Charging Sigils with Pain

[Butterfly Affect]

I had to figure out a method that wouldn't leave obvious marks so I started with candle wax. But I couldn't get it hot enough and it was a mess. And actually if it was too hot it may have burned me anyway.

So then I tried with hot sauce but I realize I couldn't do it for very long. Long enough for the sigil maybe. But I was afraid I would develop a tolerance if I kept doing it, which would defeat the point of it.

I don't know of any other methods, and I think anything else might leave bruises.

 

[Robert Ramsay]

Using pain instead of pleasure is ofc possible, but unless you have specific reasons for using pain, I would avoid it because, well, it hurts!

 

[Butterfly Affect]

Using pain instead of pleasure is ofc possible, but unless you have specific reasons for using pain, I would avoid it because, well, it hurts!

I want to form self discipline, and eventually become more tolerant to it. I think only using pleasure for sigil charging would make me more weak minded. And for some sigil desires, gooning just seems unfitting.

 

[stalkinghyena]

You could try this. Basically, hold your arm or straight in front of you with the sigil in your hand as long as you possibly can. Do not let your arm dip, bend or fall. Eventually, perhaps in about 30 seconds or less your muscles are going to start burning. You could direct this pain into your sigil. The longer you do it, the pain should increase to the point of becoming intolerable, but it is something you can control. It shouldn't cause any physical harm to you other than fatigue of the arm, but this is no different than the stress that comes from working out.

 

[Anziel_Merkaba]

Why though? I mean why pain and not just focusing your will like a normal and not masochistic practitioner? I mean yeah pain can be used, but it'd be really stupid to use it for everything, and emotional pain is way more potent than physical pain if you specifically need pain anyways.

 

[HoldAll]

Here is a sigil charging method that follows the same principle as the one suggested by @stalkinghyena:

1. Place the sigil in front of your face, get into the plank positition (= only toes and forearms touching the floor) and close your eyes if you want to.

2. At the point of the inevitable muscle failure and just before you collapse on the floor, you suddenly open your eyes and 'spasmodically inhale' (I think that's the expression either Spare or Caroll used) the sigil. Alternately, you could keep your eyes open and try to 'imprint' the sigil on your subconscious - Damon Brand recommends focussing on the white spaces between the lines of the sigil which is supposed to heighten the visual effect.

3. Pain: even if you perform the plank on a hard surface, it's unlikely that you'll experience more than a little discomfort. To introduce real pain, you place some small rocks or pebbles underneath your forearms, which should leave no bruises because you'll experience muscle failure long before those items will leave any permanent marks on your skin.

Slight variation: push-up position with arms fully extended but supporting your body with your toes and your hands clenched into fists. This should bring on some pain if you do it on a hard floor but if this isn't enough for you, you can place narrow strips of wood under the knuckles of each hand (I got the idea from some hardcore karateka conditioning exercise). It will hurt as well but leave only a moderate reddening around the knuckles which should disappear very soon.

 

[Yazata]

But would the feeling of pain then not be linked with the sigil / goal?
To me it would make more sense (if you even want to cause yourself any pain for whatever reason) to do this without looking at / thinking of the sigil and goal until the moment when you stop. Then the relief gets attached to it.