Musings on the Underground

[Ian Young]

James suggests (after much snippage)...

> The OU rarely affects normal events, either - too many sides afraid of
> the
> claws of the tiger, too focused on itself.  Out of the whole history of
> the world, the occult has probably impacted about five percent of events.
> There's a secret occult history, yes, but it very rarely interacts or
> affects normal history. 

....and Rick goes on to say this about awareness of the OU...

> Does the government have a unified plan of action? No. There is no Occult
> Investigation division of the FBI who polices the underground. Hell, the 
> government doesn't even have a unified plan of action regarding drugs, or
> capital punishment, or health care. How can we assume that those in power
> have a plan for dealing with the end of the world?

Both statements reflect pretty clearly how I perceive "The Government"
(take your pick of which particular government) is aware of and involved
with the occult underground.  A government organisation such as the FBI
might be a good example.  As Rick points out, they don't have an organised
occult task force, but they *do* tend to keep tabs on groups of dangerous
kooks who get together toward suspicious ends.  So, while the FBI may be
surveilling the activities of one or two of the more orgainised occult
cabals out there, they sure as hell aren't doing it because they're working
real magick, they're doing it because the cabal has been pegged as
potentially dangerous political subversives.

Now, on the other hand, some smaller, more local law enforcement agencies
(city police or county sheriffs) may form a task force to deal with reports
of local "occult" activities.  Mind you, the quotation marks are there for
a reason -- mostly due to the fact that the so-called cultists are actually
members of a clueless cabal, probably without a lick of genuine magickal
knowledge or power.

Most importantly, whenever someone tries to co-ordinate local occult
information on a national or international scale, inevitably, the
individual stories so contradict one another that no one is able to take
the concept of a unified, real occult movement seriously.  Add to this the
efforts of various "sleeper" groups who are trying to put the hush-hush on
occult activity, and the likes of Alex Able who can exert enormous
resources to keep blatant stories of the occult pushed to the fringe, and
you begin to see that anyone within "The Government" who truly believes in
the occult is likely to be a loner who will keep his mouth shut if he
values his credibility.

Oh, and if anyone else here has ever had the joyous experience of working
for "The Government", you may be well aware of the intense loathing the
bureaucratic machine has for new and un-popular ideas.  That alone would
account for the overwhelming disregard that any government agency has for
pursuing the occult.

Gone,
Ian