Firstly this is the first talk I've actually gotten to at GameCity despite my best efforts but it was definitely an interesting one mostly discussing how magickal practices can be used as tools for creativity.
The talk was broken down into an introduction and four sections: Deconstruction, Transformation, Inspiration and Disruption.
Deconstruction focused on opening your mind to new ideas through ideas like selective believe and the "Dice Man" method (the act of using random selection to decide your action) to force yourself out of your comfort zone and allow you to look at the word from other perspectives, even those in stark contrast to you own. In doing so the practitioner becomes aware of how cultural labels and personal views shape your perception of the world around you; the example given being a omnivore and a vegetarian walking down a meat produce isle at the supermarket.
Transformation discussed forms of meditation and practices to help quantify your passage through time through the day. Some idea generation methods were discussed but generally more in line with automatic writing, not to create something usable in it's pure form but rather to catalogue the thoughts in your head, to allow you to filter through for good ideas.
This neatly flowed into Inspiration which discussed idea generation through the use of tarot cards, I Ching and even other objects such as scrabble tiles, generally distilling ideas from around you but in a wholly creative way such as cutting up passages of text and rearranging them into new meanings.
Finally we came to Disruption, was about maximising your idea generation but accepting your ability to be wrong, breaking out of your habits to become more aware of the patterns you are following. This can be as simple as making wild exclamations or as extreme as randomising your approach to daily tasks forcing you to break with routine.
The talk rounded off with a number of books for further reading, from Grant Morrison's "The Invisibles" to Alistair Crowley's Magic Book Four, the One Year Manual by Israel Ragardie and Prometheus Rising by Robert Alton Wilson.
While I have some very general but minor knowledge of this take on "Magick" it has been a very enlightening discussion on how to use this approach to inform your development cycle. As someone who hasn't been able to get into a pattern of meditation I'd like to try to approach mandala patterns from both a meditative and graphic design perspective.
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