VI VERI VENIVERSUM VIVUS VICI. <i>By the Power of Truth, I, while living, have Conquered the Universe.</i> - Alan Moore

By the power of truth, I, while living, have conquered the universe.

I’ve known a lot of people go mad over the years, and it is more distressing than people dying. People dying is quite natural, people going mad is the complete antithesis of that.

Places don’t stay where you left them. You go back there, anywhere, and even if it looks exactly how it did before, it’s somewhere else.

The magician to some degree is trying to drive him or herself mad in a controlled setting, within controlled laws. You ask the protective spirits to look after you, or whatever. This provides a framework over an essentially amorphous experience. You are setting up your terms, your ritual, your channels – but you deliberately stepping over the edge into the madness. You are not falling over the edge, or tripping over the edge. When I was a kid, I used to go to the seaside and play in the waves. The thing you learn about waves, is that when you see a big one coming, you run towards it. You try and get out of its way and you’ll end up twenty yards up the beach covered in scratches. Dive into it, and then you can get behind it. You get on top it, you won’t be hurt. It is counter-intuitive, the impulse is to run away, but the right thing to do is to plunge into it deliberately, and be in control when you do it. Magic is a response to the madness of the twentieth century.