Tag Archives: Austin Osman Spare
Moore’s Mages
Earlier this week I came across a cool post on the Confidentials site that featured comic book legend/sorcerer supreme Alan Moore talking about the history of Western esoteric traditions and giving a list of his top five mystics and magicians. Here’s a bit about the poet/artist/gnostic prophet William Blake… Blake summed up the artistic, anarchic [...]
Celebrating Spare
Austin Osman Spare was a British artist and chaos magician whose work was all but forgotten before author and occultist Kenneth Grant published Spare’s books like: Zos Speaks! Encounters with Austin Osman Spare, Fulgur Limited, 1998; Images and Oracles of Austin Osman Spare, Fulgur Limited, 2003; Borough Satyr, The Life and Art of Austin Osman [...]
Austin Osman Song
Chaos magic is the emergent discipline of the occult revival of the 21st century, and chaos magic pioneer Austin Osman Spare is its spotlighted personality. Spare died in mostly-anonymous squalor in 1956, but in this new era his cult of personality is second only to Crowley, and his magical concepts and haunted art continue to [...]
The Witch of Kings Cross
This year we’re remembering the passing of Rosaleen Norton, 35 years ago in 1979. The infamous Australian occultist and artist lived the bohemian life of an artist in the red light district of Kings Cross, Sydney. Norton lived openly as a witch and created then-shocking paintings that found her demonized in the tabloids and targeted [...]
Austin Spare: Chaos and Cats
Austin Osman Spare was many people including both an enfant terrible in the London art world at the beginning of the 20th century, and one of the pioneering forerunners of contemporary occultism. Wiki has the basics… Visionary artist and mystic Austin Osman Spare, who was briefly a member of Aleister Crowley’s A∴A∴ but later broke [...]
My Pleasure
The Book of Pleasure (Self Love): The Psychology of Ecstasy may be the cornerstone of Austin Osman Spare’s written output as the book includes his first mentions of his groundbreaking ideas regarding sigil work and invocations. Originally published in 1913, facsimile editions of this book have been released as recently as 2005. I still love [...]
Grant Books Spare
A controversial magician and writer, Kenneth Grant left his mark on the landscape of modern occultism. Grant’s book The Magical Revival plays a seminal role in the interpretation of H.P. Lovecraft’s mythos – casting the fantastic tales as spiritual revelations and not just creepy monster epics. Grant also takes credit for bringing the occultist/artist Austin [...]
Ready. Set. Chaos!
Happened across the new The Invisibles Omnibus edition on Amazon today. Hope to get my hands on that for a review on the podcast soon. I read the series in TPB form years ago, following all the details with the excellent Anarchy For The Masses: The Disinformation Guide to the Invisibles. I was reminded of [...]
