Pearl Jam frontman Eddie Vedder recently had an in Conversation event with Damien Echols about HIGH MAGICK, a guide to the Spiritual Practices That Saved My Life on Death Row (released by Sounds True) at The Neptune Theatre, Seattle on Nov. 19, 2018. Vedder opened the show discussing finding out about tragic shootings just before the show. Alternative Nation transcribed his comments.
“Let me say on the way in tonight I heard about an active shooter in Chicago at a hospital, a hospital called Mercy Hospital ironically, right down the street from the hospital I was born at in Chicago. Then my phone buzzed with another something in Denver that was maybe on a smaller scale.
I just wanted to say as a matter of civic pride this city just voted in some of the strictest gun safety laws in the country. It might not be the absolute solution, but it’s obviously the most logical place to start, and I hope good things happen here and we can set an example for the rest of the country. We should be very proud of that.”
At age 18, Damien Echols was sentenced to death for a crime he didn’t commit. “I spent my years in prison training to be a true magician,” he writes. “I used magick – the practice of reshaping reality through our intention and will – to stave off incredible pain, despair, and isolation but the most amazing feat of all that practice and study was to manifest my freedom.” With HIGH MAGICK, this bestselling author shares his first teaching book on the powerful spiritual techniques that helped him survive and transcend his ordeal on death row.
What is High Magick? Most people either think of magic as stage illusions or an occult practice involving dark rituals. “Magick is an incredible deep, meaningful, spiritual tradition that equals the Eastern practices of Buddhism and Taoism in beauty,” says Echols. “It’s an ancient discipline that lets you literally change reality by working with the divine energies of creation.”
