sigil

Have you heard about a sigil?
Is it a sin to do it?

Some sigils are old. The word sigil comes from the Latin word sigilum, or seal, and has long been associated with magic. Medieval British magicians had books of sigils that they believed were the secret names of angels and demons. Later and farther North, eighteenth-century Icelanders drew elaborate sigils, called staves, that did anything from prevent theft to make their ewes birth twins.

But sigils certainly haven’t been confined to Europe. In fact, with a little creativity, it’s easy to find “magical seals” in any human culture starting from the Neolithic era.




But these sigils are new.Modern sigils are different—no demons, angels, or sheep involved. Nor are they associated with any particular religion. As noted sigil theorist Gordon White says:

Sigils are elegant. Sigils are adaptable. They don’t replace anything in your life or spiritual practice. They aren’t either/or. Whatever your flavour, you can definitely use sigils... You could teach a nun sigil magic. (Somebody please teach a nun sigil magic.)

Almost all modern sigils are based upon the work of artist, occultist, and animal-lover Austin Osman Spare in the early twentieth century. They operate upon unique, and frankly fascinating, psychological lines.

The theory is this. Our unconscious mind is a powerful entity that can wreak horrific havoc in our lives; hence, therapy and advertising. As an essay published by House of Intuition explains:

The best example of sigils are brand logos. The Nike swoosh or McDonald’s golden arches are both perfect examples of highly powerful magic in action. Just the sight of that yellow ‘M’ on a red background and your mouth waters for french fries. Even Coca-Cola’s cursive font, reminiscent of the green glass bottle, is instantly recognizable in any country no matter the language. It’s not simply that their marketing executives have imprinted their brand names and their products in our minds. Those symbols evoke actual emotional or even physical responses in us. Seeing the Coca-Cola logo makes you thirsty; the red and yellow hues favored by McDonald’s naturally induce hunger. These symbols, seemingly innocent, have a profound effect on us physiologically as well as psychologically.

That is how our unconscious minds can be used against us.

On the other hand, if properly prompted, the subconscious can also exert enormous positive influence upon us and our surroundings. The trick is to trigger the same effects we experience with corporate logo “sigils,” but for our benefit. We have to implant our goals deeply within our unconscious minds while keeping our active, conscious selves from interfering. It’s a surprisingly simple process. Write your wish on a piece of paper, cross out certain letters, combine the rest into an abstract yet pleasing “spiritual logo,” and drive it into your subconscious using some combination of concentration, pain, or pleasure. Then—and this is key—forget all about the sigil and the wish.

So how can sigils help with goal-setting?

A recent study from the University of Minnesota offers important information on setting and achieving personal goals. Their study showed that willpower is a limited resource. For example, a volunteer who was instructed to not eat the chocolate chip cookies on the table performed far more poorly on the following test than did those volunteers allowed to eat the cookies. Likewise, participants who were told not to laugh during a funny movie fared worse on the next test than those who were allowed to laugh freely.

This is obvious in our own daily lives. It’s harder to go to the gym after a stressful day at work, or to skip the Christmas cookies when you’ve just fought with your mother. Willpower is not infinite; it can become fatigued, like a muscle.

That’s the brilliance of sigils. They prompt the subconscious to understand and work toward your goal, without drawing from your limited stock of conscious willpower. We all know it’s difficult to exercise and eat right and stay late at work and search for romance and maintain good friendships and learn a foreign language and . . . the list simply never ends. So put your subconscious mind to work, and let it carry some of the weight!

You can make you a sigil in twenty minutes or less. Because modern sigils mostly derive from Spare’s work, there’s little variation in technique from sigil-user to sigil-user. However, I’ve noted differences in opinion where they exist, so you can best choose your own path.

First, write your wish—carefully. Wording is important! As Nick Margerrison points out in his essay “A Beginner’s Guide to Sigil Craft”:

Think of those old fairy stories where someone makes a wish and there are tragic consequences. King Midas wanted everything he touched to turn to gold. He ends up regretting his wish. The difference between your sigil becoming a blessing or a curse is in its detail. Give it lots of thought. Write and re-write the sentence.

This is particularly true in cases of romance. You may be madly in love with Robin, the flirtatious barista at your local coffeeshop, and believe he’d be the perfect boyfriend. Very well, this is an excellent case for a sigil—if nothing else, the ritual can boost your confidence enough to take action towards your goal, i.e. ask Handsome Robin on a date. But there’s an enormous difference in just how you phrase this desire. “I want to marry Robin from the coffee shop” is an incredibly poorly-worded wish. What if Handsome Robin doesn’t want to marry you? What if you marry anyway, then discover you’re incompatible? Will you have affairs? A messy divorce? In short, this wish says nothing about your mutual future happiness—surely an important consideration.

Remember this simple rule: if it would cause problems in a fairytale, better rephrase.

Talk as if it’s already happened.

According to linguists, languages have two ways of talking about the future. Some languages, such as English, have strong future time reference (FTR), meaning speakers say things such as “I will quit smoking” and “I will exercise.” There is a clear grammatical distinction between something that happens today, and something that happens tomorrow.

Other languages, like Chinese, have weak FTR, so they rely on context to tell the difference between present and future. In those languages, they’d say “I quit smoking” and “I exercise” regardless of whether they mean today or tomorrow.

Amazingly enough, this small linguistic variation causes an enormous difference in goal-setting. Weak FTR speakers are 29% more likely to exercise and 24% less likely to smoke than strong FTR speakers; weak FTR speakers also save more money.

Given those statistics, it makes sense to word your wish in a weak-FTR fashion. Instead of saying “I want” or “It is my wish” at the beginning of your sentence, instead write “I am” or “I have.” For example, “I am dating Handsome Robin” is better than “I want to date Handsome Robin.” Better still is “I am happily dating someone similar to Handsome Robin,” as that wish is clearer and offers more flexibility.

Next, cross out some letters. Some suggest striking out vowels and any repeated letters; others say only the vowels. Decide what looks right to you.

Combine the remaining letters into one design. This is the artistic part of the process, and highly important to achieve proper results. Mash together all the remaining letters side-by-side, upside-down, inside-out, and all over the place. Redraw, simplifying the design. Redraw and simplify again. This may take ten, fifteen, or twenty repetitions. The point is to keep redrawing until a) your sigil no longer resembles letters and b) you like how it looks. Some sigilists like to make theirs tribal-looking, others prefer an organic design, still others prefer something more ornate. It is entirely up to you.

Many novices are concerned that they are somehow “drawing the sigil wrong.” This is impossible. It’s your sigil. If you started out using the letters from your wish, and you end up with a design you like, you cannot possibly have done it wrong.

Activate your sigil using some combination of will, faith, and “gnosis.” Spare’s theory was that sigils require will, faith, and what he called “gnosis.” His definition of gnosis was not standard—he mostly meant a thought-free, meditative state.

The act of making the sigil involves will. One must have faith the sigil will work; this also can be triggered by adding religious emblems to your sigil, such as Christian crosses or Norse runes.

The final step is gnosis, which can be prompted by a number of different activities:
1.meditating upon the sigils
2.causing physical pain by holding your hand over a candle or adopting a difficult yoga pose
3.intense physical activity, such as dancing

You’ve already done most of the work by designing your sigil. The activation ritual is used to make sure it properly penetrates your unconscious mind. When you achieve your moment of gnosis through exertion, pain, or pleasure, the sigil transcends thought and enters the subconscious.

Beyond that, the metaphor starts to get a bit stretched but it’s a fun, mostly helpful name.

To accomplish this, instead of casting one sigil at a time, you should activate several at once. Some should be serious goals, some should be light-hearted (such as “I will eat delicious pie next week”), and one is something that is already true. This last is the most important—it’s called the “robofish,” and it “steers” your shoal of sigils in the direction of facts, not desires.

Since you’re activating all three sigils at the same time, your subconscious will confuse them somewhat. The inclusion of unimportant desires distracts your mind, so that you don’t have laser-like focus upon the one truly important wish. That kind of obsession will undo all the beneficial effects of sigils.

The “robofish,” the sigil about something that has already happened or is already true, convinces your subconscious that all the other statements must be true as well. Like using the words “I am” instead of “I want” or “I will,” it persuades your mind that this is something that’s already happening—so you had better get with the program!

Now what?

This is the hard part: you must forget all about your sigil(s). Spare and many other sigil-users recommend saying something along the lines of, “This doesn’t matter, it need not happen,” or “Make it so, let it go.” Many also dispose of their physical sigils, often by burning them.

Others, including Gordon White, believe that the subconscious effects of a sigil are increased by seeing—but not noticing—the design on a daily basis. If you choose to display your sigils, put them in a frequented area, but not someplace where you are likely to pay much attention to them. Good places are next to your mirror or beside pictures on the mantelpiece.

Enjoy this Starry Sigils Activation Ritual. This is purely an example of how you might make and cast your sigils, so as always, feel free to modify these steps however you like.

Creation
1.You’ll be “shoaling” three sigils together: one for something you already know is true, one for something unimportant, and one for something you want. Choose your three wishes, and be sure to word them carefully. Remember to state them as positive and likely facts, not as desires or negative outcomes. For example, “I am an A+ student” functions much better than “I want to score 100% in every class” or “I don’t want to fail this important test.”
2.Write out your three wishes, then cross out all the vowels and duplicate consonants.
3.Combine the remaining letters for your first wish into one design, and then keep redrawing that design until you like it. As you copy and refine, feel free to simplify or even erase whole parts of the sigil. Your goal is not to perfectly copy the letters, but to use them as inspiration for a pleasing and personal piece of art.
4.You may want to add religious symbols or words to your sigil, if you feel that will aid the “faith” element of the process.
5.Repeat for the remaining two wishes. You should now have three separate sigils. Copy them out one more time with pen or marker on a clean piece of paper. Be sure to leave plenty of space between them.
6.It’s best to wait a few days or even a week between drawing your sigils and activating them—you’ll be surprised how quickly you forget which is which! However, a time gap isn’t necessary if you’re eager to move on to the next step.
Activation 7.To activate your sigils, you will need a candle of any kind, a pencil, scissors, and a metal or ceramic bowl. In addition, if you don’t have a permanent altar, you should set up a small area in which to cast your sigils. Spread out a pretty scarf if you have one, light several candles, add flowers or branches or a few sentimental pieces of jewelry; in short, make your area as meaningful as possible to you and your subconscious.
8.Turn over the sigil paper. If you used pen or marker to draw them, you should be able to see their outlines faintly through the paper. Using your pencil, draw a large star around each sigil, big enough that the body of the star covers the whole design. Carefully cut out these stars, being sure not to damage the sigils, and lay them aside.
9.Light your candle and meditate upon it. Count your breaths, imagine breathing in the light, or do whatever else is necessary to slow your racing thoughts.
10.From here, there are three ways to activate your sigils.

1.As you continue to meditate, pick up a sigil and study its design, until you experience a sense of readiness or completion.
2.If quiet meditation doesn’t feel effective to you, pick up a sigil and dance. It may feel strange to dance or spin wildly in circles to no music and with no partners. Let it! Be consumed by the weirdness. When you’re laughing too hard at yourself to continue, and you feel light on the inside, look at your sigil.
3.This is a more controversial, but also widespread, method. As you study the sigil, ease one finger downwards toward the candle’s flame. The rising hot air will scorch you long before you actually burn yourself. When you say “Ow!” and have to snatch your hand away, you’re ready.
End 11.At this point, you may choose to keep your sigils or destroy them. If you decide to keep your sigil, skip to step 14.
12.After you’ve activated the first sigil using one of the above three methods, touch the corner of the paper star to the flame, and then quickly drop it into the bowl. Be careful—those stars burn fast!
13.Watch the sigil crumble into ash and smoke, and let it fade away in your mind. When it ceases to burn, repeat a phrase that signifies the end of your concern with the sigil, such as “Need not happen,” or “Make it so, let it go.” Repeat this as many times as necessary, until you feel happy and content rather than anxious, curious, or needy.
14.Repeat for the other two sigils.
15.Finish by bowing to the candle, knocking three times upon the table, or using some other physical sign to indicate that the ritual has ended.
16.Carry on and forget all about the sigils. Trust your unconscious mind to do its work.

Sigils are so simple, there’s no excuse not to try one. So give your overburdened willpower a break, grab a marker, and fire up that subconscious!

If you have a particularly lovely sigil you’d like to share, or a story of how your goals came true, please let me know! I always enjoy hearing from you.


http://www.trustedtarot.com/spirit-guides/sigils/?goal=0_31a4af6dd3-b971a6089c-332485813
I got it from an astrologist in my inbox!

If you came across an art work that made you cry because of its size I it's considered a hyper sigil

My favourite comic book writer Grant Morrison is a known occult leader and is a practitioner of chaos magic which is modern magick and he created a comic book series called the invisibles which was intended as a hyper sigil to get his career off the ground, one issue it set a time and date for all his comic book readers to stare at a page and masturbate whilst staring at a symbol and the outcome worked because he's not a big spiritual leader, he is also Scottish, Aquarian and he is my future husband.