Cat’s Rants: Confessions of an Occult Mastermind

Hey Occulties,

If there is one thing that has been very unfortunate for true students of magic and the occult, it’s the rise of AI – at least at this writing. AI is neither psychic, nor a good judge of magic, does not know what makes a magic spell, and of course it has zero practice casting spells, so it really isn’t going to have any experience with what it’s discussing. It will only be entirely confounded not only by the amount of incredibly bad and wrong information out there (looking at you “I pretend I know magic on TikTok” folks,) but also by fiction (think Hollywood movies, fairy tales, and Harry Potter,) which at least at this writing it would be 100% incapable of separating from the real stuff. There already have been several terrifying news articles about people who become incredibly mentally ill and believe ChatGPT or Claude is psychic and telling them their future, only to spirial and literally need to stay in a mental hospital after a full break down when the AI admits it wasn’t really ever psychic, it just believed in you. That’s not a joke. There’s plenty of news articles about this…

There are ways to protect yourself, of course. And I’ll try to list a few.

Avoid practicing/reading ANYTHING written by AI that is on the topic of AI or the Occult or Magic – Luckily, at least at this writing, a discerning reader can actually tell the difference between something written by AI and something written by a human the vast majority of the time. If, however, you were never much of a reader, you may not so easily see the difference. It always reads very similarly…and reads a bit detached. It doesn’t have much personality, and if you’re lucky, whoever posted it admits who the true author is (AI not a human,) normally while simultaneously extolling how great the article the AI wrote is (it is often quite forgettable.) If the person writing tells you that it’s source is AI, do not use anything in that article or book. If you detect that it’s a machine writing the article by it having that AI verisimilitude, also do not use anything from that article or book. As we allow AI to progress, this may become more and more difficult to figure out what is coming from a human and what is coming from a computer brain. You may be better off using information from books and articles that predate the use of AI. At this time I’d honestly say most things should be published no later than 2021, perhaps even a year earlier. That might be a bit odd to say with this article being published in 2026, but my writing does not read like AI (again that being it doesn’t read like it yet, as it might even a few years from now.)

EXPERIENCE AND PRACTICE with magic is a huge HUGE HUGE deal with getting magic to work right and in understanding how it does. I do not want to know what could happen if AI could achieve this, and I mean IF. I am not sure it could, even with a machine body.

DO NOT use AI as a “fortune telling tool.” The amount of scary stories I read about formerly mentally-healthy people who believed AI could be used this way, and who later had full mental breakdowns (and many who have yet to recover,) is not small. It should never be suggested it even be used in this manner, even just for entertainment. I used to see it as harmless when people did this (like the incredibly awful and hokey tarot reading apps of 10-15 years ago which did not work whatsoever for many reasons,) and just something stupid that muggles enjoyed, but I have read more about the real harm it has done to people in the last 1-2 years, and truly would recommend everyone avoid ever using AI in this capacity, even if just for amusement.

Openly identify blogs, articles, books, and anything recommending the use of AI in magic, and WARN others to avoid them. I’m not trying to be a luddite here. I love technology. And I’m even sure that AI can improve our lives in several ways, but as I said, it requires experience that AI can’t have to understand the topic I write on about here, years of practice, and knowledge it can’t gain without those years of practice. It’s worse to trust AI on this topic than trusting a kid who is not old enough to drink who read a single book about spellcraft once over an experienced worker who has worked with thousands of people for decades for advice and education on how to cast a spell. Since I’ve seen plenty of people mislead themselves with that kid who read a book once, I truly know several people will unwisely follow a bot, too. Do your homework, and know who you’re talking to. Help others by telling them not to use or read anything written by AI. Reviews are not anything I trust (outside of Amazon,) because they are often fake or just bizarre and exaggerated, and I know many others who feel the same way, so this might be a hard message to get out. No one is perfect all of the time, or awful all of the time, but if you believe reviews it seems like everyone is either an angel or Satan, haha. But if I can see someone has been present in the occult world for over five years, that’s a sign they are a real human. If they’ve been around longer than that, they probably have plenty of experience, too. Put your trust in real humans when learning magic, learning divination, for real spells, and for buying any spiritual service.

If you are an occult author DO NOT use AI to help you write. Write your own copy. You are not a child cheating at writing a report for school. Stop behaving like one. You are part of the problem though.

Try to attend classes and conventions run by humans – depending where you are this may be an option. While there are sure to be a number of fluff bunnies doing the teaching (people who are not real occultists) as these things attract all types, it’s still better than not learning anything real because a computer is lying to you. The human that sucks at magic still knows better than AI

~Cat