November 13, 2005

• T E L E V I S I O N    M A G I C K

  T.O.P.Y US, 1989

  
  Television is one of the most visible components of modern society. Its
  influence is both profound and inescapable. How strange, then, that
  modern-day writers on magick have almost universally ignored it in
  their discussions of contemporary magickal theory! The power of
  television exists and is being tapped by others, whether the magickian
  chooses to use it for herself or not. It seems that the latent
  potential of television in all forms of sorcery could be used to great
  effect for a variety of ritual, divinatory and symbolic mnemonic
  purposes.

  Like it or not, TELEVISION EXISTS. It is being used by the powers that
  be to influence the opinions, habits and actions of a great percentage
  of Earth’s population. The truly modern magickian/shaman ignores this
  force at her own peril.

  This booklet is based on writings sent to Thee Temple ov Psychick Youth
  over the last year and a half. It represents research and suggestions
  by around fifty people. Though this is, by statistical standards, a
  very small sampling, it is, to the best of our knowledge, the first
  time that a text on practical magick has been assembled based on input
  from a large number of people, rather than on the opinion of one
  Individual or the “official” teachings of one group or organization. If
  it appears to lack continuity, it is because it is of many voices. It
  is also the first attempt to systematically explore and theoretical
  implications of Television Magick.

  As editor of this booklet, I have tried wherever possible to stick to
  mere editing and organizing the format and continuity of this booklet.
  However, as I have read through all of the material submitted, I was,
  perhaps, able to gain a broader perspective than the contributors. I
  became aware of a particular bias that most of them seemed to share,
  and have decided to write a section that will, hopefully, give this
  text a far broader perspective and implications than it might otherwise
  have had.

  This booklet is a beginning. There is much more work and research to be
  done. It is hoped that this rough start will spark enough interest,
  controversy and dialogue to warrant expansion in the near future. This
  book is the first, not the last word on Television Magick.

  Finally, I want to thank all those who, in the final analysis, really
  wrote this booklet. They know who they are, many will recognize their
  words and results here. This booklet is the product of the work and
  genius of many, and any credit for this work belongs to them, not the
  editor. This book shows that collaboration, communication and
  networking work. On this rock we have built our church. Feel free to
  write us and comment in any way.

  TELEVISION IS A LANGUAGE

  Like other disciplines, television has a unique language. Many of its
  technical terms have been borrowed from cinematography. Others are
  unique to TV. The language of advertising and newscasting are also
  unique to this medium. We see and hear grammatical faux pas that would
  put any self-respecting newspaper out of business! If one explores the
  structure and meaning behind many of these terms, a unique insight into
  the inner workings of television can be gained.

  The one term that I feel is of the greatest importance in a magickal
  context is EDITING. It must be fairly obvious to any TV viewer that a
  lot more work goes into a television program than setting up a couple
  of cameras and videotaping away. Much more time must be spent in
  editing the various shot to project a form of CONTINUITY. The final
  televised version you watch may be the product of hours of discarded
  footage. Thus, the editor actually has more REAL control over the
  version you see than any other person involved in the production.
  Editing is a form of BIAS.

  It might be interesting for a moment to consider magick, particularly
  ritual, as a form of editing like a good television editor, a magickian
  strives for some form of continuity in his program, or life. By
  emphasizing desired aspects, the magickian tries to edit out, or
  banish, unwanted footage from her Life. Any idiot can shoot great
  footage, only a Master can edit it all so it makes sense to a viewer
  later on. This could be used as a modern alchemical allegory.

  Advertising Jargon is designed to penetrate to the subconscious mind,
  to cause a person to do something they might not do otherwise. So this
  language might be appropriated by a magickian to use as a mantra, or
  maybe she could actually shoot an advertisement for a specific desire.
  She could videotape objects and/or people that symbolized this desire
  to her, edited in with footage of her achieving said desire. Then she
  could do a voiceover of some type of slogan similar to those heard on
  TV ads. This advertisement could then be recorded in between a series
  of regular advertisements and stuck in the middle of a home video tape,
  say a favorite movie. Thus Austln Spare’s notion of forgetfulness, the
  concept that a desire must be forgotten before it call be fulfilled, is
  adhered to. Just the amount of time)e and energy devoted to the
  production of such all advertisement would seem to guarantee its
  efficacy.

  ---

  INTRODUCTION

  Television seems to form a psychick scaffolding when used actively as
  opposed to zombie consumption. Its technology emphasizes components and
  the psychick structures it produces have a systematic feel that
  reflects this emphasis:

  • Multi-channels
  • Commercials
  • Electronic components
  • Blackout
  • Station Identification
  • Test pattern
  • Edits
  • Computer graphic
  • Pixels
  • Mixing
  • Model Variations
  • Scanning
  • Tracking
  • VCR/VTR etc…

  What is the intelligence of these configurations
  telling us? Remember that quantum mechanics with its formula of
  indeterminacy is crucial to the technology of television.

  To take part in the TV experience as defined by normal/network standard
  one must accept a passive role. Excluded from the life and breath of
  these so-called events. This produces the strange alienation of the
  voyeur. This in itself is not “bad”, it’s the way they make it seem as
  if there are no other possibilities. No questions, please!

  SpelIbound/Hypnoteased are we. Always going away without the
  fulfillment of our desire.(as promised?). Searching hopeless. But the
  product we seek is not our desire. The process is a door to our
  desires. The TV set is process/not product. What is “put through” it is
  known as “programming”.

  TV as magick/TV is Magick. Buttons, switch, channel, remote control,
  video. Yes, modern magickal lingo. The symbols of a new form of
  incantation/spell/ritual. Dally millions of people take part in a
  ritual of acceptance, passivity and the giving away of
  freedom/responsibility (the ability to respond…).

  TV must also work through subliminal and vibrational avenues. The
  accumulated data and effect of the existence (exit stance) of TV’s
  everywhere continually going. Who knows what this is producing? The
  constant and relentless reinFORCEment of alien orders?

  To de-program is to “Stop the World”. TV is a tool for use or abuse. as
  are all the tools/toys of our time. What is powerful for control is
  also powerful for the Individual. Resistance is not necessary, no need
  to run away. Turn on, tune in, drop out. Imagination will set you free.
  Stopping a World of conditioned behavior. No fight, step off the merry
  go round… A rejection of TV is no use to me. Integration of TV is a
  way to free your mind’s eye. TV is. We are. Imagine yourself. If you
  can see it in your mind’s eye, you can see it in the TV eye.

  INTEGRATION FOR REALIZATION-RIOT IN THEE EYE.

  The mind is trained to learn by example not exhortation. To properly
  influence behavior, control does not plead and demand to people please
  do as we say. They simply show others doing so and receiving
  praise/prize. A dash of the herd mentality and there you go.

  I believe the roots of this magickal mystery lie in the masking of the
  real purpose of “art”. It is not now, and has never been mere
  entertainment. TV/video/cinema is but an equally old and rooted in
  ritual. When we can understand and work with this process, then we can
  begin to re-claim lost Parts of our ancient and eternal selves, lost in
  the process of “programming”. We can free ourselves with the very tool
  of oppression.

  TV is powerful because of the way it engages the senses. . sight and
  the sound. It comes on like a dream. You are caught an alternate
  reality. The key, however, being that it is not supposed to be one of
  your own choice or creation. We are left speechless in the face of our
  lack, our passivity, our confusion. Unable to articulate the experience
  except for the smallest of details. Are we still trapped in someone
  elses bad dreams?

  Video. Here the overwhelming power of TV can be transformed into a tool
  for anyone. This seems like a bit of trouble for the powers that be.
  They cannot cut us off because they are dependent on us! Not the other
  way around as they like to think. So their survival depends on their
  ability to confuse, manipulate, divert, divide/conquer and control
  people. They use TV to push a philosophy of passivity. But the very
  fact that they MUST push contains the seed of their destruction. We can
  turn the situation upside down, and live OUR dreams.

  TV AS MAGICK AND RELIGION

  Is the deification and worship of technology an excusable response to
  the automation of human perception? During the Harmonic Convergence,
  one New Ager took a television set with her to the top of Mt. Shasta,
  and then stunned other observers by announcing that the image of an
  angel had manifested itself on the screen. The next day, before a large
  media conglomeration, a repairman reactivated the phenomenon and
  explained that it was due to a simple mechanical defect. Press and
  skeptics ate the story up with glee, but a pertinent point was missed.
  Who cares whether this videoized vision was caused by an otherworldly
  being, an unconscious group-will force or a shorted wire? Is not the
  human neurostructure, by which sensory data is received, but a complex
  system of wiring and basic automated processes? Spontaneous visual
  hallucination used to be a purely human characteristic…..

  The future utilization of TV to transmit spiritual experience is an Inevitable Reality.

  Our all – encompassing environment, which used to be Nature, has become
  technology. Before Judeo-Christianity all of Western man’s religions
  were quite understandably based on his environment. Now that we have
  outgrown a flawed spiritual framework far removed from the principles
  of physical experience (and much worse off as a result), why not return
  to a religion more direct and in touch with the human condition?
  Because our environment is now self-created? Ah, but that is to be the
  hook of this new world faith…Evolution is gracing us with the powers
  of Creation and Destruction we once projected out onto gods, or perhaps
  we are Just realizing them latent within our psyches, the restless
  energies responsible for the seed of all spiritual thought…And so the
  medium is, indeed, the message.

  Through these information and communication technologies humanity has
  taken its most subjective inner experiences and offered them up
  replicated into the mass “meme pool” of perceptual stimuli. In doing so
  we have structured a gestalt of human reality, partially bridging the
  vast chasms between each universe of consciousness commonly known as a
  person. Actually we have recreated (In its own Image…) the Gestalt,
  for accepting either the spiritual notion of ultimate Unity. or the
  quantum energy grid of modern physics, we are beyond temporal
  impressions all one Network of Being. In other words, we have
  unconsciously but faithfully fulfilled (In our own little way) the
  creative principle within us by embodying its essence and carrying it
  forth. In one respect, TV sets and Hi-fl stereos have accomplished in a
  few years what organized religion has been striving toward for
  thousands.

  Imagine a Video Tarot — workable as soon as the technology of
  “shuffling” separate sequences is available. How many more
  corresponding attributions and possibilities for subjective impressions
  will be instantly at our grasp in a short video effects segment than in
  a small playing card? Imagine TV Ritual. The point of ceremony in
  spiritual traditions exo- and esoteric is to trigger inner experience
  through extraordinary sensory input. The potential of today’s visual
  media for revolutionizing this ancient transformative art, their
  technical advances making possible both the creation of virtually any
  image- and their accessibility to anyone – is obvious. And, of course,
  the technology will only improve, forging new pathways…..

  It is true that these communication systems are, for the most part,
  effecting today the polar opposite of enlightenment. This condition has
  provided some rare opportunities, however. Televisions are incredibly
  prolific. Most of the Population is used to watching them for long
  periods of time. From an evolutionary perspective, this can be seen as
  an “easing in” to a more vital project. Today’s “living room” has
  become a TV viewing room, as is evident by the placement of the set and
  the rest of the furniture in relation to it; an objective observer
  would probably assume these devices fulfill a religious function
  already. The notion of “TV as altar” is not new but once again becomes
  relevant. We enshrine our video consoles the way we used to enshrine
  our god-Images…..

  In the cathode ray then, may be the Channel we must find. A true
  Network to tune in, the remote control of an infinite, viewing its
  illusory passion plays on a plane of static radiation—are e the image
  on the screen?

  TV SNOW

  Here television’s application as a type of subconscious mirror for
  scrying is exposed. This type of working, as well as its use in
  cut-ups, were the main ideas that were sent in to us. There is much
  more to be explored, though….

  An important task in contemporary magick is redefining psychick uses of
  existing structures. Seemingly abandoned locations such as TV snow can
  be taken over and used by the magickian. A Psychick Graffiti Zone.
  Infiltrate community channels, using night-time filler shows such as
  one consisting of a camera taking a complete journey on a subway train
  can be salvaged for use in ritual.

  The impression I get from TV snow images is that they may form a
  consistent language with a specific vocabulary of images due to the
  limited parameters of TV (as opposed to the structures of dreams) and
  the repetitiveness of the images. Are these images the same to people
  in completely different circumstances?

  Basically what I do is tune into a non-broadcasting channel and stare
  at the “snow”, trying to look at one point, usually near the center of
  the screen. After a time, moving patterns start to emerge from the
  “snow”, sort- of like spinning mandalas, or large colonies of black
  ants dancing circuitously into their burrow…eventually I begin to see
  several layers of things going on behind this…l can focus on any one
  layer, but not for long, as there is so much info….it’s rather like
  watching 5 or 6 films projected one on top of the other (In layers) and
  trying to pick out one film. I can see topographical landscapes going
  by very quickly as if flying over a continent. Deserts and sparse
  vegetation seem to be prevalent. Also scenes from everyday life -
  houses, people, cars, etc…

  Groups of people dancing and twirling, columns of marching men … it’s
  and awful lot like the dream machine with my eyes open. To stop all the
  images, all I have to do is re-focus my eyes on some other part of the
  room.

  The TV snow hallucinations seem very connected to the current regular
  programming. Many of the images and moods seem like the original
  templates of the programming.

  Here’s something I’ve done with TV’s. It’s not new or original (we
  found it to be-ed.), but I’ve had fun with it and so have some of my
  friends especially in altered states. Turn on a TV to a
  non-transmitting channel. Adjust the contrast, color and tint to a
  desired setting. Then add a strobe light. The strobe helps to speed up
  the process and makes everything a bit weirder. Also that warped
  warbelling sound the stations transmit before going over to static can
  help bend your mind, especially if you turn it on full blast and let 90.

  AMBIENT TELEVISION

  If television has a unique ability to penetrate our subconscious, how
  can the Individualist regain control over it? One possible solution is
  to render it trivial. Things are most easily trivialized through such
  frequent repetition that they become commonplace. A television left on
  long enough becomes furniture, not entertainment! Stacks of TV’s all
  tuned to a different channel make it impossible to concentrate on a
  single linear program, one finds that one’s eyes roam from set to set.
  And this with a few as three sets.

  I took one black and white TV set:

  CONTRAST, VERTICAL HOLD,

  HORIZONTAL HOLD

  PERMUTATED

  IMAGE TRIPLED

  The constant flickering image, constantly changing. The Magick moments,
  when captured, can be visually stimulating. When stared into, colors
  appear. Hues of blue, green, yellow and red. In the dark, back to the
  set, the flickering light produces RAPID, strobe-like SHADOWS. Maybe
  this can be compared to the DREAMACHINE (If I can be so bold).

  My set is placed in one corner of my bedroom. It has been running continuously for over two years, never shut off.

  TUNE the vertical, horizontal hold and contrast so that it appears that
  only one-third of the image is visible. Actually the whole image is
  there, tripled, each overlapping.

  With eyes open, the picture can be amusing and amazing. My set is tuned
  to the local religious channel (LA channel 30). Not to be sacrilegious,
  that’s too easy, but that’s where the most interesting pictures are,
  scriptures typed on the screen permutate, the Xtian cross tripled
  becomes Psychick.

  I applied the Dreamachlne method (eyes closed)- the connection being
  FLICKER. My first attempts were fruitless. Then one day I could see. A
  strange sense of depth was noticed, as if I was viewing from the back
  of my head out to my eyelids. The whirling picture seemed to engulf my
  head, the only colors noticed were grey and blue. This doesn’t work all
  the time, it seems the harder I try the less I see. Utilize the
  brightness control, too. Some side effects-my eyelids twitched a lot at
  first (cathode ray interference?) and a slight headache.

  TELEVISION CUT-UPS

  Camouflage. If you live in a city with access to cable with cut up
  produced by flicking through all the appear to be following your train
  of thought, as if trying to keep up with you by feeding back symbols
  appropriate to your present thought. Using association blocks to create
  a bridge between your thoughts and the flow of imagery. TV watching
  often becomes emotionally intense during this procedure. (Also, putting
  only the soundtrack of TV without the visuals through a stereo can
  provide valuable insights into the camouflage of control TV).

  Flow.

  Is the image more real than we? Cut it up, lets see.

  We are starting to tape specific commercials and parts of programs which could be Psychically stimulating one way or another…

  A VCR is helpful to Fast-forward and Review and edit way around.
  Similar to Cabaret Voltaire but of your own design. if you can get
  several screens and put on each the most weirded-out images you can
  find or get on video and zone out on all the stimuli. The weirder the
  better. The addition of music equally as bizzare, you only add to the
  experience.

  Television and video are ideally suited for the cut-up method,
  incorporating as they do both the milleu of sound and visuals. It is
  interesting to interchange the audio and visual portions of two or more
  different programs and watch the conflicting messages you are then
  exposed to. Which sense do you assign more validity to?

  Cut-ups of video can be of great use in ritual, too. If something is
  desired, you can record various images of it from television. When you
  have “captured” enough raw images, proceed to cut them up, splicing the
  images together randomly, either with the original soundtracks, random
  soundtracks from other raw footage, or with a special soundtrack of
  your own device. This could also be randomly cut in with footage of
  yourself attaining your desire either symbolically or as working toward
  your goal. I find it very important in video sigils to have images of
  myself included in the footage. This serves to Personalize the video,
  to take the power latent in video away from the big corporations and
  consecrate it to ME.

  By flicking the channels around, one often gets an impression of
  synchronicity, that the audio signals one receives are, in some sense,
  inter-related with one’s actions and/or feelings in REAL TIME, This
  feeling is further heightened when multiple televisions are used, with
  the television putting out the audio is blacked out, and a TV tuned to
  another station is being viewed.

  Most people utilize their televisions in a very rigid, linear way. They
  tune in one specific channel and watch passively. But if one begins to
  view the TV as a mirror, useful both for scrying (astral) and
  divinatory (“fortune-telling”) Purposes, one will find that much of the
  “bad vibe” associated with television is dissipated, can even be turned
  around to become potent shamanic ally. Cut-up TV is decontrolled TV, is
  big business castrated of its control patterns, the patterns through
  which we as viewers/consumers are manipulated. Through the break up of
  these Patterns, we are able to free the airwaves of their inherent
  OBJECTIVITY, and reclaim them as subjective reflections of our own
  thoughts.

  One of the biggest complaints about current television is that it
  allows for no participation by the viewer. It is soporific in that it
  allows for no challenges or ambiguities to a watcher. Even complex
  issues such as the Middle East are reduced to one-and-one-half minute
  “stories”. The current half-hour to one-hour format of traditional
  television “programming” allows for no real character development or
  subtleties of plot. The characters, even on a “quality” program like
  Hill Street Blues, are hopelessly shallow in comparison to even the
  most shallow people in “real life”. The cut-up method offers a
  childishly simple means of re-introducing abstraction and subjectivity,
  DEPTH – back into a media notorious for its lack thereof.

  TV RITUAL-SETS AND SCRIPTS

  As has already been mentioned, a lot more goes into television program
  than the final, edited version we watch. A set is constructed. A set
  could be compared to a Temple, or thee Nursery. It is a place designed
  with a particular function in mind, in the case of TV sets, usually to
  create an illusion. All ritual spaces are sets in a way. They are
  constructed to perform a specific purpose, and are constructed with
  that purpose in mind. If you notice the set on a TV sitcom, for
  example, you can notice the tedious attention to detail – a small stack
  of unanswered mail on the mantlepiece, all the cooking utensils on the
  countertops, a little bit of dirt on the floor (they’re only human…).
  This is done to complete the illusion that this set, in reality a
  moveable plywood shell, is somebody’s home.

  It is with exactly this attention to detail that the magickian
  constructs her ritual space. She knows that if any detail remains to
  remind her of the so-called mundane aspects of her life, her ritual
  will lose much of its power.

  Once the set is constructed, a production crew needs a STORY BOARD.
  This is a series of drawings which plot out both the movements of the
  characters and the zooms, pans and angles of the various cameras. The
  verbal “lines” of the actors, as well as any music or other sound
  effects, are written out or described on the bottom of each board.

  Thus, each portion of a scene is meticulously plotted out, in such a
  way that each member of the crew can see her role in the production.

  Anyone who has ever read magickal instructions for a ritual, such as a
  Gnostic Mass, will recognize that a grimoire is essentially a story
  board. However, a storyboard is much more effective as a mnemonic
  device as it describes the “plot” not only verbally, but also visually.
  Each sequence is described in terms of the “actors”, the “observers”
  (or cameras) and the accompanying sounds or speech.

  It can be extremely useful to plot out a ritual in a story board
  format. First, it allows no room for ambiguity as to who is to do what
  when. It also allows the magickian to see her ritual from the
  Perspective of a camera, a birds eye view, if you will, of exactly what
  will be happening. It allows for far greater considerations into the
  aesthetical aspects of the “production”, placing a greater emphasis on
  symmetry and staging. A good ritual is similar to a good TV program -
  it causes a “suspension of disbelief” vital to creating change. It must
  create an illusion, to make something possible that, without good
  staging, would not be plausible.

  Say you want to make money. Create a set that looks like a bank vault,
  or a giant hundred dollar bill. Videotape a gorgeous man rolling around
  in a pile of play money (need not be real, only green, if you are from
  the US). The magickian can make this man, rather than the money, the
  object of her desire. The money is already subliminally associated to
  the man through the video shot. A brief narration can be voiced over,
  or an evocative song, you could even invent some sort of dialogue,
  perhaps the man could be lustfully moaning the magickians name and his
  desire for her.

  A technique I have used is to use the presence of a camera to prolong
  the agony, as it were, of a sexual working. As you excite each part of
  a partner’s body, take a break to videotape that particular spot, both
  before and during stimulation. You’ll be amazed at how sensuous it is
  to caress your lover with the camera’s eye, you can zoom in on your
  favorite features at will, pause to excite a Part and videotape the
  result. A body can become a vast, mysterious landscape, and the act of
  lust become a HolIywood feature. It can also be used later as an
  excellent link (see “Formulating Links” in “Intuitive Magick”) to
  either mentally re-create that moment, or to draw the lover closer
  again,

  The sense of detachment from an event, which one might even be
  participating in ones self, is one of the oddest phenomena of video I
  have yet encountered. One literally becomes a voyeur into ones’ own
  life and actions. Videotaping a ritual is nearly synonymous with
  objectivity.

  And these, admittedly unrefined, examples need not be the end of it.
  The videotape could then be put on a TV set and played back as a
  centerpiece for a more traditional money-making ritual. The
  possibilities are unexplored, therefore endless. And it can 90 on and
  on, continually videotaping layer after layer of superimposed videotape
  ritual until one finally has on one tape the accumulated documentation
  of perhaps dozens of Individual rituals, or shoots.

  This process is analogous to the old alchemical principle of “solve et
  coagula”, of constantly sublimating (note the similarity to
  “subliminal”, a major factor in subconscious recall) originally base
  matter into “gold”.

  Indeed, given the power that TV seems to exert over people and their
  lives, the old alchemical maxim “as above, so below” takes on a whole
  new meaning. She who rules the airwaves, rules the minds of men….

  THE LANGUAGE OF ADVERTISING

  As mentioned earlier, television is a language of its own. The real
  content of television is not in the programs, they are merely “bait” to
  get us to watch the ubiquitous advertisements. It almost seems as
  though TV programs are deliberately made as dull and unchallenging as
  possible, to lull us into a sort of hypnotic trance, so that we are
  thus rendered more susceptible to the commercials. Commercials have
  their own unique language, to, and an amazing amount of research has
  been done into what sorts of advertising strategies are most likely to
  persuade us.

  It might be useful to take a look at some of the factors in advertising that have been found to influence consumers:

  • Information content,
  • Brand / Product Identification,
  • Setting,
  • Visual and auditory devices,
  • Promises/appeals/propositions,
  • Tone/atmosphere,
  • Comparisons,
  • Music and dancing,
  • Structure and format,
  • Characters,
  • Timing and counting measures (for example, length or number of times the brand name is shown or mentioned).

  Many of these methods are very reminiscent of old
  ceremonial magick rituals, for ~n excellent crossreference too lengthy
  to get into here, see Magick In Theory and Practice by Aleister
  Crowley, Chapter 2. The main thrust of my argument is that advertising
  Jargon IS a magickal language. It CAN be used to affect or program the
  subconscious mind. Advertisements are constructed ~n exactly the same
  way that rituals are, using mnemonic devices very similar to the
  qabalah. I do not consider this to be a theory-l take it to be a fact.
  If you have any doubts about this basic assumption, go to your library
  and read through some books on tele-marketing techniques.

  Start watching advertisements. Pay close attention to the logic of
  them. You will begin to notice that hardly any of them really make any
  logical sense. A typical example: Everyone knows that oxitone fights
  cavities. Crust toothpaste has oxitone. So it has the power to keep
  cavities away. Now it has not been actually stated that oxitone does,
  in fact, fight cavities – you are led to think that you are stupid for
  NOT knowing this. It is also not stated HOW MUCH oxitone it takes to
  fight cavities. Nor is the extent of this “cavity fighting” ever
  defined. So we are left with a total non-sequitur. What, at first
  appearance, is a very informative advertisement turns out, on closer
  examination, to say absolutely nothing. It is a conjuror’s trick, a
  sleight-of hand maneuver.

  It is in this realm of tricking the subconscious into accepting the
  impossible as FACT that the traditional magickian has always worked.
  And, although Madison Avenue may have updated the language and
  hardware, the essential technique, philosophy and approach would be
  very familiar to any magickian of the past. A contemporary magickian ,
  if she has any desire to be such in anything other than name alone,
  would do well to learn how to apply these updated methods of
  subconscious persuasion to her ritual methods. Many of them are
  supported by the latest research into Psychology and neurolinguistics,
  as well as proving their effectiveness through consumer response.

  A lot of money goes into marketing research. SOMEBODY must be getting results from this form of magick.

  VIDEO FRAGMENTS

  Video Magick warrants a whole book on its own, it definitely deserves a
  great deal more attention. Hopefully you, the reader/critic will send
  us more research in the near future so that this project can be done
  justice to. It is, obviously, only the tip of the iceberg…

  Get or rent a video camera, one that has a negative/reversal switch on
  it so that you can make the picture negative. Point the camera at the
  TV screen while monitoring. You will discover an astral tunnel in black
  and white. Now turn the camera ever so slightly and observe!! With
  practice you can see every geometric pattern under and in the sun-an
  almost infinite variety of symbols all fluctuating, all changing
  constantly. The effect is enhanced even more if you turn the color up
  to high contrast during the experiment. By various spinning methods
  (ie., rotating the camera as if the lens were a pivot) and very slight
  adjustments of the zoom lens you will have hours and hours of
  mesmerized fun and trance. Video feedback has another application. Take
  a small picture, no bigger than 10% of your total screen area, and
  stick it onto your TV screen. in this manner, you can immediately add
  visual images to the splendorous kaleidoscope of colors and these
  images will also feed back infinitely. You have to see this effect to
  believe it!! Why it has never been used in promotional videos,
  especially in the ’60s I will never know…

  This technique sounds as if it would lend itself perfectly to the Sigil
  Process, a symbol ov desire being placed on the screen and multiplied
  by video feedback. A hypnotic aid to concentration. Also, favorite
  patterns and configurations could easily be videotaped and saved for
  documentation as well as future rituals.

  CONCLUSION

  All that can really be said to sum up is that Television Magick is
  certainly an area of occult deserving more attention and much more
  research. Hopefully, this modest beginning will be enlarged upon
  through experiments and communication inspired by this first effort.
  Reading through this booklet, it is obvious that we have not even
  properly scratched the surface.

  Sincere thanks must be given to those who offered input into this
  project – we hope that this pamphlet will encourage more of you to send
  in your research and results in this fascinating new area of the occult.

  • 11:09 am
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