Austin Osman Spare
Austin Osman Spare
Austin Osman Spare (1886–1956) was a British artist, occultist, and visionary mystic best known for pioneering the use of personal symbolism, automatic drawing, and the magical practice of sigilization. His work bridges the worlds of Asemic Writing, Energetic Symbols, Signs & Sigils, and deep subconscious exploration, laying the foundation for what would later become known as Chaos Magic.
Spare's unique fusion of art and occultism has earned him the title of a "sorcerer-artist"—a visionary who translated altered states of consciousness into potent visual forms.
Early Life and Artistic Brilliance
Austin Osman Spare was born in London, England, on December 30, 1886. A child prodigy in the arts, he was accepted into the Royal College of Art while still a teenager. His artistic style, surreal and dreamlike, was heavily influenced by:
- Symbolism and Decadent Art
- Classical and anatomical studies
- Mysticism, the unconscious, and Eastern philosophy
He gained early recognition in the London art scene, but his later work leaned increasingly toward the esoteric and the occult, which distanced him from mainstream audiences.
Occult Philosophy and Personal Symbolism
Spare's magical worldview centered around the idea of bypassing conscious thought to access deep reservoirs of power within the subconscious mind.
Key concepts include:
- The Kia – A state of primal consciousness or ultimate self beyond ego and duality
- Self-love and self-deification – A mystical embrace of the self as divine
- Sigils – Abstract symbols encoding personal desires, created and released through altered states
- The Alphabet of Desire – A personal, ritualized script designed to communicate directly with the subconscious
His core belief was that true magical power does not come from external systems, but from inner vision and direct experience.
The Art of Sigil Magic
Spare's most influential legacy is his method of sigilization, which involves:
- Writing down a specific desire
- Removing repeating letters
- Rearranging the remaining letters into a new symbol
- Charging the sigil through gnosis (trance, ecstasy, or meditative absorption)
- Forgetting the sigil to allow it to work subconsciously
This intuitive and personal approach to magic strongly influenced the later Chaos Magic movement.
Relation to Asemic Writing
Much of Spare’s visual language is inherently asemic—bearing no literal meaning yet loaded with spiritual and emotional intention. His drawings often feature hybrid beings, dreamlike anatomy, and flowing calligraphic glyphs that seem to emerge from altered states of consciousness.
His work reflects the archetypal, visionary, and dreamlike realms explored in Mind and Spirit studies and Archetypes.
Publications and Influence
Some of Spare's notable works include:
- The Book of Pleasure (Self-Love: The Psychology of Ecstasy) – his magnum opus, outlining the principles of his magic
- The Focus of Life – a poetic and philosophical treatise on consciousness and creativity
- Anathema of Zos – a mystical manifesto of rebellion, magic, and liberation
Spare's ideas were largely forgotten after his death but were revived in the 1970s and 1980s by magicians like Peter J. Carroll and Ray Sherwin, founders of the Chaos Magic movement.
Legacy and Revival
Today, Spare is recognized as:
- A pioneer of personal gnosis in occult practice
- The spiritual ancestor of Chaos Magick
- A visionary artist whose style anticipates surrealism, asemic art, and automatic drawing
- A mystic who saw art as magic and magic as a form of liberated creativity
His ideas are now integrated into various modern esoteric practices, including:
- Sigil Construction
- Energetic Symbols, Signs & Sigils
- Meditation and trance work
- Shadow Integration
- Consciousness Studies
Quotes
"Art is the expression of the invisible by means of the visible."
"Does not matter, need not be."
"Sigils are the magic of desire made visible to the soul."
See Also
- Sigils
- Chaos Magic
- Energetic Symbols, Signs & Sigils
- Asemic Writing
- Mind and Spirit
- Archetypes
- Occult Studies
- Carl Gustav Jung (for ideas around archetypes and subconscious imagery)