THE MODERN OCCULTIST INTERVIEW #4

The

Modern Occultist

Interview #4

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Claudiney Prieto is a prominent Brazilian Wiccan Priest, author, and educator, known for popularizing Wicca in Brazil and founding the Dianic Nemorensis tradition. He has authored several books, including the bestseller Wicca: A Religião da Deusa, and founded the first Museum of Magic and Witchcraft in Brazil. His latest, The Kybalion for Witches, is a Llewellyn Worldwide exclusive, and a first for Modern Occultist.

We are honored to present his exclusive, unedited MODERN OCCULTIST INTERVIEW here for the first time. For an exclusive sneak-peek at The Kybalion for Witches, be sure to check out the new, Spring Equinox issue of MODERN OCCULTIST!

MODERN OCCULTIST

The Kybalion for Witches begins with a remarkable act of intellectual honesty: you acknowledge upfront that The Kybalion itself is not the ancient Hermetic document it presents itself as, but rather William Walker Atkinson's early twentieth-century synthesis of New Thought philosophy with Hermetic principles. You then argue this doesn't diminish it—it actually makes it more compatible with Witchcraft. Can you walk us through that argument? Why does the “New Thought Kybalion” fit the Craft better than classical Hermeticism would?

CLAUDINEY PRIETO

One of the things I wanted to establish from the very beginning of the book is that honesty and transparency are essential when we deal with esoteric traditions. The Kybalion is not an ancient manuscript, and pretending otherwise would be a disservice to the reader. It is a modern text, written in 1908, deeply influenced by the New Thought movement. But here is what I find truly fascinating: that does not diminish its value, especially for those of us who walk the path of the Craft.

The reason is simple and, I believe, quite beautiful. Modern Witchcraft itself is a reimagining of ancient things. What we practice today as Wicca or Witchcraft is not an unbroken tradition handed down from prehistoric priestesses. It is a creative, living synthesis, shaped by people who looked at the fragments of the past and asked: how can this wisdom serve us now? They drew from ceremonial magick, folklore, Hermetic philosophy, and personal gnosis to build something that speaks to the modern seeker. The Kybalion does exactly the same thing with Hermeticism. Atkinson took the essence of ancient teachings and reframed them in a language that people could use and understand.

One of the most striking passages in the book concerns the Corpus Hermeticum's deeply anti-body theology—that strong inclination, as you describe it, to deny the flesh in order to transcend the cycles of reincarnation and merge with the divine Nous. You observe that this perspective is not only incompatible with the nature-based spirituality of Witchcraft, but that it mirrors the “denial of the flesh” that Christianity would adopt—precisely what Witches consciously chose to reject. That's a pointed and important distinction. How do you understand the relationship between Hermetic philosophy and the body in your own practice?

This is an important point, and one I felt needed to be addressed directly in the book. of spiritual exile, the flesh as a weight that drags the soul away from its divine origin. Classical Hermeticism, as found in the Corpus Hermeticum, carries a deeply anti-material worldview. It speaks of the body as a prison, of the material world as something to escape. There is a thread running through those texts that sees incarnation as a form of spiritual exile, the flesh as a weight that drags the soul away from its divine origin. It contains passages that are profoundly uncomfortable for anyone who loves the earth and the body. This attitude did not remain confined to Hermeticism. It was absorbed by early Christianity and became one of the most destructive ideas in Western spiritual history, the denial of the body, the suspicion of pleasure, the demonization of sexuality. That perspective stands in direct opposition to the way Witches experience the sacred. We celebrate the body, the earth, the cycles of nature. We find divinity in the taste of wine, in the scent of incense, in the dance under the moon.

But here is something essential that I want to make clear: Hermeticism is vast. It is not a single doctrine but a broad and complex tradition that spans centuries and cultures. We should also remember that the Western Mystery Tradition, which profoundly shaped modern Witchcraft through movements such as the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn and related systems, rests upon Hermetic foundations.

What I propose in The Kybalion for Witches is not a blanket adoption of everything Hermetic. It is a discerning engagement. We take what nourishes us and leave what does not serve the path of our life-affirming spirituality. The Kybalion itself already does much of this work for us, because Atkinson deliberately moved away from many of the anti-body theology of the original texts and offers Hermetic principles as practical tools for living fully in the world. It tells us that understanding the laws of the universe is not about fleeing from life but about engaging with it more consciously and more powerfully.

In my own practice, the body is a sacred ground. It is the temple through which we experience the divine. Every ritual I perform, every invocation and every moment of connection with the Goddess I have, happens through the body, not in spite of it. The Hermetic texts condemn the body only insofar as it represents materialistic attachment and the soul’s imprisonment in illusion, but they do not reject the body itself. As modern witches, by celebrating the body as a sacred temple and instrument of magick, we are actually aligned with the true Hermetic spirit, which seeks the divinization of spirit and body rather than its denial. Hermetic philosophy, when properly understood and applied, does not contradict Witchcraft. It enriches it.

So when I say that The Kybalion fits the Craft better than classical Hermeticism texts, I mean that it shares with us this essential attitude: the willingness to take what is ancient and make it alive again from a new perspective. Both The Kybalion and modern Witchcraft are acts of creative reimagination.

The seven principles presented in the The Kybalion offer Witches a powerful framework for deepening their practice, for understanding how magick operates, and for aligning themselves with the laws that govern existence. This is precisely why The Kybalion remains such a valuable tool for the modern Witch: it allows us to reclaim and reinterpret ancient concepts for our own time while preserving what we hold most sacred.

Your book is dedicated to the immortal memory of Hypatia of Alexandria, described as “a beacon of wisdom in times of darkness.” Hypatia was a Neoplatonist philosopher and mathematician murdered by a Christian mob in 415 CE—one of the most dramatic casualties of the collision between ancient wisdom traditions and the rising orthodoxy of her era. She hovers over this book as both symbol and presence. What does Hypatia mean to you personally, and why was it important to place her at the threshold of this particular work?

Hypatia of Alexandria has had my admiration for a long time. To me, she emerges as the living image of everything that fades when the world yields to dogma and persecution. A woman of extraordinary brilliance, a mathematician, a philosopher, a teacher, she stood at the crossroads of traditions and sustained the light of knowledge in an age already shadowed by intolerance. Her death remains one of the most painful symbols in ancient history, a moment in which wisdom encountered violence and silence was imposed upon the voice of knowledge.

According to some ancient accounts, particularly those attributed to Manetho, the Hermetic tradition may have once encompassed more than 36,000 books. This immense body of writings expressed a vast intellectual and spiritual universe, embracing philosophy, alchemy, astrology, and theurgical and magical practices as interwoven dimensions of a single sacred science. Within this immense legacy, only a small portion has endured. The principal collection of surviving theoretical and philosophical texts, known as the Corpus Hermeticum, consists of 17 core treatises, preserved through translations and compilations carried out primarily during the Renaissance. What reaches us today carries the resonance of a far greater body of knowledge, a fragment that still preserves essential teachings while gesturing toward an immense and partially veiled tradition.

While writing Kybalion for Witches, the presence of Hypatia presence grew ever more vivid in my reflections. The thought of those thousands of Hermetic texts led me to imagine treatises that Hypatia may have had access, the teachings she may have studied and contemplated in their fuller form. Her intellectual world likely moved through currents of Hermetic knowledge that far exceeded what has reached us. In this sense, every surviving Hermetic fragment carries an echo of what she may have known, and every attempt to engage with these teachings today becomes an act of remembrance as well as reconstruction.

When I decided to dedicate this book to her memory, it was not a casual gesture. It was a statement of purpose. The Kybalion for Witches is, at its heart, a book about recovering lost knowledge, about reaching back into the streams of ancient wisdom and bringing them forward into our time. Hypatia represents that bridge between worlds. She lived in Alexandria, the city that was once the greatest repository of human knowledge on earth, and she watched that knowledge being threatened, scattered, destroyed. Her commitment to truth, even at the cost of her life, speaks to something I feel deeply in my own work.

There is a thread that connects Hypatia to every Witch who is persecuted, to every one who is silenced, to every seeker who is told that their questions are dangerous. That thread runs through centuries of suppression, and it reaches us here, today, as we attempt to reassemble the fragments of what was taken from us. Every time we open a book of Hermetic wisdom, light a candle in a ritual and we speak the names of the old Gods, we are doing the work that Hypatia died for: keeping the flame of knowledge alive.

Placing her at the threshold of this book was my way of saying that this work is part of that larger herstory. It is not just a book about philosophy or magick. It is an act of remembrance and reclamation. Hypatia reminds us that wisdom is precious, fragile, and worth defending. And she reminds us that the work of carrying knowledge forward from one age to the next is a sacred work, the kind of work that Witches have always done.

The second half of the book—Praxis Hermetica—is where the work truly distinguishes itself, offering planetary rituals, meditations, and exercises for each of the seven Hermetic principles, each paired with its corresponding sphere in the Chaldean Order: the Sun for Mentalism, the Moon for Correspondence, Mercury for Vibration, and so on. This is sophisticated ceremonial architecture. For a practitioner who has worked with The Kybalion primarily as a philosophical text, what does engaging it through the planetary ladder actually change about the experience of the principles?

This is where the book truly sets itself apart, and it is the part I am most passionate about. Like many people, I read and reread The Kybalion countless times over the years. Every time I closed the book, I thought: this is fascinating, this is profound, but what do I actually do with it? The principles were intellectually stimulating, but they remained abstract. They lived in my mind but did not fully enter my life, my magick, my body.

That restlessness is what eventually led me to develop the Praxis Hermetica section of exercises and rituals. Over many years of practice and experimentation, I began to find ways to translate the theoretical principles into lived experience. I connected each principle to one corresponding planetary sphere in the Chaldean Order, because this system relates to Hermeticism and planets correspondences offer something that pure philosophy cannot: they give us a language of energy, symbols, and ritual that the body and soul can understand. When you work with the Sun to embody the principle of mentalism, you are not just thinking about how "the All is mind." You are feeling it, experiencing it through invocation, meditation, and ceremony. The principle moves from your intellect into your bones.

The Praxis Hermetica section of the book is designed to be accessible. You do not need to be an advanced ceremonial magician to work with it. The rituals and exercises there are structured so that anyone, from a solitary beginner to an experienced practitioner, can engage with them meaningfully. Each section includes meditations, practical exercises, and rituals that progressively deepen the practitioner's relationship with each Kybalion’s principle.

What truly changes when you engage The Kybalion through practice rather than just through reading is this: the principles stop being ideas and become living tools. The principle of vibration is no longer something you agree with philosophically. It becomes something you can feel and direct. The principle of rhythm stops being an observation about the universe and becomes a way to navigate the difficult cycles of your own life. The principle of polarity ceases to be a concept and becomes a skill, the ability to transmute emotional states, to find balance where there was chaos.

That is what I hope readers will most discover. The Kybalion for Witches was written to help people turn all that beautiful theoretical knowledge into something practical, something that can truly change their minds, their lives, and their magick.

The Kybalion for Witches was originally published in Brazil in 2023 as O Caibalion para Bruxos and found an immediate and powerful reception among Brazilian Witches and magical practitioners. You describe feeling "compelled on a soul level" to translate it into English for the global Witchcraft community. You have spent more than three decades building something extraordinary in Brazil—the first Museum of Magic and Witchcraft, the Sanctuary of the Great Mother, Brazil's first postgraduate program in theology, the World Goddess Day Project now celebrated in over forty countries. What does it mean to now step fully into the English-speaking occult world with this work, and what do you most hope practitioners here will find in it that perhaps the Brazilian magical community already has?

For more than three decades, the Brazilian Pagan and Witchcraft community has been growing, creating, and developing its own voice. We built everything from the ground up: covens, temples, conferences, an entire culture of practice and devotion. All of this emerged from the passion and dedication of Brazilian Witches who believed that we had something meaningful to contribute.

For a very long time, Brazil was a country that only received. We read books from the United States and the United Kingdom. We translated works from English. We learned from teachers abroad. That was necessary and beautiful, and we are deeply grateful for all of it. But over these three decades, something extraordinary happened: we developed our own perspectives, our own approaches, our own magick. There is an entire generation of incredibly talented and creative Brazilian Witches who have much to share with the world.

This book stepping into the English-speaking world represents, for me, a turning point. It is an invitation for practitioners in other countries to discover what has been developing here in Brazil. Our community is one of the most vibrant and pulsating in the world. Our rituals carry a unique energy, deeply connected to the land, and to the diverse cultural heritage that shapes who we are. The way we practice the Craft here has a warmth, an intensity, and a spontaneity that I believe can inspire and enrich practitioners everywhere.

What I most hope English-speaking practitioners will find in this book is not just Hermetic philosophy applied to Witchcraft, but a window into a different way of being a Witch. And I hope that from a country that for so long only read what came from abroad, we can now also be read and recognized by Witches in other parts of the world. Because the conversation about Witchcraft needs to be truly global, and Brazil has earned its place at that table.

You are a Gardnerian High Priest, a Minos in the Minoan Brotherhood, an Archpriest in the Fellowship of Isis, a High Priest in the Apple Branch Tradition, and the first and only man ordained by Zsuzsanna Budapest in Dianic Wicca—a truly extraordinary span of initiatory lineages. Most practitioners find one tradition and go deep; you have gone deep in many simultaneously. Did your path always feel this expansive, or was there a particular moment when you understood that your work required this breadth of initiation?

I truly believe that the future of the human being is to be a polymath. Throughout my life, I have sought to integrate diverse fields of knowledge to address complex questions. This impulse led me to pursue degrees in history, religious studies, and theology, as well as postgraduate studies in history of religions, sociology, and philosophy. For me, knowledge is not a series of isolated compartments. It is a living web, and the more connections you can perceive within several fields, the deeper your understanding becomes.

My approach to the Craft has been no different. The search for initiations in different traditions was never about collecting titles or lineages. It was about deepening my understanding of Witchcraft itself. I have always seen the Craft as a precious jewel, and each tradition as a different facet of a diamond. When you look at a diamond from a single angle, you see beauty. But when you turn it and observe it from multiple perspectives, you begin to understand its true nature, the way light moves through it, the way its facets relate to one another.

Each tradition I was initiated into revealed something that the others did not and each path enriched the others. Not all of these initiations were sought deliberately. Some came to me through what I can only describe as divine intention. Z. Budapest's ordination was completely unexpected. She came to Brazil, and there, moved by the community she encountered here, she chose to share her blessing with me. It was a historic moment and it reminded me, despite the controversies, that the Gods have their own plans.

What I have learned from this breadth of experience is that going deep does not mean going narrow. True depth comes from the ability to see patterns, to recognize the universal truths that run beneath the surface of every tradition. And in the end, all of these paths lead to the same place: a deeper relationship with the divine and a greater capacity to serve our community.

What is one practice or activity you recommend to all practicing occultists—whether they're just beginning their journey or are experienced practitioners looking to deepen their daily work? (It doesn't have to be Hermetic or Wicca-specific; we love a universal recommendation.)

Observe yourself. That is the most powerful practice I can recommend, and it applies to every stage of the journey, from the very first steps to the most advanced levels of priesthood. Observe your thoughts, your reactions, your emotions, your patterns. And then observe how all of that reverberates in the world around you.

We live in a time of constant noise and distraction. People are always looking outward, seeking answers in books, in the words of teachers, and more currently in social media influencers on the internet. All of that has value, of course. But the deepest transformation begins when you turn your gaze inward and honestly examine who you are and how you move through the world.

When we walk through life with reverence and wisdom, it is impossible for that not to reverberate in the world closest to us. Our families feel it. Our friends feel it. The people we encounter in daily life feel it. The way you speak to a stranger, the way you handle a conflict, the way you hold space for someone who is suffering, all of these are expressions of your spiritual practice. They are your magick made visible.

This is how we truly change the world. Not through grand gestures or public declarations, but through the quiet, consistent transformation of our own being. When you refine yourself, you refine the energy you bring into every room you enter, every relationship you hold, every circle you cast. The true magick always begins within.

What is one book—magic-influenced or otherwise—that you'd recommend all occultists read as part of their path? (For context, our editor tends to recommend The Razor's Edge by W. Somerset Maugham to all seekers—zero to do with magic, everything to do with personal spiritual searching. An unexpected recommendation is always welcome.)

The Secret Teachings of All Ages, by Manly Palmer Hall. I consider this book one of the most remarkable achievements in the history of esoteric literature. Hall wrote it in 1928, when he was only twenty-seven years old, and yet it remains, nearly a century later, one of the most comprehensive surveys of the world's mystical and philosophical traditions ever assembled in a single volume.

What makes this book worth reading is its extraordinary breadth. Hall moves through ancient mystery schools, Hermeticism, Kabbalah, Alchemy, Rosicrucianism, Freemasonry, Pythagorean philosophy, Tarot symbolism, Astrology, and countless other traditions and systems with a depth of knowledge that is truly staggering. He does not merely catalogue these traditions. He reveals the threads that connect them, showing the reader that beneath the surface of apparently different systems lies a common current of wisdom. For anyone walking an occult path, that ability to perceive connections across traditions is invaluable.

I also recommend this book because it embodies something I deeply believe in: the integration of diverse fields of knowledge. Hall was a polymath in the truest sense. He understood that you cannot fully grasp Hermeticism without understanding its relationship to Neoplatonism, that you cannot appreciate the Tarot without knowing its roots in Kabbalistic and alchemical symbolism, that the mysteries of one culture illuminate the mysteries of another and that deeper understanding comes from seeing the whole picture. For any occultist, whether beginner or experienced, this book is a lifetime companion, one that reveals new layers with every reading.

Having said all this, it is also important to affirm that, while Manly Palmer Hall is regarded by some as a great synthesizer of the Western esoteric tradition and a decisive author in shaping the modern occult imagination, certain of his writings carry assumptions that today call for direct and rigorous critique. Reading Hall with depth and clarity calls for historical context, philological discernment, and an ethical awareness grounded in the present.

The readership of Modern Occultist spans both active practitioners and academics who approach occultism from a strictly historical and theoretical perspective. In your own philosophy—shaped by thirty-plus years of practice, teaching, and institution-building on multiple continents—what does being an “occultist” mean to you in today's world?

Being an occultist, for me, means being someone who refuses to accept the surface of things as the whole story. It means cultivating the ability to perceive the hidden connections that link the visible and the invisible, the mundane and the sacred, the individual and the cosmos. In a world that increasingly fragments knowledge into isolated specialties, the occultist is someone who seeks synthesis, who looks for the threads that weave everything together.

But I want to be very clear about something: being an occultist is not merely an intellectual exercise. Over three decades of practice, teaching, and building communities dedicated to the Craft, I have learned that the deepest knowledge comes from the integration of theory and practice, of study and lived experience. You can read every occult text ever written, but if you have never put all that knowledge into practice, your understanding remains incomplete unless you are approaching it purely from an academic perspective.

I deeply respect the academic and historical approach to occultism. My own academic background has been essential to my work. Understanding the historical context of the traditions we practice gives us perspective and humility. It helps us avoid the trap of romanticizing the past and encourages a more honest engagement with our sources.

What I believe the world needs from occultists today is precisely this combination: people who are grounded in knowledge and alive in practice. People who can build bridges between the academy and the temple, between the past and the present, between different cultures and traditions. The occultist in today's world needs to be not someone who retreats from society into a tower of esoteric speculation. The occultist needs to be someone who brings hidden wisdom into the light and uses it to create meaning, community, and transformation.

Being an occultist is not just about what you know. It is about what you do with what you know, and how that knowledge serves the world.

The Kybalion for Witches presents a vision of Hermeticism that is genuinely welcoming—you write that this book speaks to all Witches, whether Wiccan, traditional, solitary, or simply a seeker walking a magical path, and that the Hermetic principles transcend labels. For a practitioner who has never encountered Hermeticism at all, and who might feel intimidated by a philosophical tradition rooted in ancient Egypt, Hellenistic philosophy, and Renaissance esotericism—what would you say to them to invite them in?

The first thing I would say is: do not be intimidated. This book was written precisely for you. One of my deepest commitments in writing The Kybalion for Witches was to make these concepts accessible. The language is clear, the explanations are grounded, and the practical exercises are designed so that anyone, regardless of their background, can engage with them meaningfully. You do not need a degree in philosophy or years of ceremonial training to benefit from this work. You need only an open mind and a willing heart.

But let me say something even more important: whether you realize it or not, you already live inside the influence of Hermeticism. Every society shaped by Western thought has been profoundly influenced by Hermetic ideas. The concept that the mind shapes reality, the understanding that everything in nature is connected through correspondences, the idea that the universe operates according to discernible laws, all of these ideas flow from the Hermetic tradition. In a very real sense, we are all children of Hermeticism. It is woven into the fabric of our culture, our science, our art, and our spirituality.

So when you open this book, you are not entering foreign territory. You are coming home to ideas that have been quietly shaping your world all along. What the book offers is the opportunity to understand those ideas consciously, to name them, to work with them deliberately, and to apply them to your magick and your life.

And this is where the value of the book goes beyond the purely magical. Understanding the Hermetic principles is not only about becoming a better Witch. It is about comprehending the values, assumptions, and patterns that have shaped our societies for centuries. In this sense, diving into The Kybalion for Witches takes you beyond the scope of magick and into a richer understanding of the world you live in, the world you are helping to create.

So, my invitation is simple: come as you are. Bring your curiosity. The Hermetic principles are universal, and they have been waiting for your understanding for a very long time.

(Every day, Modern Occultist News will present "This Day in Occult History" and will dive into the birthdays, rituals, breakthroughs, and crucial moments that shaped today's many esoteric traditions. From the Hermetic revival to Witchcraft, from Crowley to cyberspace, we'll bring the best stories and latest trends to today's own modern occultists everywhere.)

Modern Occultist