What Is "the Occult" In FFXIV?

What is "the occult" in FFXIV?

Ever since I first laid eyes on the EE3 bit about Urianger's parents I have been noodling on one thing in particular. Encyclopedia Eorzea volume 3 refers to "the occult" as Urianger's parents' field of study (and the reason they were so absent from his life). Every since that discovery, I have been curious what that actually means. What is "the occult" in a universe where magic is real, measurable, and a highly legitimate and prestigious field of study?

So, where else is "the occult" referenced in the game?

Thanks to this invaluable searchable transcript, I've found a few other references in MSQ.

The first use of the term "occult" in MSQ that I've found is way back in the Gridania starter quests when some Ixali "Occultists" are trying to summon Garuda at the Guardian Tree. In isolation I'd take this one with a grain of salt since it's very early in ARR, but I think it's consistent with other usages. The description for Whorleater Extreme also uses the term, referencing "the occult knowledge of the Ascians," so from the start there is an association of the occult with Ascian magicks and specifically with summoning.

The only other mention in MSQ comes from Alphinaud in Endwalker, where he and Krile are giving us the tour of Sharlayan, and specifically Phenomenon:

Alphinaud: As the center of what would later become the Studium, it was established to promote the study of aetherological phenomena, hence the name. Alphinaud: Though with aether being a fundamental aspect of nature, its scope expanded to include every conceivable facet of life and even the universe itself. Alphinaud: And then, in the four hundred and thirty-second year of the Sixth Astral Era, Phenomenon was decreed complete and the Studium officially opened as a place of learning. Alphinaud: With a long and storied history, it is without question the world's leading authority in aetherology, the arcane, the occult, astromancy, and countless other fields, standing proud as─ Alisaie and Krile: ...Sharlayan's foremost educational institute!

Okay, so "the occult" clearly falls within the general field of aetherological phenomena and magic, though that we could have guessed already. Something that catches my eye is how in more than one place, "occult" is contrasted with or referenced as distinct from "arcane." This is the case in Alphinaud's speech above, as well as in the Blue Mage quest "Everybody Was Fukumen Fighting," wherein Bluehood says, "No occult tricks or arcane incantations can contend with the all-surpassing might of blue wizardry!"

In the Loporrit Allied Society quests, we also get this odd little quest "Hare-Raising Thrills," in which we're asked to make "Occult Paraphernalia" for a Loporrit called Thrillingway. Depending on crafting job, dialogue with Keepingway will elaborate thus:

"It seems he requires a pair of shears─but not just any pair. No, he desires blades sharp enough to carve fur clean off!"

"He wants a sturdy coil of rope suitable for binding all four limbs of…a 'friend,' allegedly."

"Seems he wants a highly acidic gel for some dubious purpose I did not have the heart to inquire about. Honestly, I think it's best if we don't know."

Which. I mean. Okay. lol. Do what you will with that.

But probably most illuminating is the use of the word "occult" in a couple of Red Mage quests, and in the Sky Pirate raid quests.

In "The Weeping City," Cait Sith says, "Thus did the Mhachi magi construct an occult device that would more securely bind the voidsent to their will..."

And in the Red Mage quests "With Heart and Steel" and "Traced in Blood" we have, respectively:

"The tomes with passages pertaining to the voidsent Lilith are all forbidden occult works..."

and

"...the secrets behind Lambard's occult transformation."

In both contexts, "occult" seems to be connected to voidsent, specifically to Lilith in the case of the Red Mage quests.

And this ties back to the references in ARR as well, since from the beginning Ascians have been connected with the Void, even before we knew what the Void actually was. So it's safe to say at this point, I think, that "occult" can refer to magicks connected to the Void and to Ascians.

There's just one more reference I found that flummoxed me a bit, and that's this description of the Arcanist class, which refers to arcanist weapons as "occult grimoires." I found it odd initially because in most other contexts "occult" seems to refer to magicks seen as illicit, as opposed to the socially acceptable "arcane." But it does make a kind of sense, given that it is from Arcanist that we get Summoner. If summoning of primals is occult, then by extension so is summoning in the arcanist sense, even if it's not truly the same thing. This would seem to be the exception to "arcane" and "occult" being distinct categories, which leads me to believe that the distinction is more cultural than ontological.

So I think from the above, we can consider "occult" to be a fairly broad term that may be used in several distinct but overlapping senses:

Magic related to the summoning of primals.

Magic related to the Void, voidsent, and Ascians.

Magic which is taboo, forbidden, or otherwise outside of that which is socially accepted.

As a footnote, I think this is particularly interesting in the context of Urianger being introduced as our resident expert on primals, despite the fact that that's... really not specifically his field of study but merely adjacent to it. Urianger's primary interest is prophecy, and certainly plenty of prophecy seems to reference primals and Ascians and that's where we see him doing a lot of his research, but it's not the same field, merely overlapping.

Without more information we can't know for certain what his parents were actually studying. Maybe they were interested in primals, or Ascians, or the Void. Maybe they were studying Void-related magics. It's also possibly they were simply arcanists particularly interested in the summoner side and we shouldn't read much more than that into the reference to "the occult." Who knows.

But nonetheless, several of these interpretations would mean that in a way, Urianger has followed in their footsteps despite their making apparently little effort to guide him that way, which I find to be an interesting angle to his character and also profoundly sad in its own way--not that he found his own interests in those areas, but that the Augurelts had a child so naturally inclined toward their own interests and still took so little interest in him.