>>96084175
Not all religions treat their rites as magic, thoughbeit. Modern day science is also a collection of evolved ideas that were once thought of as magical… and it seems that the occult, be it hocus pocus or wacky cutting edge science, is a form of cope in private, since open academia is essentially a disenchantment narrative, similar to how the Catholic Church was essentially a self hating, self prosecuting mages guild by any other name, and the priests and bishops who attempted magic did so in private behind closed doors. The ironies of their rites being indistinguishable from folk magic was an accepted irony. Unironic magic wasn’t done openly the way ironic magic was.

The esoteric is just another word for the occult, the arcane, the hidden, the out of view, the mysterious, etc.

The idea that there’s no magic left in the world is asinine. There’s still wonder and mystery out there.