New To Sigil Magik . Advice On Creating Sigils?

[imowwiz]

I’m a semi new but not a novice occultist. At least that’s the label I give myself. I’ve worked intuitively with ritual and spell work but haven’t gone deep into study. Feeling a deep calling to utterly involving myself in the magik. I’d love some sources and a basic break down on how to make and utilize a sigil. I like to dive head first and go crazy, I’ll probably even work with a few tonight from my basic research. I would love to hear thoughts from other witches, magicians, alchemists, occultists, and other such working with the unseen. Thanks friends

 

[Robert Ramsay]

Until you get access to the library, have a go with the search function on the forum - there's several threads about sigils that will hopefully help you out. When you get library access, there's plenty of books - this one for example:

Book – PDF - K. P. Theodore - The Fundamental Book of Sigil Magick - Vol 1

This book serves as a textbook for those who wish to study the art of Sigil Magick. In its pages you will find information about the different kinds of sigils, their use, activation techniques and how to create custom tailored sigils from scratch. Learn how to captivate emotions, empower the...

wizardforums.com

 

[HoldAll]

What was so revolutionary about chaos sigil magic was not only its orientation towards practical real-life results but also the idea that you can create personal sigils yourself without having to rely on the traditional ones in ancient grimoires anymore. It gave magicians back their autonomy who now didn't have to follow strict formulae and recipes any longer and were encouraged to experiment instead. In fact, when you read the instructions in Liber Null & Psychonaut by Carroll or Practical Sigil Magic by Frater U.D., you'd be forgiven to suspect that the Sentence of Desire formulation => sigil creation process was some sort of Waldorf schoolchildren's game. A chaos sigil is what you want it to be and means what you want it to mean, and no one has the right to tell you otherwise. It's your personal creation, your baby.

Practicalities: my view is that a chaos magic sigil has to be impressive (= to yourself of course); I don't think much of sloppily drawn sigils. Some care should go into their creation, and you may have to discard several drafts until you end up with one you're satisfied with. Personally, I don't throw out the vowels because I like to reinforce the sigil with mantras constructed from the letters, and you'll need vowels for that. A sigil should be complex enough to disguise the underlying letters so that you won't be able to guess its meaning easily but the level of distortion, abstraction, etc. is solely up to you. You can even add symbols that have personal significance for you (I myself like using exclamation marks to denote urgency). Sometimes simplicity or symmetry is a good idea though, for example when you want to visualise your sigil while reciting the associated mantra.

Experimentation, however, means that you'll have to develop your own procedures without recourse to self-appointed 'authorities'. Some technical aspects of Carroll's original methods have come under question, e.g. his insistence that any thought of a sigil's purpose must be avoided at all costs - I think it's ok to remember one's desire but not the magical operation you performed to achieve it. Similarly, I somehow doubt the concept of the Psychic Censor but haven't made up my mind yet in this respect. But that's the idea of chaos magic, you make up your own rules and later maybe abandon some of them if they don't prove to be useful. Nevertheless, prepare for some rather sketchy results in the beginning, freedom to experiment also includes the freedom to fail.

 

[ahathoor]

As @HoldAll mentioned, there's a lot that's been written on sigil magic, some better some worse... ultimately, my advice is you should remember what the purpose of a sigil is: to take a magical goal or idea, and crunch it down to a single thought you can hold in your mind with ease, and additionally carries a certain emotional charge. In traditional sigil magic, that single thought is a shape.

That shape needs to be simple enough so you can hold it; complex enough not to feel generic or samey; interesting / cool / strange enough to make you shiver a bit... It's literally a visual art. The technique was written up by Austin Osman Spare, who was an actual painter. Like any visual art, you'll be better at it if you stop overthinking. Trancework does help. "Letting go" helps even more. There are no hard rules.

Except that it has to be emotionally load-bearing. It really needs to be art. Like imagine trying to make sushi with a concrete brick... or a beautiful, sharp chef's knife. That's the difference between a bad sigil and a good one.

A sigil that feels impotent is impotent, regardless of how insane your "charging ritual" is or how well you've erased the original thought from your head (echoing @HoldAll I also don't think this is as important as AOS and Carroll posited, but if you can mentally deconstrict a sigil, you are unmaking it - it should be its own single thing, not a loose amalgamation of letters.)

 

[HoldAll]

This post got me thinking. The beautiful thing about chaos magic is its flexibility, and there's absolutely no reason to be unsettled by its lack of structure because this way, you're free to give your sigil magic operations any framework you like. Accordingly, there'd be nothing wrong with performing a traditional banishing before and after a sigil charging or ritualising the entire sigil creation process, e.g. by soliciting the aid of an entity. The heady days of late-1970s radical iconoclasm in chaos magic are long gone. It's no longer punk's "Break every rule!", it's more like a postmodern "No, thanks, there are a couple I'm actually quite fond of but I will blast some inconvenient other ones to kingdom come!" You can be as subversive or conventional as you want to be, anything goes.

Accordingly, tinkering with Spare's/Carroll's classical methods and questioning their premises is only logical (and again, no one has the right to force you to start tinkering or questioning!). For example, I quite like the suggestion of skipping the customary charging process, instead framing the sigil and hanging it in a prominent place. You may be reminded of its purpose the first twenty times or so when seeing it (a big no-no according to the classical method) but after a while, you'll hardly notice it anymore. However, your subconscious will, and in this way the sigil will become imprinted on your mind over time. Neat.

Which brings me to another special feature of chaos sigil magic: in my mind, the above method is mainly good for long-running processes, e.g. a consistent effort to become physically fit, and perhaps not appropriate for specific one-time results. Some chaotes don't like the term 'reality engineering' but I think it's very apt. It was the late Gordon White who popularised the idea of 'sigil shoaling' where you charge and release several sigils simultaneously in order to tackle a wished-for result from multiple angles, a good idea when circumstances are more complex. Adam Blackthorn came up with the 'cascade' where you break down the achievement of a given goal into several steps, creating several sigils as well but then charging them sequentially; the tricky part of course is to avoid defining the path to success too narrowly and thus excluding other alternatives of manifestation. To this end, many chaos mages take probabilities into account and factor in potential obstacles to overcome as well. It's not like asking an angel or demon for a boon - with sigil magic, you have to think things very carefully through regarding how exactly your desire is most likely to materialise.

I might be fairly alone in this but I regard the 'reality engineering' process as part of the magic already. Your brainstorming for ideas may create the first magical stirrings within the fabric of the universe, and it might be a good idea to proceed with a positive, determined mindset (include any New Thought methods you like!).

 

[Eris'AppleWorm.]

I've done very little magic comparatively to some but sigils are a beginners classic and there are lots written on the concept of sentient letters and their uses. Psychonaut & Liber Null and Condensed Chaos are well recommended for good reasons as is Advanced Magick for Beginners. All 3 give you a good overview of the theory and methods to cast sigils into the universe, I haven't read it but as far as im aware The Book of Results by Ray Sherwin also goes into sigils.

Since you like to focus on what is intuitive to you I'd say take a page from one of the original creators Austin Osman Spare and try your hand at automatic writing or drawing. Formalize a statement of intent for whatever it is you want from the sigil, the result you desire. Then doodle something, don't think deeply about what you're drawing but focus on the emotions related to what you desire and let those feelings dictate the what the sigil becomes even if its just a mass of letters shapes and nonsense. After that its up to you to figure out how to cast it out.

 

[arifelmarif]

i also want to leearn aout it i hope this place will guide me

 

[spearman111]

My training was really simple, call up the spell or experience you want to create, really feel into it all the sensations in the body, the senses evoked, the story that plays out, then ask that for a symbol. Then just make sure that each time you approach that symbol you maintain the content of it (mostly don't mess with it with your mind). The you use the symbol when you want to become the spell or experience and let it work.

 

[Shade]

When you learn the "how to" try getting better by being diligent, with it, mindful, and create it like you would say a prayer, somewhat trance yet actually feeling the intention as you create it.
Personaly a really good little comic for those just getting into chaos magic or sigils is found free online. "The Psychonaut Field Manual" it has a lot of little useful practices even though it doesn't seem like a serious book for study (because it's more so just an introduction rather than containing deep philosophical concepts) it's just a very helpful guide for beginners to lay down, understand and create a foundation imo.