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The Book of Pleasure

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Book of Pleasure (Self-Love): Psychology of Ecstasy
AuthorAustin Osman Spare
LanguageEnglish
GenreOccult
PublisherCooperative Printing Society Limited, Tudor Street, E.C.
Publication date
1913
Publication placeEngland
Media typeLimited print (Paperback)
Pages68 pages
ISBN1-872189-58-X
Preceded byA Book of Satyrs
(1907) 
Followed byThe Focus of Life (1921) 

The Book of Pleasure (Self-Love): Psychology of Ecstasy is a chapbook written by artist-occultist Austin Osman Spare during 1909–1913 and self-published in 1913.

Overview

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The book is generally regarded as the core text of Spare's philosophy. It covers both mystical and magical aspects of Spare's ideas. As the modern ideas on sigils (as now have become popular in chaos magic) and Spare's special theory on incarnation are for the first time introduced in this book.

Some chapters of the text are referred to internally but are omitted. Apparently that they were destroyed during World War II.[1]

The book had originally been planned as a mutus liber of illustrations only – "the Wisdom without words",[2] but was expanded later.

Partial list of editions

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  • Quebec: 93 Publishing, 1975.
  • Northampton: Sut Anubis, 1987 (facsimile).

References

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  1. ^ Grant, Kenneth, Outer Gateways
  2. ^ Semple, W. Gavin, ZOS-KIA, 1995, Fulgur Limited, page 8