In the past few years when I went further into the net, I discovered many people have a deep fascination with esotericism. I must admit, I was young and impressionable not very long ago, and found it all very new, exciting and interesting. Specifically, I was interested in 'astral projection', though I've always been very interested in dreams and altered consciousness. But still, anywhere I've gone, like Agora, lainchan, neocities, etc. there are so many people at least claiming to be interested in esoteric stuff. I'm not here to judge people who believe in this stuff, but I am quite curious where this actually comes from and what the appeal is. Of course, it's better not to ask them, for the same reason you wouldn't ask a Christian "why do you believe in God?" (because I'm afraid of death and struggle to cope with the injustice of the world? nah, it's because Jesus loves me and he's my saviour!). Some theories that I have are so:

• In these online spaces, we tend to attribute inherent goodness to 'niche' interests. Esotericism is fairly niche, but compared to something like train modelling or naval battleships, you don't ever have to be right about anything. Any coherent statement is more or less plausible in esotericism, so anything can be believed.
• The associated visual aesthetics are kinda cool. Visual appeal is shockingly powerful; in fact, think of 'aesthetics' on social media, where people are obsessed with a pure aesthetic, a feeling derived from visual symbols and ideas. Thus, people follow aesthetic alone for it's own sake, so why not follow something like esoteric stuff for it's aesthetic?
• Despite being full of 'spiritual' stuff and whatever, things like magic and manifestation are full of worldly promises, and lucid dreaming/astral projection are often desired because they are effective escapism. Thus, the appeal of esotericism in particular cases may come from playing on people's desires and feelings, which have become so overpowering they literally resort to wishful thinking.

Of course I have not even attempted to be comprehensive, or I could list many more, but then there's no use in me making this thread. I also want to state that I've presented more specific reasons for why it may attract people, yet I don't think this explains the whole reason for esotericism becoming popular in these places. Maybe it has always been this way and I've only just found out?

garbage thread but a lot of christians believe in God because your heckin' (((scientists))) are yet to explain how the universe came to be

The type of people who tend to be on neocities, also tend to look at other, more obscure places on the internet.

They read up on something esoteric and since you can't disprove it and you aren't religious in any way, you might as well check to see if what it claims is true.

Then you have an expectation of something happening, and then based on what you believe, your brain might trick you into thinking something is happening aka hallucinate, as a result of this expectation; or you might actually be experiencing something that isn't a hallucination. Either way you can't prove it, so that's where the belief manifests.

When men choose not to believe in God, they do not thereafter believe in nothing. They then become capable of believing in anything

Then the question would be why are people who get into internet things most commonly atheists by default

> Then the question would be why are people who get into internet things most commonly atheists by default

That's not a question, it's a clearly wrong statement. It might have been true at some point, for obvious reasons, but it clearly no longer is.

> lucid dreaming/astral projection are often desired because they are effective escapism.

Escapism is everyone's hobby. Lucid dreaming is not seen as esotericism, as far as I know. Its popularity is to be expected when it promises that it can satisfy any one of your urges.

> When men choose not to believe in God, they do not thereafter believe in nothing. They then become capable of believing in anything

Believing that (a) God exists does not therefore mean that you are closed minded. It's safe to assume the possibility, which is quite high.

>That's not a question, it's a clearly wrong statement. It might have been true at some point, for obvious reasons, but it clearly no longer is.

What obvious reasons are you referring to and when did it stop being the status quo?

>Believing that (a) God exists does not therefore mean that you are closed minded. It's safe to assume the possibility, which is quite high.

That's true, but from my experience, the vast majority of people lurking in the parts of the net mentioned in the OP are agnostic or non-theistic.

> What obvious reasons are you referring to and when did it stop being the status quo?

It's safe to assume that the first users of the internet were people that put rationality over faith. But as time went on and computers and phones became more affordable and accessable, then so did more people choose to use the internet. Social networking made it more popular as well.

Almost everyone has a phone, and they inevitably use the internet, so there's that.

> vast majority of people lurking in the parts of the net mentioned in the OP are agnostic or non-theistic.

Esotericism could be either seen as a faith amplification tool, or as taboo depending on who you're asking. Trying to find rational answers to an irrational problem will never do you any service.

In the age of idiocracy, the faithful find closure in appreciating AI-generated videos of Jesus, so I doubt that OP will find any satisfactory answers. This is just the world we're living in.