Alexander O. Sanders
Austin Osman Spare
Both are A.O.S.
what's that about ?
Alexander Sanders and Austin Osman Spare do indeed share the initials A.O.S. — and although there’s no historical evidence either man intentionally mirrored the other, the coincidence is highly interesting in an esoteric context, and has led many modern occultists to draw symbolic parallels.
Let’s explore what that might “mean” — mythically, magically, and historically:
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Who they were:
Austin Osman Spare (1886–1956)
• English artist, occultist, and innovator.
• Creator of sigil magic and the concept of the Zos Kia Cultus — working directly with the unconscious and personal gnosis.
• Emphasised bypassing dogma: magic rooted in individual subconscious power, art, and sexual energy.
• His work was highly influential on later chaos magic.
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Alexander Sanders (1926–1988)
• Founder of Alexandrian Wicca, a tradition emerging from Gardnerian Wicca but blending ceremonial magic, Qabalah, and personal charisma.
• Known in the press as the “King of the Witches.”
• Emphasised ritual structure, theatre, and magical power as real and practical.
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Both: A.O.S. — symbolic parallels
|
Aspect |
Spare (A.O.S.) |
Sanders (A.O.S.) |
|
Artistry |
Visual art, sigils, automatic drawing |
Ritual performance, ceremonial pageantry |
|
Magic |
Personal, subconscious, direct gnosis |
Structured, formal coven work |
|
Sexuality |
Deeply sexual undercurrent, taboo, primal |
Openly sexual rites, polarity |
|
Shadow work |
Explored directly through self, transgression |
Confronted in ritual, polarity of Goddess & God |
|
Breaker of norms |
Rejected Theosophy & Golden Dawn formalism |
Opened Craft to publicity, modern media |
|
Charisma |
Obscure cult figure, outsider genius |
Public, magnetic leader |
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Why this matters: mythically
In a Jungian or esoteric view, the repetition of initials:
• Creates a talismanic resonance: the name becomes a sigil of power.
• A.O.S. itself could be seen as:
• Alpha–Omega–Spirit (beginning, end, animating force)
• Art–Occult–Sex (three pillars both men embodied)
• Both men worked at the boundary of sexuality, magic, and the shadow.
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Historically — was there a connection?
• No direct mentorship: Spare died in 1956, when Sanders was just 30 and barely starting public magical work.
• Spare was never a Wiccan; his work is darker, more idiosyncratic.
• But conceptually: Sanders’ openness to art, ritual drama, and sexual current resonates with Spare’s idea of magic rooted in the personal and sexual unconscious.
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Esoteric insight:
Both are liminal figures:
• Spare: liminal between art and magic, taboo and vision.
• Sanders: liminal between hidden Craft and modern public Witchcraft.
Both challenged orthodoxies in their own spheres.
Both stand, symbolically, for a return of the repressed into magical power.
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