HAL

CANTERBURY

The King is full of grace and fair regard.

ELY

And a true lover of the holy church.

CANTERBURY

The courses of his youth promised it not.

The breath no sooner left his father's body,

But that his wildness, mortified in him,

Seem'd to die too; yea, at that very moment

Consideration, like an angel, came

And whipp'd the offending Adam out of him,

Leaving his body as a paradise,

To envelop and contain celestial spirits.

Never was such a sudden scholar made;

Never came reformation in a flood,

With such a heady currance, scouring faults

Nor never Hydra-headed wilfulness

So soon did lose his seat and all at once

As in this king.

ELY

We are blessed in the change.

CANTERBURY

Hear him but reason in divinity,

And all-admiring with an inward wish

You would desire the king were made a prelate:

Hear him debate of commonwealth affairs,

You would say it hath been all in all his study:

List his discourse of war, and you shall hear

A fearful battle render'd you in music:

Turn him to any cause of policy,

The Gordian knot of it he will unloose,

Familiar as his garter: that, when he speaks,

The air, a charter'd libertine, is still,

And the mute wonder lurketh in men's ears,

To steal his sweet and honey'd sentences;

So that the art and practic part of life

Must be the mistress to this theoric:

Which is a wonder how his grace should glean it,

Since his addiction was to courses vain,

His companies unletter'd, rude and shallow,

His hours fill'd up with riots, banquets, sports,

And never noted in him any study,

Any retirement, any sequestration

From open haunts and popularity.

ELY

The strawberry grows underneath the nettle

And wholesome berries thrive and ripen best

Neighbour'd by fruit of baser quality:

And so the prince obscured his contemplation

Under the veil of wildness; which, no doubt,

Grew like the summer grass, fastest by night,

Unseen, yet crescive in his faculty.

CANTERBURY

It must be so; for miracles are ceased;

And therefore we must needs admit the means

How things are perfected.

A Lover's Complaint

A Lover's Complaint

FROM off a hill whose concave womb reworded
A plaintful story from a sistering vale,
My spirits to attend this double voice accorded,
And down I laid to list the sad-tuned tale;
Ere long espied a fickle maid full pale,
Tearing of papers, breaking rings a-twain,
Storming her world with sorrow's wind and rain.

Upon her head a platted hive of straw,
Which fortified her visage from the sun,
Whereon the thought might think sometime it saw
The carcass of beauty spent and done:
Time had not scythed all that youth begun,
Nor youth all quit; but, spite of heaven's fell rage,
Some beauty peep'd through lattice of sear'd age.

Oft did she heave her napkin to her eyne,
Which on it had conceited characters,
Laundering the silken figures in the brine
That season'd woe had pelleted in tears,
And often reading what contents it bears;
As often shrieking undistinguish'd woe,
In clamours of all size, both high and low.

Sometimes her levell'd eyes their carriage ride,
As they did battery to the spheres intend;
Sometime diverted their poor balls are tied
To the orbed earth; sometimes they do extend
Their view right on; anon their gazes lend
To every place at once, and, nowhere fix'd,
The mind and sight distractedly commix'd.

Her hair, nor loose nor tied in formal plat,
Proclaim'd in her a careless hand of pride
For some, untuck'd, descended her sheaved hat,
Hanging her pale and pined cheek beside;
Some in her threaden fillet still did bide,
And true to bondage would not break from thence,
Though slackly braided in loose negligence.

A thousand favours from a maund she drew
Of amber, crystal, and of beaded jet,
Which one by one she in a river threw,
Upon whose weeping margent she was set;
Like usury, applying wet to wet,
Or monarch's hands that let not bounty fall
Where want cries some, but where excess begs all.

Of folded schedules had she many a one,
Which she perused, sigh'd, tore, and gave the flood;
Crack'd many a ring of posied gold and bone
Bidding them find their sepulchres in mud;
Found yet moe letters sadly penn'd in blood,
With sleided silk feat and affectedly
Enswathed, and seal'd to curious secrecy.

These often bathed she in her fluxive eyes,
And often kiss'd, and often 'gan to tear:
Cried 'O false blood, thou register of lies,
What unapproved witness dost thou bear!
Ink would have seem'd more black and damned here!'
This said, in top of rage the lines she rents,
Big discontent so breaking their contents.

A reverend man that grazed his cattle nigh--
Sometime a blusterer, that the ruffle knew
Of court, of city, and had let go by
The swiftest hours, observed as they flew--
Towards this afflicted fancy fastly drew,
And, privileged by age, desires to know
In brief the grounds and motives of her woe.

So slides he down upon his grained bat,
And comely-distant sits he by her side;
When he again desires her, being sat,
Her grievance with his hearing to divide:
If that from him there may be aught applied
Which may her suffering ecstasy assuage,
'Tis promised in the charity of age.

'Father,' she says, 'though in me you behold
The injury of many a blasting hour,
Let it not tell your judgment I am old;
Not age, but sorrow, over me hath power:
I might as yet have been a spreading flower,
Fresh to myself, If I had self-applied
Love to myself and to no love beside.

'But, woe is me! too early I attended
A youthful suit--it was to gain my grace--
Of one by nature's outwards so commended,
That maidens' eyes stuck over all his face:
Love lack'd a dwelling, and made him her place;
And when in his fair parts she did abide,
She was new lodged and newly deified.

'His browny locks did hang in crooked curls;
And every light occasion of the wind
Upon his lips their silken parcels hurls.
What's sweet to do, to do will aptly find:
Each eye that saw him did enchant the mind,
For on his visage was in little drawn
What largeness thinks in Paradise was sawn.

'Small show of man was yet upon his chin;
His phoenix down began but to appear
Like unshorn velvet on that termless skin
Whose bare out-bragg'd the web it seem'd to wear:
Yet show'd his visage by that cost more dear;
And nice affections wavering stood in doubt
If best were as it was, or best without.

'His qualities were beauteous as his form,
For maiden-tongued he was, and thereof free;
Yet, if men moved him, was he such a storm
As oft 'twixt May and April is to see,
When winds breathe sweet, untidy though they be.
His rudeness so with his authorized youth
Did livery falseness in a pride of truth.

'Well could he ride, and often men would say
'That horse his mettle from his rider takes:
Proud of subjection, noble by the sway,
What rounds, what bounds, what course, what stop
he makes!'
And controversy hence a question takes,
Whether the horse by him became his deed,
Or he his manage by the well-doing steed.

'But quickly on this side the verdict went:
His real habitude gave life and grace
To appertainings and to ornament,
Accomplish'd in himself, not in his case:
All aids, themselves made fairer by their place,
Came for additions; yet their purposed trim
Pieced not his grace, but were all graced by him.

'So on the tip of his subduing tongue
All kinds of arguments and question deep,
All replication prompt, and reason strong,
For his advantage still did wake and sleep:
To make the weeper laugh, the laugher weep,
He had the dialect and different skill,
Catching all passions in his craft of will:

'That he did in the general bosom reign
Of young, of old; and sexes both enchanted,
To dwell with him in thoughts, or to remain
In personal duty, following where he haunted:
Consents bewitch'd, ere he desire, have granted;
And dialogued for him what he would say,
Ask'd their own wills, and made their wills obey.

'Many there were that did his picture get,
To serve their eyes, and in it put their mind;
Like fools that in th' imagination set
The goodly objects which abroad they find
Of lands and mansions, theirs in thought assign'd;
And labouring in moe pleasures to bestow them
Than the true gouty landlord which doth owe them:

'So many have, that never touch'd his hand,
Sweetly supposed them mistress of his heart.
My woeful self, that did in freedom stand,
And was my own fee-simple, not in part,
What with his art in youth, and youth in art,
Threw my affections in his charmed power,
Reserved the stalk and gave him all my flower.

'Yet did I not, as some my equals did,
Demand of him, nor being desired yielded;
Finding myself in honour so forbid,
With safest distance I mine honour shielded:
Experience for me many bulwarks builded
Of proofs new-bleeding, which remain'd the foil
Of this false jewel, and his amorous spoil.

'But, ah, who ever shunn'd by precedent
The destined ill she must herself assay?
Or forced examples, 'gainst her own content,
To put the by-past perils in her way?
Counsel may stop awhile what will not stay;
For when we rage, advice is often seen
By blunting us to make our wits more keen.

'Nor gives it satisfaction to our blood,
That we must curb it upon others' proof;
To be forbod the sweets that seem so good,
For fear of harms that preach in our behoof.
O appetite, from judgment stand aloof!
The one a palate hath that needs will taste,
Though Reason weep, and cry, 'It is thy last.'

'For further I could say 'This man's untrue,'
And knew the patterns of his foul beguiling;
Heard where his plants in others' orchards grew,
Saw how deceits were gilded in his smiling;
Knew vows were ever brokers to defiling;
Thought characters and words merely but art,
And bastards of his foul adulterate heart.

'And long upon these terms I held my city,
Till thus he gan besiege me: 'Gentle maid,
Have of my suffering youth some feeling pity,
And be not of my holy vows afraid:
That's to ye sworn to none was ever said;
For feasts of love I have been call'd unto,
Till now did ne'er invite, nor never woo.

''All my offences that abroad you see
Are errors of the blood, none of the mind;
Love made them not: with acture they may be,
Where neither party is nor true nor kind:
They sought their shame that so their shame did find;
And so much less of shame in me remains,
By how much of me their reproach contains.

''Among the many that mine eyes have seen,
Not one whose flame my heart so much as warm'd,
Or my affection put to the smallest teen,
Or any of my leisures ever charm'd:
Harm have I done to them, but ne'er was harm'd;
Kept hearts in liveries, but mine own was free,
And reign'd, commanding in his monarchy.

''Look here, what tributes wounded fancies sent me,
Of paled pearls and rubies red as blood;
Figuring that they their passions likewise lent me
Of grief and blushes, aptly understood
In bloodless white and the encrimson'd mood;
Effects of terror and dear modesty,
Encamp'd in hearts, but fighting outwardly.

''And, lo, behold these talents of their hair,
With twisted metal amorously impleach'd,
I have received from many a several fair,
Their kind acceptance weepingly beseech'd,
With the annexions of fair gems enrich'd,
And deep-brain'd sonnets that did amplify
Each stone's dear nature, worth, and quality.

''The diamond,--why, 'twas beautiful and hard,
Whereto his invised properties did tend;
The deep-green emerald, in whose fresh regard
Weak sights their sickly radiance do amend;
The heaven-hued sapphire and the opal blend
With objects manifold: each several stone,
With wit well blazon'd, smiled or made some moan.

''Lo, all these trophies of affections hot,
Of pensived and subdued desires the tender,
Nature hath charged me that I hoard them not,
But yield them up where I myself must render,
That is, to you, my origin and ender;
For these, of force, must your oblations be,
Since I their altar, you enpatron me.

''O, then, advance of yours that phraseless hand,
Whose white weighs down the airy scale of praise;
Take all these similes to your own command,
Hallow'd with sighs that burning lungs did raise;
What me your minister, for you obeys,
Works under you; and to your audit comes
Their distract parcels in combined sums.

''Lo, this device was sent me from a nun,
Or sister sanctified, of holiest note;
Which late her noble suit in court did shun,
Whose rarest havings made the blossoms dote;
For she was sought by spirits of richest coat,
But kept cold distance, and did thence remove,
To spend her living in eternal love.

''But, O my sweet, what labour is't to leave
The thing we have not, mastering what not strives,
Playing the place which did no form receive,
Playing patient sports in unconstrained gyves?
She that her fame so to herself contrives,
The scars of battle 'scapeth by the flight,
And makes her absence valiant, not her might.

''O, pardon me, in that my boast is true:
The accident which brought me to her eye
Upon the moment did her force subdue,
And now she would the caged cloister fly:
Religious love put out Religion's eye:
Not to be tempted, would she be immured,
And now, to tempt, all liberty procured.

''How mighty then you are, O, hear me tell!
The broken bosoms that to me belong
Have emptied all their fountains in my well,
And mine I pour your ocean all among:
I strong o'er them, and you o'er me being strong,
Must for your victory us all congest,
As compound love to physic your cold breast.

''My parts had power to charm a sacred nun,
Who, disciplined, ay, dieted in grace,
Believed her eyes when they to assail begun,
All vows and consecrations giving place:
O most potential love! vow, bond, nor space,
In thee hath neither sting, knot, nor confine,
For thou art all, and all things else are thine.

''When thou impressest, what are precepts worth
Of stale example? When thou wilt inflame,
How coldly those impediments stand forth
Of wealth, of filial fear, law, kindred, fame!
Love's arms are peace, 'gainst rule, 'gainst sense,
'gainst shame,
And sweetens, in the suffering pangs it bears,
The aloes of all forces, shocks, and fears.

''Now all these hearts that do on mine depend,
Feeling it break, with bleeding groans they pine;
And supplicant their sighs to you extend,
To leave the battery that you make 'gainst mine,
Lending soft audience to my sweet design,
And credent soul to that strong-bonded oath
That shall prefer and undertake my troth.'

'This said, his watery eyes he did dismount,
Whose sights till then were levell'd on my face;
Each cheek a river running from a fount
With brinish current downward flow'd apace:
O, how the channel to the stream gave grace!
Who glazed with crystal gate the glowing roses
That flame through water which their hue encloses.

'O father, what a hell of witchcraft lies
In the small orb of one particular tear!
But with the inundation of the eyes
What rocky heart to water will not wear?
What breast so cold that is not warmed here?
O cleft effect! cold modesty, hot wrath,
Both fire from hence and chill extincture hath.

'For, lo, his passion, but an art of craft,
Even there resolved my reason into tears;
There my white stole of chastity I daff'd,
Shook off my sober guards and civil fears;
Appear to him, as he to me appears,
All melting; though our drops this difference bore,
His poison'd me, and mine did him restore.

'In him a plenitude of subtle matter,
Applied to cautels, all strange forms receives,
Of burning blushes, or of weeping water,
Or swooning paleness; and he takes and leaves,
In either's aptness, as it best deceives,
To blush at speeches rank to weep at woes,
Or to turn white and swoon at tragic shows.

'That not a heart which in his level came
Could 'scape the hail of his all-hurting aim,
Showing fair nature is both kind and tame;
And, veil'd in them, did win whom he would maim:
Against the thing he sought he would exclaim;
When he most burn'd in heart-wish'd luxury,
He preach'd pure maid, and praised cold chastity.

'Thus merely with the garment of a Grace
The naked and concealed fiend he cover'd;
That th' unexperient gave the tempter place,
Which like a cherubin above them hover'd.
Who, young and simple, would not be so lover'd?
Ay me! I fell; and yet do question make
What I should do again for such a sake.

'O, that infected moisture of his eye,
O, that false fire which in his cheek so glow'd,
O, that forced thunder from his heart did fly,
O, that sad breath his spongy lungs bestow'd,
O, all that borrow'd motion seeming owed,
Would yet again betray the fore-betray'd,
And new pervert a reconciled maid!'

Jahannam

RITA: 
Tea? 

RORY: 

Every time the Doctor gets pally with someone, I have this overwhelming urge to notify their next of kin. 

(laughs then flinches) 

Ooo. Sorry. The last time I said something like that, you hit me with your shoe. 

And you literally had to sit down and unlace it first. 

RITA: 

What exactly happened to him? 

DOCTOR: 
He died. 

RITA: 

You are a medical doctor, aren't you? You haven't just got a degree in cheese-making or something. 

DOCTOR: 
No! Well, yes, both, actually. I mean, there is no cause. 
All his vital organs simply stopped, as if the simple spark of life, his loves and hates, his faiths and fears were just taken, and this is a cup of tea. 

RITA: 
Of course, I'm British, it's how we cope with trauma. 
That and tutting. 

DOCTOR: 

But how did you make it? 

RITA: 

All hotels should have a well stocked kitchen, even alien fake ones. 
I heard you talking when you arrived. 
Look, it's no more ridiculous than Howie's CIA theory, or mine. 

DOCTOR: 

Which is? 

RITA: 

This is Jahannam. 

DOCTOR: 

You're a Muslim. 

RITA: 

Don't be frightened. 

DOCTOR: 

Ha! You think this is Hell. 

RITA: 

The whole '80s hotel thing took me by surprise, though. 

DOCTOR: 

And all these fears and phobias wandering about, most are completely unconnected to us, so why are they still here? 

RITA: 

Maybe the cleaners have gone on strike. 

DOCTOR: 

Ha! I like you. You're a right clever clogs. 
But this isn't Hell, Rita. 

RITA:

 You don't understand. I say that without fear. 

Jahannam will play its tricks, and there'll be times when I want to run and scream, but I've tried to live a good life, and that knowledge keeps me sane, despite the monsters and the bonkers rooms. 

Gibbis is an alien, isn't he? 

DOCTOR: 

Yeah. Sorry. 

RITA: 

Okay. I'm going to file that under Freak Out About Later. 

It's Not About Deserve

It's Not About "Deserve"
It's About What You Believe, and

I Believe in Love

Without Hope. 

Without Witness. 

Without Reward.

Listening to Judy

[Present Day - The Devil's Cairn, Scotland]

BROTHER: 

Judy! Judy what are you doing? Come on! 

(The little girl runs up the slope to the old stones, including a pair of uprights with a lintel.) 

JUDY: 

I want to hear the music. 

(She puts her ear to the ground.) 

BROTHER: 

You're going to get me in trouble. Everyone knows there are ghosts in the hill. 

JUDY: 

Wait! You'll hear it in a minute. 

(He pulls her to her feet.) 

BROTHER:

 That's ghosts. If you stay out here listening to ghosts, they will come out of the hill and eat you. 

JUDY: 

They won't. 

BROTHER: 

They will. And I'll get the blame. Now, come on. 

(She starts back down the hill to the village, but turns as she reaches a standing stone with carvings on it. Early Scottish-style music plays.) 

JUDY: 

I can hear it. 

(She runs back up the hill.) 

BROTHER: 

Judy, no! 

BAN [OC]: 

I'll put The Story in The Stone. 

BROTHER: 

Judy! 

BAN [OC]: Put Your Name there.

(A crow lands on the stone.) 

CROW:

 Doc-tor! Doc-tor! Doc-tor! Doc-tor! 

(The stone's story includes a carving of the Tardis.)

DOCTOR: 

Well, they're not trapped and they're more than just fighting. And there's music. Always music. 

MISSY: 

Well, team, who's going to help me hide his gee-tar? 

DOCTOR: 

See, that's what I'm trying to teach you, Missy. 

You understand The Universe, you see it and you grasp it, but you've never learned to hear The Music. 

(The TARDIS dematerialises. A rainbow appears. Back in the now, little Judy runs up to the remains of the Cairn, which we now know is just the doorway as distant Pictish music plays. Later, the music is also playing in the TARDIS, and a tear is rolling down Missy's face. The music stops. The Doctor and Missy are alone.) 

Blind is the New Black

I am one with The Force

&

The Force is with me

Wherewith Thou Shalt Do Signs - God Rods

Besides, the king hath wasted all his rods

On late offenders, that he now doth lack

The very instruments of chastisement:

So that his power, like to a fangless lion,

May offer, but not hold.

"And thou shalt take this rod in thine hand, wherewith thou shalt do signs". And Moses went and returned to Jethro his father in law, and said unto him, "Let me go, I pray thee, and return unto my brethren which are in Egypt, and see whether they be yet alive". And Jethro said to Moses, "Go in peace". And the LORD said unto Moses in Midian, "Go, return into Egypt: for all the men are dead which sought thy life". And Moses took his wife and his sons, and set them upon an ass, and he returned to the land of Egypt: and Moses took the rod of God in his hand. (KJV. Exodus chapter 4)


"....the staff with which Jacob crossed the Jordan is identical with that which Judah gave to his daughter-in-law, Tamar (Gen. xxxii. 10, xxxviii. 18). It is likewise the holy rod with which Moses worked (Ex. iv. 20, 21), with which Aaron performed wonders before Pharaoh (Ex. vii. 10), and with which, finally, David slew the giant Goliath (I Sam. xvii. 40). David left it to his descendants, and the Davidic kings used it as a scepter until the destruction of the Temple, when it miraculously disappeared. When the Messiah comes it will be given to him for a scepter in token of his authority over the heathen."

Jonah
Chapter 4

1 But it displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he was very angry.
2 And he prayed unto the LORD, and said, I pray thee, O LORD, was not this my saying, when I was yet in my country? Therefore I fled before unto Tarshish: for I knew that thou art a gracious God, and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, and repentest thee of the evil.
3 Therefore now, O LORD, take, I beseech thee, my life from me; for it is better for me to die than to live.
4 Then said the LORD, Doest thou well to be angry?
5 So Jonah went out of the city, and sat on the east side of the city, and there made him a booth, and sat under it in the shadow, till he might see what would become of the city.
6 And the LORD God prepared a gourd, and made it to come up over Jonah, that it might be a shadow over his head, to deliver him from his grief. So Jonah was exceeding glad of the gourd.
7 But God prepared a worm when the morning rose the next day, and it smote the gourd that it withered.
8 And it came to pass, when the sun did arise, that God prepared a vehement east wind; and the sun beat upon the head of Jonah, that he fainted, and wished in himself to die, and said, It is better for me to die than to live.
9 And God said to Jonah, Doest thou well to be angry for the gourd? And he said, I do well to be angry, even unto death.
10 Then said the LORD, Thou hast had pity on the gourd, for the which thou hast not laboured, neither madest it grow; which came up in a night, and perished in a night:
11 And should not I spare Nineveh, that great city, wherein are more than sixscore thousand persons that cannot discern between their right hand and their left hand; and also much cattle?

According to Islam, Solomon was endowed with the ability to talk to animals and jinn and was therefore king over humans and jinn.


And before Solomon were marshalled his hosts, of jinn and men and birds, and they were all kept in order and ranks. (Quran 27:17)


With a ring, given by an angel, he enslaved demons and ordered them to perform a number of tasks, like building the first temple.^[39] According to Islamic belief, Solomon was accused of sorcery, but the Quran refuses this accusation. The Quran relates that Solomon died while he was leaning on his staff. As he remained upright, propped on his staff, the jinn thought he was still alive and supervising them, so they continued to work. They realized the truth only when Allah sent a creature to crawl out of the ground and gnaw at Solomon's staff until his body collapsed. The Quran then comments that if they had known the unseen, they would not have stayed in the humiliating torment of being enslaved.

Then, when We decreed (Solomon's) death, nothing showed them his death except a little worm of the earth, which kept (slowly) gnawing away at his staff: so when he fell down, the jinn saw plainly that if they had known the unseen, they would not have tarried in the humiliating penalty (of their task).


(Qurʾan 34:14)

A Month Later, The Woman Turns Up

"So, as a result of all this, I’d just split up with my girlfriend. 

And I was like: 

“Okay, I want a new one and I want her to look exactly like this chick in the comic, coz she’s cool.”

So I did a sigil - a month later, the girl turns up. 

Then another one. 

Then another one. 

Then another one; 

Then another one. 

All aspects of this character. 

And then [I was like]: 

“Oh fuck, this is insane. 

Because it works and I’ve done something ridiculous. 

Because now I’m dealing with all these women who look like the character, but who I don’t get on with, or I can’t talk to, or I can’t deal with.....”

So I was told this stuff when I came out, and I’m just this little kid from Govan in Glasgow, which is a real dodgy area. And I didn’t go to university; I left school at eighteen. But suddenly, I found out that if you do these things that you’re told by Aleister Crowley, by Wilson, by all these people we read and all these people we’ve been consuming – but we don’t do it.

If you actually do what they say, things happen. Things occur, exactly as described. And we can all do it.

So I decided to put this to use in the comic book I was doing, this thing called The Invisibles. And the idea was to kind of get all this down on paper, and somehow look at it. Not to accept it as reality, but to accept it as purely:

“This is part of human experience. It’s a part of human experience that has been described to us for thousands and thousands of years – but for the last two hundred has been hidden and made occult. For some reason that we don’t understand – but it seems to have something to do with the industrial revolution and corporate culture.”

So these things happen. Magic works. And I found out when I was doing the comic that you could actually make magic happen by writing things, and changing the operating system of the universe. It works, and I’m here to tell you to try it when you go home tonight.

Because it fucking works.

And what happens if we all do it? If everyone in this room decides to take control of reality? I’m talking about reality; I’m talking about quantum physics; I’m talking about taking control of things from the quantum level up, from the molecular level up – and it works. This magic works.

So I’ll tell you something you can do, while I’m here. You know one of the best techniques, and one of the easiest techniques, to prove that this thing works is to practice sigil magic. The technique is simple: have a desire, tonight.

Go home and do this! Don’t listen to this shit! 

Don’t listen to my bullshit and think “yeah, we are the fucking counterculture!” 

DO IT! Do it – and we will change the world.

Because I did it. Coz I didn’t trust those guys. I didn’t trust Wilson and all those people who told me we could do this stuff. And I’m here to tell you: it works. And you can do it; we can all do it.

Number one: first thing you do is, you write down a desire. Make it something easy that’s likely to happen. Something possible, rather than say, y’know, “I’m going to be king of the moon” – which you may want to be, as we all do, but.. it’s kind of hard to be king of the moon. You’re gonna have to get a rocket and go up there.

Something easy. 

If you want to sigilise for a lottery win, make sure you buy a ticket or else it probably won’t work. 

So these are the conditions within the material universe that we live in.

What we’re really dealing with here is, as I say, some kind of operating system that can be hacked, using words. Words seem to be the binding agent of this.. thing. Whatever it is.

So I wrote this comic book – and as I wrote it, it became true. Things I would make the characters do became true.

The main character was.. I gave him a bald head and a leather jacket, because I thought people would like me when I they read the comic. 

Bald heads were really uncool back in 1992.

And it worked. I found that if I put the character through a situation where he’d been tortured; where his lungs had bust and he was being held in captivity; subjected to all these awful things. Two months later: I’m in hospital, two bust lungs, dying of blood poisoning; facing exactly the same shamanic trial that I put my character through.

So once I figured out that, I thought: the best thing to do is to give this guy an easy time in the future.

So as a result of all this, I’d just split up with my girlfriend. 

And I was like: 

“okay, I want a new one and I want her to look exactly like this chick in the comic, coz she’s cool.”

So I did a sigil - a month later, the girl turns up. 

Then another one. Then another one. Then another one; then another one. All aspects of this character. 

And then [I was like]: 

“Oh fuck, this is insane. Because it works and I’ve done something ridiculous. Because now I’m dealing with all these women who look like the character, but who I don’t get on with, or I can’t talk to, or I can’t deal with.”

And I began to realise a little bit about how this stuff works.

So beyond that, I decided: I won’t just use it to get laid, because it seems a pretty low-grade kind of way of dealing with magic. But man, it works! Believe me.

So I thought: how much could you effect reality by writing a comic that mimics reality, but pushed it in weird directions? So round about 1997, I decided that I would really seriously turn this thing into a super-sigil.

• And it was based on the idea that: if you look at cave art – the first art was done; the first writing that was done, basically as art. And if someone wanted to make something happen; like, if you were in the — like, if you were some fucked up caveman in a cave somewhere, worrying about your dinner. What do you do? 

• You draw a bison on the wall; stick some spears in it. 

• Go out, and the bison dies filled with spears.

“Hey, man! We can make this happen!”

Slowly, those things become words; they become abstractions – complexes of meaning. And you can take that basic idea, and – as we’ve seen – people like Austin Osmond Spare, the magician from the early part of the century, or Crowley, or the chaos magicians of the eighties who were a big influence on me – they used this stuff. And like I say, what you can do is this: go home, write down a desire; it’s quite simple, what you can say is: “It is my desire that my cat wins the Olympics.” Take out all the vowels..

- Write this down, for fuck’s sake! Don’t just listen; do it! Right? -

Take out the vowels, and you’ll be left with a string of consonants. Take out all the repeated consonants, and you’ll be left with a string of consonants with no repeats in it. X, Y, A, D, whatever. Turn that thing into a little image. Take the D, draw a big D. Then you’ve got a T; draw a big T on it.

Keep reducing it down until it looks magical.

And there are no rules for this thing. Do it until it looks magical.

At that point you now have a sigil. The sigil will work. You can project desire into reality, and change reality. It works!

Those must be the people who’ve done it.

So please, I mean, write this down, go home and do it. Check; verify the results.

Because – I was reading this thing in New Scientist this week and it said: the difference between bad science and good science is.. scientific procedure has three criteria. And the criteria are: that you can verify results; you can talk to other people who’ve done the thing and make sure that, you know, it works out. You can duplicate results. 

And also.. some other thing; I’ve forgotten. But yeah, two things is pretty good, innit? Two outta.. yeah.

This is verifiable. 

People have been telling us about this for thousands of years. 

The Tibetans have been telling us about this. 

The Mesopotamians have been telling us about this. 

And why has it been made ‘occult’?

Because: 

Coca-Cola have got the secret.

What you do is you create a sigil.

Coca-Cola is a sigil. The McDonalds “M” is a sigil.

These people are basically turning the world into themselves, using sigils.

And if we don’t reverse that process, and turn the world into Us using sigils, we’re going to be living in fucking McDonalds.

But McDonalds have no more power than us, apart from the fact – like what Doug [Rushkoff] said earlier – they’ve got some money.

Fuck it; who cares?

At the top levels of this stuff, no one’s using money anyway.

You think Rupert Murdoch, or the Queen, or Bill Clinton, or any of these fuckers use money? Of course they don’t.

They’ve realised that money is only useful to sell to the middle classes – the people in the middle who make things happen; who make things run.

We’ve been sold a fiction. There’s no such thing as money. Ignore it. At the higher levels..

No.. YEAH! HEY!

There is no money. These fuckers don’t use money. If Rupert Murdoch wants a Rolls Royce, they give him one. 

Because he’s Rupert Murdoch. 

And if they see him in a Rolls Royce, it means they get some status out of it.

So you’ve gotta understand, these people on the higher levels are operating on a hierarchy of exchange and barter.

On the lower levels – where I lived in Glasgow, which is one of the poorest cities in Europe – people are operating on a hierarchy of exchange that’s quite different: they steal shit, and then they sell it back, and they have their own little money... and they have this complete black market economy.

There’s only us in the middle who think money’s worth anything – and we chase it until we drop.

So forget it.

Where was I?