GM: It was really just a download of information. I suddenly understood the connection between spirals and galaxies and DNA and Satan and Christ, and I was just like "gas . . ." [Laughs] And I went to sleep and then a huge lion head appeared in front of me, and said "I am neither North nor South . . ." dot dot dot . . . and it said a lot of other things that were so awful that I was really shittin' myself, I don't remember any of it. And this lion was just hanging above the bed, and there was this huge force centered in my chest, and I couldn't move back. So I knew it was real! [Laughs]

JL: This happened when you were asleep?

GM: No, I woke up. This thing was hovering above me, and it was like my whole body was locked, muscles strained, and I was arched off the bed. And I remember the whole thing, it's so vivid. I managed to get my hand up and there was a feeling of a certain terrible evil, and I remember doing this [constricts his hand into a claw and looks at it] really vividly, and I turned my head and there was a red glow all over my hand. I remember it really vividly. I said "Oh no…" And I just started shouting for Jesus! [Laughs] He's the one I better call on here! And the thing went away, but that was me convinced from that moment on. I just kept doing magic, and I felt that if I could do it with something traditional like that then I could do it with anything. I could have more fun with it, I could conjure up Superman and things like that. You know I did magic here a few years ago. I was going to be writing the Superman book and I was here, I was doing a panel and I said you don't have to summon up gods, you can understand that these things are just forms, they're just energy packets that you can bring down and then engage yourself with. And I said you can do it with Superman. I didn't have a story, I was really stuck, but I knew that I wanted to do this Superman book. Later I was sitting in the hotel room and I was really seriously thinking, and I did this ritual. And I saw this guy wandering across the train tracks in a Superman suit! He looked perfect! He comes to the convention every year, you could probably even see him here. And he was just walking across the train tracks, he looked just like Christopher Reeve, he was this really, really good-looking guy in this suit, and he really filled it too. And so I ran over and I said "this is a shamanic moment, I'm not going to try to explain this to you, but can you come over and just talk to me as Superman for a moment?" And it was great, he just sat there with the cape hanging off him, and I always thought Superman would just be this total communicator because nothing can hurt him. And instead of that I just suddenly saw him as a guy just sitting there, and he's really interested, and he's got this suit hanging off of him. So I said to the guy, "How do you feel about Lois?" And he said "Well, Lois doesn't really understand me, because, you know, I'm an alien." [Laughs] And he was talking in the voice! [Laughs] So we just sat and talked for a couple of hours and I was asking him questions about how he felt about Batman and stuff. And then the guy went away, and he was just a guy, I'd just talked to him as an ordinary guy, and I said "I'll see you tomorrow." And I came back up to the hotel room, and whoosh! I just started going, just started writing this thing. I never got to do it, but it was just the tightest, most amazing thing. And that was a Superman download, that's what that was. Superman energy.

JL: I've been experimenting with magic or whatever you want to call it for three years, since I was sixteen, but I'm still a bit skeptical. Not skeptical that it works--I know it works--but for me it's always seemed to be a manipulation of coincidence or a metaphor for whatever psychological state. And you're talking about a lion on your bed looking at you, and seeing things. I know everyone's got their individual definition of it, but . . .

GM: I'm a strongly visual person, so maybe I see more, I dunno. When I did the John Lennon ritual I saw the head of John Lennon appear, it was made out of musical notes, I can't even describe it, it was kinda like glass, music, humming, mmmmmmm . . . it was playing psychedelic Beatles.

JL: But when you say "see" . . .