by Kenneth Grant
First published in The Carfax Monographs, NO. IV, 1961
Austin Osman Spare, a painter and draughtsman of great skill and
originality, carried out researches in the sphere of occultism which
have remained until now almost unknown to the world at large. On his
death in 1956, however, a great quantity of material was discovered
which throws much light on the psycho-magical philosophy, which he
expressed largely through the medium of his art.
I have presented the main points of this philosophy in a book which
is nearing completion (see note 1), but here are some of its
essential features minus the large quantity of quotations drawn from
unpublished material which Spare bequeathed to me at the time of his
death.
When referring to himself in relation to his magical philosophy
Spare usually identified himself with a concept which he named Zos,
and he is alluded to as such throughout this essay.
He explained this concept in The Book of Pleasure (1913) thus: "The
body considered as a whole I call Zos"; it was the alembic through
which he wrought the alchemy of his art as well as his no less
individualistic mode of magic. The symbol complementary to this Zos
concept he called the Kia or Atmospheric 'I', which uses Zos as its
special field of activity. The cult of the Zos and the Kia is the
cult of the interplay of dynamic forces which are further symbolised
anthropomorphically by the hand and the eye. These, in complete co-
ordination, enable the artist-magician to summon hidden images which
are latent in the storehouse of cosmic sub-consciousness. All-
feeling Touch and all-seeing Vision are the instruments of that
primal id, or desire, which Zos is ever seeking to reify in the
raiment of flesh.
It is Zos's basic theory that all dream or desire, all wish or
belief, anything in fact which a person nurtures in his inmost being
may be called forth in the flesh as a living truth by a particular
method of magical evocation. This he named 'atavistic resurgence';
it is a method of wish-fulfilment which involves the interaction of
will, desire and belief.
Firstly, the will must be strong enough to probe the depths of
latent and cosmic memory until a required atavism is located.
Secondly, the desire for reification must be strong enough to clothe
the image of the will in a form sufficiently attractive to inspire
nexus. Thirdly, a quantity of belief or faith must be freed for
activity in the latent depths so that profound and nostalgic
stirrings of awareness cause a violent series of impacts which
create a shock of identity. The resulting ecstasy incarnates the
latent desire into patent actuality and power.
This is the aim of almost all forms of magic but a difference here
lies in the simplicity of the method employed, requiring as it does
no ceremonial equipment or the participation of a concourse of
adepts. The specific desire for which any given magical operation is
designed must be visualised subconsciously, while the conscious mind
is rendered oblivious to the process. When any concept intrudes upon
the mind it breeds on contact with it, and there always remains part
of an idea which, because it meaning is cryptic and therefore
enigmatic to the ordinary consciousness, fecundates the
subconsciousness. By observing what occurs to this conceptual
residue Zos was able to build up a system of sigils which
facilitated entry of the total desire to subliminal realms, there to
search out its own level and germinate secretly and unobtrusively.
Any wish may be given symbolic form, but in this case the form
should bear no pictorial approximation to the particular desire in
question. By magical means the symbol may then be implanted in the
subconsciousness, there to await ultimate extrusion as reified fact
after having by-passed the conscious censor and attracted all the
necessary elements from the external world. It is, however, of the
utmost importance that the conscious mind may conceive nothing from
such a symbol.
Three methods of awakening subconscious memory-strata have been
evolved by Zos: the system of sigils, the alphabet of desire, and
the use of sentient symbols. Examples of all three methods may be
seen in the accompanying illustration from the author's collection.
A brief explanation of their working here follows.
The use of sigils: Enshrine your desire in a short sentence; write
out the sentence and then put down all the individual letters of
which it is composed, omitting any repetition of a letter. When the
sentence has been reduced to a minimum number of letters, unite them
graphically in one composite glyph which does not suggest the nature
of the desire. Then - and this is of great importance - forget the
desire and sink the sigil in the subconsciousness.
In the alphabet of desire each letter represents a 'sensation
thinking,' an aesthetic concept localized in a stratum of past
memory appropriate to its form and nature. This subtle alphabet can
be used to call forth elemental automata and the spirits of other
spheres.
The third method evolved by Zos, namely sentient symbols, concerns
itself especially with prophecy and divination. By a form of Delphic
Oracle involving the use of sigils and by intruding a sigil into the
subconsciousness, it is able to think for us, and, if the sigil
resumes a query concerning some future event, will breed from its
own sentiency the true child of its symbolic parts. If a glyph is
correctly constructed so that no superfluous elements remain to
breed useless ramifications, it will - surely as a geometrical
symbol - give birth to its own truth or answer, for every query
whatever has its solution inherent within it.
These three systems of symbolism are not the only contribution Zos
has made to the field of practical magic; he also evolved the
concept of the Death Posture or New Sexuality, that oblique approach
to reality which he calls the 'precarious funambulatory pathway
between ecstasies.
It is too early yet to say how Zos's influence will be incorporated
into the main body of occultism; it tends rather to dispense with
tradition than to draw upon it, stressing the individual and unique
approach to reality so that only the mind which is concept-free is
great enough to embrace it. Tradition can only be that form of
belief which, being fixed and past, no longer harbours dynamic
possibilities; Zos often refers to tradition as 'the inferno of the
normal,' the convention of empty belief or the crystallized belief
of others, of our past selves, which can but imprison and not
release vitality.
Zos locates the apprehension of reality in the lightning-
swift 'inbetweeness' reciprocation between the dual terminals of ego
and self. Ego being the self as it is at the moment, perpetually
melting into a background awareness of an illimitable ego, or self,
which is neither fixed belief nor desire toward any other form of
energy which is released when the ego breaks up and dissolves. It
is, in fact, the 'neither-neither' or Atmospheric 'I' which is both
fluidic and fixed in a unity of voidness free from conception; a
state of seity unconceived and inconceivable. Hence the self
represents desire; the ego, the belief incarnating; 'Does not
matter - Need not be' (a much reiterated formula of Zos) suggesting
the thisness of which ego is at any given moment a merely fleeting
reification of limited concept, bereft of true reality. 'Does not
matter - Need not be' signifies that which ego cannot contain or
conceive.
The subject and object, ego and id relationship represents in Zos's
doctrine the 'as now' and 'as if' phases of the I's excreation in
matter as refracted through the mind. The 'I' is increative,
conceptless and ever free; but when experiencing itself in terms of
imagined concepts such as time and space it assumes the dual role of
ego and id, whose interplay constitutes a symbolic 'rehearsal of
reality' in the world of ideas.
It is the imagination which is supreme, for without this mysterious
power or faculty, which is in a sense the mind-in-movement- through-
time-and-space, there can be no ego and no id, no subjective
apprehension of surrounding phenomena and no objective universe of
infinite variety.
The art of Austin Osman Spare is not other than the _expression of
the Zos through which the Kia rehearses its dream of reality. And to
what end? For pleasure. Bliss might perhaps be a more apt
_expression, although it suggests rather a passive state of
acquiescence in intense happiness than a positive and vibrant joy.
Ecstasy and rapture are equally applicable terms.
The ceremonial magician sets his stage for the rehearsal of reality
with all the traditional weapons; but Zos maintains that this is
unnecessary mummery, because the apprehension of our greater
realities is to be effected consciously through living the symbolic
simulations of the ego 'as if' they were real, not as a mock
rehearsal, but as a spontaneous evocation within the magic circle of
immediacy - now. This resembles but does not equate with the
doctrine of Zen Buddhism. Whereas the Zen process shocks the mind
into inactivity so that the individualized cosmic energy may flow
unhindered into the ocean of absolute consciousness, in Zos Kia
Cultus it is the body which is rendered affective to implusions of
cosmic wave, so that 'on becoming all sensation' it realises all
things as flesh and in the flesh.
The term flesh denotes in this context the fully conscious awareness
of the Atmospheric 'I' - the 'neither-neither' principle, now, in
the all-pervading body of the present. A traditionally symbolic form
of this concept is encountered in Tibetan Buddhism under the Yab-Yum
image, which is a representation of the Kia rehearsing its blissful
contact with the Zos or 'body-considered as a whole.' The Kia is
present everywhere, but the immediacy of its realisation is sought
through the flesh, as in Zen it is apprehended through the mind. The
object is the same in both methods, but the means appear to vary.
There is actually no difference in the organ of awareness whether
considered as body or as mind.
A symbol is a certain mystical sense identical with that which it
symbolizes. A true symbol should be a perfect vehicle for the sum
total of energy which goes to inform it; it is thus equal to that
which it symbolizes because its energy becomes infinite when belief
in it is vital. Belief, to be effective, must be vital, dynamic; it
must work subconsciously even to the extent of its denial in
consciousness. When it is vitalized by being sunk into subliminal
depths it bypasses the ego, is suppressed by the censor and thereby
forgotten; hence desire is aroused and this exhausts the conscious
content of belief. Absentmindedness then becomes the means of its
apotheosis.
Zos suggests through ambiguities which do not consciously formulate
the object of desire but create its presence by subtle evocations;
he is always oblique, never direct, for openly to acknowledge belief
allows the ego to conceive from the symbolic form of that with which
the poet MallarmŽ, whose method of suggestive evocation arouses
sensations and meanings quite foreign to the words by which they are
seemingly communicated.
Two other factors of importance are Free Belief and Exhaustion. Any
symbol is a limitation of belief, or energy, by its own particular
form and nature. In order to release the energy of belief, its form
or symbol has to be destroyed so that the quantity of belief which
is enshrined becomes free to merge with the belief-potential of the
believer, which is - ultimately - infinite. When this is achieved,
belief becomes free and vast enough to contain reality itself.
One method of freeing belief is by intense disappointment,
particularly through loss of faith in a friend, religion, or the
shattering of some ideal. When fundamental disappointment is
experienced, the symbol enshrining the quota of belief is destroyed.
In some cases the individual is unable to survive the
disillusionment. But if at times the moment is seized upon and
consciously experienced for its own sake, the vacuum attracts into
itself the entire content of belief inherent in the person at the
time of disappointment.
On a smaller scale, though still with great magical effect, the void
moments succeeding any type of emotional exhaustion or shock may be
similarly utilized. It is preferable, of course, to exhaust the
psyche through pleasant means, although - as the Buddha declared -
sorrow is one of the greatest single factors leading to introversion
of the mental faculties to their source, and therefore to the real.
So long as the mind thinks, imagines or conceives, there are
symbols; and so long as symbols endure, conceptions proceed from
them. Freedom from form and its limitations occurs only when the Kia
remains alone and when the Zos realizes the extent of itself; for
when 'the body as a whole' fully realizes its extent - which is
infinite and eternal - then is it one with the Kia or
Atmospheric 'I.'
Two other fundamental factors that render Spare's system in terms of
primal magic, as it were a new obeah or science of resurgent
atavisms, are obsession and ecstasy. The subconciousness,
impregnated with any given glyph, must be energized obsessively by
continual ecstasies, on the theory that the primal depth resounds to
old nostalgias reliving their original beliefs. The alphabet of
desire, with each letter representing a vital principle, is
primarily adapted for tapping deep currents of ecstasy, and when the
full flowering of the obsessional idea is effected, the explosion of
bliss is itself the fulfilment of Zos.
NOTES
1. Published as Images and Oracles of Austin Osman Spare, 1975.
Reprinted 2003.
Fulgur Limited. Articles on AO Spare
Spare too was able occasionally to conjure thought-forms to visible appearance, but whereas in the old witch's case it was an unfailing power, in his own case it was erratic and uncertain. On one occasion it worked only too effectively, as two unfortunate persons learnt to their cost. They were of the dilettante kind, mere dabblers in the occult. They wanted Spare to conjure an Elemental to visible appearance. They had seen materialized spirits of the dead in the seance room, but had never seen an Elemental. Spare tried to dissuade them, explaining that such creatures were subconscious automata inhabiting the human psyche at levels normally inaccessible to the conscious mind. As they almost always embodied atavistic urges and propensities, it was an act of folly to evoke them as their intrusion into waking life could be extremely dangerous. But the smatterers did not take him seriously.
Using his own method of elemental evocation, Spare set to work. Nothing happened for some time, then a greenish vapour, resembling fluid seaweed, gradually invaded the room. Tenuous fingers of mist began to congeal into a definite, organized shape. It entered their midst, gaining more solidity with each successive moment. The atmosphere grew miasmic with its presence and an overpowering stench accompanied it; and in the massive cloud of horror that enveloped them, two pinpoints of fire glowed like eyes, blinking in an idiot face which suddenly seemed to fill all space. As it grew in size the couple panicked and implored Spare to drive the thing away. He banished it accordingly. It seemed to crinkle and diminish, then it fell apart like a blanket swiftly disintegrating. But while it had cohered and hung in the room like a cloud, it was virtually opaque and tangible; and it reeked of evil. Both the people concerned were fundamentally changed. Within weeks, one died of no apparent cause; the other had to be committed to an insane asylum.
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