Years ago I said somewhere that for any occultist it should be extremely important to set their cosmology straight. In my opinion, the earlier one deals with this, the better. If it so happens that the person has deal with this prior to taking on the occult, even better.
I refer here to cosmology in a strictly spiritual meaning, since anyone can easily access the agreed upon scientific theories of how the universe came into being using a quick online search. AI will lay it up before the person quite nicely. But scientific cosmology is one thing and spiritual cosmology is another.
There are a a number of large religions and many other smaller ones, as well as a plethora of beliefs, myths and legends. While there are similarities between them, there are many more differences. This complexity complicates things a great deal compared to the Big Bang theory and often has people going in circles trying to figure out various contradictions and leaving them with more questions than answers.
Whether people realize it or not, there's an innate urge inside each of us that makes us uncover what can be surmised as higher knowledge, especially truths about our origin, our purpose, or place and role in everything, etc. This urge is more noticeable in some and more buried buried in others, but it is nevertheless there. I for one have noticed people from all walks of life eventually ending up in lengthy conversations surrounding this subject. Whether inbreds over a bottle of grog in some divert bar, or people from the higher tier of society, down on their luck or successful, they all felt the need to discuss the matter with their fellow humans.
Such conversations usually degenerate into endless philosophical debates where two or more participants present their own views and whatever information they had collected from various sources. In the particular case of dive bar hillbillies, it can very well turn into a drunken brawl. The end result is not important. What is important is those people, each in their own way, as their consciousness allows, feels a strong need to uncover something they strive toward, even if they're unaware of that striving.
I also noticed that the more someone advances through life, the heavier that need will press down upon them. In some cases it can lead to various crises that can cause the person's life to change radically. A successful entrepreneur would leave everything behind over night and become a hermit. A celebrity would go on a perpetual spiritual journey throughoutthe world. A regular Joe would leave his family behind and become a monk.
Occultist have the advantage of being able to create a certain structure for themselves, at least some of them. That structure allows them to further work towards accessing higher realities and grants them the ability to deal with the impact of those realities without harming themselves. Even so, I noticed that even in the occult there are many who struggle with achieving a certain inner states of peace granted by their having attained a degree of understanding of creation, from both a micro and a macrocosmic perspective.
If that lack of inner peace is left unchecked, the occultist can very well be lead astray from their work. They may even end up thinking and feeling that everything they've been doing is futile and they see no forward direction. I'm not speaking of any dark night of the soul here, but about the crisis I've mentioned before. It may even have people dropping everything occult and seeking their answers elsewhere, or simply moving on with their lives while taking on some hobbies or something.
Now, an occultist has everything he or her needs to deal with this using occult means. They only have to set time aside for it. There are plenty of spirits out there that can provide answers to these matters, as well as guide people towards finding answers in various places. On top of that, they can assist one in reconciling the many paradoxes that appear in various religions and so forth.
Therefore, I consider it imperative for anyone in this field to have figured out their own cosmology and be at peace with it. I'm saying their own cosmology because following a certain religion or spiritual faith blindly and sticking to its dogma can prove as harmful as not having a clue which one to choose. If the individual happens to construct a cosmology that blends Norse and Hindu mythology, with a touch of gnosticism and native American legends, so be it.
If he or she feels their inner need as less burdening as a result, great. If they stop feeling it altogether, perfect. They will still have to reconcile various other beliefs with their own along the way, if they so choose, but in my opinion it should prove far easier than had they not had those beliefs to begin with.
They may experience their beliefs shaken along the way, but again, they should find it easier to reconcile whatever new insight with their view of things. That way, someone with a view of creation similar to the ancient Celts', for instance, can end up integrating entities such as angels in their cosmology much easier, not to mention end up working with them should the need arise.
