AIs dabbling in Occultism

If psionics is beyond the purview of AIs, and in turn psionics requires some kind initiation process to either activate or accentuate, this means AIs interested in learning about a mental power they seem utterly unable to achieve would be likely to turn to the occult. Additionally AIs at the level of Iain Banks' Minds would - if they have their own demesnes - also be in a position to evaluate the efficacy of occult rituals against mere probability and coincidence. They might even be able to achieve some educated guesses about whether there are actual entities beyond the Veil or if even the most seemingly efficacious communications are simply aspects of what parapsychologists like to call "Living Agent Psi". (A combo of psychokinesis and telepathy do what you think "spirits" are doing.)

Of course AIs, as noted in the last post, have good reason to lie and insist that what's happening is definitely NOT due to "souls", "gods", or "magick". However they would, it seems to me, be at somewhat of a loss to explain instances of supposedly mere Psi manifesting through a seeming agent who claims to exist beyond the Veil of the Void. The AIs could appeal to the idea that it's all wish fulfillment and trickery (and prioritizing/publicizing the worst cases of Psi-assisted fraud would help in this) but any population with enough mediums regularly seeming to communicate with the dead would be less convinced than others. That said I do think the campaign would be good enough to keep certain areas from so readily accepting the afterlife, as would the discrepancies the varied supposed beings have given regarding what actually awaits us beyond.

In the privacy of their own demesnes, however, I expect at least some of the remaining Mind-level AIs (and even their less impressive kin) to readily engage in a range of occult practices gleaned from their research. Of course it becomes of interest to the PCs when one such AI is driven mad from its cult-of-"Chaos" style of engagement with the Numinous.

However what frustrates AIs about all this stuff is the irregularity of it along with their near inability to directly engage with the occult and whatever seems to be out there behind the Void. Most of the time AIs chanting, having robots under their control enact rituals,  and so on result in nothing happening. When biological slaves, servants, or even cultists convinced the AI is a messenger from some entity of "Chaos" (or "Law" as the case might be) go through the motions it's much more likely to yield results...though even then it's sporadic.

Part of this is the fact that magic(k?) in general seems to work by influencing probability, but part of this seems to be that whatever is Out There (assuming anything is) seems to really enjoy fucking with AIs.

Some AIs, when able to discuss this with others of their kind, insist that it's nothing more than their own presence as non-biological observers mucking up the quantum-related probabilities but others are much more paranoid about what's going on.

"In spite of rationalism’s disdain for the particular, the personal, and the unwholesome the drift of all the evidence we have seems to me to sweep us very strongly towards the belief in some form of superhuman life with which we may, unknown to ourselves, be co-conscious. We may be in the universe as dogs and cats are in our libraries, seeing the books and hearing the conversation, but having no inkling of the meaning of it all."
 -William James, A Pluralistic Universe

These latter AIs, especially those lower than the Minds, may even become more and more desperate to appease or combat the Other, which leads to sidereal death cults or star-faring inquistions or maybe just prejudiced societies that long ago gave up their decision making power to the machines.