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Post by movebywillalone on Feb 2, 2015 17:38:04 GMT
Has anyone had any experiences through meditation or ritual work similiar to the Lam sadhanas with Spare's art? I mention the "Black Eagle" portrait because it's the first work of his to come to mind. In Against the Light Grant mentions Spare's portrait as a gateway or portal into outer realms, I would love to hear of anyones experiences!
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Post by sandow on Feb 3, 2015 22:35:12 GMT
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Post by John Hope on Feb 4, 2015 17:17:18 GMT
Thanks for bringing that up sandow, I don't remember ever reading that GPO article. Interesting stuff.
Personally I have never approached Spare's artwork in this respect, but I can see that it may be perfectly viable to experiment magickally in this way with a work of his that particularly draws you in. Despite my having AOS works (fortunately) framed on my wall and always within sight, I've never had my inner interest peaked enough by him for me to bother approaching them in such a working respect.
I make my living as a portrait painter, and it could be that because I'm so constantly surrounded by and focused on artwork every single day of the week, I don't have enough of myself left over for my ritual work to orientate itself towards the artwork of someone else.
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Post by Nalyd Khezr Bey on Feb 5, 2015 18:18:14 GMT
I've not had nor have I tried to have any experiences with the Black Eagle portrait though I do feel there is something there to explore. However, several years ago I did perform an operation involving skrying all the images in Spare's The Book of Ugly Ecstasy. I will say this right up front that this operation was mostly a failure. Nothing very significant came of it other than a few of the images appeared to move and morph around a little. Now my motive for trying this came from two ideas. First, the images in this book as well as those in The Valley of Fear have always struck me as oracular in nature or like a tarot; as if they are meant to be evoked in some kind of fashion like skrying. Second was what Robert Ansell said in the introduction to the book about viewing the images by the light of a single candle flame so that "the mystery of their creation may be illumined". He also adds: "In this light the viewer will find these aberrations slowly become familiar and induce a process of subtle sublimation. The recognition of this gnosis is vital to understanding Spare's work and is the essence of the cultus." That all seemed simple enough so I did it along similar lines as my usual skrying. As I said, nothing significant. I brushed that operation under the rug at the time but it is something I would like to re-explore some time in the near future with a different approach. I somehow feel I approached it too intently (and maybe a bit rationally) at that time, like I do a lot of my skrying work, but I've since begun to intuitively feel it should be approached in a more subtle fashion. I'd like to go through both Ugly Ecstasy and Fear to try an enter into those bizarre worlds and see what can be found. If that doesn't work I'll be almost tempted to try full ceremonial evocations to see if I can command those images right out of the book. I would hope it doesn't come to that.
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Post by AR on Oct 7, 2015 23:40:49 GMT
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Post by John Hope on Oct 8, 2015 19:38:07 GMT
Excellent and very interesting, thanks for sharing that brother ^^
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johns
New Member
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Post by johns on Nov 6, 2015 0:54:31 GMT
Has anyone had any experiences through meditation or ritual work similiar to the Lam sadhanas with Spare's art? I mention the "Black Eagle" portrait because it's the first work of his to come to mind. In Against the Light Grant mentions Spare's portrait as a gateway or portal into outer realms, I would love to hear of anyones experiences! Well, not really. A number of years ago whilst on a holiday with my family in Cornwall (the southern most outpost of England), on the shale and pebbles of Land's End, searching for quartz crystals, I found a rock which glittered. Put it in my bag with the intention of smashing it up to get the crystals when I got home. Once at home in my shed , hammer raised - I kid you not. I saw it for what it was and is. From 'The Magical Revival' ( a seminal work, which I read after perusing magazines such as Sothis, Agape , etc) those were the days, but I digress. Crowley's painting of Lam in Grant's book was almost identical to what I had recovered. And so, almost 25 years later I still have it and it resides by my replica of the Stele of Revealing. As for experiences, yes of course.
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Post by movebywillalone on Nov 6, 2015 4:18:11 GMT
Cool, nice story. If you ever feel inclined to post a photo it would be interesting to see.
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Post by AR on Nov 8, 2015 14:11:20 GMT
Excellent and very interesting, thanks for sharing that brother ^^ Thanks. The article has since been revised and expanded, and can be found at the same link.
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johns
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Post by johns on Nov 14, 2015 1:42:07 GMT
Yes, of course. I will post a photo of the Lam stone, if I can remember how to do this. I think I did display it on Lashtal a few years ago.
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Post by Anthony on Feb 4, 2018 15:27:00 GMT
I have found AOS's Black Eagle portrait one that repays study and contemplation, it really does seem to have a life of it's own...
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Post by equinoxofthegods on Feb 6, 2018 4:15:16 GMT
Has anyone had any experiences through meditation or ritual work similiar to the Lam sadhanas with Spare's art? I mention the "Black Eagle" portrait because it's the first work of his to come to mind. In Against the Light Grant mentions Spare's portrait as a gateway or portal into outer realms, I would love to hear of anyones experiences! I have always found Spare's gaze in his piece "The Death Posture" almost haunting. It really feels as though he is looking back at you... I have always felt this with the portrait of Lam as well. From the first time i set eyes upon it it felt like there was a deeper communication happening, like there was something looking back from beyond the physical image. I painted my own version of the Portrait of Lam in 2004 or 2005 which i used regularly until 2008 when I unfortunately lent the painting to a local art gallery who failed to return it along with a couple of other items invaluable to me. Over the few years I spent seeing this image every day and working with it regularly it had really become a powerful link for me so to speak... I do really love Spare's "Black Eagle", though it never really struck me in the way that some of his work does. I've never used Spare's portraits in any way intentionally but many of them seem to have a strange and mesmerizing quality to them as though being drawn through the eyes into the world of the artist or the life of the subject.
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Post by Banyan on Aug 22, 2021 4:22:05 GMT
As I recall, Andrew Chumbley mentions working with Black Eagle a number of times in his writing (some communications from it, I think). Something like the lam sadhana might have been how he accomplished this.
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Post by Michael Staley on Aug 22, 2021 11:13:10 GMT
As I recall, Andrew Chumbley mentions working with Black Eagle a number of times in his writing (some communications from it, I think). Something like the lam sadhana might have been how he accomplished this. Although I worked with Andrew Chumbley over a number of years, the Black Eagle workings were before my time. I think they were workings within the Crooked Column - the inner grouping of Cultus Sabbati - and I don't know what methods they employed. Given that Kenneth Grant wrote somewhere that contemplating the portait and in particular following the pencil lines was a way of invoking Black Eagle, this may well have been the kernel of their technique.
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