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Magick and "The Filth"

02:00 / 23.06.03

Have you experienced anything magickal related to your reading of The Filth?

Many of you have mentioned that you had experiences while reading The Invisibles... Are you reading the Filth? Has it affected you magickally? I got the same kind of Psychosomatic feedback when I read issue 11, that the one I got when I read number 3 of the 3rd volume. A bit weaker, but just the same symptoms.

15:32 / 24.06.03

I've actually been a little surprised that I haven't felt much effect from THE FILTH, whereas I definitely had stuff going on when I read THE INVISIBLES. Although I've really enjoyed the extrapolation and discussion of a lot of Grant's magickal idea in the book. I've had a few colds and persistent little viruses, but nothing that struck me as particular Filth-related. I've certainly been reflecting a lot, emotionally and spiritually, on the whole immune system inoculation/strengthening theme, though.

16:42 / 24.06.03

Huh. Funny, I was thikning that I hadn't experienced anything but I've developed a cold over the last couple of days and my psoriasis has been acting up more than usual lately.

14:17 / 25.06.03

Are you telling me that if I read the Filth I'll get a cold?!
I have not had a cold since I read the Invisibles a year ago. I don't think I want to get colds again...

18:52 / 03.06.04

I think I may be able to report a possible alteration as a result of reading the filth. I used to avoid literature like No Logo and Captive State for I feared reading them would cause me to die. of depression. Now however I feel like I can't enough of this stuff. And it doesn't depress me as badly as I thought it would. Has anyone undergone a similar change?

Spyder Todd 2008

20:16 / 03.06.04

I originally read the Filth in its monthly installments, with no positive affects that I noticed. However, back in September I had a really awful cold, and I wasn't sleeping, and the Filth had just finished up, and I thought "What the Hell?" So I read the entire thing in one night. I finished it at about 1:30 in the morning, by the time I fell asleep around 3:00, I was feeling noticeably better. When I woke up, my cold was gone.

It works as an inoculation. If you're not sick (physically, mentally, or otherwise), it will make you feel a little sick, because you don't need it. But it seriously worked for me when I was down.

21:28 / 03.06.04

Well when I was a kid my dad would buy me Dr Strange and Tales of Kung Fu when I was ill and it would help along and battle the viruses away. I haven't bought the Filth yet I'll let you know when I get the biggie in a bit fae the shops. Eventually got round to getting the last 4 of the Invisibles - about time, I'm shite at collecting comics, me! It's quillophick innit? My town needs a comic shop mebbe tada (Mel Sykes evocation har de har) I should start one!!! Oh no I'm gonna grow a long ponytail and snort charleeee and live in some sorta NLP (TM) GOLDEN GLOBE egads yupeee pardigm shift ahoy!!!!! Beats puttin in fraudelent ads in the back of Private Eye that's fer sure!!!!

23:52 / 18.07.06

Could you guys describe some of the 'symptoms' you've had while reading The Invisibles? I'm curious to know what you mean...and if it will remind me of my own.

20:56 / 25.07.06

I never came upon this thread until N.O.W. I also read the series as it appeared monthly and had no effects. Then, maybe about three years ago I was at home with nothing to do all day and I smoked some pot and some salvia and hunkered down to read the entire series one afternoon. As I read I elt myself drifting, really becoming affected by the combination of the general oddness of the book and of course the buzz. I circled really close to having a 'bad trip' so to speak on the pot (in so far as one can have a 'bad trip' on pot; paranoia, bad thoughts, insecurities running amok, you get the point). I read on though and I remember feeling as though I was conquering something within myself, moving through the book yet through some fundamental laws or something of personality at the same time via its deeply layered metaphors and what not. This really doesn't describe it as massively as it seemed at the time or is remembered N.O.W. but thats the curse with the real abstract stuff (especially after enough time has passed), it becomes harder and harder to pull it back up and shape it in to lingual contexts to present to others for effect. Since that experience however I have held the book in a highly powerful regard.

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21:51 / 26.07.06

Oddly enough, at the time I read it, I placed a *lot* of importance on "The Filth", if only because it was the first GM comic that I followed on a monthly basis rather than graphic novel format. Looking back on it now, I doesn't do as much for me as some of GM's other stuff. But when I first read it, it seemed very important. In terms of capturing human shittiness and bad karma, it's nowhere near as effective as, say, Peter Sotos (another writer I once placed a huge emphasis on but whose work doesn't have as much of an impact as it used to). However, the art is a great, and as a qliphoptic variation on "The Invisibles", is interesting in that aspect.