Spare was deliberately obscure in his writings. His style was very antique and one must work and study very hard in order to discover exactly what he is saying. This was deliberate. Others have commented on his work, notably Kenneth Grant, but most of the Gems remain buried, waiting to be uncovered. Some people have said that Spare's written work was simply a blind, and all of his meaning is hidden in his art, waiting to act on our unconsciousness. While I believe this is partially true, I don't believe it is the whole of the story. It is not the fact that there is nothing to be learned from his words, it is the impossible style that he used, that deters many.
Sigils
Let us begin with an examination of sigils.
'The word' is the human identification of the 'the object'. The word 'ball' is as recognisable as
the object, and the only thing that is missing is detail. Size, colour, faults, &c. But we understand that 'ball' means ball. This connection of name to object is a mental process of internalisation, it is the way we identify and 'fix' the
world. This human need for fixing the world though, can be exploited or side-stepped.
The unconsciousness is ONLY symbolic. It understands only pictures and glyphs. One word means much the same as any other word to the unconscious mind
and it is unable to distinguish or make sense of words, so to speak. It is excellent at deriving feeling or emotion from an object though, and this is the key to making sigils work for us. A sigil obscures the meaning of the word or glyph to
the conscious, logical mind, who would normally seize upon any desire and interpret it according to it's own agenda. A sigil is allowed to slip straight into the unconscious mind unhindered, where it is 'seeded' and allowed to go to work. The
actual process of creating a sigil is simple, and I have already commented on it in the Goetia section. I will repeat it here though and elaborate on it. But we should bear this in mind, exactly what we believe about a sigil and whatever we
expect (believe) the sigil will bring us, is exactly what we will recieve. This is because, as I have just said, the unconsciousness derives the meaning of the sigil from the emotional content with which we endow it.
The other
interesting thing about sigils is this, they can only be planted in the unconsciousness at a time when we are 'vacuous'. This means we have to empty the conscious mind to a point where the only thing in it is the sigil shape. This is the
hardest part of the process. Try for a second now. Turn off all external sound (if possible), i.e. TV, radio, &c. and try not to allow your mind to think of anything. Shut off all of the internal chatter and become empty.
It is
damnably difficult, and something that sorceror's strive vigouresly for. There are times, though, when this vacuous state is a natural state and we can exploit these. The time of orgasm is one such time, and has been called by some people, the
little death!
Let us suppose that you want to become wise. To actually tell yourself, "I am wise" is actually the opposite of what you are striving for, it's assertion being it's own insincerity. You can see this all of the
time, the unconvincing salesman who tries hard to believe his own bull, the false veneer of advertising. In order for an idea to become organic belief, and therefore reality, it must take root in the unconscious mind. Thus sigils.
A
sigil side-steps the conscious deliberation and cynical non-believing in one brilliant ploy and takes hold at a much deeper level. Do not believe that this method only works for personal transformation, it works for anything. Our whole
conscious being is filtered through our belief system, belief is what we are, and what we expect, and what we do, and the whole of our sphere of operations and life.
The Method
Write down as succinctly as possible, a phrase
which sums up the wish. For example, I WISH TO BE WISE. You know EXACTLY what this phrase means, what it implies, and what the result will be.
Now, for the reasons stated in the Goetia, strike out every recurring letter, so our phrase
would become, I WSH TO BECM. In exactly the same way as described in the Goetia section (Sigils) turn this into a pictogram. By squinting the eyes, and knocking them slightly out of focus, we can percieve a simpler shape. If need be, we can
repeat this simplification until we are left with a sigil which
a) bears no conscious resemblence to the desire, and
b) is easy for the mind to retain
Now put the sigil away and FORGET ABOUT IT. The sigil must be lost to the
conscious mind completely and the only way to do this is to put it away until such time as we can't consciously remember what the sigil was for. For those who can achieve the Neither-Neither, this forgetting step is not neccesary.
One
quick way I have found for forgetting the meaning of something that I might need in a hurry is like so...
Choose any three desires, one of them being the one that you wish to effect.
Now create sigils for all three, leave them in a group of three,
Now create a new set of three, keep doing this until you arrive at a stage where you cannot remember the wishes of a particular group of three. If you have any inkling at all
then this will not work so it is important to use the method of simplification so that meanings are not discernable. From any group of three, whose individual meanings are lost, charge them on three subsequent nights.
The Charging
In order to charge a sigil, all we need do is plant the thought into our unconscious mind, at a time when we are vacuous. As I have said, we can use sexual orgasm to plant the desire, or we could use a process of meditation forcing the
mind to reduce all thought to one, the sigil. Once we have planted the sigil we must forget about it completely. This means that every time it crops up in the conscious mind we have to banish it by deliberately thinking of something else. If
you find this difficult then try thinking about something emotionally or sexually charged!!
There are other methods but these are to be discovered. For instance, if we wished something to be revealed to us as a flash of inspiration, we
could deliberately become apprehensive and fearful of the image of the sigil, &c.
The Warning
The demon Choronzon is always lurking, waiting for the unwary. If we allow conscious deliberation of a sigilised desire, we
invite it to become an over-riding obsession or compulsion or phobia. This is what is meant by the phrase, my name is Choronzon for We are many (remember?)
The Death Posture
There is no mystery to the process of the Death
Posture. It is a glimpse of the Infinite. The actual method is this...
Get yourself a mirror, preferably large or full size. Sit comfortably in front of it and stare fixedly at the image of your own eyes. Do not blink, move, swallow or
THINK. The point being that after a time the mind gives up trying to quiet itself and we enter into a state called the Neither-Neither. This is a curious, unique sensation which one must experience first-hand. After much practice you will know
when you are entering the state and will be able to close your eyes and follow a point which seems to be big and small, hard and soft, &c. and actually enter it.
This is the state that Toltecs call the Nagual, it is the Nothing, the
supreme Kia from which we all sprang. The Neither-Neither.
Neither-Neither
Spare said this much more eloquently than I can, so I will paraphrase him a little from memory. Suppose I say hot, I imply cold (i.e. not cold) and the
same with all things. Light implies dark, big implies small.
If I say Man, I imply woman, I can get around this but I arrive at the hermaphrodite (i.e. both sexes at once), this in turn implies a Eunoch or one who is sex-less. I can
transcend all of these things, (and anything else) by saying Neither. The fact that we can believe something which is 'Neither' of the forementioned, proves it's reality. It's existance though, also implies it's opposite, since we have shown,
all things are dualistic. But, with what can we balance the Neither except with another Neither, hence Neither-Neither. This is a mental state that is before form, before word, before all of the trappings of consciousness i.e. the 'fixing' of
the world around us. It is the state we can glimpse in the Death Posture and a way of reducing all beliefs, all certainties to nothing. What we are to strive for, is the opening up of the self to this state 'all of the time'. Strive to reduce
everything to the Neither-Neither and in this way you will arrive safely at the centre of all things.
Psychic TV
TOPY, led by Genesis. P. Orridge, have come up with some brilliant adaptions of the work of Spare. The most
brilliant adaption was named Psychic TV. This is an extension to the Death Posture which I can heartily recommend as a taste of deeper trance states. All one has to do, is tune a TV channel into static, i.e. no station, and stare at it for as
long as it takes. I have noted strange things when I have experimented with this, such as thoughts that are projected from the unconsciousness onto the TV, &c. At first you will notice that the random dots take on the appearance of
spiralling patterns, later these can turn into complex and beautiful parallaxes. Strive to ignore all of this and use the static to completely still the mind. It has been suggested that a few minutes of Psychic TV is worth an hour or two of
the Death Posture performed with a mirror. I have had no success at achieving the Neither-Neither using this method (all of my success has come by using the traditional mirror method), but I would be grateful to hear the comments and
experiences of others. For TOPY stuff
