Deep Cover
OCCULT ESPIONAGE by Iona Miller
What spies have in common with magicians is an uncanny ability to connect the seemingly unconnected, to notice what goes on behind the scenes and to see through misdirection ~ it takes one to know one. Both have learned to synthesize and interprete data, how to pace and lead people (hypno-patsies) with rapport. The opening gambit of psychological warfare and mind control is flattery.
As trained observers, magicians and spies are adept at people-reading and keeping secrets; both are actors -- performers. Both often use collaborators or confederates, and mentors. How much different is stealth and surveillance than a spell of invisibility? Each have their rules of engagement.
Even some of the elements of tradecraft are the same. Both are cryptic, using encryptions and codes. Each has its own arcane language, symbols veiled from the profane. Remote Viewing is virtually identical with clairvoyance.
In military terms psychic operations are called psychotronics. Adversaries are rogue psi operatives, psiwarriors who battle like sorcerers. Psychic self defense employs thought disruption, shielding techniques, mind drain and energy manipulation. Psionics is scientific magic ~ magecraft, the product of extraordinary human potential. Precogs, like analysts, are attuned to the future.
Deep Cover
They understand viscerally that things are often not what they seem. Both are masters of disguise, the hidden environment, intelligence, espionage, and covert action. Both aim to 'tweak the timeline' with small perturbations that pump up to macroscopic results, setting up currents of intentional influence.
Both are Inside Outsiders, working at the fringes of the System. The "outsider" aesthetic is charged by a desire to break free from the contrivances of tradition. They look boldly outside the system and deep within themselves for inspiration that arises directly from Creative Source.
Both work sub rosa. This phrase comes from the Latin meaning 'under the rose' for confidentiality, black ops. It comes from the Masonic fraternal tradition. The rose is the emblem of Horus, God of Silence, Crowley's "Crowned & Conquering Child."

