Art & Magick

I want to impress upon you that the artist is in truth a very much superior being to the Yogi or the Magician.


- Aleister Crowley

As I grow older, the imagination gets more complex and my fantasies become more rich. Every 3rd thought seems to be, "what if?" When I started studying magick (anthropologically), I saw quickly that it's an anti-religion. Strip away the things in the world that have mental control over your soul and replace them with your own symbols; a great self-help system. Art and magick activities do the same thing, create symbols and images that transform consciousness.

My first interest was in psionics which I thought was a great metaphor for personal power over yourself and your surroundings. A power that comes from a calm and disciplined mind. Taking action involves visualizing shields, weapons, love blobs, futures, creatures etc. Visualizing... interesting. Among some of the more advanced techniques are the creation of "constructs." Constructs are like automated energy things that can be programmed like a robot to do a certain task. "Patrol the border of my yard. If someone enters the yard, notify me with an itchy left wrist," - that sort of thing.

I want to point out here that I have not taken the red pill on magick. Given the number of possible realities that advanced physics is pouring out these days, there's no telling what layers the infinite universe may have. Whether metaphor or reality, I'm going to imagine whatever I want.

Chaos magick, as opposed to traditional arcane forms, is the closest thing to art making yet. It emphisizes the creation of your own spells, sigils and rituals to greater effect. Belief in your creations give them power. A sigil is a graphical representation of a simple statement used in a ritual to charge it with power, or maybe even destroy it. Without deviating too far into sigil making, it was easy to make the connection between sigil and art making. Art being a 'spell' or 'magical object' charged with the artist's intent. So the most effective magick is sourced completedly from yourself as it is in art.

In my present artwork, I'm driving towards ancient-future imagery filled with myth, mystery, and hidden secrets that the occult framework works well with. Although I'm still fleshing out this mythical world, I still wish for things to mean something in my images. I'm searching deep for personal symbols and I think I'm on the right track since I keep making the paintings and drawings I need to see.

This is an excerpt from a larger piece that explains what I'm thinking more convincingly than my small words can by master writer, artist, and magician: Alan Moore: