Zos-Kia Quotes

“[...] the crooked path uncoiling endlessly from the foot that treads it - this is the task of the sorcerer: a star-guided wanderer in the labyrinth of 'I'.”
― Gavin W. Semple, Zos-Kia: An Introductory Essay on the Art and Sorcery of Austin Osman Spare

“The nostalgic yearning of Zos for re-union with Kia compels the 'effort of remembering' which is the key of Spare's doctrine. Yet our remembering is in truth an 'un-forgetting' - a drawing back of the veil of our inmost nature, to dispel the "cloudy enemies bom of stagnant self-hypnotism”
― Gavin W. Semple, Zos-Kia: An Introductory Essay on the Art and Sorcery of Austin Osman Spare

“Our amnesia covers so much: all our early history and potentials - now latent, unknown yet..." THE LOGOMACHY OF ZOS”
― Gavin W. Semple, Zos-Kia: An Introductory Essay on the Art and Sorcery of Austin Osman Spare

“We who are fragmented, dismembered, seek ever to complete our unity.”
― Gavin W. Semple, Zos-Kia: An Introductory Essay on the Art and Sorcery of Austin Osman Spare

“[...] for Death is not an end, but a posture; the poising of awareness upon the knife-edge of Neither-Neither, at the very threshold of rebirth.”
― Gavin W. Semple, Zos-Kia: An Introductory Essay on the Art and Sorcery of Austin Osman Spare

“This focus 'I' called consciousness is unaware of its entire living embodiments but alternates and epitomises their personalities"- The Focus of Life (p. 19)”
― Gavin W. Semple, Zos-Kia: An Introductory Essay on the Art and Sorcery of Austin Osman Spare

“Yet Self has no past or future, it is eternal present, eternally recurring.”
― Gavin W. Semple, Zos-Kia: An Introductory Essay on the Art and Sorcery of Austin Osman Spare

“In the temporal and spatial duality which is our habitual perception, we are never entirely 'here and now', but then and gone, or yet to be; therefore, as we experience it, all Self is atavism.”
― Gavin W. Semple, Zos-Kia: An Introductory Essay on the Art and Sorcery of Austin Osman Spare

“The chief cause of genius is realisation of 'I' by an emotion that allows the lightning assimilation of what is perceived. This emotion is immoral in that it allows free association of knowledge without the accessories of belief. Its condition is, therefore, ignorance of 'I am' and 'I am not' with absentmindedness as believing. Its most excellent state is the 'Neither-Neither,' the free or atmospheric 7."' THE BOOK OF PLEASURE P.43”
― Gavin W. Semple, Zos-Kia: An Introductory Essay on the Art and Sorcery of Austin Osman Spare

“In truth, as sentient creatures we are creative all the time, and we are all much better artists than we think. It is the unwilled artistry of our believing that creates the fiction we inhabit, the web of illusion that ensorcels us: "Your desires shall become flesh, your dreams reality and no fear shall alter it one whit." ANATHEMA OF ZOS P. 10”
― Gavin W. Semple, Zos-Kia: An Introductory Essay on the Art and Sorcery of Austin Osman Spare

“Inspiration is a minor mutation evoked by a passionate nostalgia from our heritage." THE LOGOMACHY OF ZOS”
― Gavin W. Semple, Zos-Kia: An Introductory Essay on the Art and Sorcery of Austin Osman Spare

“Out of the past cometh this new thing...”
― Gavin W. Semple, Zos-Kia: An Introductory Essay on the Art and Sorcery of Austin Osman Spare

“Everything happens at all times”
― Gavin W. Semple, Zos-Kia: An Introductory Essay on the Art and Sorcery of Austin Osman Spare

“Atavistic Nostalgia' - literally the 'homesickness of ancestry'. In The Book of Pleasure he describes subconsciousness as 'The Storehouse of Memories with an Ever-Open Door'.”
― Gavin W. Semple, Zos-Kia: An Introductory Essay on the Art and Sorcery of Austin Osman Spare

“Moreover, each one of us recapitulates the entire order of evolution on Earth, from protozoa to human, during the nine months of our incubation within the womb; indeed, throughout our lives we carry our ancestors and their wisdom with us.”
― Gavin W. Semple, Zos-Kia: An Introductory Essay on the Art and Sorcery of Austin Osman Spare

“The effort of remembering- the ecstasis of trance, ritual or dreaming we may experience spontaneous impressions of deep memories. Some are remote, elusive and barely sensed, while others have the vivid impact of reality. They may summon no image, but linger as haunting nostalgias of prescience. Always they are obsessively familiar yet unknown, somehow strangely 'other'; unbidden they reach forth to touch us like fond, half remembered lovers.”
― Gavin W. Semple, Zos-Kia: An Introductory Essay on the Art and Sorcery of Austin Osman Spare

“Verily he steals the fire from heaven: the greatest act of bravery in the world" {The Book of Pleasure p. 3 8).”
― Gavin W. Semple, Zos-Kia: An Introductory Essay on the Art and Sorcery of Austin Osman Spare

“Does an abstract, when symbolised, take on sentience? Yes, inasmuch as we react and feel the same as from an actual. When we so formulate ideas they become as finite automata (familiars) that will react 'as if sentient; thereof, 'sentient symbols.'" THE LOGOMACHY OF ZOS”
― Gavin W. Semple, Zos-Kia: An Introductory Essay on the Art and Sorcery of Austin Osman Spare

“Freedom from the necessity of law, realisation by the very wish, is the ultimate goal."- The Book of Pleasure”
― Gavin W. Semple, Zos-Kia: An Introductory Essay on the Art and Sorcery of Austin Osman Spare

“Union of 'Self to Ego' is commanded by obeying our more latent ideas. Self is the real thing, Ego what we realise of it."- THE LOGOMACHY OF ZOS”
― Gavin W. Semple, Zos-Kia: An Introductory Essay on the Art and Sorcery of Austin Osman Spare

“What has orbit is negative to a converse experient: when and where you are positive, Otherness becomes rotative to you."-THE LOGOMACHY OF ZOS”
― Gavin W. Semple, Zos-Kia: An Introductory Essay on the Art and Sorcery of Austin Osman Spare

“Conscious desire is the negation of possession: the procrastination of reality. Make thy desire subconscious; the organic is creative impulse to will." -The Focus of Life (p.9)”
― Gavin W. Semple, Zos-Kia: An Introductory Essay on the Art and Sorcery of Austin Osman Spare

“Dreams are translated by a parallelism, not by free association: there is no dream censor, but an amoral thinking by symbol, ideograph and metaphor..."-THE LOGOMACHY OF ZOS”
― Gavin W. Semple, Zos-Kia: An Introductory Essay on the Art and Sorcery of Austin Osman Spare

“Whatever you really want, you can get. The want first rises in the conscious mind, but you have to make the subconscious desire it too. And you can do this by inventing a symbol of the thing you want. The symbol drops down into the subconscious. You have to forget all about it. In fact, you must play at hideand seek with yourself. And while you're wanting that particular thing, you must resolutely starve all your lesser desires. By doing that, you make the whole self, conscious and subconscious, flow toward your main object. And you'll obtain it.”
― Gavin W. Semple, Zos-Kia: An Introductory Essay on the Art and Sorcery of Austin Osman Spare

“Directly we desire, we have lost all; 'we are' what we desire, therefore we never obtain. Desire nothing, and there is nothing that you shall not realise." - THE BOOK OF PLEASURE P.30”
― Gavin W. Semple, Zos-Kia: An Introductory Essay on the Art and Sorcery of Austin Osman Spare

“Shall I speak of that unique intensity without form? Know ye the ecstasy within? The pleasures between ego and self? At that time there is no thought of others; there is NO THOUGHT. Thither I go and none may lead..." ANATHEMA OF ZOS P. 16”
― Gavin W. Semple, Zos-Kia: An Introductory Essay on the Art and Sorcery of Austin Osman Spare

“The new law shall be the arcana of the mystic unbalanced 'Does not matter - need not be,' there is no necessitation, 'please yourself is its creed."THE BOOK OF PLEASURE P. 17”
― Gavin W. Semple, Zos-Kia: An Introductory Essay on the Art and Sorcery of Austin Osman Spare

“The 'Self is the 'Neither-Neither,' nothing omitted, indissoluble, beyond prepossession... The desire, will and belief ceasing to exist as separate.”
― Gavin W. Semple, Zos-Kia: An Introductory Essay on the Art and Sorcery of Austin Osman Spare

“[...] Forgeting time with those things which were essential reflecting their meaninglessness, the moment is beyond time and its virtue has happened. [...] With a smile and a mighty sigh that awakens nostalgias of the infinite.”
― Gavin W. Semple, Zos-Kia: An Introductory Essay on the Art and Sorcery of Austin Osman Spare

“Through it comes immunity from all sorrow, therefore the spirit of ecstasy. Renouncing everything by the means shown, take shelter in it. Surely it is the abode of the CIA?" THE BOOK OF PLEASURE P. 17”
― Gavin W. Semple, Zos-Kia: An Introductory Essay on the Art and Sorcery of Austin Osman Spare