"神祕科學的教義、原則或實踐"，1870年，來自 occult + -ism。相關詞彙： Occultist。
Occultism, I should add, is to be distinguished from the primitive magic described by anthropologists, which is prescientific, prephilosophical, and perhaps prereligious, whereas occultism is a pseudo-science or system of pseudo-sciences, often supported by an irrationalist philosophy, and always exploiting the disintegrated débris of preexisting religions. [E.R. Dodds, "The Greeks and the Irrational," 1951, footnote]
需要補充的是，神祕主義應與人類學家所描述的原始魔法區分開來，後者是前科學、前哲學、或許是前宗教的，而神祕主義則是一種僞科學或僞科學體系，常常得到非理性主義哲學的支持，並且總是利用現有宗教的瓦解殘骸。[E.R. Dodds，《希臘人與非理性》，1951年，腳註]
