A Ghost Story of the Self.

Loneliness and the Occult.

Loneliness is a room with no windows. Its edges dissolve into an ungraspable expanse, its corners flicker, shapeshifting in the dim light. In the human heart, loneliness emerges as a specter—unbidden, persistent, unlocatable. In the long nights when we lie awake, it whispers: You are alone. Yet, I wonder, might there be something else in the room? Something unseen, beyond the veil of comprehension? Loneliness, after all, is not merely absence; it is a presence. And where there is presence, there may be haunting.

The occult has always thrived on the edges of isolation. A person alone in a dimly lit room, their hands pressed to a planchette, their mind tuned to frequencies others dismiss—this is the locus of magic. In the 19th century, women who had been silenced by polite society found their voices through séances, channeling the dead as a means of reclaiming power. Spiritualism spread like wildfire among the lonely: widows, spinsters, children. It provided not just the promise of contact with the deceased but also the reassurance that we are never truly alone, no matter how desolate the landscape of our lives might seem.

What is the occult if not a reimagining of loneliness, a way of making space for the unseen? A ghostly knock on the wall becomes a signal; an inexplicable chill transforms into an invitation to connect. We call loneliness a void, but perhaps it is more of a portal. It is in these liminal spaces—the séance room, the shadowed forest, the mind teetering on the edge of despair—that the line between the self and the other blurs.

I have felt it myself, that sense of the uncanny in solitude. Once, in Cornwall, I stood in the ruins of an old church. The wind moved through the empty windows, hollowing out the sound of the sea below. I was alone, yet not. I felt the weight of the unseen pressing against me, a presence I could neither name nor dismiss. What was it? My own fear? A trick of the wind? Or something older, wiser, reaching out from a plane I could not perceive? The occult offers no answers, only questions, but in this ambiguity, it grants solace: there is more to this world than we can see.

There is a reason so many occult practices rely on mirrors. To scry, one must peer into the glass until the self dissolves and another emerges—a shadow, a flicker, the suggestion of a face. Loneliness is not so different. It holds a mirror to the soul, forcing us to confront our own image and, sometimes, to discover what lies behind it. The occult teaches us that this encounter need not be one of terror. The shadow may be a guide, the flicker a doorway.

To be lonely is to be untethered, adrift in the vast sea of existence. But it is also to be open, to inhabit the liminal space where connection becomes possible, even with the unseen. The occult and loneliness are not enemies; they are dance partners, circling each other in the half-light. In their embrace, we might find not despair but wonder—a ghost story of the self, unfolding in real time.

And so, the next time I feel loneliness clawing at my edges, I will light a candle, draw the curtains, and sit quietly in its company. I will listen for the whispers it brings, the secrets it shares. For who knows? In that silence, I might hear something that reminds me: I am not truly alone.

The Veil.

In the dim room, the voice arrives—

not yours, not mine. A tapping,

like a bird at the glass.

It says: You are alone.

But even this is a kind of company,

the way absence can press

against your ribs,

the way silence can grow

a mouth, a hand, a shape.

Loneliness walks the perimeter,

pacing like an animal.

It wants to be let in.

But it is already here,

has always been here,

sitting at the edge of the table,

watching you drink the tea.

I remember the ruined church,

its windows framing the sky.

Wind moved through the stones,

a voice without a throat,

saying: Look at me. See

what cannot be held.

The mirror shows nothing at first.

Then, a flicker—yours?

Or something older,

something that stepped out of the dark

when you weren’t looking.

It says: To be lonely is to be haunted.

But the haunting is yours—

the breath, the shadow,

the face staring back.

Even here, even now,

you are not empty.