Pop Quiz:

What do conspiracies, the occult and graphic design all have in common?

Answer:

Aside from being long-time interests of mine, each of these three areas revolves around one shared core element: intention.

In graphic design, for starters, we create cultural artifacts which encode information in such a way that they cause some kind of change in the audience who perceives them. Either they receive factual data, or they feel an emotional/aesthetic response - usually a combination of the two. And when graphic design is allied to marketing or advertising, its aim is to inspire an action within the audience, such as to purchase a product.

In the weird world of conspiracy theory, a conspiracy is most commonly defined as “a secret agreement between two or more people to perform an unlawful act.” Really what it boils down to is that there is (1) an agreement and (2) a plan. An agreement focuses and sets intention or willpower into place, and the plan defines the form by which that intention will be made manifest in the world.

Aleister Crowley famously defined magic (or magick) as “the science and art of causing change to occur in conformity with the will.” Much like graphic designers, occultists or magickians manipulate form and perception to enact changes in the world. Unlike graphic design which is usually focused on making changes in people besides the designer, magic is just as commonly (if not moreso) used to enact changes within the practitioner. Occultists, in turn, also share more with conspirators rather than conspiracy theorists. Conspiracy theorists seek to detect these plans and agreements and study the effects of the willpower of elite cabals upon current, past and future events. Whereas occultists seek to actively exert their willpower in the world. (Perhaps this is why so many conspiracy theorists seem to see sinister “magickians” operating behind the scenes)

In any event, what these three fields share is the focusing and direction of intention so as to cause change to occur in accordance with it. It sounds far out when we talk about conspiracies, or the occult, or maybe even graphic design. But it’s something we do each and every day as we go about our lives. We make plans. We make decisions. We try to get certain things to happen deliberately, according to our conscious design.

A metaphor I’ve been playing around with to help me understand this has to do with how clouds are formed. Did you know that in order for water to make the transition from a vapor (gaseous state) to a liquid, that a solid surface is required? Clouds are formed around microscopic particles called cloud condensation nuclei, or CCN. They are only something like 0.0002 millimeters in size, but that’s all that the water vapor needs to coalesce or condense into water.

In terms of our lives, it seems like our intentions are something like the CCN’s around which clouds form. They are these little tiny bits which have really no shape or size of their own, but which allow for other things to coalesce around them, transforming from one state to another more. When we have a particularly strong intention, it almost exerts a gravity which draws people, events and resources in line with it. In some sense, the occult/magical disciplines seem to consist of tools and techniques designed to enhance this process. It aids in not only articulating intention (seeding clouds with CCN’s, so to speak), and in helping resources come together (cloud condensation), but also in performing a sort of “rain dance” to turn intentions and resources into actions and changes.

I’ve been looking around lately for a way to talk about this common underlying process which we find in specialized fields like graphic design, conspiracy, the occult, and more commonly in every day life. It strikes me that a term like “conscious design” might be an apt term to use. It describes not only the process whereby we manifest intentions into reality, but also implies a method of designing consciousness, which in the end is the thing which truly causes changes to occur. When we can change how we act or think or believe or feel, we can wedge open the door for new possibilities to come through. One reinforces the other in a continual feedback loop of conscious design.

What is it that you find yourself designing?