Austin Osman Spare: The Occult Life of London's Legendary Artist Paperback – February 4, 2014

Excellent biography about the man Art History forgot, Austin Osman Spare. Much of what the Surrealists did can be found in Spare's art and writing, decades before. Not only was Spare's art groundbreaking and revolutionary but he was equally pioneering in the realms of Esoteric and Occult studies. The currently popular Chaos Magick movement is enormously in Spare's debt, and the originators of Chaos Magick, people such as Phile Hine and Peter Carrol acknowledge their debt to him. Besides being the Godfather of both Surrealism and Chaos Magick, Spare's life was fascinating. Phil Baker's biography is equally fascinating, putting the reader into the time and place of Spare's London right away and one never feels ever leaving that time and place, following Spare's life decade after decade with ease and swiftness.Spare is perhaps one of the most overlooked historical figures of the 20th century. As Alan Moore says, Spare was perhaps the most important Magician of the 20th century (and thus he's saying this with the knowledge that yes Aleister Crowley was in the 20th century too ...), and also one of the greatest artists of his time, despite few people even knowing about him. Austin Osman Spare: The Occult Life of London's Legendary Artist is a MUST for ANYONE interested in art history and Esoteric practices. I also highly recommend it to anyone who is not particularly knowledgable about either field. Spare's life and work is immediate and dramatic and entertaining. His art can connect in a way to anyone that much art of the 20th century cannot. His occult philosophy is also able to connect to anyone in a way that makes the practice of Magick personal and very doable. This biography by Baker is WAY overdo and its nice to see the first major biography on Spare is as excellent as this one.

Phil's book does so much to warn of the dangers of a life of the mind. it's almost immaterial whether Spare was a believer or not - Baker clearly is - because the tale is told with such intellectual richness that we become removed from the magic-through-atheism continuum and learn, through Baker's sober but learned guiding hand, that even if it stops at the living brain... be scared, very scared indeed... for your sanity.

Austin Osman Spare always seemed like an illusive figure when I was younger, not being able to find much information about him but things about his system of magick, or the use of the phrase Zos Kia Cultus but after reading this biography several things were clarified for me.

This is a decent book, but it suffers the problem that it is about a depressing, unhealthy individual. The book does well in presenting a chronological account of Spare's life, replete with anecdotes and illustrations of his art, but the author simply takes a descriptive, surface view of Spare's art which I feel is too uncritical and unpsychological, and I believe the author could have done more to call into question the value of Magical and artistic "accomplishments" made at the expense of one's physical and mental health. As well, I haven't read anything about Austin Spare written by a woman, and considering the fact that Spare sexually fetishized elderly, ugly women, and that his art features naked women in bleak, empty and tormented landscapes where they seem out of place, it's my view that a feminine perspective on Spare's art is needed. Austin Osman Spare is viewed by many as an important figure in the history of Magic in modern times, and he did develop techniques involving the use of Sigils in Magical practice, which are important to many today as Sigil Magic has become more widely known and practiced. However, it is difficult to read anything by or about Spare without becoming depressed, and I think the most healthy of us will feel the most repulsion about him.Spare was a man always in poor health, who suffered from anemia and bronchitis, high blood pressure and gallstones before he died of a burst appendix. In the opinion of the last doctor who attended him, he had neglected himself for some time. He had a grey pallor, which led visitors to think he didn't eat well, and in fact it was said that he ate mostly out of tins, and milk bottles. He took little care about his surroundings, lived in a noisy and damp basement, and slept on piles of newspapers, and used newspapers for plates. He was impoverished for most of his life.In addition to physical ill health, the ill health of his psyche is evident throughout his artwork and stories about his habits and interests that he shared with acquaintances. He was sexually drawn to ugly, elderly women, even deformed women, and much of his art carries the depressing quality of depicting naked human bodies and genitalia in a bleak, gloomy, empty, restricted atmosphere. Some of his art is intriguing and inspiring -- such as his "Alphabet of Desire", an invented Magical Alphabet, and some of my favorites among his work are the watercolor sketches shown in the book Two Grimoires -- but even the works I like best seem to carry a feeling of archival deadness, as if the creatures represented were only cariacatures of life, and their real existence was only as dusty museum specimens or taxidermist stuffings -- the figures, as stunningly realistic as they are portrayed, lack life in some significant way. This "dead" and dusty quality to the characters he portrays mirrors the grey pallor and neglect found in Spare's own personal life, as well as his apparent inability to experience the emotion of love.There is a lot about sex -- a sad and unhealthy form of it -- in Spare's art and in his life, but there is no trace of the emotion of love anywhere in his life, nor in this book about his life. As an example...(pg 241) when one of his friends told Spare he was getting married, Spare's response was "an excited masturbatory gesture." This was not when Spare was a teenager, but when he was over the age of 60. Another of the more repulsive stories about Spare and his sexuality is given on page 219. THe author, PHil Baker, presents it as a "distinctive invention" that Spare made up the title "Giving LIfe to the Autistic by Virgin Earthware", as a term for his masturbating into a pottery vessel and burying the results at midnight.THere are tales in the book about Spare's alleged powers as a Magician, his ability to summon rain from a clear sky, his bringing forth elemental powers...but I think the real Magic shows up in people's lives in their ability to attain physical and/or mental health, integration, love, closeness to the divine, and Spare had little such ability. He was careless and neglectful as to his own physical existence, demonstrating a certain contempt for the earthly life of the body, and its needs, and in light of these facts I could not impute to Spare any ability to honor the chthonic. Spare apparently did sigil work for health, but this also could not extract him from his own bad habits and self-neglect, or from his tormented, repulsive sexual habits and fantasies.Spare's cryptic and obscurantist treatises on Kia and Zos may, on the surface, call to mind the spiritual truths about emptiness found in Buddhism and Eastern philosophies, but any casual glance at the life of Austin Osman Spare will reveal that his own experience was hardly transcendent and illuminated. When Spare says, (pg 226) "Personally, my experience of 'looking within' has been exactly like looking into an empty bucket.", I don't think we should be imputing a high, spiritual, transcendent experience of "the void" to this empty bucket.

As a fan of A.O. Spare it's interesting to read his bio.

The author's observations and critiques are mind-numbing. Excessive references, poorly organized. Illustrations are minimal and haphazard. One wonders where Spare is throughout. Take a pass.

Great book on Spare, a must buy for fans of his art. Very well written by Baker too.

Unique Artist & Magickian.

Cet ouvrage est un must pour saisir la vie de Spare. Il donne aussi un bon aperçu de sa pensée et de son approche magiques.L’auteur est soigneux dans son approche, et a effectué de nombreuses investigations. il apporte de nouvelles informations dans la seconde édition.Tout le contraire donc des apports parfois obscurs de Kenneth Grant.Un grand bravo à Phil!

Excellent

Zos kia etc

Good old scary stories.

This is NOT by Alan Moore. It is a re-titled paperback edition of the original hardback biography of Spare written by Phil Baker and first published a year or so ago. Only the foreward is by Moore and it is the same foreward as published in the hardback edition. I usually love the service I receive from Amazon but feel I've definitely been misled by them this time. (I pre-ordered this before Xmas only receiving it today so have only realised I already own the hardback version). As for the book itself, it's "ok" but only "ok"! If you want a book on Spare's occult practices I'd stick to any of the volumes on him published by Kenneth Grant. Indeed, any of the other biographer's who have written on Spare are preferable as, in my opinion, this book actually achieves the difficult task of minimising discussion of sorcery in covering the subject's life. For this alone, I find the re-titling of the book to be misleading. Again: BUYER BEWARE!!