Austin Osman Spare Method: The Original Sigil Technique

BY NICOLE LAU

Before sigil magic became a staple of modern chaos magic and manifestation work, there was one man who codified the technique that would change occultism forever: Austin Osman Spare.

An English artist and occultist working in the early 20th century, Spare developed a method of creating magical symbols that bypassed the elaborate ceremonial systems of his time. His approach was radical in its simplicity: use the subconscious mind directly, without intermediaries, without complex rituals, without appeals to external entities.

This is the method that started it all. Let's explore not just how it works, but why it works—and why it remains the foundation of sigil magic a century later.

Who Was Austin Osman Spare?

Austin Osman Spare (1886-1956) was a visionary artist and occultist who rejected the hierarchical, ceremonial magic systems popular in his era. While his contemporaries in groups like the Golden Dawn were performing elaborate rituals with specific tools, robes, and invocations, Spare was developing something far more direct.

His philosophy was simple but profound: the power doesn't come from external spirits or deities. It comes from the depths of your own subconscious mind—what he called the "Kia" or primordial consciousness.

Spare believed that desire, when properly encoded and released into the subconscious, would manifest in reality. The sigil was his tool for that encoding.

His work was largely ignored during his lifetime but was rediscovered in the 1970s by chaos magicians like Peter J. Carroll and Ray Sherwin, who recognized its revolutionary potential. Today, nearly every practitioner of sigil magic uses some variation of Spare's original method.

The Philosophy Behind the Method

Before we get to the mechanics, it's crucial to understand the psychological and magical theory that makes this method work.

The Conscious Mind as Gatekeeper

Spare recognized that the conscious mind is both necessary and limiting. It's the part of you that analyzes, doubts, and maintains your current reality tunnel.

When you consciously want something—"I want to be wealthy"—your conscious mind immediately generates objections: "But I don't have the skills," "The economy is bad," "Rich people are greedy."

These conscious objections create resistance that blocks manifestation.

The Subconscious as Reality Engine

The subconscious mind, by contrast, doesn't argue. It doesn't doubt. It simply executes the programs it's given.

The problem is that the conscious mind acts as a filter, preventing most directives from reaching the subconscious in a form it can act on.

Spare's genius was recognizing that symbols bypass this filter. The conscious mind doesn't know what to do with an abstract symbol, so it lets it pass through to the subconscious—where it can do its work.

The Importance of Forgetting

This is the most counterintuitive part of Spare's method: after creating and charging the sigil, you must forget it.

Why? Because conscious attention to the desire creates attachment, which creates resistance, which blocks manifestation.

By forgetting the sigil consciously, you allow the subconscious to work without interference. The desire has been planted. Now you must let it grow without constantly digging it up to check on it.

The Austin Osman Spare Method: Step by Step

Now let's walk through the actual technique Spare developed.

Step 1: Formulate Your Desire

Write your intention as a clear, concise statement in present tense.

Spare's Guidelines:

• Use present tense ("I am" not "I will be")
• Be specific but not overly complex
• State what you want, not what you don't want
• Keep it to one sentence

Examples:

• "I AM CONFIDENT AND CHARISMATIC"
• "I ATTRACT ABUNDANT WEALTH"
• "I AM PROTECTED FROM NEGATIVE ENERGY"

Write it in capital letters—this makes the next step easier.

Step 2: Remove Duplicate Letters

Cross out any letter that appears more than once, keeping only the first instance.

Example: "I AM CONFIDENT AND CHARISMATIC"

Letters that appear: I, A, M, C, O, N, F, I, D, E, N, T, A, N, D, C, H, A, R, I, S, M, A, T, I, C

After removing duplicates: I, A, M, C, O, N, F, D, E, T, H, R, S

Some practitioners also remove vowels at this stage, leaving only consonants. Spare himself varied his approach—sometimes keeping vowels, sometimes removing them. Experiment and see what works for you.

Step 3: Create the Sigil

This is where art meets magic. Take your remaining letters and combine them into a single, unified symbol.

Techniques for combining letters:

• Overlap letters so they share lines
• Rotate letters to create interesting angles
• Mirror or flip letters
• Extend lines from one letter into another
• Simplify the shapes—you're creating a symbol, not calligraphy

The goal is to create something that no longer looks like letters but has become a unique symbol. Your conscious mind should not be able to easily decode it back into the original statement.

Spare's Approach: He often created highly artistic, flowing sigils that incorporated the letters in abstract, beautiful ways. But simple, geometric sigils work just as well. Aesthetics are optional; intention is essential.

Step 4: Charge the Sigil

This is where you transfer energy into the sigil, activating it as a magical tool.

Spare used several methods, but his most famous was what he called "the death posture"—a moment of intense physical and mental exhaustion that creates a gap in consciousness where the sigil can slip into the subconscious.

Spare's Charging Methods:

• Exhaustion: Physical exertion until the point of collapse
• Sexual climax: Focusing on the sigil at the moment of orgasm
• Intense emotion: Generating peak emotional states (ecstasy, rage, fear) while focusing on the sigil
• Meditation: Deep trance states where the conscious mind quiets

The common thread: all these methods create a moment where the conscious mind's defenses are down, allowing the sigil to imprint directly on the subconscious.

For modern practitioners, simpler methods work too (we'll explore 15+ activation techniques in upcoming articles). But Spare's emphasis on intensity is worth noting—the more energy you charge the sigil with, the more powerfully it imprints.

Step 5: Forget the Sigil

This is the step most beginners skip—and it's arguably the most important.

After charging, you must release the sigil from conscious awareness. Spare recommended:

• Destroying the physical sigil (burning, tearing, burying)
• Deliberately thinking about something else
• Engaging in mundane activities to shift focus
• Not discussing the sigil or its intention with anyone

The sigil has been planted in your subconscious. Now you must trust it to work without conscious interference.

This is where many practitioners struggle. We want to check on our magic, to see if it's working, to analyze the process. But that conscious attention creates the very resistance that blocks manifestation.

Spare understood this paradox: the magic works best when you forget you did it.

Why This Method Works: The Psychology

From a psychological perspective, Spare's method is brilliant because it:

1. Clarifies Intention

The process of formulating your desire as a clear statement forces you to know exactly what you want. Vague desires create vague results.

2. Bypasses Conscious Resistance

By transforming the statement into an abstract symbol, you sneak the intention past your conscious mind's objections and doubts.

3. Creates Emotional Charge

The activation process (especially Spare's intense methods) creates a powerful emotional imprint. Emotion is the language of the subconscious.

4. Activates the Reticular Activating System (RAS)

Your RAS is the part of your brain that filters information, deciding what's important enough to notice. By charging a sigil, you're programming your RAS to notice opportunities related to your intention.

5. Releases Attachment

The forgetting step prevents the anxious checking and attachment that creates resistance. You've set the intention and released it—now you're free to take inspired action when opportunities appear.

Why This Method Works: The Magical Perspective

From an occult perspective, Spare's method works because:

1. It Accesses the Kia

Spare's term for primordial consciousness—the deep self that exists before thought, before ego, before conditioning. This is the part of you that's connected to the fabric of reality itself.

2. It Uses Symbolic Language

Symbols are the native language of the subconscious and the collective unconscious. By encoding your desire as a symbol, you're speaking directly to the forces that shape reality.

3. It Collapses Probability

In quantum terms, the sigil acts as an observation that collapses probability waves into specific outcomes. Your focused intention selects which timeline you're moving toward.

4. It Works with Natural Law

Spare didn't believe in supernatural intervention. He believed sigils work with natural psychological and energetic laws, not against them. This is why the method is so reliable—it's not asking the universe for favors; it's using the mechanics of consciousness itself.

Common Variations on Spare's Method

While the core technique remains the same, modern practitioners have developed variations:

Vowel Removal: Some remove vowels before removing duplicates, creating even more abstract letter combinations.

Numerical Reduction: Converting letters to numbers before creating the sigil.

Artistic Elaboration: Adding decorative elements, colors, or geometric shapes to the basic sigil.

Digital Creation: Using design software instead of pen and paper (works just as well).

All of these are valid. Spare himself varied his approach. The core principle—encode, charge, forget—remains constant.

Spare's Legacy

Austin Osman Spare died in relative obscurity in 1956. But his influence on modern magic is incalculable.

His method democratized magic, making it accessible to anyone with a pen and paper. He proved that you don't need elaborate tools, expensive ingredients, or years of training to work effective magic.

The chaos magic movement of the 1970s-80s built directly on his work, and today, sigil magic is one of the most widely practiced forms of modern occultism.

When you create a sigil using letter reduction, you're participating in a lineage that stretches back to a visionary artist who understood something profound: the power to shape reality lives in your own consciousness, and symbols are the key to unlocking it.

Our Chaos Magic Book of Archetypes explores Spare's philosophy in greater depth, connecting his work to Jungian psychology and modern consciousness studies.

Practicing the Spare Method Today

To honor Spare's legacy, try creating a sigil using his exact method:

1. Choose a genuine desire (not a test—something you actually want)
2. Formulate it as a clear present-tense statement
3. Remove duplicate letters
4. Combine the remaining letters into a symbol
5. Charge it with intensity (choose your method)
6. Destroy it and forget it

Then observe what happens over the next few weeks. Notice synchronicities. Notice opportunities. Notice how your behavior subtly shifts toward your intention.

This is Spare's gift to modern practitioners: a method that works, that's accessible, and that puts the power exactly where it belongs—in your own consciousness.

In our next article, we'll explore the Kamea/Magic Square method—an ancient technique that predates Spare but complements his work beautifully, adding planetary and numerical dimensions to sigil creation. For those drawn to the intersection of Spare's sigil work and the deeper symbolic currents of the psyche, the Jung and the Archetype guide offers a profound bridge between occult practice and psychological insight, while the Shadow Work Tarot practice provides a structured way to engage with the very subconscious forces Spare sought to harness. And for those ready to encode and release their own desires, the Healing Sigil Journal becomes a dedicated space for this intimate, transformative work.