Inquiry · “You Are Not Your Thoughts”
Neither-Neither / Self-Love
Hold a desire together with its opposite until both cancel, dissolving the dualistic ‘either/or’ grip of the conscious mind and resting in a free, belief-less state (‘Self-Love’) from which intent can act unobstructed.
Neither-Neither (Spare, 1913): Name a desire and feel its pull. Summon its exact opposite with equal force. Hold both at once without choosing until they cancel — leaving neither yes nor no. Rest in the freed, belief-less openness (Spare’s “Self-Love”), then act or charge a sigil from there with no craving left to block it. Read honestly: a contemplative defusion of all-or-nothing attachment, kin to neti-neti and cognitive defusion.
What it is
“Neither-Neither” is Austin Osman Spare’s dialectical method, in The Book of Pleasure (Self-Love) (1913), for dissolving the conscious mind’s either/or grip on a desire.
Spare’s diagnosis: the rational mind works by opposition — every wish summons its contrary (“I want this” / “but what if not”), and that tug-of-war of belief and disbelief is what exhausts and blocks intent. His remedy is to hold a desire together with its opposite and push until both cancel out, leaving “Neither-Neither” — a third position that affirms neither pole.
What remains is a free, belief-less, undivided state Spare calls Self-Love (the book’s subtitle), the unconditioned “Kia” from which action can flow without internal contradiction.
Read plainly, it is a contemplative move for defusing all-or-nothing attachment and resting beneath the chatter of for-and-against.
The Method
A faithful working of Spare’s principle as a contemplative exercise:
- Name the desire clearly and feel its full pull — what you want and why.
- Summon its exact opposite with equal vividness — the contrary wish, or the fear/disbelief that shadows it (“…and I doubt it / I dread the reverse”).
- Hold both at once, in equal weight. Do not choose, argue, or resolve. Let the affirmation and its negation sit side by side and press against each other.
- Let them cancel. As both poles are held fully and equally, their opposition exhausts itself — neither “yes” nor “no” can stand. This is the Neither-Neither: the point where the dualistic grip lets go.
- Rest in the freed state. What is left is a quiet, undivided, belief-less openness — Spare’s Self-Love / Kia. There is nothing to defend and nothing to crave.
- Act or charge from there. In Spare’s system this belief-less freedom is the ideal ground in which a sigil is released (no “lust of result” remains to block it). As inquiry alone, simply notice how the original problem has lost its compulsive charge. (Sourcing note: a faithful summary of Spare’s “Neither-Neither” and “Self-Love” doctrine in The Book of Pleasure. “Neither-Neither,” “Self-Love,” “Kia” and “belief” as the obstacle are Spare’s own terms; the step-by-step framing is a practical rendering of his more aphoristic text.)
Source & Lineage
Austin Osman Spare (1886–1956) built The Book of Pleasure (Self-Love) (1913) around the idea that organised belief is the chief obstacle to the free play of the deeper self.
Neither-Neither is his engine for dissolving belief into vacuity — the conceptual partner of the Death Posture (which dissolves it through the body) and the precondition for effective sigil work. The stance — belief held lightly, suspended, treated as a tool rather than a truth — became a founding attitude of chaos magic, whose practitioners adopt and discard beliefs at will. → originator node; the belief-agnostic successors.
The Traditions' versions
Cognitive defusion / acceptance (ACT) — observing thoughts and wishes without fusing to them or their opposites; loosening the for/against grip.
- The middle way / neti-neti (“not this, not that”) — Vedanta and Buddhism reach the unconditioned by negating every pole; structurally the same gesture as Neither-Neither.
- Non-dual inquiry — resting beneath the subject/object, yes/no split.
- Surrender / “let go and let God” — releasing attachment to a fixed outcome.
- Sigilization & the Death Posture (Spare) — the belief-less state Neither-Neither produces is the ground both rely on. → companion files below.
Common refinements
Resolving instead of cancelling. The point is not to decide between the poles or find a compromise, but to hold both until neither stands.
- Weighting one side. If you secretly favour the wish, it won’t cancel; give the opposite genuine equal force.
- Treating it as suppression. This is not pushing the desire down; it is exhausting the opposition so the charge dissolves.
- Intellectualising it. It is felt as a release, not argued to a conclusion; stay with the experience of both pulls.
- Expecting a permanent state. The freed openness is usually momentary; use it (to act or to charge), don’t try to hoard it.