Home › Glossary › Letter O

Occult style

Style
Pronunciation

Understanding ARPABET Pronunciation

Want to hear it? Click the Listen button to hear the browser speak the word using text-to-speech!

The pronunciation guide uses the ARPABET phonetic system—the same system used in speech recognition and text-to-speech applications.

Vowel Examples:
AE1 = cat, bat
EH1 = bed, head
IY1 = see, me
OW1 = go, boat
UW1 = boot, do
Stress Numbers:
0 = no stress (unstressed)
1 = primary stress (loud)
2 = secondary stress (medium)
Example:
AH0 TH IY1 N AH0
= a-THEE-na (Athena)

The stressed syllable (marked with 1) is pronounced louder and clearer than others.

Quick Definition

Occult style: A poetic style engaging with esoteric knowledge, hidden correspondences, and supernatural forces, creating an air of mystery, ritual, and forbidden understanding.

Detailed Definition
Occult style draws on mysticism, ritual, and secret symbolism. It appears in poetry to explore unseen dimensions of experience.
Example
Example in poetry:
Yeats’s “The Second Coming” draws on gyres, revelation, and ominous visionary symbolism; Aleister Crowley’s verse and ritual writing explicitly engage ceremonial magic and esoteric systems; “At midnight I traced a salt circle around the unspoken name” employs ritual imagery without claiming literal belief; Occult style often relies on correspondences, tarot, alchemy, invocations, moon phases, and secret knowledge to make the unseen feel active
Additional Notes
Occult style engages esoteric systems, ritual language, and hidden correspondences, often using symbols drawn from alchemy, astrology, tarot, Kabbalah, or secret traditions. Students should distinguish it from generic “spooky” Gothic: occult poetry often implies a coded order beneath appearances. In analysis, track recurrent symbols and initiate-like address, and consider how secrecy shapes tone. In writing, choose a symbolic framework and be consistent: let images recur with slight transformation, as in ritual repetition. Discuss why poets use occult materials: to explore mystery, desire for meaning, or alternative epistemologies when rational discourse feels inadequate.
Also Known As
Esoteric Style Mystical Style Occult Poetics
Skip to main content