Farber offers many insights, in this candid interview, about the goals and practices of real magick, and what you can potentially gain from the practice.

1. Why did you get into magick? What were some of your earliest experiences like?

I think I've always been involved in magick or consciousness exploration to some degree. My father worked his way through college as a stage magician, and when I was a child, our house was filled with books on illusion. That exposed me to the idea of magick on a metaphoric level. My father also had a rather impressive library on hypnosis, and I began reading and messing around with those at an early age.

When I was 10 or 11, I recruited willing friends to experiment with. At about the same age, I was reading novels by Robert Heinlein. I believe it was Fear No Evil that included description of a simple pranayama exercise that I immediately latched on to and have been practicing ever since.

The real turning point came at the age of 15 when I was in a rather severe bicycle accident. I suffered a major head injury and had what can be described as a classic Near Death Experience. I was aware of being someplace that was very, very comfortable, like the softest possible bed, sleeping in on a Sunday morning. I recall commenting, very distractedly, to some other "presence" that was there with me that "Oh, someone down there got hurt."

The long term effects of this experience were varied. First, I had the realization that we are all, always, just a moment away from death. This has been a motivator to make all of my actions count for something -- the intent that one might define as "magick." Second, I was fascinated by the idea that one could experience alternate realities and I spent many years studying and attempting to return to that "place" without the associated trauma.

2. Would you regard your work in FutureRitual as part of Current 93/Thelema?

Most definitely. But I would also consider it part of the Neuro-Linguistics current, the yogic current, the chaos magick current, and maybe a few other "currents" as well.

3. What are some objective manifestations of the AEon of Horus?

I think we all strive for some level of objectivity, but we can only approach that, our perceptions being inherently subjective. The closest we can come to objectivity, perhaps, is consensus. To that end, I'd say that some of the general experiences related to rock 'n 'roll -- the sense of freedom and anarchy -- or perhaps the wild info-frontier of the Internet represent the opportunities for individual autonomy symbolized by the Aeon of Horus.

I'm particularly interested in how people perceive their online experiences. There are a number of general trends that might be explored -- one that I observe is the widespread prevalence of eroticism in cyberspace. On the surface, to me, that seems odd -- computers are non-human hardware -- but nonetheless you have literally millions of users inhabiting cybersex chat rooms and visiting erotic Web sites every day. That release of inhibition might be considered an aspect of the Aeon.

4. What role (if any) does the magical diary have in your work as a practicing magician?

I'm a writer by trade, so I'm very comfortable taking notes in general. I have a particularly scientific approach to my work, so detailed record-keeping is a high priority for me. Good records have proven to be one of the most useful things in my practice . . .

I often find that I will record details immediately following a "magickal" experience that I would otherwise forget -- and very often those seemingly minor details prove to be a key to replicating the experience.

In Future Ritual, I endlessly repeat the instruction to write things down -- though I might amend that and say that there's a range of useful records that can be made, from audio to video to works of art.

5. What do you consider to be the main dangers (if any) of magical practice?

As I say in FutureRitual, there are no real dangers for the magickian. Then, of course, I go on to discuss the dangers, anyway. I think that the main problems associated with magick aren't specific to magick; they are the same dangers we face in any of our activities, the results of laziness, distraction, lack of preparation and so forth.

One of the most annoying problems that I see crop up is the absolute identification of the magickian with a specific belief system. This happens, in my experience, when a peak experience is reached within the context of a specific system -- the individual tends to identify peak experience in general with the associated dogma. The result is that the magickian becomes rigidly dogmatic or obsessed with a particular doctrine. Some people may become stuck in that way for their entire lives, but others, usually by continued practice and a willingness to continue to transcend limits, manage to grow past that.