| LIST 84 | 10 Top Magicians of the Twentieth Century |
The definition of what magick is and what magick is not, seems to me to need redefining in the public eye. Magick isn't some sort of hocus-pocus sleight of hand; it's manifesting something extraordinary in your life or in the culture. Here's a list of twentieth century “magicians” using what I think is a more appropriate description of what magick is really all about.
1
Pablo Picasso
In the history of art there is “Before Picasso” and “After Picasso,” meaning that no other single figure changed the way we see things like Pablo Picasso did. There is a documentary film called The Mystery of Picasso and in it, you can watch him paint—he's painting on a glass pane for the camera to see. It's one of the most astonishing things I have ever seen in my life. If you want to see real magick in action, check this film out. While you are watching it, keep in mind that it took him years to develop his talent to the point where he could do something like that in a matter of minutes. It didn't just happen overnight!
2
Aleister Crowley
Crowley, of course, was magick's Picasso. Crowley came along and wiped the chessboard clean of the archaic hoodoo of the previous era, installing himself along the way as the prophet of Thelema (Greek for “will”) and as the Great Beast 666—the Antichrist—in the popular imagination. Whether that last part is true or not remains to be seen, obviously, but certainly Uncle Al changed the face of the occult forever with his potent synthesis of Eastern and Western magical traditions and techniques. (Hint: To make any sense of Crowley, you must start with either a biography or his autobiography, The Confessions of Aleister Crowley. His magical texts are incomprehensible unless you have a working knowledge of his life before you begin.)
3 4
William Burroughs and Brion Gysin
Burroughs and Gysin collaborated for many years on the literary “cut-ups” method of rearranging text on the page like a collage artist would to see what would happen and what was really being said. They wrote a book together called The Third Mind, which shows in detail how a magician using literature as his or her magical medium can write things into existence (a lesson not lost on Grant Morrison, see below). The Third Mind is both a manual and a “book of shadows” record of the work they did. For that and many other reasons requiring too much detail for our purposes here, they make the list, hands down.
5
Kenneth Anger
Anger was the first magician to really use cinema as his magical medium and in doing so opened the minds of so many people to the power and lure of the occult. One of the things I find fascinating about his work is how he would use human “stand-ins” for the gods and goddesses he was evoking and his uncanny knack for choosing just the right people, such as casting Marianne Faithfull as Lilith in Lucifer Rising or witchy Marjorie Cameron as the Scarlet Woman in Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome. Another interesting aspect of his work is that his spells, by virtue of being on celluloid, can be watched over and over again, exponentially charging his intent each time they are screened.
6
Genesis P-Orridge
When I was a teenager, I read and will never forget something Genesis said about how a modern magician would use the tools of the time, meaning forget about the Latin, the robes, and the wands, and pick up a computer, a video camera, or an electric guitar. Founding father of industrial music and rave, now using his own body as a sigil in an effort to “break sex”—one of the most complex, creative, and courageous people ever to walk the face of the earth. When God made Gen, he threw away the cast!
7
Salvador Dalí
The “monstrous ego” of Le Divine Dalí insured that he was constantly in the media eye during his time, but if not for his prodigious artistic talents, would we still care? Study of the “paranoiac-critical” method of Dalí's creativity is a must for those seriously interested in magick.
8
Timothy Leary
One of the greatest minds of this or any other century, Leary took seriously the Great Work of alchemy—the cosmic perfection of mankind. In doing so he risked his sanity and the sanity of many others to boot! He was called “the most dangerous man in America” by Nixon and Hoover. By turning on the world, or trying to, with LSD, Leary joined the ranks of the great magi and liberators of human history. It may take another century before the good doctor gets his due, though. But it will happen, mark my words. (Hint: All the “secrets” of magick are neatly encoded within the pages of Leary's “Future History Series” of 1970s books. But coded they are: He wrote these books whilst in jail; if he'd have come right out and said in plain English what he was hinting at, they'd have thrown away the key.)
9
John Coltrane
Music as mantra. John Coltrane isn't merely playing his saxophone on “A Love Supreme,” he is praying with it. If you don't see the practical magical lesson that can be learned here, think harder.
10
Miles Davis
Well, Miles might have been a total asshole, true, but he did manage to change the direction of music several times during his lifetime, and if that ain't magical, I don't know what is! (And eat your heart out Brian Eno—it was Miles who invented “ambient music,” as one listen to his eerie 1975 elegy to Duke Ellington, “He Loved Him Madly,” will prove)
Honorable mention goes to Grant Morrison, whom I have called “the heir to William Burroughs” for years. Morrison's meisterwerk, The Invisibles, smuggles magical thought into the minds of comics readers like a Trojan horse, a true magical initiation disguised as an adventure series. It's one of the most subversive things ever to be funded by a major corporation and a spell the reverberations of which will still be felt for some time to come. 