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Austin Osman Spare

The Zoëtic Grimoire of Zos

— The Formulae of Zos vel Thanatos —

[From the book “ZOS SPEAKS: Encounters With Austin Osman Spare” by Kenneth and Steffi Grant.]

First Formula: Of the White Sabbath
– as first told me by a Witch

ARGUMENT

Actually there is neither a Black nor a White Sabbath: the ethical criterion of all acts is whether they are anti-social or so motivated. Where two or more of a kind of equal maturity and inclination enact for consummation, then, if harm they do it is only to themselves–which I doubt–and far less harmful than the practices of those who mutilate or deny their bodies in the name of a culture or a religion. The latter are invariably prophets or propagators of sterility, whereas the one outward tenet of Witchcraft is silence to “unlike others”.

The Sabbath is an inverse-reversion for self-seduction, an undoing for a divertive conation. Sex is used as the technique and medium of a magical act. There is not only erotic satisfaction; the sensualist is made detached and controlled until final sublimation; his whole training is submissive and obedient until, by cold amoral passion, he can transmute control and divert him- or herself where desired.

The Witch so engaged is old, grotesque, worldly and libidinously learned and is sexually attractive as a corpse; yet she becomes the entire vehicle of consummation. This is necessary to transmute the personal aesthetic culture. Perversion is used only to overcome moral prejudices or conformity; the mind and desire must become amoral, focused and made entirely acceptive so that the life-force is free of inhibitions prior to the control. Thus, the Sabbath becomes a deliberate sex-orgy for the purpose of materialization: the Great Reality of 'as if' (wishful thinking). Sex is fully exploited: he who injures none, himself does not injure.

Finally: a culturally accepted criterion has destroyed more affective affinity than any other belief; but he who transmutes the ugly into a new aesthetic has something beyond fear. For the ethical pragmatist I can assert that this formula has never harmed me; on the contrary, by improved health and self-control it has made me tolerant, understanding and compassionate. It inspires and promises more than probability as possible, and is the only thing that has made reality magical and the magical, reality. Pleasure is in us and around us… now I beckon and it cometh unto me.

FORMULA

This is always secret, communal and periodic; an enforced consummation for almost unlimited wish-fulfillment by lengthy voluntary abstinence, repression and sacrifice until release by mass sexual saturation, for one purpose: the exteriorization of a wish by a great saving and a total spending.

The hypereroticism induced by this grand-scale hysteria or saturnalia has an essentially sado-masochistic basis. Previous to the ceremony each celebrant has his or her allotted part, although it usually ends promiscuously and chaotically. The initiates are trained singly in their own parts and in the response expected of them. They play a passive role, for the promise of untold ecstasy. The Witches take the active part throughout: thus the symbolic levitation by besom-handle.

There is a meeting-place and an elaborate ritual which is an extensive hypnotic to over-ride all inhibitions. Thus, smell, hearing and vision are seduced by incense and mantra (incantation and the ritual-ceremony), while taste and touch are enhanced by the stimuli of wine and oral acts. After complete sexual satiation by oral, anal, or urethral means, there appears an exteriorized hallucination of the predetermined wish which is magical in its reality. No one can say precisely whether certain things happen or not, although each person may have very different and equally vivid experiences. Some form of levitation seems common to all. My own experience of many Sabbaths is that there is consummate exteriorization and that subsequent memories are of reality.

All excessively sadistic acts are usually symbolized by genuine Witches, but what simulation there is is common to most erotic rights. The whole ceremony is based mainly on inverted orthodox religious services.

DOCTRINE AND CREDO

'Fornicatus benedictus! Almighty Ashmodeus, existent of Chaos, ominous by thy name, thy kingdom come through me on earth. Lead me into all temptations of my flesh so I may trespass greatly into thy ways by my desires: for thou art all sex-seeking unity, thou mighty genitalia of creation that knoweth no satiation – grant thou my wish, for thou art all power, ecstasy and actuality. Amen!'

A small talisman arabesque of the major erotic zones is passed around and kissed by all. Then follows a short perverse communion, then a symposium with suggestive exhibitionism, libidinous stories and abreaction of sexual fantasies–developing into the real thing.

SYNOPSIS OF THE SABBATH

THEORY OF FORMULA

Differentiation is the stimulus of recreation, hence perversions and contra-practices are used to that end. Ceremony and Ritual are the matrices of form and order, the thesis being that by the act of 'as if' the wish is fleshed when magically charged. The act of exuviations is by transference to the powers of elemental automata as delegated by the obsessive mind. Thus reality may obtain, and for a while serve its own purpose. The ecstatic moment is used as the fecund instant of wish-endowment; for at that period of reality, the Will, Desire, and Belief are aligned and in unison. Faith is a form of compulsory autohypnosis which may build up and enter belief. The great believers have no need of faith – and we are all convinced by the flesh of things.

THE AFFIRMATION CREED

I believe: 'I become the potentialities where I made effort… the funambulatory way between ecstasies: The acceptance of all things, in entering all doors and the by-passing: Unto myself only the law I make – the good and evil I affirm: The relatability of all things to ego, the apotheosis of Knowledge in ecstasy: In the Gods and eternal flesh as all truth: That my way is the only way for me, however devious: That… which I have enveloped from me, shall come forth as a potent elemental to my aid.

And I believe without reservation in the preservation of my concepts as the media of Ego, from which all things ultimately become. Amen.'

PRAYER OF COMMUNION

We who are about to partake of each other, shall walk past all amorous sickness and deaths, for we are within the magical equinox.

Amen

We who proudly make unto ourselves every graven image, shall have great copulations and are allowed to love our Gods, for we know the Sacred Alignments.

Amen

We who do not crucify – nothing shall hurt us that is of the 'Nature'; neither our comings and goings from the womb, for we have the Key to all aesthetics.

Amen

In this sacred moment (here occurs the symbolic eating of flesh and blood) we forget our enemies: therefore let our dead children sleep. And let our dead loves arise, so they too may watch and enjoy our ecstasies. Let their animation be power to our memories and so resurge all ecstasy, for in this day there shall be no inhibitions.

Amen

Thou insatiable peripheral quadriga of sex.

Amen

PRAYER OF ADORATION

Thou lambent spirit of Erh!

Thou hast kindled the sacred fire from dead ashes, so my torch lightens all darknesses.

Thou hast become the fulcrum of my will.

Everlastingly in Thee I know not respite:

Except in the sensuous impact of flesh, there are no meanings.

Thou hast awakened me into eternities.

Thou makest all things beautiful unto the grotesque.

Whom thou succour hath no sterility.

I am reborn and reborn into desirous becomings:

I have recreated my Soul by birthing pleasure.

Through Thee my will, desire, belief and word become the law

That carries me into the Catastrophic beyond becoming:

Thou the emissary of Neither-Neither!

Ever Silent Watcher! Thou hast shown me the new sexualities

And all the mysteries of the Threshold!

Only Thee I adore in my Soul and my everlasting body.

Alpha – Omega – Amen!

EVOCATION

O mighty Rehctaw!

Thou who exists in all erogenousnesses

We evoke Thee!

By the power of the meanings arising from these forms I make

We evoke Thee!

By the Talismans that speak the secret leitmotif of desire

We evoke Thee!

By the sacrifices, abstinences and transvaluations we make

We evoke Thee!

By the sacred inbetweenness concepts

Give us the flesh!

We, who shall suffer all ecstasies

Give us the will!

By the quadriga sexualis

Give us invariant desire!

By the conquest of fatigue

Give us eternal resurgence!

By the most sacred Word-graph

We invoke Thee.

Amen.

Second Formula: The Formula of Plotinus
– as sent me through the Delphic Pythoness via Automatism, called
“Giving life to the Autistic by Virgin Earthenware”

(Now unto this period I had copulated only the atmosphere or rode whores, lined old hags, witches and bitches of all kinds, there being few virgins.)

The autotelic wish into heterotelic conception is by concummation through using an urn of correct shape and dimension which must correlate nearly to that of the lingam used – so that there is sufficient vacuum. At the moment of orgasm the wish must be imperatively stated. After ejaculation seal the vase with your sigil and with the secret formula of your desire. Bury same at midnight, the moon being quartered. When the moon wanes, disinter and pour contents as libation into earth with suitable incantation, and re-bury same. This is the most formidable formula known, never fails and is dangerous – hence what is not written must be guessed. From this formula was derived the legend of the Genii of the Brazen Vessel as related by Solomon.

Third Formula: The Communion of Auto-Ego of Zos

This formula is based on that of Apollonius the Pythagorean philosopher and theurgist, and is the only magical means of inseparation and psychic help that has no disastrous aftereffects whether it fails or succeeds.

There is nothing simpler than speaking to your inmost self, and nothing more difficult. The first conditions are Secrecy, Silence and Solitude. Next, a means of communication: I created my own Alphabet and Language based on the primal onomatopoeia of language which is now – for me – a subconscious quality which expresses only by high emotionalism. Indeed, the active link between all images of thought are intro-audile and of this character on which one's psychic language must be based. The Soul responds to the basic language only. Finally, ease of body and mind must obtain, the mind being free from all concepts – except the Desire, which should be altruistic (others or yourself). Your request should be as brother asking brother in words worthy to reach your greater self. You will receive only what you are fitted to receive.

Fourth Formula: How to return Evil to its Source

Sorcery may be good or evil, as predetermined by its purpose, and is your responsibility. Corrective punishment, being amoral, is the only legitimate motivation. Ability is the determining factor of success.

Sufficient hate is the potency, which must be stored up, formulated and focused so as to become incarnate through the elemental employed to pierce the protective aura of the offenders. Requisites: something personal belonging to the victim or victims. A symbolic replica of them (drawing, statuette, etc.). Also, the deployment of an animal familiar, and a simulation of the deed and desired consequences formulated as a ritual convincing to yourself.

There is also a direct method by suggestion, when knowing the offenders' 'Achilles Heel'. Evil in others may be made potent against them.

Fifth Formula: Of Fortune Telling by Cards
(Foretelling by Familiars)

Foretelling the future by cards or other means: What is of consequence, and portentous, is the 'state of mind' that is induced in the consultant by the method and downright explanations given to him: there is an indirect or transposed auto-suggestion. Anything so entering the near-subconscious must reformulate and re-suggest itself with commitment to a later, similar, event. Likewise, the sorcerer's shaft pierces through the protective aura by assertion becoming indirect suggestion as the consultant's own. Paradoxically, the quickest way of susceptibility is by denial as disbelief.

Cards may be used for formulating the will, casting spells, mathematical numerology, and fortune telling. I was taught quite early in life by the greatest Witch of recent years. Here is a rough synopsis of my formula based on what I remember of hers.

First I need certain conditions: Silence, and light just sufficient to work by. I even close my eyes when shuffling and always do so before handing the cards to the querent for re-shuffling.

To begin with I used ordinary playing cards but soon found it expedient and of greater service to make my own packs, using sixty cards. Divided as usual into four suits, the Court cards representing people. The different suits represent the common factors of life, i.e., business, social relations, objects, events, and emotional qualities, etc., no individual card having itself much significance. I am giving only general principles; I shall not repeat what may be gleaned from a summary of books on the subject. Events and all else are given importance, in degree, by simple or more complex combinations of similar or relating cards. Illustration: The two of Spades means simply 'slight indisposition'; the nine of Spades means 'annoyance' or 'pain'; the ten of Spades means 'sorrow'. Thus, these cards in that order mean 'serious illness'. If the card representing the enquirer is there, it means their own illness, and with the card representing 'fatality' for good or evil (reverse or otherwise), it could mean death.

A different arrangement or sequence of the same cards would give a different equivalent, extended meaning, or definition. Thus, the two of Spades isolated from similar cards could mean 'slight illness', 'faintheartedness', or 'reluctance' etc., depending on which other cards it 'falls' against. The cards should not be too ambiguous and should become definite and different by combination. This is sufficient information for beginning to create the 'meanings' of cards, the only difficulty being to give appropriate meanings to individual cards so as to have a complete vocabulary capable of covering all exigencies. Start with what you can manage and build up by constant addition and rectification. Combinations are endless – always make them rational. The more rare the event, the greater the number of cards necessary to the combination. It takes months of work to create a really rational pack. Start with playing cards, writing your meaning on them. Later, make your own pack and draw your own symbols – geometrical shapes will serve. Be original – it gives the best results. My own four cards mentioned above:

Methods of laying out cards are numerous. The best, for general prediction, is serpentine: reading from left to right in rows of nine cards.

Synopsis: I do a short horoscope by laying eleven rows of five cards, each row relating to: House, Love, Self, etc., – every four rows being relative to each other… [one or two words illegible here] and answer to wish. The five cards left over indicate the immediate event. Make your own rules and keep them, consistency in this case being a great virtue.

It is possible to predict anything, but special packs with their special meanings have to be made, a difficult and laborious task.

Alternative Fifth Formula: Technique of Fortune Telling

First obtain a good book on 'fortune telling' by playing cards. This will give you a general idea for the making a suitable pack for your own purposes. Procure a pack of ordinary playing cards and mark them, top and bottom (cards have a reverse). Rely on the 'book' only for general direction and method–the remnants of a traditional and lost art. You should evolve your own meanings, symbols and methods. This is vital. Here are the salient points to note:

Individual cards are indicators, not events – at least, not the important ones, and so we make separate cards mean the small commonplaces – emotions and abstracts (love, hate, fear, etc.); 'people' are indicated by the Kings and Queens, and 'children' by the two Knaves. The different suits symbolize the different kinds of events or emotions, etc. Thus, Spades relate to sickness, mourning, death, disappointment, fear, hatred. Hearts indicate love, marriage, friendship, happiness, generosity. Diamonds indicate money, success, fame, honour. Clubs indicate business, officialism, power, knowledge.

You will find fifty-two cards more than adequate to cover the small meanings. There are a number of meanings that do not fall under any one suit in particular, such as 'speedy', 'accidental', 'legal', etc.; these should be placed in any suit where there is room. Put similar meanings on one card, such as 'conclusion' and 'death'. The reverse of a card means the same thing but more intensely or extensively. Thus: 'slight sickness', reversed, would mean 'real sickness'. Also, a special card is made to intensify any card it falls against; reversed it means 'continuous' or 'regular'.

It is the combination of certain cards that indicates the meanings of the more important events and episodes of life. For example: a combination of Spades – 'Nine', 'Ten', and 'Ace' – when so closely juxtaposed would mean death very soon and, in combination with cards meaning 'accident', 'sickness', 'hate', would mean death by accident, sickness, murder or suicide, and so on, covering every possible event.

The mathematical computations of fifty-two cards are almost limitless. Write your meanings and principal combinations on the cards, and when you have fully memorized them change them into symbols – even if your imagination cannot suggest more than geometrical signs. This change to symbols is very important. To save overloading the cards with writing or symbols, write down a list of the rarer combinations and their meanings. Study (from books on fortune-telling) the different methods of laying out the cards for reading; ultimately you will evolve the method that suits you best.

My method is simply to lay them out in a line (or four lines of thirteen cards) and read from left to right, but it is difficult and only adepts succeed. This is my process:

First the operator must shuffle the cards whilst looking into the eyes of the querent. The pack is then passed to the querent with a request to shuffle whilst thinking about whatever he desires to know. Then lay out the cards and read, special note being made of the juxtapositions of combinations. When close together it means the event will occur soon.

However many combinations there are you will always find some of unique and baffling meaning, and this is where the actual skill of the operator comes in. The solving of the problem(s) will be found far more interesting than any crossword puzzle. Imaginative methods help. A simple illustration:

One card means 'fear' and the other 'honour'. This could be read as meaning that the person in question is 'fainthearted' but has the necessary ability, as against 'he fears for his honour' – if it does not seem to be implied by other factors.

Remember, there is a rational and true interpretation if you can find it. Whether you believe in the subject or not it should be apprehended as you would approach any other Art or Science – with an open mind. As to the attitude of the querent, his belief is immaterial but he should be willing to be unprejudiced; any facetiousness is fatal. I can assert – judging by the results of others who have used this method – that any person of normal intelligence who follows carefully these suggestions and who uses his imagination, with sufficient practice, will be able accurately to predict future events. Don't expect too much too soon. I have not only had the characters of persons accurately described, but even their hidden physical marks. Education has little to do with this faculty.

In conclusion: it should take about six months to create a satisfactory pack of cards, and another six months to gain the necessary facility by practice. There is no limit to what may be predicted, using special packs.

Finally, scientists will never prove or disprove anything relating to 'foretelling the future'; it is a work for great artists. But science may subsequently confirm more fully what the artists have already discovered. Note well: all the indications essential for the Psychic Knowledge necessary for developing this specialized ability are given in The Logomachy.

Sixth Formula: Metamorphoses by 'Death Posture'
(by 'Zeno of Elea')

Powers of visualization, self-discipline and concentration are the qualities necessary. All magical practice, to be effective, needs great courage.

By means of the Death Posture, total transportation of consciousness into the sex-centre occurs. This brings about pure aesthesis and the creation of a new sexuality by autotelic concept: the subsequent ecstasy is a sublimation.

Because every other sense is brought to nullity by sex-intoxication, it is called the 'Death Posture'. Everything is 'a priori' to the act. The 'a posteriori' illumination reveals the inter-sexual correspondences of all things, and great emotiveness becomes… My desires have made a sentient soul, an obsession, a vampire, an insatiable negress of pendulous breasts and fatted thighs riding me into the abysses of the quadriga sexualis…

[ For 'Death Posture' SEE ALSO: "The Focus of Life" - The Dead Body of Aaos {by Austin Osman Spare} ]

Seventh Formula: 'Transcendental Perspective'
as a means of mediumship and anoëtic analgesia
– as related to me by the Stoic, Socrates

Many Stoics lived before Zeno and they formulated this sentiment as a practical and ideal behaviourism:

There is in their genesis an hierarchy of form and ideas. Ideas have no status except through forms that are accepted symbols of sentience and are spatially and outwardly self-indulgent. Excarnation of an inspired or superimposed concept may be induced and orientated by 'space-apperception'. The whole body and being must suspire… This total effluxion makes everything reciprocal and becomes a re-orientated sequence of focused nexity. Through this harmonic relation with Ego one becomes the qualitative mediator of the hypothetical or real propensity: any position giving vastness or panorama, and, by abstractive gazing beyond distance, allowing and following the flow of thought until there is an intrusive and more cognate idea. This idea is held and projected into the 'vista'. Nothing innate is permitted to be subtracted from the visualization.

Eighth Formula: Formula of Arrivism

AFFIRMATION CREED OF THE ARRIVIST

I am God, and all other gods are my imagery. I gave birth to myself. I am millions of forms excreating; eternal; and nothing exists except through me; yet I am not them – they serve me.

I am inconceivable because I make the conceivable as I so will.

I am beyond Law, for my casualness rationalizes all things to my pleasure.

I am the stranger, ever.

We, the new Arrivists have a lusty heritage from the hierocracy of ancient Egypt, and such great familiars as Lao-Tzû, Pythagoras, Sappho, Socrates, Zeno and others who have substantiated their beliefs (and like them we have been spat on by the ugliest denominators): our great copula is the giving.

'Arrivism' formulates from our integrals: our 'thisness' into 'as if' becoming 'as now' – the intentional becoming extentional; action by spontaneity conforming everything critical and subvertive to itself, which is the mechanism of evoking our 'thisness'.

'As now' has no pendency: things are, because we are always the potential of what we last were. The gospel of the Arrivist is always his own.

HOW TO TRAP AN ARRIVIST FAMILIAR TO EARTH THE ELEMENTAL

The best person to choose would be of the 'arrivist type' – those cocky bastards who seem to obtain all they need whenever they want it. Being intense egocentrics they are mediumistic or susceptible only to silent suggestion… So, look into their eyes and convey to them silently that they are the media for the transit of the obsessing elemental desired. They act simply as something en rapport between you and the elemental. To make yourself acceptive and fit for obsession–acts of sacrifice and purgation are essential beforehand. Also, the elemental must be named and given an appropriate Sigil.

Query to great arrivism: behold everything in the self. Thou art this and all that exists – but here's the catch – never at one time. Mind is universal and includes; Ego separates. 'That art Thou' never is… always. I was or may become this, and only 'I am' in Ego, often losing self-consciousness. I behold multiplicity in all things, and myself as the interrelating oneness, for whatsoever else I conceive will lead me astray or into 'as if'. The more I get into things, the more I am beyond them, so, the more within the more without. I am everywhere present yet unknown to myself except in Ego. I am a configuration of all the multitudinous compositions and designs of this universe, and, knowing not myself fully, how can I know much of other selves and the Gods? But the man we know is mainly made from his beliefs as he enacts them, for 'being' is a function of the all-remembering Soul. So, believe from your necessities, which alone obtain response and recompense – whether good or evil.

Ninth and Last Formula: The Theurgy of Zos

Believing, like breathing, is inveterate whereas 'faith' is a compulsory acceptance for escape… a commitment to an established thesis – often in conflict with our Ids, beliefs and habits.

I, the resurgence of the Apostate Julian, am now the Iconoclast of Theocrasia, for I would have you create a new Pantheism – different Gods and the Great Innocence.

Theses: On Sorcery

Our entire means of expression (of agreed meanings) is semantical, an ambiguous method, whether conveying ideas, values, facts or fictions, which has ever-variant meanings to the recipient; there are few 'one to one' meanings of words. Therefore, although I may transfer by a short sentence a meaning similar to both of us, I do not so convey it to my subconsciousness – there is conjunctional confusion.

Example: The short sentence 'God is love', would be to the subconsciousness either 'god love', or 'love god'. Therefore, to be understood by the subconsciousness it would have to read as 'God=love', and of course this would have to be believed (on your part) to have meaning: lip avowal here has no value for magical transferences. Moreover, the conveyance of such statements is unnecessary and should be in the form of a question, not an answer.

Symbolized:

meaning: 'Is God love?'

Any fact or fiction has no difficulty in finding relatables as supporting evidence because everything has a 'point of connection' and a period of reality when instantly and simultaneous to time and place. Our difficulty is to re-evoke 'as now': so we accept semblance of (i.e. make-belief, religion or faith) as substitute of real belief (which needs no other reality than its own: what you cannot conceive as yourself is yourself (as another reality).

Abstract or concrete: if you suggest a wish to the thing you desire of, in their own manner, there will be a response: So, if I ask my mind in an appropriate manner for a definition of 'consciousness' I shall receive a true answer, although I may not be able to translate it: semantics are either remiss or insufficient to render the sequence of phonographs, but (without understanding) I would receive an emotional impact, like from a significant passage of music (of Bach or Mozart) thus inspire a kind of semantic rendering. (As true as possible.)

Magic: Belief conjures the Will, becomes the courage, taking its own moral or physical colour. Desire seeks all essential affixes–the only necessity is sincerity.

Importance lies in things 'as now'. Flesh exists to be exploited. It is in all things and all things will be through it. All emanations are through the flesh and nothing has reality for us without it. The Soul is ever unknowable because we can only realize by finite form in Time-Space. So, whatever you attribute to the inconceivable is your Ego, as conceived. The mind and its great thought-stream determines everything and permits all things conceivable as possible. This thought-stream refracts illations both from the Soul and from ourselves into our time-sense – images and symbols which inspire us from the inter-relatabilities, and our reactions form our future destiny of good and evil with thought the nexus to all things past and becoming. Whether the gods created us or we created them is of no import except as an expedient.

Magic is now a quasi-charlatanism seeking victims: magicians have become coprophagists having the most corrupt collection of gleanings and remnants ever given that name. Too long ago its principles were lost, scattered or vulgarized, the symbols losing parallelism and truth. The doctrine lost pageantry, and the rituals became haphazard – the thing itself without inner meaning. As now, Magic adopts an erotic egocentricism as secret meaning, hence there are no Magicians with any simple thesis of the great inner Truth – only a rag-bag remains of this 'wonder' cult. But, one cannot dismiss modern magicians so easily. Yes and no, there is something in most things and little enough in much, if any. Ability to enact is the denominator of our Truth. All parasitical longing seeks flesh to feed on… whether by magic or otherwise.

The deliberate transference of a desire by symbols and sigils with their meanings to the subconsciousness, thus sublating them from the conscious, is a magical act. It works on the thesis that the subconscious is 'all knowing, all memory', and, being universal can 'tap' any source of knowledge. The veriest moron, even, may have dreams as wonderful as those of a genius, whatever their difference of level. Dreams are a 'mental conation', unrecognized as perfect artistry. They prove the creative power of the subconsciousness. Our own degree of ability as a 'personal equation' derives from it, for, genius or not, all difficulties are of expressing adequately our own ethos of inherent ability. By this method of asking, and by the manner of its own showing the subconsciousness will give back all that is necessary for acquiring conative powers. Don't run away with the idea that you can do it first time, or so ride a wild horse! Great belief is essential and it is 'built up' by recollection and endeavour.

A desire for a particular thing appears as conscious requirement and, whatever the difficulties, with sufficient determination you will obtain it: there is no apparent need for magic. The premise is usually weak because of false values. Thus, acquiring a book on sorcery does not make one a magician. The essential abstract requirement is aptitude. Hence all the occult books in the world may give you little knowledge, except as a parrot, and, as more often happens, the ability to do less. The acquired book may help as evocative, so obtain it by all means; by transference of the larger fundamental need for occult knowledge, subconscious mind will in its own way give back all that is necessary to develop your conative ability.

“I am in and of all things…” to a lesser or greater degree, including my own blockheadedness. All thoughts, beliefs, actions are as mine, and this does not imply any equality, superiority or inferiority in my relationships. These levels are rendered different by other differences, for I have discovered the by-passing of generalities – the way of differentiation, not by revolt, submission, resignation, or any such chicanery or bargaining, but by the efferent acceptance of all things. I have opened the pores of my being to breathe freely, and my stomach has no greed to possess of others. Reality, truth, life, are all around us and in us. One cannot escape life. To turn one's back is merely to face it; to close the eyes – the image is retained; the thought, or something more ominous, is ever present. Sleep has many depths and death is but a 'reparative becoming', for we are of eternity in time. Therefore, be willing to pay in the giving and taking without argument, and for him who cheats there is ultimate repayment, for where the morality of exchange ends, business would begin. Sin, however disguised or legalized is sin against self as much as against others. Thus emanates our great inferiority, the down-stepping to the point at which the predator must repay and incarnate as…? – as he deserves.

Why is the subconsciousness always cryptically symbolic and mainly manifests in sleep? As usual, there is more than one answer: 1) Why do the stars only show at night? And, 'hold your hand in front of your face and you cannot see the Sun', i.e., our foreconsciousness is mainly from outside and therefore precludes inner vision. 2) The subconsciousness discloses slowly and latently, because by our limitations we can realize only so much at any 'one time'. 3) Any full disclosure and the whole need and purpose of existence would be unnecessary. And there are other reasons. What we observe from 'outside' becomes memory, enters the subconsciousness and merges with other and older impressions. So, one function of the subconsciousness is to unify these superimposed impressions using the language of parallel symbology and to represent them as simile, not as arbitrary configuration [words illegible in original text]. There is no censor except our own 'outside moral bias'. We do not understand such simple amoral language –

…we make our own filth. Nothing in the subconscious is any more indecent than anything else.

Whether our contacts are psychic or physical they are real, and fear or hope of them determines our way.

With sufficient desire and belief reversion to anoësis may be a means of transforming our physical energy into psychic potency.

Although we cannot know instantly or entirely the contents and processes of the subconsciousness, we can evoke it, and by that act in a measure control it as required, for it will again respond directly to our will. How so? Here is the workable supposition: Truth is not essential to belief, as it always contains sufficient for us to make our truth, for if you believe a thing or idea is true, then it will become as truth for you. Therefore, if we deliberately attach belief to the meaning we give to a sign or symbol, then when we question that sign in our own way, via the subconsciousness, it will answer truthfully.

Illustration: quite arbitrarily I predetermine that if I 'slip on the kerb' it will mean 'this' or 'that' will happen, and it becomes so. Apart from such 'omens' there are many other techniques for evoking my good and evil. “What can I give unto Thee, Thou all-giver? I am blind to Thy gifts and would rather steal from men. Let my belief in Thee be an undistorting matrix of my wish in Thee, and so give the basis of my new reality.”

Experiments in Occult Phenomena

Giving my experiences, I do not assert that others will have the equivalent in their practice. Only when the mind is poised in correct juxtaposition to the para-normal object is it receptive and able to substantiate. The qualities necessary are mainly unknown, and any formula for such is guess-work. We all have some degree of aptitude in some direction, and this is the best guide. Many experiences I cannot reproduce and in some cases even re-vision. These are the most impressive – as if they had been deliberately blotted from my memory, only a vague impression remains. For many years I made every test I could apply to my experiments: “What is unlivable is unbelievable; truth shall be within this limit”, was my springboard.

Telepathy I left alone as having been sufficiently proved by involuntary / spontaneous evidence and by deliberate tests.

My experiences at séances were abortive. If giving some evidence of survival, it was of inferior parts of the 'self' still automatically active but not intelligent. Messages were puerile and only of commonplaces already known to me – meaning little except that under certain conditions simple known facts can be transmitted from enquirer to medium and back again. My impression was that many [mediums] had experienced phenomena but that they had no control over them, and in trying to relive [the experience] and to convince others they resorted to fraud.

People do survive death but not in the way they desire to believe. Contact would be as difficult as [with a person a]sleep. My first tests were with prediction; these at least dealt with the future, which precluded faking. My ventures into Astrology, Palmistry, etc., proved their capabilities – and their drawbacks. I found prediction by playing-cards the most resilient and extendible, indeed, almost unlimited in scope and remarkably accurate, and so it became my final choice and convinced me of its possibility for telling anyone's future.

Neither natural aptitude nor much learning is necessary if we begin correctly. Prognostication by cards can be proved beyond question–and demonstrated under almost any conditions, with a person of ability, in its advanced forms. I set no limits whatever. I believe it is possible to forecast the kind of life after death and the nature of one's fresh becomings. I have gone to great lengths and could prove much more than mediums, clairvoyants or clairaudients. In a long predetermined test with a friend (Desmond Coke) I described unknown people in psychical and other detail of such nature as could only be known to the persons concerned, in addition to future events relating to them. The enquirer had no contact with me or the cards, an essential part of this test. Another test by a famous surgeon who asked me to foretell by the cards what he was thinking at a given time: I was warned it would be something unusual and difficult. In a few minutes I gave him the correct answer. Afterwards I showed him how the 'oracle' worked, and he himself was able to perform a similar feat. He was so impressed that he bought my pack of cards at my own price. This has happened more than once.

On another occasion, I carried out a successful series of tests with cards at R. H. Benson's house at Buckingford. These included 'Rain making' and the materialisation of a Traditional Ghost. I mention these experiments to show the capabilities of the medium. 'Cards' may also be used for formulating the will, casting spells, mathematic numerology and, with inventiveness, many other forms of demonstrating the occult powers. I was taught quite early by the greatest 'witch' of recent years.

Complete Thesis and Ritual of Magical Transitivity

PROPOSITIONAL

That man is a complex of appetites seeking satisfaction–imperative–either 'copulatio or suppositio' (or both).

That by certain arbitrary and deliberate acts he can synchronize desire and event 'as now', i.e., as though arbiter.

That any desire, sufficiently dynamic, compressed into a single wish or belief (as 'question-request'), if arabesquely formulated, will fulfil its evolution expediently and return its conative possibility.

Transference from the conscious to the subconscious is automatic when [the wish is] suppressed and sublated by symbols, sigils or glyphs understood either personally or universally. Man is a ratio of his experience, but the subconsciousness is all-knowing (limit unknown).

The mind grants limitless power (will), only measured against belief, and indifferent re: 'quo animo'.

Familiarity breeds all things, including Gods, and Virus, the rare compathy or the commonplace: either we are 'arrivists' or recidivists.

Anyone is capable of anything (will plus belief is ability) if they themselves create the opportune moment and incentive. Heaven gives no genius to disbelievers and no vengeance worse than the body denied.

The terrain between pure Ego (mediator) and ego empirical (conative) is the formative, amalgamative and rationalizing domain which reveals by symbols and metaphor only, and which answers only by such presentation, i.e., a problem, a cryptograph and picturesque arabesques. Hence:

Such a question is answered at once (as near as). But written as an absurd succession of corrupt semantics, thus: “What is truth?”, is never answered. The original relation of shapes, sounds and meaning is lost–tortuosities–ambiguously dissipating. Other factors are scattered in the text (q.v.) as given.

Although only one desire is expressed (No. 1, supra), with little alteration it would fit many others. The change is in the Wish, the Familiar employed, and appropriate ritual modifications. Three other alternatives are suggested, the four being classified:

No. 1: Desire for Truth expressed as a question in word-symbols thus:

(“What is consciousness?”)

sigillated thus:

No. 2: Desire for Pleasure. Request to realize Ideal tactually: “I desire a large-bottomed woman for social congress”. As word-symbols:

As sigil:

No. 3.: Desire for unique experience expressed as: “I desire intercourse with a vampire”.

Word-symbols:

Sigil:

No. 4: Altruistic desire, as: “I wish the death of Stalin”.

Word-Symbols thus:

(N.B. Names always given as sigils.)

Sigil:

Apart from the above, the rest is symbolic metaphor as an abstract ritual of the thesis, and here the use of spatial and expressive language is justified and gives colour and verisimilitude. Onomatopoeic words should be used.

The ritual opens with an ovation or hymn to Isis–chosen as presiding deity (for personal reasons, though Thoth or Athene would have been more appropriate). Hymn begins:

“O' Glorious Isis, Mother of men, let thy hand reach out and touch my travail…”, etc., all of which is expressed by sigils (they should be of one's own composition) followed by the evocation of the familiar or elemental necessary: (1) to act as carrier and bring en rapport subject and object, (2) to pierce the protective aura of the subject, if necessary, (3) to assist the dynamic qualities. The animal chosen should typify the qualities necessary: Tiger = strength, fierceness, etc., or selected from one's own Totem or from face value, i.e., if you look like a horse or a snake, they are your nearest familiars. They are evoked by their secret name which should be inscribed on a strip of parchment, and burnt immediately after calling their name. Except for the name, the evocation is expressed by word-symbols. The familiar chosen is Horus:

Or an Owl could be used. The operator's stance is entirely 'exercite', his gnosis is within the arcanum symbolized by a geometric form without a parallel, issuing from which is the correspondence between all factors used (as modus operandi). Acts of simulation are essential:

For No. 1, writing the desire on a strip of parchment, enclosing it in an envelope and burning or burying it is sufficient–as symbolizing transference. For No. 4, the tradition of making a wax image of the subject and stabbing same should be followed; it is essential that the operator simulates the pains that will be suffered by the victim. The 'Death Posture' (The Book of Pleasure q.v.) is often depicted:

this symbolizes the positive negation of everything except the wish desired. Previous to the adventure, token sacrifices and abstinences should be made. Some will have difficulties of expression, being neither draughtsmen, scholars or writers: it is sufficient to do your best, however naïvely. The only potent magic now existent is Obeah, practised by ignorant, arrested natives, who know not what they do. But they have this virtue–they believe and perform sufficiently the remnants of a great tradition reaching back to the pure and pristine mind of man.

Arbitrary Transference: illustration

The technique for materializing our demands is simple for Nature embraces all those who seek individuation, as Nature herself seeks every differentiation:

1) Our desire (for the thing) must be whole-hearted and all else sacrificed to that end.

2) Our belief must be fixed and be-lived, at least 'as if'.

3) Our will (nervous energy) must be secret, and suppressed, to create tension and released only at the psychological moment. At that time gaze into, and beyond, the familiar vista (from hill-top), into The Aeon, the spaciousness beyond your meannesses, corners of reality, borrowed precepts, dogmas and beliefs; until you are in spacious unity. Indraw your breath until your body quivers and then give a mighty suspiration, releasing all your nervous energy into the focal point of your wish; and as your urgent desire merges into the ever-present procreative sea you will feel a tremendous insurge and self-transformation. The Devil himself shall not prevent your 'will' from materializing. In your prayers (media), remember: your Soul is your nearest, and the bringer of all good things. Your God is stone deaf.

— The Formulae of Zos vel Thanatos —

"The Stele of Zos" (front)	"The Stele of Zos" (back)
"ZOS STELE" FROM "THE FORMULAE OF ZOS VEL THANATOS" Austin Osman Spare made this magical stele for Kenneth and Steffi Grant in 1954. The design incorporates portraits of the artist and both recipients, with Steffi Grant represented as the goddess Isis. Replete with secret glyphs and sigillic formulae, the stele may be regarded as the icon par excellence for the Zos Kia Cultus and New Isis Lodge.

Proof read and edited by Frater D.M.T. © Thelemagick.

[ » Primary Source: The Zoëtic Grimoire of Zos « ]

[ SEE ALSO: Anathema of Zos {by Austin Osman Spare} ]

[ SEE ALSO: The Logomachy of Zos {by Austin Osman Spare} ]

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