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Rob Young, in his essential Electric Eden, describes as Barrett being βstrangely pushed and pulled between nostalgia for the secret garden of a childβs imagination and the space-age futurism of interstellar overdrive.β Barrett was channeling a spirit that was trying to pierce the veil between these worlds, and while this nostalgia and futurism, as Young puts it, seem opposed, they are actually two ideas at the heart of magic. The practice of magic is one requiring a link to the past and a vision of the future. Barrett added this directly to the lyrics of his songs and his live performances, experimenting with light and sound in an attempt to work the audience into a trance. The method is new, but the intention is ancient.
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