Sigil Magick (AKA: squiggles that makes things happen)

Rarely is there anything more magical than seeing a large collection of mysterious symbols written upon a wall or worn-out book. Something at the back of your mind is simply expecting something awesome to occur. That's why I love Sigil Magick so much, on top of the fact that it actually works!



Sigil magick dates back from antiquity when our ancestors believed that one can control an entity if one knew their true name, true number and sigil. Whole compilations of them were made, and with one spirit having at least one sigil for one purpose. The Ancient art of Kabbalah actually taught a system of sigilization where the letters of a spirit's name were traced out on a Magick Square or Kamea that signified or embodied its general energies.

The 3x3 Magic Square, AKA the Saturn Square

But modern sigilization was devised by the English artist, mage and writer, Austin Osman Spare, who was the very first to proclaim that Chaos (he called it KIA by the way) was the only constant thing, that the only true freedom is to harness one's desires instead of being devoured by it. His technique included writing down the specified intent, and, by using a variety of techniques, convert it into a graphic sign, or sigil. The most common process is to take away any repeating letters, combine the letters to form a shape, and simplify the shape up until the original letters can't be recognized anymore, and of course, looks pleasingly magickal to your own eyes.

I'm sorry if this illustration looks a bit...
MS Paint, because it is.

The resultant could even have any type of embellishment or graphic decoration to make it look good. Nothing will make it lose it's power, there's no exact formula to making these kinds of sigils, just follow what feels right and you'll do just fine.

Okay, so let's say we've already got your sigil composed, and it looks all mysterious and magickal now. But its still really just a squiggle on paper at this point. The real magick is to charge or fire the sigil into wherever (usually the subconscious, but I just call it the Void, much cooler.), and that's the tricky part. The goal is to reach the state of Gnosis* while staring at or visualizing the sigil.

This state of mind (or actually, no-mind), can be achieved by either two ways, by overexerting or inhibiting the consciousness by dancing, spinning, fervent chanting, meditating, self-choking, etc, until one reaches that point where their mind is TOTALLY BLANK. This is considered the key to effecting magickal effects, contrary to traditional beliefs that energies, spirits, etc, would power the magicks.

But, how about me, I've been working with spirits, deities, for a long time now, how is this useful to me?

This technique fits into absolutely any belief system, any tradition and any method. Let's say that one usually calls upon the aid of spirits in their magick, they could present the sigil to their patron entities and ask them to empower the thing, before the mage actually charges the sigil with whatever method they use. I personally use the sigils as the primary symbols in my talismans, and enchant it like any other mage would charge a talisman.

Using these would actually make the intention of the spell, talisman, etc, much clearer and of course, you'd avoid the consequences of vague intentions, which include:

• The effects weakening, because the "target" goal can't be pin-pointed
• Various unwanted or unintended effects to occurring (be careful what you wish for!!!)

Oh, yes, something as simple as this has totally all the potential to bring powerful effects, with enough practice and experimentation, I'm sure you guys will be able to find how to use this technique to improve your daily life, if not at least kill a few minutes of your boredom-time. 

Enjoy!

*Gnosis is the state of mind where the mind is completely void of any thoughts or mental action. Considered as the best state to perform magickal effects. 

**Further Reading : 

• Liber Null and Psychonaut by Peter Carroll 
• Practical Sigil Magic by Frater UD
• The Chaos Matrix Sigils, Servitor and Egregores Section, maintained by Fenwick Rysen