Qabalah, Mercury, humor and... the bogey-man

Mercury on a bronze coin

Excerpt from an interview published in Wizard magazine n.95 in 1999.

 

[...] So, what do you practice?

Alan Moore: Qabalah is one. It's part of the Western occult tradition. It includes all of the religious systems: Greek, Egyptian, Norse, Christian, it's all there. It's seen as a map of the universe on one level, but it's also seen as a map of you, the individual. I might do a ritual that involves the god Mercury. You can have a dialogue with that energy, that cluster of ideas we label with the name Mercury.

You've had a conversation with the god Mercury.

Maybe. During the experience, you believe you are actually talking to a god. Who's to say if you are, or if you're not? I've tried to keep an open mind about it. I tell myself, "On one level, this is a hallucination. This is an element of my own personality, some subconscious element of myself." On the other hand, I also have to allow that this might be something completely beyond my personality, a higher entity. I mean, if it barks like a go and smells like a god, it's probably a god. [Laughs]

 

[Laughs] At least you have a sense of humor about it.

You have to. Most of this is a lot less dramatic than you'd suppose. It's reading a bunch f books, and every three months or so, doing a working. We'll do a proper ritual working, something peculiar will happen, and then we'll get our strength back in a few months and do it again.

That dispels the image some readers have of you--- that you're some kind of unapproachable "goth genius." I bet they get it from that black-and-white photo of you. You look dangerous.

[Chuckles] Ah, the photo. That's all [photographer] Mitch Jenkins. He always goes for the dark, scary look. I don't know. To me, my life is completely normal. I have no desire to have a dark allure. I have my hair like this because, frankly, I think it looks gorgeous. [Laughs] Those rolling, natural highlights, you know.

But I'm sure that looks dangerous to some people. And from experience, I know if they met me in some foggy circumstance, they'd find me a bit alarming.

You have a great "Alan Moore looks like the bogey-man" story, don't you?

[Laughs] I remember walking through a park here in Northampton --- a park notorious for its muggins and the like --- during a foggy night. I heard some guys coming, probably from the pub or something, and I knew our paths would intersect. They were loud and boisterous. We finally crossed paths in this fog, and they stopped dead in their tracks. I kept walking. Finally one of them gave this nervous laugh.

Did he say anything?

Yeah. He said, [in a fearful voice] "I didn't know what it was."