The Book of Pleasure
About this book
Desire becomes a symbol; a symbol becomes a private language. Austin Osman Spare abandons the familiar vocabulary of ceremonial magic to explore how belief, drawing and the unconscious might interact.
The Book of Pleasure combines uncompromising prose, automatic drawing and enigmatic figures with Spare's ideas about self-love, ecstasy and the making of sigils. Spare's figures and lettering sit close to the prose, making the images part of the private ritual language he is inventing. The symbols resist quick interpretation, demanding the same concentration from the eye that Spare asks of the mind.
Cite this edition
Austin Osman Spare. The Book of Pleasure. Complete historical pages of The Book of Pleasure (Self-Love): The Psychology of Ecstasy (1913), reproduced within From the Inferno to Zos, Volume1 (First Impressions,1993). Four preliminary pages and60historical pages, including Ernest H.R.Collings’s introduction and the original printer colophon. Supplied custom cover; not a direct scan of an established1913physical copy. First Impressions. 1993. Lumitheca. https://lumitheca.com/books/the-book-of-pleasure-spare
About this edition
Recorded edition: Complete historical pages of The Book of Pleasure (Self-Love): The Psychology of Ecstasy (1913), reproduced within From the Inferno to Zos, Volume1 (First Impressions,1993). Four preliminary pages and60historical pages, including Ernest H.R.Collings’s introduction and the original printer colophon. Supplied custom cover; not a direct copy of an established1913physical copy.
Reviews
What did you think?
Choose your stars, then sign in to write your review.
Loading reviews...
Comments
Loading comments...
The Death Posture: Spare’s Frontispiece
The Ascension of the Ego from Ecstasy to Ecstasy
Emanations of the Ego
The Death Posture: Figure and Alphabet