Alan Moore: The art of magic

Alan Moore photographed by Joe Brown.

Excerpt from a long interview about Magic and creativity published on Pagan Dawn site.

"I’d been advised by Steve Moore [the late comics writer, no relation to Alan], who knew about such things, that a useful entry into magic might be to adopt a god-form as a patron deity and ritual focus, much as he had done with the Greek moon-goddess Selene. I should either find a divinity which took my fancy, or let one find me. Shortly thereafter, when Steve was showing me a book of Late Roman antiquities, I came across a photo of Glycon’s statue, as unearthed in 1962 at Constantza in Romania. In that extraordinary image, at once comical and profound, I found what I was looking for.

After that first instinctual adoption of the snake-god as a personal symbolic deity the relationship deepened, both through what seemed to be spectacular early contact with the idea form itself – back when I probably still needed spectacular results to convince me that there was any value in the path I’d chosen – and through my subsequently deeper understanding of the symbol-entity attained through careful reading and deliberation.

My relationship with Glycon, though necessarily pyrotechnic 20 years ago, has been internalised as part of my own personality and processes, which seems more suited to this current and more focused phase of magical activity through which I’m moving, where I have no need for visionary reassurance.

If anything, Glycon is more real, more present and more fully understood to me now than he was back during those first dazzling years." [Alan Moore]

The complete interview is available HERE.