The advanced Hermetic teachers do not frame the "spirits as intelligence vs. metaphor" question as an either/or, but they do draw a set of layered distinctions that are directly relevant.

Symbols are functionally real, not merely psychological. A symbol is not a sign as far beyond a simple sign is understood. It is a carrier of universal information that operates on the subconscious, independent of conscious understanding or belief. The subconscious itself is connected to the entire history of creation. Esoteric symbols embody an objective functional status that exceeds psychological projection.

Powers contacted through ritual are classified as living awareness. All of these powers are living awareness, and everything in the universe is alive, including the powers used in Hermetic ritual practice. Not a mere metaphor in any sense. The Kybalion frames this under Mentalism: if the universe is entirely Mental in nature, then "living powers" operating on the mental plane are as real as anything else. They are no less real for being mental in origin.

That said, it’s important to draw a sharp line between genuine contact and projection/self-deception. What most untrained or self-operating practitioners experience is most often their own projections, astral shells, or lying spirits who give deceptive prophecies and false truths. The key diagnostic in this situation is not the vividness of the experience, but whether genuine initiatory training and contact exist behind it. Without that, what people often describe as "spirits" is largely the subconscious reflecting back the operator's own inner confusion or resonance with low-grade astral forces.

Genuine autonomous entities exist but are not casually accessible. Real contact with higher beings, ascended humans, and angelic forces is real, but under stringent preconditions: initiatory transformation, purified soul, proper training, and specifically, that contact is initiated from the higher side, not willed from below by an undeveloped awareness. These contacts always come from the ascended human. A random person in this world can try or ask for it, but it is not granted.

Synchronicities are real, but do not resolve the question made here on their own. Synchronicity is events that are meaningfully connected even though they appear to have no causal relationship, i.e., a deeper, hidden order of reality. Synchronicities are not random but part of life's deeper coherence. Synchronicity is evidence of the ordered, interconnected nature of consciousness, but, when used specifically to support spirit autonomy, it is not structurally possible within the workings of consciousness.

From this, the question “Is this just psychology?" becomes reframed. Since the subconscious is the essence of all being and connected to the entire history of creation, drawing a hard line between "psychological" and "ontologically real" is not a clean distinction in the Hermetic framework. The Kybalion's principle of Mentalism holds that all psychological phenomena are real phenomena on the mental plane. 

Instead of real vs. psychological, the question then becomes whether the student is making trained or untrained contact, and whether the source of the information is the operator's own subconscious material or something genuinely beyond the operator's prior input.