Post by randolphcarter841 on Jun 26, 2017 23:40:43 GMT
According to "In a Lonely Wood, Astray" by Dennis Bardens (the introduction to a 1999 edition of Spare's _The Focus of Life_), after Spare's funeral, Bardens "went...back to [Spare's] studio, where everything pointed to a man busy to the last -- an unfinished frame, pictures tidily on end against the walls, glass inward, and a portrait of himself, with a valediction in his own handwriting: IF I COME AGAIN, I WILL NOT SPARE."
Bardens then asks the question: "What did this message mean?" I propose an answer that may solve more than one riddle associated with Spare.
First, note that the statement is in the form of a "pre-sigilized spell," i.e., a statement that has not yet been converted into a pictorial sigil. This would imply that the image of himself would ultimately have been adorned with the sigilization of the statement.
Now the interesting part: notice that the words "NOT SPARE" are an EXACT ANAGRAM of the name "PATERSON." This is again in keeping with standard sigilization techniques, as given by Spare.
My suggestion is that the mysterious identity of "the witch Paterson" -- Spare's "initiator" and the personality who taught him magic -- is given by Spare's final spell: she is "not spare," and the potential "past incarnation" of Spare himself (if he "comes again"), who in this manner generates (or "wills") a time-loop, a temporal recurrence of some sort (perhaps as given by Ouspensky's Ivan Osokin -- and almost certainly in the sense of Nietzsche's "amor fati," esp. given the _Anathema of Zos_/_Also sprach Zarathustra_ relationship).
There is certainly more here, if this suggestion is correct. The reasoning for such an act is further demonstrated in the following quote from Grant: "It is a well-known fact that few artists, even among the great, are capable of fully understanding the true nature and worth of their best work. The reason...is because the artist is not responsible for his work. The degree of his achievement is in direct ratio to the degree of his _absence_ when the work is performed. Perfect absence of illusion (i.e., the ego) implies the perfect presence of Truth (the ego-less state) and such a state can be realized only when the Supernal Triad is actively manifesting through the medium of man." (Grant, _Aleister Crowley and the Hidden God_, p. 38.)
In this case, Spare has "willed" his own inversion -- both literally and figuratively -- for the purpose of manifesting his own life as a "perfect" (from the Latin: "complete") work of art. His teachings become equally perfected as having their source in his "second mother" who becomes, via this act, himself.
"Not" and "Nuit" are, of course, coterminous references that we might consider in this regard -- eternity as "nought" (or "no-time"), a four-dimensional "ouroboros" eternally creating itself -- as well as further "green language" implications given by a female incarnate as "pater" (father)/"son."
One more observation: I did hear from one source that a collection of Spare's illustrations came to light containing images he had drawn of himself as a woman -- if true, perhaps this supports the given contention as well?
Bardens then asks the question: "What did this message mean?" I propose an answer that may solve more than one riddle associated with Spare.
First, note that the statement is in the form of a "pre-sigilized spell," i.e., a statement that has not yet been converted into a pictorial sigil. This would imply that the image of himself would ultimately have been adorned with the sigilization of the statement.
Now the interesting part: notice that the words "NOT SPARE" are an EXACT ANAGRAM of the name "PATERSON." This is again in keeping with standard sigilization techniques, as given by Spare.
My suggestion is that the mysterious identity of "the witch Paterson" -- Spare's "initiator" and the personality who taught him magic -- is given by Spare's final spell: she is "not spare," and the potential "past incarnation" of Spare himself (if he "comes again"), who in this manner generates (or "wills") a time-loop, a temporal recurrence of some sort (perhaps as given by Ouspensky's Ivan Osokin -- and almost certainly in the sense of Nietzsche's "amor fati," esp. given the _Anathema of Zos_/_Also sprach Zarathustra_ relationship).
There is certainly more here, if this suggestion is correct. The reasoning for such an act is further demonstrated in the following quote from Grant: "It is a well-known fact that few artists, even among the great, are capable of fully understanding the true nature and worth of their best work. The reason...is because the artist is not responsible for his work. The degree of his achievement is in direct ratio to the degree of his _absence_ when the work is performed. Perfect absence of illusion (i.e., the ego) implies the perfect presence of Truth (the ego-less state) and such a state can be realized only when the Supernal Triad is actively manifesting through the medium of man." (Grant, _Aleister Crowley and the Hidden God_, p. 38.)
In this case, Spare has "willed" his own inversion -- both literally and figuratively -- for the purpose of manifesting his own life as a "perfect" (from the Latin: "complete") work of art. His teachings become equally perfected as having their source in his "second mother" who becomes, via this act, himself.
"Not" and "Nuit" are, of course, coterminous references that we might consider in this regard -- eternity as "nought" (or "no-time"), a four-dimensional "ouroboros" eternally creating itself -- as well as further "green language" implications given by a female incarnate as "pater" (father)/"son."
One more observation: I did hear from one source that a collection of Spare's illustrations came to light containing images he had drawn of himself as a woman -- if true, perhaps this supports the given contention as well?
