The Book Of Pleasure (Self love) The Psychology of Ecstasy

 Austin Osman Spare,The Book of Pleasure,(1913)

Spare’s “book of pleasure,”subtitled (Self-Love)The Psychology of Ecstasy is a “grimmoire” of great magical import. It’s undeniable “genius” undoubtedly resides in its unprideful righteousness and earthy delivery. Spare’s ethos is set out in whispering arabesques that elucidate his polemic of Self-Love, distilled through the aesthetic of the neither-neither. In Hindu this relates to the concept of neti-neti, literally neither one thing or the other, in translation this relates to a concpt of “inbetweeness,”which is intrinsic to Spare’s system(although he abhorred systems). 

A difficult text, full of blind corners and orobourtic  aphoristics, those who work on it’s auratic contents should deal with it in the manner of a Taoist text which must be worked upon. By careful study they may very well achieve some semblance of the unknown pleasure of which Spare speaks. “so fledge thy wings,ye humble ones”….

Through the gnostic attainment of “supreme bliss,”based on Spare’s dictum, funambulatory(literally a tight-rope walker) pathways are revealed perpetuating clandestine knowledge and otherworldy experiences of freedom, pleasure and power, the answer being to live “Self-Love” now, not hereafter.

The book of pleasure exalts the  foundation of all (left-hand) adeptness in occult thought  (i.e to-day) of our Babylonian 12/60 system. It is the most most lucid of ensorceling magics,nothing easier- yet as difficult as asking a question to one’s soul? What is not written must be arbitrarily guessed through sleight of mind, repressions, obsessions and the idea that one can bend ones will to an original impulse, begatting communion with ones own silent watcher,sensorium and lifeforce.

The grimmoire generates and radiates New Aeon Kaaotic occult strains, in a word-rendering that effulgurates a “less is more” attitude  it radiates these fecundic energies through cryptic prose, possibly induced through trance states and is at least partly automatic.  It is arbitrarily accommodating to the needs of an acolytic attitude which manifests itself in Spare’s terms as “does not matter-need not be.” The book elucidates a complex modus operandi, centring around the notion of the Promethean edict of “stealing the fire from heaven,” for “ultimate wish-fulfillment.” Thus it is Spare’s intention that  the reader  is transformed by the concept of “as if,”re-ified “as now,”by virtue of the neither-neither.

The great secret of the system lies in the symbionce between the atmospheric self(I),”the body considered as a whole,”the Zos(symbolized by the hand) and the Kia which is the playground of the Zos and relates to the communal cosmic mind,(symbolized by the eye).This for myself as an artist is an interesting metaphor for my practice in a way that harnesses initial inspiration, the notion of immediacy and liminality(that pervades my practice) and the execution of my art of which Spare”s practice and current of magic and philosophy is intrinsic. The book, written between the years 1908-1913,is lesser for want of an editor,  yet it’s edict stands righteous and poetic,predating Surrealism by a good twenty years.

The book is illustrated with allegorical plates of sublime symbolism,(such as “the self’s vision of enlightenment,”and “the dwellers at the gates of Silent Memory”)automatic drawings and extracts from the arena of anon complete with sigil’s,a form of sorcery where a magical wish is formed by creating a glyph from ones wish(apart from those letters which repeat themselves)charged with energy,visualized at a  time of disappointment and then destroyed and forgotten by the conscious mind in order for it to be reified in “as now” reality. The “alphabet of desire,” is also utilized which is based on sexual principles reating to nature, one begatting the other.

One of the most interesting item’s in Spare’s “book of pleasure,”is a solo-rite known as the death posture from which I created a short film-loop for my final b.a exhibition. The ritual uses a voluntary ephixiation along with the utter “negation of thought” in order to send the magical wish into the unconscious mind,or what Spare calls the “storehouse of memories.”Although I have only managed the posture symbolically,I am forever attempting it’s fulfilment through my own surreality,to reify “in flesh” what can be found on the astral plane.  

Arguably one of the great and most eccentric and interesting books of the twentieth century,this tome has been a major inspiration to me since I first read it a decade ago. As I have travelled my chosen artistic path it’s meanings have grown within me,continually revealing itself to me again and again. A new hardback limited edition and printed from an original facsimile with Kenneth Grant’s original 1970’s preface, has been made available by London’s Jerusalem Press,I shall be purchasing it.