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Today, we are blessed to have the opportunity to speak with a multi-talented legend. His services and outlook on life is well sought after. I think you will all enjoy a peek at a recent conversation I had with this wise gentleman.
The Magician who makes “the Luck of the Irish” an everyday reality
Warlock Asylum: I would like to express my deepest thanks for allowing us this opportunity to hear some of your wisdom and experiences. There is much to discuss. However, for those of us who are not familiar with your work, how would you best describe, or should I say introduce yourself? Who is Tommie Kelly? Tommie Kelly:Well, thanks very much for asking. The honor is all mine. I am Tommie Kelly. I was born in Ireland in 1977 and I still live there. I am an artist and writer, but not always in that order. I have published a number of Comics. Some are about Music, most about the Occult in some way and one of them is just stupid.
If I had to I would describe myself, it would be as a Chaos Magician, but I’m not overly fond of labels. I have a lifelong interest in all things Occult and Spirituality, starting in my early teens when I read some Stuart Wilde books and then Alice Bailey, along with some Buddhism,Theosophy, and hosts of New Age type stuff. Currently I fluctuate between not being totally convinced that magick, spirits, spirituality or whatever we want to call it, is anything more than just psychology with much more interesting aesthetics, and experiencing spooky shit that could only be described as High Strangeness!
I went to College in my mid-twenties to study Holistic health and am qualified in Aromatherapy,Reflexology, Holistic Massage, Indian Head Massage and Reiki, but don’t practice any of it these days other than Aromatherapy which I find extremely pleasant and helpful. Warlock Asylum: You’re a man of many talents, but seemed to center your work in the occult and various spiritual sciences. What inspired you to get involved in occult studies?
Tommie Kelly:I got into the occult when I was a young teenager. My aunt loaned my mother and father some books by New Age Superstar Stuart Wilde that I just found amazing and exciting, and that started me on the journey. My Aunt was also into Theosophy and Alice Bailey and I used to drill her for information on all these topics when she would visit. I found it all very fascinating and was hooked on the topics from then on.
Warlock Asylum: What are some of the hidden sciences have you studied to date? Tommie Kelly: Hmm, let me see. Over the years I have studied lots of ideas, and I guess not all of them would be strictly considered “occult”, but I’ll include them because they all helped form my Occult worldview. Things like: Theosophy, Witchcraft, LOTS of New age stuff, Chaos Magick, Buddhism, Zen, Shamanism, Reiki, Hinduism,Druidry,Hare Krisnaism, lots of LHP and RHP path stuff, Draconian Magick, Satanism,Setianism,New Thought, A Course in Miracles, Law of Attraction, Goetic Magick,The Necronomicon,Thelema, Integral Studies and probably a host of other stuff that I just can’t remember right now. I would be far from an expert on any of this stuff, but I feel my varied reading and studies has given me a pretty decent broad view on Occult ideas or areas.
Warlock Asylum: I must say that I am deeply impressed by your work as an illustrator, musician, and writer. In what ways has your work as a magician influenced the art you have produced? Tommie Kelly:The occult pretty much permeates throughout my entire life in one way or another, from my outlook to my daily practices – so my art can’t help but be an extension of that. One comic in particular, THEM, is a very blatant magickal working, or hypersigil as it is probably better known. My writing these days is all occult and magick based too. Over the last few years I have become more open with my Occult ideas, so it is probably showing up more obviously in my work – though it has always been there.
This year I have really been concentrating on Occult Artwork. I noticed that there wasn’t a great deal of cool altar images for people to use in their workings, so I started doing some of them. You can see them in my Art stores (links at end).
Warlock Asylum: How has your pursuit of esoteric knowledge affected your personal relationships among friends and family? Tommie Kelly:Not in any great fashion, to be honest. My family has a decent enough interest in spirituality that we have many areas which overlap and so it doesn’t seem that strange to them – well, what they know if it anyway. In regard to friends, I don’t talk about it or mention it at all really. I don’t hide it in any way, but I don’t talk about it unless ask something directly. Other than online, I don’t have any real day-to-day friends that are into the occult. But perhaps we are all just waiting for the other to mention it.
Warlock Asylum: One of your aspirations that is listed on your website is to become the “World’s Only Consulting Occultist” Can you clarify for us what does this entail exactly and how do you expect to meet this aim? Tommie Kelly:That’s just a joke. It’s a reference to Sherlock Holmes being the World’s Only Consulting Detective. I assumed, maybe incorrectly, that people would get the reference, but maybe not. I have in reality, no ambitions in the Consulting Occultist business whatsoever.
Warlock Asylum: Can you tell us a little about the occult scene in Ireland and how it is different, if at all, in mystic knowledge around the world? Tommie Kelly:Ireland’s population is extremely small at around four and a half million people, which is much less than most big Cities, so no matter how popular something is in Ireland, there isn’t going to be that many people involved In it. That said, you do have Janet Farrar’s Wicca Coven a few miles away from me (though I have never met her or visited) and you do have some Druids. There are some Thelemic, Temple of Set, Golden Dawn, Theosophy and various other groups in Dublin but I have no idea how active they are. I contacted the Freemasons once, but they never got back to me.
Ireland is still very Catholic and a lot of the Spiritual stuff reflects that. You have lots of Angel healing for instance. But, Fortune Tellers, Reiki and Yoga would be quite popular too. And we still have plenty of people who have “The Cure” for any number of ailments.
Warlock Asylum: Can you share with us some of the obstacles you had to overcome to be the person you are today and how has your studies in the occult assisted in making such a transformation? Tommie Kelly:I don’t know, I guess it’s quite hard to be objective about your own life. I don’t feel I have had any unusual or interesting obstacles in my life, or at least any that I have actually overcome. I’ve had some shit relationships, really shitty times in my life, and many a bad day but I couldn’t point to any particular events, circumstances or obstacles that I overcame. Hopefully I have learned to be a better person over the years, but I still struggle with the same stuff I did when I was younger – the same mundane, day-to-day stuff everyone else deals with; finances, relationship, being an idiot or whatever.
I do think that personal development is very important and is really undervalued in magick circles, which is a pity. You sometimes come across these amazingly knowledgeable people, who have spent years practicing and studying magick but are just complete asshole son a personal level. If I was a new comer to occult studies and I looked at a lot of the advanced people’s personalities or traits I would have to wonder whether magick is that useful of an area in regards to become a decent human being. Not all magicians, of course, and I am as guilty as anyone of being a dick at times.
Warlock Asylum: You’ve also studied Reflexology, Reiki, and other healing sciences. What does healing mean to you today?
Tommie Kelly: I don’t know. I think for the most part, alternative therapies might be doing nothing more than engaging the Placebo effect – which I am not making little of. It’s an amazing, almost miraculous response and it can only be triggered in certain ways. Personally I have never met anyone who had a miraculous cure or had their life changed from any of these therapies, but I have heard plenty of stories about people who have. I don’t really know what I think about it all. I don’t practice any of them these days and haven’t for a long time. Although very recently I have started to do some Reiki again on myself during some meditations and I have never stopped using essential oils. That being said, I wouldn’t ever dismiss stuff like Reiki or any sort of Healing out of hand, there really does seem to be “something” going on, I’m just not sure what or to what extend that is.
Warlock Asylum: It’s one thing to educate oneself in the ancient arcane knowledge of humanity, and another thing to build social contacts with those of the same interests. What value do you give to the idea of making new friends in the occult arena and to how the occultist is socialized?
Tommie Kelly:All my occult socializing is done online and that comes with all the good and bad that comes with any online interactions. It has its great moments and its awful moments, but the best thing with Online relationships is that you can just switch off from them if you need a break, or even cut people totally and easily out of your life altogether.
In real life I have never hung round with cccultists other than a brief period where I spent some time with a group of Druids about 10 or 15 years ago. I jot to see a lot of their rituals and workings, which was really great. Also when I went to College in my mid-twenties to study Holistic Health Studies, there were a few Wiccans and others Occult types who were really awesome people. If there was a local Occult group near to me I’d probably hang out, but I’m not sure. I wouldn’t be a huge fan of people in general anyways.
Warlock Asylum: I am amazed by the comic book series you are currently producing at this time. Can you tell us a little bit more about the direction of this venture?
Tommie Kelly:Well, the comic stuff is from a while ago. I haven’t done comics in a few years as the reward for the effort involved just wasn’t there. You’d spend months and months, or even a year or so on writing and drawing a comic and in the end only a handful of people read it or whatever. I just got tired of that struggle and once I broke the loop of “Maybe the next one will be the Big one!” there was a huge sense of relief.
Besides, at this point after all my comics, I think I have pretty much said all I want to in a comic form, at least for now. To continue really feels like forcing something that is best left alone – like being the guy at the end of the party that just won’t go home. The Great Work was the last thing I did and I was going through such a horrible personal time when I was doing it that I am really not excited about going back to that place and exploring those themes.
Besides, for me THEM, which was my previous work, is I strongly feel, as good a comic as I can do. By that I don’t mean that ever single panel is amazing or there are no typos or that some sentences couldn’t be better – I mean that as an entire piece of art or writing I don’t think I can better it. It’s exactly what I wanted to express. It allowed me to work through some hard ideas and personal issues and was also a huge Magickal working. I just don’t think I can achieve anything better than that. Maybe in the future I’ll do something new, but for now that all seems complete.
Warlock Asylum: Are the themes presented in your comic book series based on true life experience? What is the source of the storylines presented in this work?
Tommie Kelly:Yes and no. Road Crew was inspired by my time as a sound engineer but none of the characters or events are based on anything real – it was all made up. I never actually traveled to Hell to enter a Sound Engineering Competition hosted by Dave Navarro for instance. But then, with something like THEM, I was trying to create and manifest stuff in my real life by working it into the comic. That was quite successful and I feel that in many ways I am still in the middle of that particular Magick working. You can read a full series about this over on my website: http://www.adventuresinwoowoo.com/tag/themhypersigil/
Warlock Asylum: Another talent that you are highly-respected for is music. Can you tell us about your career in such?
Tommie Kelly:I find that the term “critically ignored” is best to describe my music career. I played in lots of rock bands over the years from doing originals to doing covers – recorded some albums and EPs, did lots and lots of touring even played some big festivals in Europe. All great fun though, until it wasn’t.
I also did a lot of solo stuff in my day, that I am so proud of but again, didn’t really go anywhere. The last EP I did two years ago was, for me, and like THEM – as good as I could get it – it sounded pretty much exactly how I wanted it to and I am so ridiculously proud of it. I felt extremely accomplished after that, and still do. But again, only a handful of people ever downloaded or listened to it. In fact, one of my good friends got half way through one song and said “That’s shit!”. What can you do, eh? If anyone wants to hear it, here a link: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/2876468/Four%20Fifty%20Eight.zip
Now, I couldn’t even tell you the last time I seen any of my guitars never mind actually played one of them. Again, like the Comic stuff, that whole part of my life seems to be complete and I don’t miss it in any respect these days.
Warlock Asylum: What advice you give to those who are newly interested in occult science and are trying to find their spiritual path?
Tommie Kelly:Meditate every day. Do Magick every single day. Take notes – keep a diary. Do some stuff exactly the way the book tells you and the do some stuff the way it feels right for you and then compare the two. Learn the basics of Buddhism. Listen to what everyone says but don’t believe anything just because someone said it’s true. Look into personal development ideas. Try to be a better person as much as a better magician. Lastly, don’t be a dick on Occult forums.
Warlock Asylum: What can we expect to hear from Tommie Kelly in the future? Any future projects in the works?
Tommie Kelly:Nothing in the pipeline at the minute other than continuing with the website and trying to develop the blog into something that might be a more valuable resource for people. This website is probably the most popular thing I have done to date so I want to see where that road goes. That said, if it ends up in a Cul De Sac, I’m cool with that too.
Warlock Asylum:After establishing a Necronomicon Religion, what words of wisdom would you like to give to Ninzuwu Practitioners of the Necronomicon Tradition?
Tommie Kelly:The major problem that people seem to have with The Necronomicon is legitimacy – the whole “it’s all made up and therefore useless” thing. As a Chaos Magician I don’t care too much about all that (ALL MAGICK WAS MADE UP at some point by someone – EVERY GRIMOIRE was just made up by someone) I care about whether it works. And the Necronomicon does work, it works exceptionally well.
So my only advice would be not worry about what others say or think. If it works for you and you find success and enjoyment from it, then go for it. Let success be thy proof and all that.
I have had many successful workings and dealings with The Necronomicon and am really looking forward to see what happens next in its story.
Warlock Asylum: Where can our readers find information about your art, music, and writings? Any final thoughts?
Thanks very much, I really enjoyed answering the questions!
On behalf of the Necronomicon Tradition, i would like to send my deepest thanks to Tommie Kelly and his family for the open honest discussion. We wish you all the best on your spiritual endeavors.
