The occult, sometimes called esotericism and literally meaning "unseen" or "obscured", is the category of practices, beliefs and knowledge in all fields which remains hidden or encrypted from others, usually the general public, either deliberately or incidentally. Commonly, it also refers to paranormal or supernatural knowledge, beliefs and practices which generally fall outside the scope of mainstream religion and science, including phenomena of otherworldly agency, such as magic and its varied spells. While experimental spiritualists, secret societies and intelligence agencies are best known for using occultism in the modern world, it has played a major role throughout history, most commonly used to defend sacred knowledge from persecution, i.e. by practitioners of folk-spirituality and alchemy to defend against widespread persecution and extermination by the Catholic church. Occultism may also be implemented for the protection of the general public by insulating dangerous information such as weapons of mass destruction. Within systems of scarcity, it is often used to maintain a competitive advantage over others who are not initiated. Sometimes, occultism may occur within social systems in an accidental manner, usually as a consequence of systemic dysfunction or within a disinformation system. The occult may also simply refer to, and manifest within, areas of perceptual limitation.