GM: But even if you just wanted to assume that's all it is, that's pretty good in itself. But I think there's more to it. You know, I've tried healing stuff, I thought if you're going to be a magician at all it's not about wanting to be scary and wearing a robe or something, what you have to do is you have to do things for people. A magician or a shaman or whatever you want to call it is someone who has been pulled out a little, shown something really bizarre, managed to hold on to enough and then thrown back in, and the point is, once you're back in what do you do? You've got to tell other people, you've got to get other people involved. So I thought you've got to do this stuff. I've tried healing magic, and I did it with my cat when it was dying of cancer, and I was taught this technique by this woman and I didn't believe it, but she said, "No, you've got to do it." And I said "I can't do it, please come and help my cat," and she said, "No, you've got to do it, the spirits that talk to me"--and I didn't believe in spirits, but she said there were spirits talking to her, so I figured I had to trust her--she said "No, they tell me that you have to do it, it's really important that you do this thing." So she taught me the technique, I went to the cat, the cat had been diagnosed with cancer all through his belly, cancer through his jaw and so on out. We had taken him up to the vet hospital . . . [Sniffles] I went home and I was really upset, so I did this whole deal of the laying on of hands, and just asked for these spirits to help, I just did what she told me to do whether I believed it or not, did the thing over a photograph of the cat, and I saw white mist coming off me, real white mist, with light coming off the palm and everything. The next day I took the cat up to the vet to get a biopsy to find out what kind of cancer he had, did it to him on the way up to the hospital. They called me that afternoon and said "What the hell's going on, this cat's got no cancer! We can't find any cancer." I taught the method to Jill Thompson [artist on The Invisibles, Sandman, and Scary Godmother] because she called me up six months later and her cat had cancer in his leg. I said, "Well try this, it worked for me!" [Laughs] Called back, the cancer was gone. I tried it with another cat and the cat died. It wasn't cancer, it was a different thing, but I knew that this cat had to die, it was just its time. I never really knew what it was, but I could definitely feel it click when it worked, I knew, I knew it was going to work. And I've done things like, a friend's guitar got stolen, and he came to me and asked if I could bring it back with magic, and I thought "No, what the hell am I supposed to do?" and then I said "Yep, no problem, I'll have it back in two days," I just said the first thing that came to my head, and then I went away and did this ritual, said, you know, "Please get this guy's guitar back," you know, I have no idea how it's going to happen. Two days later he's walking by a junk store [pawn shop] right next to the apartment he's living in, looks in the window and the guitar's there! [Laughs]

JL: Have you been involved in any organized groups?

GM: No, I've always just done it my own way. I don't have use for groups, I just do it myself. I always thought there was a danger in that kind of guru thing. Of course, Phil Hine's always worked in groups and he seems to have done well for it, but I don't have an interest in things with a lot of different hierarchy, maybe I'm a bit more solitary. I like to shut the door and have nobody see me so I can really lose control.

JL: You've definitely referenced the IOT in your early work, in your Hellblazer issues and in The Invisibles also, in the King Mob story--is that a group you were connected to?

GM: Not really, it's just because I was reading all their books then and buying everything, but I never made it to Leeds. I was kind of vaguely corresponding with those people, but that was it. I think a lot of people join those things for the glamour of being a wicked magician, which is just bullshit.

JL: Do you think that there should be more high-profile organizations? Maybe a real version of the Harry Potter school or the Charles Xavier school? [Laughs]

GM: I think it'll happen. Obviously, that will happen, as more people are taught about magic, and more scientists are going crazy trying to explain this stuff and they'll find they're not alone. This stuff works. I know because I've done it, to me it's just as simple as I've done this and I've proved to my ultimate satisfaction that we can actually make things happen and change our lives, change the actual world physically around us, take ourselves places we'd never thought we'd be using these techniques. So I feel desperate, I want to tell everyone to do it, because like I said, what if everyone starts doing it, everyone? Kids in the ghettoes; oh, even the dangerous people, what might bubble up then? We might just get some interesting stuff happening.

JL: Do you think that's--not necessarily irresponsible, but . . . this is something that's been kept under wraps for thousands of years, so do you think it's smart to let it out?