The Pocket Austin Osman Spare

by Austin Osman Spare, Jake Dirnberger

Working on the cutting edge of both magic and art, Austin Osman Spare developed a unique synthesis of older ritual magic systems with post-modern, erotic, and surrealist themes. His theory of magic eschews complex formula and ritual to favor creativity, spontaneity, and ecstasy, embracing artistic expression and alternative sexualities. Collected here are some of Spare’s most important works. Though dense and esoteric, these texts bear repeated study by the serious occultist, for they speak to the human drives that make real magic possible.

Genres: Occult, Magick, Nonfiction, Religion, Magic, Philosophy

230 pages, Paperback

Published January 22, 2020

About the author

Austin Osman Spare was an English artist who developed idiosyncratic magical techniques including automatic writing, automatic drawing and sigilization based on his theories of the relationship between the conscious and unconscious self. His artistic work is characterized by skilled draughtsmanship exhibiting a complete mastery of the use of the line[1], and often employs monstrous or fantastic magical and sexual imagery.

Some of Spare's techniques, particularly the use of sigils and the creation of an "alphabet of desire" were adopted, adapted and popularized by Peter J. Carroll in the work Liber Null & Psychonaut . Carroll and other writers such as Ray Sherwin are seen as key figures in the emergence of some of Spare's ideas and techniques as a part of a magical movement loosely referred to as Chaos magic.

Reviews

[Chase Griffin]

I highly recommend The Pocket Austin Osman Spare, especially if you're into the occult and esoterica. AOS is an interesting and underrated mystical fellow, as important and illuminating as Crowley and Madame Blavatsky.

[Brendan]

Given the general dearth of easily-available Spare material, this collection is an excellent overview. I wish more of his material, most especially his art, was more readily available somewhere outside the collector’s market.

[Dr Jelly Head]

Reading something like this is difficult to rate or review, because they're not exactly conventional writings of a conventional mind. Osman Spare is incredibly interesting, no doubt, but how many of his thoughts I currently value is another question. I'm trying to keep an open mind here, that's what chaos magick is about, right? It just sort of spoils the intellectual mood when there are side remarks about women being fraudulent and inferior all over the place. Not really that open-minded and unconventional if you're sticking to those sexist values of the day, hm? Even if you are being somewhat homoerotic about it?

Maybe this is something for me to come back to in the future once I understand AOS as a character more. Maybe I'm doomed to perceive these publications as poorly written ramblings for the rest of time. I feel for him on a certain level, I have had many of the same thoughts and know that he is trying to verbalise things that cannot be verbalised, but the result of this is that what you're saying is rather difficult to put any value on when overly obfuscated by ornamental vocabularies.

The edition itself is great if Spare's writings are what you're looking for. It includes four texts and an introduction from the editor.

[Bill Wallace]

I'm interested in Spare as a personality of his era but figured reading some of his work would be a good way to learn more about him. As with so much occult "instruction," reading these tracts is like wading through alien sludge -- far more fun I imagine to hear as a sermon than to try and make sense of when lack of sense (in the usual sense) is essential for grasping the sense. All that is obscure shall remain obscure. That said, I'm not sorry I read these because some of the more playful passages are a lot of fun and at least I have a grasp of his particular jargon. Now to find an affordable biography.

[Christian Rettig]

To paraphrase Last Podcast On The Left, this is the last book on chaos magick that anyone learning about chaos magick should read, and I certainly agree with that sentiment. Nevertheless, I do enjoy reading this volume, which combines three of his writings, and this is a heady read that had me taking my time reading through. I do not recommend this to people who are not serious about maters related to magick.

[Lachrymarvm_Library]

I first came across the name of Austin Osman Spare when I was reading “Promethea” by Alan Moore (a graphic novel and fantastic introduction to Magick / Western Occultism). Then I began to hear his name associated with Sigils and something called Chaos Magick. Intrigued, I got this collection of four of his major works: “Anathema of Zos” (1927), “The Book of Pleasure (Self Love)” (1913), “The Focus of Life” (1921), and “Formulae of Zos Vel Thanatos” (also 1921? – I genuinely cannot confirm publication date). It made me quite happy that this ‘pocket edition’ really does fit in my pockets! It’s a pet peeve of mine when books are sold as ‘pocket’ versions but are actually kinda big…

My favorites were “Pleasure” and “Formulae” because these contained the sections that deal most with Sigils, which was my main interest coming in. They bear repeat reading for better understanding, I’m sure, but Austin Spare describes a blissful / inspirational state called KIA that he accesses through yoga-like forms, such as ‘The Death Posture’ – He also describes the power of Sigils to essentially re-program your subconscious mind to bring about your desires. Interestingly, Spare was a contemporary of Aleister Crowley, and was briefly in his A.A. order before leaving over disillusionment with what he saw as unnecessarily elaborate rituals/tools. Spare was more minimalist, and saw Sigils and the Will as primary ways to accomplishing Magick. Austin Spare did not call this “chaos magick” in his lifetime, but his work with Sigils, as I understand, has been highly influential to this new(er) branch of esotericism.

“Anathema” and “Focus” felt especially like reading Nietzsche, to me. Not exactly in content (though there is some overlap with the Will) but moreso in tone and style. So if you enjoy reading Nietzsche (or if you don’t), that may suggest if you’ll be more or less open to this. There are ‘aphorisms’ (Nietzsche loved these, too). It especially made me think of ‘Zarathustra’ at times…

Overall the writing of Austin Osman Spare is dense, cryptic, written often with more poetry than clarity, but still containing flashes of brilliance. I honestly think I had an easier time understanding Crowley, and that’s saying something! He was a sort of post-modern occultist of his time, and also an early surrealist artist, before that term existed. This particular edition contains some black and white reproductions of his artwork, however they honestly do little justice to the quality of the works – much better reproductions in higher resolution can easily be found online, and I encourage anyone interested in Austin Spare to do so. The art seems to go hand in hand with the mysticism and even the sex magick that Spare was experimenting with. But in fairness, at least the Sigils are rendered clearly in this ‘pocket edition’...
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[Jean-Pierre Vidrine]

This book is sort of an anomaly for me. I'm not certain how many insights into Spare's kind of chaos magic I really got from the text, but I can't deny that I genuinely enjoyed reading it.
Spare's words here swing between being informative, poetic, curmudgeonly, humorous, and baffling.
It is an interesting book that, if nothing else, feels like getting a hefty dose of chaos in one's mind. Maybe that's the point.

[Delightful]

The most incomprehensible book I've read since Dee's Heiroglyphic Monad. if you want a taste of what an insane Lovecraftian tome would read like, this seems rather close. Occasional phrases of potency surrounded by a sea of arcane gibbering. Better to just read a precis of his thought and practice and influence.

[Tepintzin]

Groundbreaking, but also obscure. Phil Hines is a better introductory read.