I found this in the introduction to an interview with Alan Moore:
[…] magic is afoot in the world. It doesn’t matter whether you think of magic a potent metaphor, as a notion of reality to be taken literally, or a willed self-delusion by goggly losers and New Age housewives. It doesn’t matter. Magic is here, right now, as a cultural force (Harry Potter, Buffy, Sabrina, Lord of the Rings, the Jedi, and of course, Black Sabbath) , as a part of our daily rhetoric, and perhaps, if you’re so inclined, as something truly perceivable, in the same way that love and suffering are real yet unquantifiable-experienced by all yet unaccounted for by the dogma of strict materialism that most of us First Worlders say we “believe” in. Magic is here.
Indeed it is. It is really only a matter of being open to it and becoming a receptor to the energies that are all around us. From a distance, this may not make sense, but once you’ve spent some time looking at the occult, mysticism and esoteric practice, this becomes even more apparent.
In fact, take this line of thinking an apply it to theories regarding reality, cognition and new quantum theories like that of the holographic brain model and and in many ways both lines of thinking can be seen as merging or at least running along parallel lines.
What is important is experience. Which also may help explain why Magick is increasingly becoming a larger and larger cultural force.
There is something pure and instinctive about magick, something natural. Which brings us back to experience. To directly connect yourself to the Godhead. Through this gnosis, we can then know versus simply hoping or wishing which is really what faith is. Why believe when you can know?
In the interview, Moore goes on to say that,
“Faith is for sissies who daren’t go and look for themselves. That’s my basic position. Magic is based upon gnosis. Direct knowledge. It’s a kind of “I’m from Missouri. Show me” approach, if you like. [laughter] I think that gnosis it’s probably the original form of spirituality in mankind. If you look back at the old Gnostic religions that proceeded Christianity, what they depended on was direct knowledge of the Mysteries, or the ideas being talked about. If you look at the early Christians, the people that were allegedly around Jesus, then you can’t get much gnostic than St. Thomas. [chuckles] He has to stick his hand in the wound before he was convinced! Or you’ve got the Essenes, with John the Baptist-they were certainly gnostics. Back then, everybody formed their own relationship to the godhead, which was seen as being inside them, as much as anything.”
Read the entire article if you get the chance. It’s well worth the time.
The Spring Equinox is upon us. Today is a day of balance, when equal parts day and equal parts night give way to light’s triumph over darkness.