Talk:Austin Osman Spare

Of note
"Spare was the father of Philip Newton Spare," Do you mean "Spare is the son of..." ? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.244.134.114 (talk) 03:41, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

You pic was deleted
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Upload&wpDestFile=Dressing_the_Wounded_during_a_Gas_Attack_%28Austin_O_Spare%29.jpg http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Chemical_warfare&curid=50073&diff=29807935&oldid=29596116

and was not on the chemical attack page. you need to reupload it and state that it is pre-1923 so the copyright nazis don't delete it. Optionally, it may simply not have been uploaded correctly.Travb 15:11, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

Alphabet of Desire?
Why does Alphabet of Desire redirect to A. O. Spare if it is mentioned nowhere in the article? -not a user
 * I was curious about the same thing. Why does it redirect yet nothing on the page about it. —Jack in the box 22:56, 3 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Alphabet of Desire is invention of Spare. But the details and corresponding handwritings have not published yet. One should ask Mr. Grant about the reason. --FraterCXL 16:17, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

Almost, but not quite: in The Book of Pleasure Spare writes of the use of 'Sacred Letters', but in none of his texts does he mention 'Alphabet of Desire', and it appears not to be Spare's invention. This term was introduced by Kenneth Grant, it could be inspired by the title of Woodroffe's The Garland of Letters. 'Alphabet of Desire' has been associated with Spare since Grant's first few Trilogy books appeared in the early 1970s, by writers reiterating idea from Grant. reineke 09:00, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

Well-intended vandalism, but vandalism nonetheless
Recent edits to what was a concise, well-written article have introduced numerous vague assertions and a great deal of non-grammatical text. The result is something of a slush. I do not consider that the article has been improved, because new material that would have been useful and interesting is couched in a form of semi-English that is hardly comprehensible unless the reader knows the information already. In which case she or he would have no reason to read this article anyway.

In order to correct the various problems I would pretty much have to strip the thing back to where it was before. So would anyone object to my just reverting this article to its previous state? reineke (talk) 11:46, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

Improvements
This article has good material, but it needs some work. I suspect that material related to Spare as an artist should be separated (for purposes of organization only) from material related to his esoteric practices and ideas, insofar as this is possible.

The snippet "Among his books, Spare adopts the name Aàos when referring to himself" is a bit of an orphan and one can't help but wonder if it shouldn't be removed unless and until it takes its place within a context.

The use of a digital publication of a translation in pdf format seems to lie somewhere in the very shady end of the gray area when it comes to acceptable references. The only citation for the "Philosophy" section (other than the Persian PDF document) is Spare's work itself. This section is original research. It is also muddled and inconsistent (e.g. the section is entitled "Philosophy" and yet it discusses "magical system" and "terminology", it confuses original terminology with original concepts, etc.). This section should be removed.

The quote at the end of the article needs a citation.

Also, can anyone explain to me why the Austin Spare page is a part of the Thelema project? This seems to be a bit of a stretch. What is the justification for the inclusion of the Spare page in this project, the goal of which is to expand, improve and standardize articles related to Thelema (itself defined as "a philosophy of life based on the rule or law, "Do what thou wilt.")? This is not an article related to Thelema. It is an article about Spare. By this strained logic the Crowley page should be included in project "English Buddhism" because Crowley studied with Bennett for a time. Further, though Crowley had a better documented relationship with Bennett than he did with Spare, Bennett's wiki page is not a part of project Thelema.

The sections "on self love" and "sacred alphabet" are obscure and seem to be rather arbitrary attempts to categorize themes. They should be:

a. rolled together into a summary paragraph on Spare's magical pastimes or b. expanded into full sections with context so that this article is useful to the only audience who needs it (people who don't already know about Spare's magical system).

The section on influence upon "Chaos Magick" should probably be in there, but it needs to be expanded slightly and cleaned up considerably. --Picatrix (talk) 00:35, 15 June 2008 (UTC)

I've re-written the bio section and added a section entitled "Spare The Artist". I'll be moving along to putting together a properly cited and more accurate section on "Spare The Magician". --Picatrix (talk) 19:07, 15 June 2008 (UTC)

Moving pictures around
Changes to the article to improve formatting are welcome and useful. However, if we remove images for no good reason (given that this article is about an artist) it seems counter-productive. This article needs more examples of Spare's artwork, as well as photographs. It does not need images removed (unless there is some copyright issue, or some reasonably justification, etc.). Thanks. --Picatrix (talk) 16:04, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

Request for assistance
I would like to ask editors interested in this article for their opinions. I have been considering how to approach drafting a section on "Spare the Magician" and I have to admit I do not know how to proceed. Any discussion of the meaning of his words in his esoteric writing is complicated not only by his idiosyncratic style and vocabulary. It is almost impossible to cite using reputable sources. I am aware of no neutral, academically sound study of Spare as a magician (sorcerer, whatever). One would be forced to use anecdotal material, reports by contemporaries like Crowley and the Grants, and the various "Chaos Magick" books which, while entertaining, generally do not provide citations or any basis for most of their claims.

The nature of the subject (and rampant subjectivity) makes this a very difficult issue to address. The options seem to be

1. Assembling a very conservative article based on editorial consensus regarding primary sources, or else 2. Trying as a group to identify and agree on a list of (at least somewhat) reputable secondary sources and then working from them together.

I would appreciate pertinent comments from any concerned party, particularly if they contain concrete suggestions for going forward (for example including a list of secondary sources that should be included in the documents upon which the editorial work is based).

Thanks! --Picatrix (talk) 23:57, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

Minor touch up
This is all looking very much better now - good work, Picatrix, that's very much appreciated!

I've tarted up the exhibitions list slightly, viz: Christie's 1994 was not an exhibition but an auction; the Storran Gallery do not appear to have held a show of Spare's work, but were obviously acting as agents, which is why they were referred to in the 1936 catalogue which is the source for the assertion; I changed the address for 1937/8 - "A. Walworth Road" ? = 56A Walworth Road. reineke (talk) 14:43, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the clean up on the exhibition information. This article still suffers from a very, very poor description of 'Spare the Magician'. This section needs to be rewritten, but I have not yet identified any adequate non-primary sources. Any suggestions or help in this regard would be much appreciated. --Picatrix (talk) 09:35, 12 October 2008 (UTC)

In praise of a hateful Christophobe
Spare didn't just "reject Christianity", he hated it. You guys make Spare sound like a saint! This guy wrote pages and pages of sophomoric, venomous, hate speech against Christians and Christianity. Would you praise him as much if it were pages and pages of hate against any other religious heritage or belief? I wonder... I guess every generation has its socially approved prejudices. Talk about the sermon of the hypocrite. Oh well... Carry on, because I know you will. I guess all a person can do is sit back and have a tearful LAUGH at the snake eating its own tail, or tale. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 12.170.5.80 (talk) 12:34, 8 January 2014 (UTC)
 * At various points in this article we state that Spare "rejected" and "denounced" Christianity, which is precisely what various reliable sources tell us that he did. Perhaps he did exhibit a pernicious and malevolent hatred of Christianity, as you assert; but if you want us to include that claim in the article, then you will have to provide reliable second-hand sources to support that. Until then, please refrain from making wild and baseless accusations against the motives of Wikipedia editors; it is rude, unnecessary, and doesn't do your initial statement any favours. Midnightblueowl (talk) 21:14, 18 April 2014 (UTC)

Death Posture
Death Posture redirects here, but there's no mention of it in the article. I thought I would point this out! 2.219.168.171 (talk) 02:26, 19 August 2015 (UTC)

External links modified
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External links modified
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Poor summary
With over 100 citations to a detailed biography, this article fails to summarize the topic. I'm going to start removing some of the unimportant minor details 73.6.77.46 (talk) 06:02, 3 May 2022 (UTC)