then i dug where those rods crossed and i found existing piping.

you really ain't as bright as you believe you are ..

How to use dowsing rods for water?

In the classic method of using a forked stick, one fork is held in each hand with the palms upward . The bottom or butt end of the "Y" is pointed skyward at an angle of about 45 degrees. The dowser then walks back and forth over the area to be tested.Dec 9, 2016
Water dowsing

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^ this is the method i am doing:

I've heard it said that objectively, the only difference between a cult and a religion is size and if you want to be unpleasant.

technically, the boys i grew up with and became friends, remained friends, still are friends to this very day, could be called an occult or religion.

we only do what we enjoy doing.
we only let in those who we know and trust.
we only allow our ideas to rule.
and when we gather, we do it by interacting just between us and no one else, no outsiders, no one but members of the pack, the circle, the group, the klan, the occult/religion.


the fire fighters, the police, government = separated groups of people working together for one cause. they must be a religion or the occult because arresting people is just flat out injustice. especially when i believe people know how to act on their own even since TWO YEARS AFTER REMOVING ALL MEMORY OF THE 10 COMMANDMENTS, 20 year olds have now killed more people in past 20 years of KNOWING HOW TO TREAT ONE ANOTHER ON THEIR OWN (since 10 Commandments removed) on AMERICAN SOIL THAN AGAINST THE BODY COUNT OF AFGHANISTAN AND AL QUAEDA combined!!

yeah, we know how to behave on our own SINCE we have now allowed more teachers, children, school employs DIE in past 20 years than our current Afghanny War + whomever!!

Actually, I was replying to Tom4uhere's point about all these things being somehow the same with what I have heard, not necessarily that I agree or disagree. This is simply a discussion.

but it's your initial reply that created a standard for yourself. and i agree with Tom concerning those definitions relating all groups with certain stigmas and like appearances, and then also to the general idealism behind the reason for each group.

and much like a young boy joining cub scouts and journeying to eagle scout, the group is fulfilling because a void that was missing seems to be solved for those moments.

but just like those other groups of religion, the occult, and like, the Scouts System is designed to help those who belong.

but once the meeting is over, the Scout Adventure has ended, then filling the void falls back onto the member because those groups cannot be-represent-or fill the role of Relationship.

Relationship with yourself, your idealisms, your reasoning, your rationality, your inner self and core alone (no groups - no religions - no occult practices - no thought control - no meditations - no hokey pokey) just you and God. that is what these Groups are not, cannot, will not, and can never be and fulfill.

when i coached and taught i was part of those groups. when i was a father and husband to the wife of my children i was a part of that group.

when i scratch while sitting upon my porcelain throne...i am part of that group too..

but none of that is what matters because those groups are not Relationships.

The problem I see with size being a determining factor is not with the many but with the one. Many people are influenced by the media's definitions and assume they are accurate. If the media calls it a duck, it MUST be a duck.

Cult: a system of religious veneration and devotion directed toward a particular figure or object.
Occult: supernatural, mystical, or magical beliefs, practices, or phenomena.
Religion: the belief in and worship of a superhuman controlling power, especially a personal God or gods.

Each define both a group and an individual.
Cult and religion can be a noun where occult is an adjective. All can be a verb.

If I feel great respect or reverence and devotion towards someone or something I am a cult. I can have these feelings alone or others might share them. It doesn't even need to be religious or occult. It could be towards my spouse, my truck or my weed.

If I have these cult feelings towards something supernatural, mystical or magical, I am a cult of one of an occult.

If I believe these occult things and adopt a routine of worship believing these things have control over my destiny, I am practicing religion based on occult. If I do these things alone, I am still a cult.

Cult: a system of great respect or reverence and devotion directed toward a particular figure or object.

A society is a group of individuals involved in persistent social interaction.
There is no society of one.
While cults and religions are often associated as societies, they can be individuals. An individual cult or religion doesn't gain media attention as a cult or religion. They do gain attention as crazy, quirky or unique. Often labeled as a fanatic.

So anyway, seamus, that's what I'm thinking.
I might be wrong but its what makes sense to me and since I am satisfied with it, I'll go with that idea unless something that makes more sense to me comes along.

I tend to agree with you on that. Like I said, I have heard that definition of the difference between a cult and a religion, not that I necessarily agreed with the definition. Certainly, cultic practices such as devotion, prayer, sacrifice etc can apply equally to a single individual as they do to a group.
Your other definitions certainly seem like a perfectly workable set of terms, regardless of the truth or otherwise of the beliefs involved.

To respond to this thread I did need to look up the definitions for each term.
The associations I arrived at were after each term was defined in writing and I could digest the implications.
I also looked up the word 'veneration'. I just needed to be sure it meant what I thought it did.

I think a religion is a belief system, in which a god, or gods, are worshipped, often by constructing buildings in which prayers may be said to worship that being. All well and good if that's your thing.

On the other hand I think a cult is a group of people who while claiming to worship a god, actually 'worship' one man who is the leader of the cult and for some reason is usually seen driving around in an extremely expensive car. This leader collects money from his followers and promises salvation or other desirable wonders. See what happened at the WACO cult and what is continuing to happen in the Scientology cult. Yuk!

Sounds like religion to me. All that wealth flowing to the top.Popemobiles don't come cheap. Waco was a Christian sect as was Jonestown (or at least they claimed to be and were labelled cults)But shh, you'll get zz top back on the case.

Indeed, the Vatican has many priceless art treasures, while people in poor countries are putting a few cents into the collection plate. That's all they can afford but there are so many of them the church can maybe buy a few more beautiful pictures. Not sure why it is necessary for the headquarters of a religious denomination to own art and other treasures wirth a vast fortune but if you ask them I'll sure they will have a convincing answer..... maybe.

The distinction between genuine religion and cults as far as I can see is that genuine religions are full of people who sincerely worship some sort of god creature. Deluded as they are, the continue to fall on their knees of a Sunday and put something in the plate, maybe not much sometimes. I have a lot of time for the Quakers. The last thing they would want or need is anything that is worth a lot of money. Their top person occupies that position for (I think) ten years. The person who is their deputy beceoms the next top person. These top people live in their own ordinary house. These are genuine and sincere people. They don't 'worship' their top person, he or she is only an administrator and they are humble people.

In contrast, people in a cult have a very visible leader and it would appear that he (always a man!) is the one who gets worshipped. These cults are nothing more than money making ventures run by people who know how easy it is to delude people into parting with their money in return for promises made. No sane person would part with their money for nothing more than a 'promise'!

Wasn't the dude who started the Quakers, some guy from Manchester, who started having 'visions'
Don't get me wrong, I've nothing against the quakers
It's just always a massive 'deal breaker' ( for want of better words) just 'who' gets to decide, 'who' is having 'visions' and who is 'deluded'
You see in some cultures, I don't think there's any such thing as 'deluded'
If you start having a different take on things, your revered, as that literally being a gift.
And somebody takes you under their wing and helps you 'break on through to the other side' ( again , for want of better words )
It's said that these gifted 'visions' often start, with a sort of madness
But they see that as the beginning of a process
And this process must be allowed to complete itself
Our society, does not allow this
(And we seem to live in god less vacuous world, full of medicated avarice, and we're too damn scared or impotent to do anything about it.
In fact it's 'taboo' to even talk about it
So instead we talk of 'freedom' or the weather, or the price of petrol, or football, or whoever the latest fashionable bogey man is ( commies , al queda , etc) or argue over politics or religion )
Not something to be medicated, locked away, frowned upon, used as a boogey man to scare the kids and you, to, do as your bloody well told
All of these religions, and occult things, seem, to me at least, to have this in common.
There's always an 'element' of ' visions'
I often 'muse' why ? And why do we have such a secret oppressive 'Spanish Inquisition'
I mean this is done so successfully, that the word 'deluded' is often seen as a great insult. Much as people used to use the word 'spastic' for somebody who wasn't mentally handicapped
But hey, your only 'enlightened' if you know the handshake right!? Be it the the under the school table knuckle shuffle or otherwise

Belligerent ghouls
Run Manchester schools
Spineless swines
Cemented minds
Sir leads the troops
Jealous of youth
Same old suit since 1962
He does the military two-step
Down the nape of my neck
I wanna go home
I don't want to stay
Give up education
As a bad mistake
Mid-week on the playing fields
Sir thwacks you on the knees
Knees you in the groin
Elbow in the face
Bruises bigger than dinner plates
I wanna go home
I don't want to stay

Belligerent ghouls
Run Manchester schools
Spineless bastards all
Sir leads the troops
Jealous of youth
Same old jokes since 1902
He does the military two-step
Down the nape of my neck
I wanna go home
I don't want to stay
Give up life
As a bad mistake
Please excuse me from the gym
I've got this terrible cold coming on
He grabs and devours
Kicks me in the showers
Kicks me in the showers
And he grabs and devours
I want to go home
I don't want to stay

The headmaster ritual , a song by , The Smiths

http://www.rethinkingmadness.com/the-book/4558919669

link to book 'Rethinking madness'
By Paris Williams

With a blurb, of course ( lovely word that isn't it, blurb, I bet 8 year old boys love the word blurb for some reason. Like a cross between blob and burp, blurb , lol )

R2d2r2d2,
You're right.

Society always determines who is sane or unsane.
Society does define delusion or brilliance.
Its all based on how the specific society views the importance of the individual to its whole.


If you ever have a chance to watch any of the interviews with Charles Manson or his followers, they have brilliance in their concepts but failed with society because of the murder and violence.

Listen to any interview from anyone put away as a threat to society, many have valid reasons but are removed from society because they are a threat to society.

Basically, if you threaten others (society) or threaten yourself, society will put you away. It doesn't matter why.
Society does this to protect society.
If society allows you to kill yourself, it has negative repercussions on society.

If you wait about 100 - 150 years, our world population will be so out of hand, the Manson Family will be tame compared to what society will do.
But right now, society defines sanity in such a way, people who are sane get locked away...or worse.