"Spare claimed two sources for his oracular inspiration, both of them occult: the entity which he knew as Black Eagle, and another known as the Delphic Pythoness. Black Eagle was a Familiar spirit which he inherited from his mentor in sorcery, Mrs. Paterson. The Delphic Pythoness, an unembodied sybil, he consulted on matters of aesthetics and philosophy. Spare’s mode of working with Black Eagle was curious. He let his mind wander in the network of lines which formed his portrait of Black Eagle, and this created in him a state of consciousness acutely receptive to the Spirit’s influence. In the case of the Delphic Oracle, he had merely to gaze steadily into its eyes for inspiration to flow. When referring to himself in relation to his sorcery Spare identifies himself with a concept which he calls Zos, or the Zos. He first defined the term in The Book of Pleasure (1913) as “the body considered as a whole”; it is the alembic of his sorcery. Complementary to the Zos is the Kia, the “Atmospheric ‘I”’ or cosmic Self, the field, or playground, of the Zos. The Cult of the Zos and the Kia (Zos Kia Cultus) is the cult of the interplay of forces which Spare further symbolizes by their physical instruments - the hand and the eye . Their magical coordination evokes images latent in the subconsciousness. Hand and Eye, Zos and Kia, “ all-feeling touch and all-seeing vision” facilitate the function of the Primal Id, or Desire, which the Zos is ever seeking to reify, or - as Spare had it - to flesh."
from Kenneth Grant, ZOS Speaks!
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