r/AlanMoore • u/AlanMooron • 5d ago

Alan Moore indirectly addresses “thoughts and prayers”

“Although it is entirely understandable and clearly does no harm to light a votive candle or to offer up a plea for loved ones in distress, it might be better to extend material assistance and support than to rely on magical endeavours which, conceivably, may bring about more problems than solutions.”

From The Moon and Serpent Bumper Book Of Magic

Just had to laugh at this living in America and always seeing all the “thoughts and prayers” tidings from people that don’t want to do anything for, yet want to seem sympathetic to. (School shootings usually get a bunch of these).

158 Upvotes

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u/hudsoph 5d ago

I went to the launch of this in London, and AM (via video, not actually there, alas) was very clear that magic won’t get you money, love or material success, except in so far as it may make you a better person. There were a few veiled swipes at other unnamed comics writers who have been vocal on the power of sigils or other forms of manifestation to get what you want.

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u/klafterus 5d ago

Grant Morrison is the only other comics magician I'm aware of. Have they been out there preaching some kind of prosperity gospel, wizard style?

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u/ReallyGlycon 5d ago

Well Grant did do a huge speech at the collective of Chaos Magicians. Its on youtube. They do seem to imply that sigils can bring you wealth, but it also requires perseverance and hard work. I think that speech is what Alan is referring to. Alan is mostly a ritual practitioner and those sorts don't really like chaos magic. To ritual practicioners, magic should be difficult. I am a ritual practitioner but think when it comes to magic, whatever works for you is fine. Which is a thing that even Alan says in the Bumper book.

I like both Grant and Alan as people, but the vague jabs from both of them is really tiring.

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u/BegginMeForBirdseed 4d ago

I watched that speech and sadly, it did come off as the previous user described. He (token acknowledgement that Morrison doesn’t care about his/their pronouns) was basically peddling magic for the capitalist age — no hard work involved, just do some cursory research, jack off onto a sigil and everything you ever wanted will magically appear at your feet. Suffice to say, nothing works like that. And I don’t care about Morrison’s anecdotal tales of how his writing has directly influenced his life. It’s all utter bollocks. And frankly, he came off as a rambling, tweaking hustler who wandered in off the street, not someone who takes magic as a ritual/creative art seriously. Having researched chaos magic myself after this, I lost a lot of respect for Morrison.

This is no shade to Morrison’s work, I love it, but by god, he’s said and done some risible nonsense over the years.

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u/LoneElement 3d ago

You say he’s a hustler, yet he wasn’t charging any money for anything for it. He was just offering his advice for free

It sounds more like you’re critiquing his appearance and style than anything 

Also that you just can’t bring yourself to earnestly engage in the idea of Magick actually having effects 

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u/hudsoph 3d ago edited 3d ago

They talk about it in Supergods, too.

I went to an event in London when that launched, too, with GM in attendance (in person!) I asked him about some of their statements about ‘fiction suits’ and layers of reality, and I have to say I think they obfuscated a bit on the topic. I came away uncertain how much they literally believed it and how much it was some kind of metaphor or bravado or perhaps fever dream.

ETA: I am also a big fan of GM’s comics, by the way, and GM generally.

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u/cryptamine 5d ago

Grant Morrison is a massive divvy

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u/LoneElement 3d ago

Arguably most occultists disagree with Moore’s position on this which is interesting 

Moore himself has had quite a lot of success 

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u/GrandfatherTrout 5d ago

He’s a practical magician.

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u/Melodic-Series7780 4d ago

I reckon this is another problem of the "Paleolithic emotions, godlike technology" type. There's schadenfreude involved with witnessing others trip up on this - see this old blog post for similar but for funerals.

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u/GuyFawkes99 4d ago

Does he literally believe in magic? And if so why wouldn't he extend the same magical thinking to thoughts and prayers? Legit Q, not trolling.

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u/AlanMooron 4d ago

Yes he does. The main point of the essay it came from was talking about using magic for selfish reasons and using magic to get out of putting in actual effort.

Lets take school shootings, thoughts and prayers have not done a thing to enact change. Now prayer with action is different. Take a church needing funds for a mission trip. They will still pray for the funds, but they will also throw a fundraiser too.

And also the more you depend on magic, even if you can get it to work through pure ritual is pretty open ended coincidence type stuff. Say you do a ritual because you need a $100. So it works and a bank error ends up putting $100 in your account. A week later the bank could notice the error and withdraw $100 from your account. Or say you find $100 on the ground that someone had dropped. Your ritual for money could have caused someone’s electricity to get disconnected.

He explained it better than i can, but that should be the gist.

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u/GuyFawkes99 3d ago

Now prayer with action is different. Take a church needing funds for a mission trip. They will still pray for the funds, but they will also throw a fundraiser too.

Or they could not pray and take action, and they would still raise funds. Seems like prayer is irrelevant, at worst carriers an opportunity cost because the time spent praying could be used for more action. Sounds like Moore knows this and thinks of magic, except as a metaphor or something, exactly as most secular skeptics would.

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u/AlanMooron 3d ago

Yes and no. His explanations in the bumper book are more like the magical equivalent of being agnostic. For most things that he explains, he says it could be outside spiritual forces, or it could be all from your subconscious. But there is importance in rituals and prayer, in traveling spiritually up the kabbalistic spheres.

The biggest misconception of magic is most people think it is shaping the universe to your will, where Moore’s (and most Hermetic belief) is that it is shaping your will to the universe. There is some of the former, but mostly it is a map of enlightenment.

At least that is what I get from it.

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u/GuyFawkes99 2d ago

Well said and I appreciate the explanation.

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u/LoneElement 3d ago

Outside spiritual forces, your subconscious - is there really a difference?

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u/AlanMooron 2d ago

Oddly enough in a story in the BB, where the protagonist is being held down by a demon and ponders between the 2 and if there is any difference between being plagued by a demon or just mentally insane.

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u/LoneElement 3d ago

You’re supposed to be specific with your intentions so monkey’s paw situations don’t happen

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u/MCObeseBeagle 1d ago

There’s also the uncomfortable study that shows people who are seriously ill recover more slowly if they know people are praying for them.

Alan reckons prayers don’t do any harm. But they seem to, at least in some situations.

Odd use of the word magic from him there too. Is he hanging up his staff and beard?