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The Book of Pleasure (Self-Love): The Psychology of Ecstasy
First published in 1913, this magical book is resplendent with full page symbolist illustrations that represent some of the artist’s most corrosive and beautiful draughtsmanship. It is also festooned with examples of his automatic drawings and sigils, this work has established Spare as a formidable and unique figure in twentieth century western magic.This edition includes the original 1913 introduction by Ernest H.R.Collings and the 1975 introduction by Kenneth Grant.Fine Image This edition reprints all the graphics and half-tone illustrations from a particularly fresh and well printed copy of the first edition. Illustrated endpapers and divider pages feature photomontages of the original book, overprinted with designs by Spare in silk varnish.We have also located an original art work from the book and include a new reproduction for inclusion in this edition.A re-worked version of one of the original illustrations is also featured, alongside Mr Staley’s eulogy to Kenneth Grant and his relationship with this book.
56 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1913
83 people are currently reading
1588 people want to read
About the author
Austin Osman Spare
77 books219 followersAustin 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.
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.
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Displaying 1 - 28 of 28 reviews
January 19, 2022
Was looking for a book about wanking, but got an occult masterpiece instead. Hallucinogenic, vivid and feverish. If you try to understand it, it will change your life.
September 15, 2019
Extremely difficult read, but very empowering. One of my favorites, if not my favorite, book of all time.
February 12, 2018
Nothing is more true than anything else. What are you not-you ever answered truthfully?
March 26, 2023
Inscrutable and highly idiosyncratic, this obscure amalgam presents a view whose flavor is part Dzogchen, part Chan, and part late Tantra. Iconoclastic, Spare refuses to truck with the underground spiritual currents of his day and by bucking trends, manages to give us a glimpse into a bizarre highly personal practice that is stupefying and inspiring.
Also,.at the risk of hubris: after reading this and other Spare, I find myself looking at the more basic "chaos msgick" stuff and thinking "I am not sure this book means what you think it means."
Also,.at the risk of hubris: after reading this and other Spare, I find myself looking at the more basic "chaos msgick" stuff and thinking "I am not sure this book means what you think it means."
August 9, 2022
there will come a time when I will need him
July 25, 2023
A pesar de que la parte relativa a los sigilos y a esa conversación con el subconsciente es sin duda, y cuanto menos, interesante, todo lo previo se me antojó un ejemplo de escritura automática sin ton ni son.
Está claro que soy yo al que le falta conocimiento en esta materia, pero creo que incluso teniéndolo, el lector ha de hacer un gran esfuerzo por entender todo lo que Spare quiere decir, ya que parece que habla más consigo mismo que con el lector.
Está claro que soy yo al que le falta conocimiento en esta materia, pero creo que incluso teniéndolo, el lector ha de hacer un gran esfuerzo por entender todo lo que Spare quiere decir, ya que parece que habla más consigo mismo que con el lector.
January 15, 2023
I had the pleasure of reading it as published by the author, AOS, holding the first edition (London, 1913) in my hands, thanks to the National Library of Wales (LLGCNLW). When I studied at Aberystwyth University, I had a secret curriculum, back in 2007.
October 17, 2014
Thought-provoking musings and techniques from an artist-philosopher true to himself and his vision. If you plan to read it, search for a copy with his inspired symbolic, surrealist illustrations.
Worth to read it several times, letting time pass betwen readings.
Worth to read it several times, letting time pass betwen readings.
February 20, 2021
Like taking a bite of a dry sponge cake with some glacé cherries breaking through the dry expanse
September 27, 2025
Oh, folly of the world, deny thy faith, renounce this Bloody-Sceptred God and confess. Oh, silent watcher, thou sleepless eye of the Universe, watch over the beginning of all my ideas. The misery of the world would seem eternal, whilst I, in the midst, like an infant not yet smiling, am impervious in purity (of self-love) but I dare not claim its service! I am in eternal want of realization, poor though I be, my contentment is beyond your understanding.
others believe in prayer, have not all yet learnt, that to ask is to be denied? let this be the then, the root of your gospel.
be ye mystic.
our asylums are crowded, the stage overrun.
Let him tarry here, who is not strong for the great work. In freedom he might be lost. So fledge your wings fearlessly, ye humble ones!
Oh, God, thou art a stagnant environment. All is quackery.
Something is causing pain and something energizes the agony: may it not be caused through the latent idea of supreme bliss? And this eternal expectation, this amassing of ornament on decay, this ever-abiding thought - is coincidental with the vanity preceding death? O, squalid thought from the most morbid spleen how can I devour thee and save my Soul? Ever did it answer back - Pay homage where due.
Most noble explorers! O, you scientists-go on discovering the Bottomless Pit! When you are sodden with science-the lightning will thunder out the murder? New hope will be born? New creatures for the circus? God-head must ever evolve its inertia for transmutation to its very opposite-because it contains it!
There is no Atheist, no one is free from auto-biography, there is no fearless pleasurist?
Whether God is projected as master by fear or as the dweller within by love Gods we are all the time.
belief is ever its own tempter to believe differently, the man of sorrows is the teacher! I have taught, would I teach myself or thee again? Not for a gift from Heaven!
Clownish that I am, yet all my ideas have come out of it (and my friend, all yours), but ever have I been a sluggard an old sinner who would see others almighty before himself.
gazing at your reflection till it is blurred and you know not the gazer.
may the idea of God perish and with it women: have they not both made me appear clownish?
others believe in prayer, have not all yet learnt, that to ask is to be denied? let this be the then, the root of your gospel.
be ye mystic.
our asylums are crowded, the stage overrun.
Let him tarry here, who is not strong for the great work. In freedom he might be lost. So fledge your wings fearlessly, ye humble ones!
Oh, God, thou art a stagnant environment. All is quackery.
Something is causing pain and something energizes the agony: may it not be caused through the latent idea of supreme bliss? And this eternal expectation, this amassing of ornament on decay, this ever-abiding thought - is coincidental with the vanity preceding death? O, squalid thought from the most morbid spleen how can I devour thee and save my Soul? Ever did it answer back - Pay homage where due.
Most noble explorers! O, you scientists-go on discovering the Bottomless Pit! When you are sodden with science-the lightning will thunder out the murder? New hope will be born? New creatures for the circus? God-head must ever evolve its inertia for transmutation to its very opposite-because it contains it!
There is no Atheist, no one is free from auto-biography, there is no fearless pleasurist?
Whether God is projected as master by fear or as the dweller within by love Gods we are all the time.
belief is ever its own tempter to believe differently, the man of sorrows is the teacher! I have taught, would I teach myself or thee again? Not for a gift from Heaven!
Clownish that I am, yet all my ideas have come out of it (and my friend, all yours), but ever have I been a sluggard an old sinner who would see others almighty before himself.
gazing at your reflection till it is blurred and you know not the gazer.
may the idea of God perish and with it women: have they not both made me appear clownish?
July 16, 2025
this ones less book, more spell. spare writes like hes channeling directly from some sideways dimension where art, will, and flesh blur into one. dont expect clarity-it reads like automatic writing, trance poetry, and raw gnostic download all in one.
but if you feel your way through instead of trying to decode it like a textbook? it lands.
Spare's core idea-that sigils are born from the subconscious and activated through forgetting-is foundational to chaos magick. and hes not just teaching it, hes living it through his words, sketches, and erotic mythos.
he basically says: forget gods. forget tradition. you are the divine source. self-love isnot ego-its sacred force when aligned with will.
i remember reading this and feeling half-lost, half-lit. like i wasnt supposed to “understand” it. i was supposed to absorb it.
the language is dense. archaic. full of made-up terms and spiraling logic. but for those attuned to intuitive gnosis: its pure gold.
read this if youa re down to abandon structure, dive into dream-symbol, and find power in the personal and primal.
but if you feel your way through instead of trying to decode it like a textbook? it lands.
Spare's core idea-that sigils are born from the subconscious and activated through forgetting-is foundational to chaos magick. and hes not just teaching it, hes living it through his words, sketches, and erotic mythos.
he basically says: forget gods. forget tradition. you are the divine source. self-love isnot ego-its sacred force when aligned with will.
i remember reading this and feeling half-lost, half-lit. like i wasnt supposed to “understand” it. i was supposed to absorb it.
the language is dense. archaic. full of made-up terms and spiraling logic. but for those attuned to intuitive gnosis: its pure gold.
read this if youa re down to abandon structure, dive into dream-symbol, and find power in the personal and primal.
April 10, 2020
El método mágico y artístico de un genio olvidado, abuelo no solamente de la magia del caos, si no también del surrealismo, ya que en este libro se encuentran atisbos de métodos luego retomados por Breton, como la escritura automática y el arte como vehículo del subconsciente
February 5, 2021
Taoism as a virulent immanence that accelerates the collapse of opposites.
Self-love as a perpetual-motion machine that disseminates fractal-like.
Belief is the prison of the body cosmos.
Neither-neither.
Self-love as a perpetual-motion machine that disseminates fractal-like.
Belief is the prison of the body cosmos.
Neither-neither.
August 18, 2025
Quirked-up white boy discovers Chinese philosophy, gets tangled up in his own self-importance in a barely comprehensible slurry of text.
In all seriousness, though, I think this book is really only useful in a historical context when evaluating the development of esoteric religion in the West or the transmission of Asian philosophy across the globe. If you're into this sort of thing as such, I don't think you'll find much useful here that isn't far better articulated in the original source material that Spare heavily borrows from (such as the Bhagavad Gita, the Tao Te Ching, or the Upanishads) or even from his contemporaries such as Jung that he, interestingly, expresses such bitterness and resentment towards.
I actually think Spare as a person is very interesting and it's worth noting he was pretty young when he wrote this. My pet theory is that he was an already-successful, egotistical young man at the time of this writing and it wounded him that someone like Jung had already gotten to these concepts first, plus Jung explicated these ideas with a clarity, precision, and nuanced expertise that only someone as knowledgeable as him could. Really, it was a youthful envy thing. Spare was mad he couldn't plant the flag first.
If you are interested in the Western occult tradition, this book is essential to have a familiarity with. But do I think it's a good book *in itself*? Not really. Spare articulates these ideas much better in his drawings, which are phenomenal, and this fact far more closely aligns with his own philosophy about the subject.
RIP Austin Spare you would have loved harsh noise and post-structuralism.
In all seriousness, though, I think this book is really only useful in a historical context when evaluating the development of esoteric religion in the West or the transmission of Asian philosophy across the globe. If you're into this sort of thing as such, I don't think you'll find much useful here that isn't far better articulated in the original source material that Spare heavily borrows from (such as the Bhagavad Gita, the Tao Te Ching, or the Upanishads) or even from his contemporaries such as Jung that he, interestingly, expresses such bitterness and resentment towards.
I actually think Spare as a person is very interesting and it's worth noting he was pretty young when he wrote this. My pet theory is that he was an already-successful, egotistical young man at the time of this writing and it wounded him that someone like Jung had already gotten to these concepts first, plus Jung explicated these ideas with a clarity, precision, and nuanced expertise that only someone as knowledgeable as him could. Really, it was a youthful envy thing. Spare was mad he couldn't plant the flag first.
If you are interested in the Western occult tradition, this book is essential to have a familiarity with. But do I think it's a good book *in itself*? Not really. Spare articulates these ideas much better in his drawings, which are phenomenal, and this fact far more closely aligns with his own philosophy about the subject.
RIP Austin Spare you would have loved harsh noise and post-structuralism.
February 2, 2024
“Belief is the fall from the Absolute. What are you going to believe? Truth seeks its own negation. Different aspects are not the truth, nor are they necessary to truth. Of its emanations which are you to strangle at birth? Are you illegitimate? You believe in right and wrong- what punishment will you determine? Can you escape the driving "Must"? Who can escape boredom without change? Who remain single and content! What man among you is large and free enough to encompass his "self"? Your belief obfuscates lineage. Ambition is smallness — your customed environment. Remember, time is an unstudied imagination of the experienced. What may be called the early experience was its completion, so of learning there is no finis. What you learn to-morrow is determined by what you have done — the accomplished lesson of yesterday. Never learning today what you can do tomorrow is called loss, but is theft from time, wholesomeness and rejuvenescence. Repeat this delay again and again till you arrive at spontaneity, chance in safety. The pursuit of learning (believing) is the grotesque incubator of stupidity.”
December 31, 2022
Sorprendentemente poderoso en la paradoja que construye, no se parece a nada que conozca y aún así contiene elementos discursivos y símbolos bien conocidos que comparten muchas de las religiones más difundidas. Es un libro que en cada párrafo parece generar una especie de rapto que induce a meditar largamente sobre las afirmaciones que hace Austin; de difícil lectura, a veces, polémico; cautivadoramente sencillo y complejo al mismo tiempo. Sorprende lo innovadoras que resultan sus ideas para el año en que fue escrito (1913).
Comparto una cita: “ La concepción de 'Yo no soy' debe por necesidad seguir a la concepción de 'Yo soy', debido a su gramática (...). El reconocimiento de dolor como tal, implica la idea de placer, y así con todas las ideas. A través de esta dualidad, dejémosle recordar reírse en todo momento, reconocer todas las cosas, resistir nada; entonces no hay conflicto, incompatibilidad, ni compulsión”
Comparto una cita: “ La concepción de 'Yo no soy' debe por necesidad seguir a la concepción de 'Yo soy', debido a su gramática (...). El reconocimiento de dolor como tal, implica la idea de placer, y así con todas las ideas. A través de esta dualidad, dejémosle recordar reírse en todo momento, reconocer todas las cosas, resistir nada; entonces no hay conflicto, incompatibilidad, ni compulsión”
June 1, 2021
Better read after learning the context of Thelema, the HOGD, and pre-GD masonry.
Spare is critical of western occultism, and defines a number of terms which he uses to share his personal philosophy and practice.
It isn't an easy read, but familiarity with Stirner and the Dao De Jing also helps as it can be syncretized.
Spare is critical of western occultism, and defines a number of terms which he uses to share his personal philosophy and practice.
It isn't an easy read, but familiarity with Stirner and the Dao De Jing also helps as it can be syncretized.
November 17, 2021
To be honest, most of this book is nonsense, but it's interesting nonsense. It does make for entertaining reading (drink every time he writes 'verily'!) and I found Spare's anachronistic writing style to be quite endearing at times. The chapters on Sigils and Automatic Drawing were quite good and will probably be useful in forming my thoughts on the subjects.
June 2, 2022
Essential reading for contemporary occultists
In The Book Of Pleasure, Spare lays out his esoteric philosophy and explains his technique of creating sigils as a means of manipulating one's reality. This book isn't an easy read (thanks to Spare's stream-of-consciousness prose style), but definitely worth reading slowly and digesting.
In The Book Of Pleasure, Spare lays out his esoteric philosophy and explains his technique of creating sigils as a means of manipulating one's reality. This book isn't an easy read (thanks to Spare's stream-of-consciousness prose style), but definitely worth reading slowly and digesting.
June 8, 2023
Rambling Piece of a Poor Writer
Spare writes sporadically with little focus other than to denigrate Christianity by using religious terminology associated with Abrahamic faiths. I was seeking something more profound than a rambling downplay on the church and an up play on the glories of self-centeredness.
Spare writes sporadically with little focus other than to denigrate Christianity by using religious terminology associated with Abrahamic faiths. I was seeking something more profound than a rambling downplay on the church and an up play on the glories of self-centeredness.
January 29, 2023
I don't really see how this book helps as it is written is a rather inaccessible manner. I might as well read Spare's original book. We need a version of this book in plain English.
March 22, 2023
One of the Keys.
October 31, 2024
I dont think there is nothing to see here, maybe it made sense when it was first published but didnt stand the test of time
January 25, 2025
La iniciación para todo mago del caos :)
May 25, 2025
infumable
September 7, 2024
This book has one or two interesting ideas, ideas that have been better realized in Taoist or Buddhist texts. Unfortunately, the rest of the book is pure drivel. The author certainly has a chip on his shoulder and spends far too much time explaining why religion, rich people, and women are bad.
The other major problem with this book is the writing is awful. The author is unable to convey what he wants to say in an effective way, and so falls back on mystical nonsense. You can flip to any page in this book and find a sentence that has absolutely zero meaning.
The other major problem with this book is the writing is awful. The author is unable to convey what he wants to say in an effective way, and so falls back on mystical nonsense. You can flip to any page in this book and find a sentence that has absolutely zero meaning.
May 27, 2024
Finished a book today. I came across Austin Osman Spare when I did some research on Sigils. Now 75 % of the book did go over my head but with that said I did enjoy the book. I would recommend reading it slowly.
June 9, 2021
Rico en simbolismo y muy sugerente. No obstante, en ciertos momentos es de difícil lectura en algunos momentos donde parece que el autor practica la escritura automática.
Displaying 1 - 28 of 28 reviews