Austin Osman Spare’s allegorical drawings and verse in Earth Inferno (1905)

Sikah, the Agnostic Priest

In The Allegory, Spare introduces a black-draped figure through two descriptions: without a name he calls it Life’s Knowledge, and with a name he calls it Sikah, the Agnostic Priest. The verse places the figure beside pleasure, hope and the uncertain rewards promised to those moving along the parapet of life. Its language then turns pleasure into expectation followed by awakening, calls Knowledge a jester and gives the Mirror of Truth a vision of evolution. The adjoining drawing places a dark-cloaked figure next to a long-haired woman amid candles, mirrors, clustered bodies and scattered objects. Sikah belongs to this interwoven movement of verse and image: the name helps identify a figure, while the surrounding symbols complicate what knowledge and authority mean in the scene.