Fell has been chipping away at the topic of occult design on his blog for a while now. I think I’m finally starting to grasp what he’s saying in my own words now. I mean, I “knew” before, but now I’m starting to “feel” what he’s talking about.

I think he finally clinched it for me simply by comparing the definitions of design and magick side-by-side. From wikipedia’s Design entry:

Design in its verb context is the process of originating and developing a plan for an aesthetic and functional object, which usually requires considerable research, thought, modelling, iterative adjustment and re-design. As a noun, design is used both for the final plan of action (a drawing, model or other description), or the result of following that plan of action (the object produced).

And their one on Magick, using Crowley’s definition:

“the science and art of causing change to occur in conformity with the will.”

Crowley’s definition from Magick In Theory and Practice basically suggests that simply anything that you do on purpose (”according to will”) is a magickal act. In case you’re not paying attention, this is pretty much the same thing as the definition of design, boiled down to it’s essence. Something you do on purpose. An act invested with significance through decision. It’s so simple it was staring me in the face all along.

The question it opens for me is can you commit a magickal act then by accident? I’m guessing that this is where Crowley came to the concept of the “True Will” from, suggesting that the ground from which our actions spring is deeper than we know. And I’m guessing again that the so-called process of the Knowledge and Conversation of the Holy Guardian Angel is about connecting the two streams together.

The other interesting thing that Fell seems to be grappling with is the idea of context in teaching people about this information. Crowley chose to do it by talking about the occult, and clothing the techniques in that type of symbolism, and aiming it at people with that mindset. What Fell seems to be interested in is doing the same thing, but aiming it at designers, rather than occultists (correct me if I’m wrong here, Fell). It seems like fertile grounds for this type of thing, and wouldn’t be the first time that the two crossed (check out what a lot of the Surrealists were into, to name one of many examples). The question at hand seems to be, if you wanted to communicate with artists and designers and musicians and other creative types about the types of internal purposive processes that are normally associated with the occult, how do you do it? Do you clothe it in the language of the occult, or is that going to be an unnecessary hangup? Or do you need to create a sort of meta-language that can successfully bridge the occult to designers, and vice versa?

Further, is it possible to talk about the basic principles of occultism and magick without actually talking about occultism or magick? Is that what that Wayne Dyer dude is trying to do with his whole “Power of Intention” series? In a sense, I’ve been trying to do that myself in terms of understanding various traditions such as Scientology or NLP: look past what people say about it into how it works, rather than just the detritus that has built up around it culturally. Anyway, this is a really interesting topic that I plan to write more about because I think it’s applications for communicating with people about this stuff go way beyond just designers, and the potentials are really big.