Jamie Gregory's Hinter-Land

Here is the second film to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the death of Austin Spare.

Spare Places: A Psychogeographical Guide to Austin Spare's London

This is a 13.5Mb file which means that the sound and picture quality is low, this is due to limitations on the blog server.

Viewers with some knowledge of AOS' life and work will be able to make more connections with the material.

At the outset of this project I carried out a spell to aid this work. That night I had the following dream:

Austin Spare comes up the River Thames in a glider from east to west (following the sun), to be interviewed by me on BBC radio. He is waiting in the lobby whilst I am in the studio desperately trying to get everything ready.

Psychogeography is the study of place on mood and behaviour. It suggests that the 'genius loci' has an effect on those that live in an area and can attract certain types to it. There are some interesting parallels between AOS' life and the areas that he lived in with regard to previous occupants or sites and monuments. See what you think?

Finally, I would like to thank Robert Brazier via Lashtal.com and Robert Ansell from Fulgur for the information they supplied.

I'm away for a week now so see you all later!

Hope you enjoy the film.

In case visitors to this blogsite are wondering what on earth all this odd poetry is about and in particular the peculiar photos of markings at the head of each poem then read on!

Those markings are in fact called geomantic figures, used generally for divination tho' can be used for enchantment too.  If you are interested I have uploaded a document that explains how to use them for divination so go have a look!

The poems are the end result of induced visions using the geomantic symbols.  Vision is a practice akin to Jung's active imagination a way of bringing up information from the collective unconscious or the 'Otherworld' depending on your world view.

If you've never tried divination before, give it a go, you may surprize yourself.  Don't be restricted by the old 'fortune-telling' idea it has far wider uses.  The document suggests a few.

Happy divining!

Conjunctio

I met him in the library
Midst book-lined walls and gallery
Dusk, window framed bright Mercury.

I raised my golden charm to him
Two heads joined with a filigree limb
My face betrays no understanding.

He pointed to a calf-bound book
And made a motion that I look
To end the quest I’d undertook.

He opened on a double page
Crack’d and yellowing with age
He smiled at me this friendly sage.

I gazed upon the vellum bare
For there was nothing to see there
I tried to hide my dark despair.

“Patience now my little one
These things have their own season”
With these words the sage was gone.

I took from his words a hope to keep
And returned my gaze now long and deep
Resolved in this secret, myself to steep.

I saw a labyrinth of lines
Two rolling hills of parchment climbs
Between a valley in darkness lies.

Quick! Quick! A movement in my breast
Spoke of things to manifest
I kept my eyes firm downward fixed.

On that page in front of me
Strange signs swimming randomly
Appeared in rainbow forms to see.

I gasped in wonder at the sight
And clasped by mouth for fear I might
Cause these nixies to take fright.

They left smoky lines in their train
To show the path where they had been
Which formed a web like spiders spin.

On this moving web was caught
A world containing every thought
Where’re I looked it lackéd naught.

The sun and orbs moved in the sky
Below them bird formations fly
All caught upon the poet’s eye.

From market-place to lonely peak
In citadel at shepherd’s creek
These signs made a dream concrete.

I clapped my hands upon the air
As the tide did turn on my despair
For writ on that page my own heart there!

I raised my golden charm which shone
With a light from that ancient tome
And cried with joy, I was not alone.

www.lulu.com/content/337472

Go on you know you want to!

It really is an amazing illusion and well worth it.

click on the link and follow to the video:

http://www.snopes.com/photos/people/pullapart.asp

Can you tell how it's done?