GM: Yeah, I just want to do everything. I've been doing a lot of music again recently, I've done tons of comics, I've been doing X-Men for the mainstream, I've done underground stuff, I'm just trying to attend to everything that I'm interested in. And I've suddenly got this huge creative pulse, so I'm doing all this stuff. But the whole idea of the suits, that's just . . . somebody's got to do it. Somebody's got to be a tramp, you know? Somebody's got to be a business man. And I've been obsessed with the corporate world--and the whole magic thing, I've been fed up with the occult, as you say, that whole aspect of it, and I just looked and I said, who's actually using magic? It's the corporations, they're doing it all the time--the NLP seminars, all that, if you listen to those management training tapes, they're fucking weird! And they’re using logos, they're using these incredibly powerful sigils to colonize imaginary space and media space. These guys are actually using magic in plain sight, and no-one knows what they're doing! They're using big-scale, world-changing magic, so I thought, well I'll get into some of that. And I've been doing rituals for two corporate entities now, and trying to do things with that, seeing how you can contact them and deal with them and what kind of bargains you can make with them . . .

JL: I see, dealing with them as an idea.

GM: Mmm-hmm. But approaching them the same way a medieval magician would approach, you know, whatever particular demon… Emulsifax or whatever. [Laughs] And make your circle, but your circle can be different, it can be whatever, like the circle could be televisions, or the Wall Street Journal, or whatever works for you. And I've had some success contacting these entities.

JL: You've said in a couple columns recently that you have a very DIY approach to magic, that you don't use banishing rituals, that you just use whatever… and I was wondering does that really work for you? Because that doesn't work for me . . .

GM: Oh no, it's good to just do what you feel like. I'm always too lazy for banishing, so I'd end up like possessed for a week! [Laughs] And that's okay, you know, you have to see it as just another part of reality, and I just kind of got used to it. But I'll tell you, man, the nineties were a very weird time for me because I was doing a lot of that stuff, just allowing myself to be completely absorbed in the thing. But there's no lasting effects, because I feel much, much better.

JL: So you think there's no value in separating out above and below, whatever you want to call it, separating the subjective from the objective?

GM: There's conceptual value, because if you're doing magic you always come up against things that are really powerful, dark, inimical forces, and sometimes those forces even seem like they're universal, because I think we do tap into dark archetypal forces. But really it's all about surrender. Give up. Stop being such a prick, stop thinking you're so great and you shouldn't be absorbed in that guy or thing, whether it seems evil or not. And these evil things are always cocky, so engage them. And if it's something like the Choronzon entity, where the rational mind disintegrates, and it's just question after question after question, then silence it. All these entities can be dealt with. I know people who've had really bad experiences, but maybe I'm just too arrogant to let any demonic thing affect me. I'd advise everyone just to be careful when you do this kind of stuff, and if you feel your mind's a little fragile, then watch for it. If you don't mind your mind going sometimes, then, you know, do it!

JL: You've been a big proponent of "just do it."

GM: Yeah. [Laughs] It's just a way of engaging with things, it's not such a big deal. The universe wants to play, so dance with it, but watch yourself.

JL: You've been interested in magic as a theme in almost all of your work, going back I don't know how long and culminating in The Invisibles. You've said you've been a magician for twenty years; what have your personal experiences with that been? How did you start out?