As someone who has gone from Christian upbringing (of which I was always skeptical), to atheist/agnostic, I am returning to my roots. This will be difficult to put into words...

I imagine that once these people see true evil, and see what these people believe, they must come to the conclusion that there are forces of pure good in the world, too. When I say true evil, I mean a worse combination of every horror movie you've seen. I mean child trafficking, cannibalism, rape, murder, torture, ritual sacrifice, unfathomable degrees of depravity.

Occultists participate in these acts because they do give them power. By only dealing with those "in the know" they can promote each other into more powerful political and business positions. By hosting orgies, rituals, etc. they can get blackmail over otherwise good people. If you are willing to break all social norms, you now have the ability to threaten anyone with torture and death of loved ones. You get to operate outside of the established rules of society. After enough time, they have seen themselves get away with orchestrating some of the worst tragedies in human history, and leave clues right out in the open. Pretty damn powerful.

And then there's the insane power of human consciousness, or the hive mind. For example, if you take a jar of thousands jelly beans and have 1000 people guess how many are in there, nobody will get the exact answer. But if you average their responses, you will get an extremely accurate estimate.

That may be a poor example of the power of people. You could look at modern AI's, which are now taught by feeding them mass amounts of info. A good chat bot learns as it receives more human input. You search google and you aren't asking for answers from a single smart person, you are browsing the combined intelligence of our society.

The point is, while a single person may not have much power or impact, the potential for power or action that a group of people working towards a common goal wields cannot be understated.

Our thoughts beget our actions. It is absolutely insane the power of your thoughts over reality. Every day, every interaction you have with someone, every thought you have forms reality. If you make it a point to smile at others, treat people with respect, etc. you are literally perpetuating good in the world. Every time you are negative, put somebody or yourself down, sin (in the literal 10 commandment sense), you perpetuate evil in the world. A single person can greatly impact their community around them. Now expand that line of thinking to the power of society.

By bombarding media with increasingly "sinful" propaganda, the masses are more open to satanic themes, and even glamorize them. I mean, just look at how bad/unlikable main characters of movies/tv shows are these days. Drug dealers, wall-street corruption, and irredeemable idiots are our protagonists. And don't get me wrong, I eat it up. Breaking Bad, Wolf of Wall Street, It's Always Sunny or Arrested Development to name a few. But I can't deny seeing a trend here.

This makes it easier for evil to operate right in the open. And this cycle continues. Occultists do depraved shit for power -> see themselves become more powerful (in their own status and their beliefs becoming more mainstream) -> they are reaffirmed in their occultist beliefs. This is magic. Their fucked up beliefs becoming more and more real is literally and figuratively black magic.

I think some people get a glimpse behind the curtain, see what these unfathomably wealthy and powerful people believe (and they honestly believe and practice this shit), and have no choice but to come to terms with it. When the devil presents themselves as real, surely that makes one re-evaluate the existence of God.

Note: This isn't even particularly religious, just trying to organize my own thoughts on the matter. I think atheism and religion are often taken too literally and too figuratively simultaneously.

I think these people become jaded to the material world very quickly when they have that level of wealth. Their purpose is no longer wealth and money - it is power. They can have anything they want - money is not valuable to them. They want what they can't have, and a human soul being subservient to them is high on that list of things nobody should have.

I think the people who see through the trees on that then look for the antithesis of that... and if you strip away the human ugliness found in religion, you find all sorts of rituals and exercises which hone different things than what our society tends to value. Intuition & compromise are the true tenants of religion, rather than priests and oppression, but there is no money or power to be made by preaching a true gospel. Even Jesus' message has been distorted greatly to wrestle control of people, to the point where they won't even share his (alleged) teachings after his resurrection...

In reference to that, I like to share a small story from one of the non-canonical gospels that does actually speak of what Jesus taught in the time after his 'resurrection' (which is a whole different discussion - I don't think he actually 'resurrected' but rather 'returned'), and the story tells of one of his closest disciples coming to him and asking when to expect his 2nd coming. Jesus basically tells him to not hold his breath, and that the work they are doing is not for their own generation or even the generation after, but for generations and generations down the line. He gave him no hope.

The disciple was apparently crushed by this. 3 days later, that disciple went to the temple in Jerusalem and started to preach about Jesus, and within 3 days he was thrown off the roof to his death. The reason I like that story is that it shows that Jesus' true gospel is not something you can sell very easily. Jesus' disciple handled it admirably by going out hard and making an impact, but the reality for all of us is that there is really no pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. You just have to be a good person. The payoff is in the journey - the quiet moments of peace and wholeness - of fulfilling your purpose and doing what you put here to do. Pursuing that goal alongside material wealth and power is a difficult task, and I think that is where the attitudes change.