S IG IL M AG IC K A personal perspective By Soror Osira
What can be expanded on sigil magick except to delve into the personal experiences of those that have practiced it? Sigils have been around for centuries and have been used to tap into planetary energies, command spirits, charge talismans, and for personal gain and growth. Most us here are quite adept in magick, so, to completely delve into every historical reference will turn this into a "book" or put the dear reader to sleep. To refresh briefly, a sigil is a seal or sign an analogic example of any words or name or emotion. Some occult scholars claim that the recorded earliest sigils were from "The Sword of Moses", also the six and seventh book of Moses, The Black Pullet, and the infamous, Arbatel of Magic. However though these may be some of the earliest books on sigils, they have been used for centuries prior. Shamans, witchdoctors and tribesman, have used sigils and painted them on their bodies. Have you ever daydreamed and scribbled something on a pad of paper, or was mad and drew dark circles with your pen or pencil? These are sigils. They are uncharged or usually destroyed once your paper is thrown away, but they are sigils just the same. There are many methods to create a sigil and there are traditional methods to obtain a sigil. Examples of sigils are the olympic planetary spirits and intelligences, angelic sigils, magic squares, and enochiana. I can't stress enough the importance to study all methods. Sigils are used in advertising and our daily world of subconcious programming. Just think of the Golden Arches, or Arm & Hammer. Glyphs are used everywhere in street signs, colors are also powerful programming tools, can you imagine a purple stop sign? Or crossing the street when it says "GO" but the light turns blue and not green. Sigils and glyphs have a powerful effect on our everyday mundane world, so much so, a magicians can use similar methods to program his or her mind and cause desired changes. We are so unaware of how much our mind is triggered by glyphs, sigils, logos, and power words. Whatever key fits to unlock your will, and focus your mind can also be the key to self destruct. My story encompasses both. My sigil magick technique would have killed me last March. Not in 1999, or 2001, but just last March. Our minds are programmed in basically four ways. Some of us are a mixture or hybrid, as an example, when we have a problem that needs to be "focused on" we 1. LEADER - Just DO what it takes and forget about it. "I'll just take care of it now", "Let me handle it", "No worries", "If I want to do something right I will do it myself". 2. WORRIER - Focus and obsession. "Damn, I gotta do all this stuff on my list" "Don't forget...dont forget" 3. SLOW BUT SURE - Co dependent or interdependent, or researcher, skeptic. "I have to discuss this with so and so", "I have to "think" about this", "HELP", "I have to compare, read, etc. ". 4. CREATIVE, CHAOTIC, looks and synthesizes all elements, and open to all.
Sigil magick unlocks the strongest programming of your mind at solving your problem, creating a focus so intense and so "painless" that it works effortlessly. You don't need faith, philosophy, or be a high farting degree magician. This is a natural mental magick that is in all of us. Once we understand the roots of it, usages, and methods, and how it can be compatible to your mental or magical process, it will be a custom designed resource for you. Chaos magick theories is the bastard child of the occult. Yet in theory and practice it is refreshingly sane, and strongly scientifically and psychologically based. This reputation is based on the fact that chaos magicians formulate and self create most of their rituals, and borrow, choose and pick whatever methods they need to achieve results. They hold no attachment to a pantheon, or spiritual connections/oneness and many chaos magicians are atheists. Chaos magick has no room for the ego and politics of magical mystery schools, it simplifies the techniques down to the base, adds sound scientific interpretation and helps you to understand the psychology and will behind how magick works. Personally, I owe a great debt to chaos magick, I am disapointed that such a dynamic system has not grown and expanded if not taken over the framework of magical thought. In my opinion, I think it's scorned upon because of the strong discordian element in it, and because some chaos magicians are such independent and creative people, they are not looki ng for recognition or acceptance or fraternity nor do most care or share their developments. If I was ever to teach, I would start off with an introduction to chaos magick, because it will never interfere with your true will on a spiritual level. Once you understand chaos magick, everything else is a breeze, because you basically understand the differance between, desire, intent, and concept, without the infernal struggle with spiritual issues. This helps to deprogram your mind and drain the sludge from all your past religous ingrained thought patterns. First mental deprogramming, then emotional deprogramming, then rebirth. The techniques in Peter J. Carrol's book, "Liber Null & Psychonaut" out lines the basic framework for modern sorcery sigil methods, this is a basic method that can be elaborated and charged in many different ways. 1. The word method: You state/write your intent in one long sentence, eliminate the extra letters and arrange them in a glyph. 2. The pictorial method: You make a picture out of your intent. 3. Mantra method : Spell out your intent and make a phonetic chant out of it. I agree with the theory that there are three parts to a sigil, 1. Construction - this unlocks your mental malkuth mind to "aim" 2. Sigil is lost to the mind. 3. The sigil is charged. My only conflict is that this is NOT the only method for sigil magick that works, though it does work this way, and theories are all politically correct, but there can be much more to it. I say it's all an inter-dependence on several factors and it's not a clear formula, but just one way to approach it effectively. If we can get everything thru mere thoughts, we'd all be Harry Potter, and in general humanity would be extinct, so we know desire and lust has to be (let's use a "gun" as an example) the gun, the will is the trigger, and the bullet is the charge to the sigil that FIRES. Sigils stimulate the will on it's highest velocity, it flicks the switch, but its does not operate solely on that switch, just like a
gun just cannot go off by staring at it. Sigils flicks everything "ON" to get the results, operating on everything yet operating independently. Magical alphabets can also be used to create sigils, such as runes, and if you are very creative, enochian letters, other magical lettering is the masonic/rosicrucian script, sanskrit, and passing of the river script. Again. go with your comfort zone, you will get the best results. Let that creative part of you flow when you create that sigil! If you are gematrically obsessed and have worn down Liber 777 to a nub of a book use numbers, box it and glyph it, or say the numbers as a mantra. You can also use your computer or software programs to make graphics or flashing colors as a sigil. Using colors for the sigil has worked fine for me, it has been scientifically proven that brain tissues emit visible color radiations, radiations of ultra violet light and radiations beyond the ultra violet range. [S.G.J. Ouseley, Color Meditations, London 1949] This has been referred to as the "aura" which has been proven in laboratories, our "bioplasmic" body. The technique I used was first developed out of being in a mental despression. I wanted to lose alot of weight for an upcoming event, and there was no way medically possible I could lose that amount of weight in less than two months. I thought I was incapable of dieting and thus failed in every aspect. My desire was worn down to self pity and loathing. It was not about the weight it was my whole world and it was my ego. I had a disturbing and distorted sense of myself and self worth. An adversary of mine, laughed in my face at my futile attempts to eat better and exercise, not only laughed in my face, mocked me, pointed at me and degraded me to the bone it was like everyone in the world spitting on my face and telling me all the things I feared the worst. I felt stripped and then I felt angry. So angry that all my hurt and all my rejection and all my desire, made that "magick gun" I was inflamed with a rage beyond words. I stood up to this creature who was ridiculing me with such an intense stare that it frightened him.. I was to accomplish this or be a failure, and failure was not an option. I studied the usage of colors and drew a sigil in red in the classic method of writing a sentence, eliminating the extra letters then enclosed the glyph in a box. I need to point out it was a general wording which looking back was a huge mistake. I then stared at it and thought of everything that ever hurt me. I painted a copy of the sigil on my stomach and I thought of a gun loading (hence my analogy) I then cut myself on my stomach to charge the sigil, and offer myself as a living transmitter. I then screamed. A primal scream that released the poisen and toxic thoughts, a selfexorcism. For five days I ate nothing and only managed to drink juice and coffee. No weakness. No cold sweats like I always experienced, people at work always micro waving and obsessing what to eat, and bringing in sweets. At home I still had to cook and it was like I had no senses, no taste, no hunger, no side affects. In a week I went down one size. I was afraid to take off the sigil because I thought I would eat the whole world, and I carried it proudly on my stomach like it was a baby. People at work were amazed on the total and I do mean a total 180 on my eating habits and outlook. After an entire week of not eating I noticed some difficulty in moving my legs, I made myself eat something light, if I remember correctly, some crackers and nibbled on some bare nutrients. I cut myself again and drew the sigils on the palms of my hands, feet, and chest. I could not physically eat again. Not eating will affect you mentally and psychologically and thus I developed a phobia of food, and took great pains to avoid eating at all costs. I became obsessed with sigil magick, and used different sigils for different goals, and had a high success rate. I had disturbing dreams and became suicidal. On the outside I seemed fine. When I got home I locked myself in my room and chanted and drew sigils everywhere. For some reason, I had made a sigil of the death angel. I was drawn everyday to wear it.
My husband, Steven, (who was my fiance at the time) was actually the person who saved my life. You see he was the "special event" and he arrived and just adored me and I adored him. He noticed I never ate and lived on rice pudding practically. He read my magical diaries and quickly figured out what was going on. At one point he forcibly washed the sigils off me. I started to get more grounded and everything started to look like a bad surreal dream. Reading my notes, are difficult. I don't recognise who I became. Sigil magick can be used safely and worn safely on your body, just don't wear the sigils more than once a day and banish before and after and use it for positive purposes. I learned alot about myself and I faced my fear but I had become the embodiment of fear in the process. That was the ultimate abyss. I don't blame magick, I only blame the way I used this process. This was a black magick operation rooted and grown out of negative emotions. To get the most positive results out of sigil magick, and do a basic sigil operation this is what I suggest. You do not need to cast a circle if you do a banishing before and after, if you are traditionally in witchcraft then cast circle. 1) Decide what works best for you and symbolise your intent, you can draw a design, use runes, use your computer, or write out a sentence with your intent, eliminate all the extra letters and merge and box it in a design. 2) Decide if you're putting this on paper, cloth, or a candle, if carving on a candle use appropiate colors and oils. If on paper use the right color paper or use white paper with doves or dragons blood ink. I even have a theory on using shapes of the paper, for example a sigil that is based on money I use a money shaped rectangular shape, something emotional I would use a round or heart shape. 3) When your sigil is done, it is pre-charged by just you creating it. Connect to it by putting your magick name, on it, for example on the back. Concentrate on it and let your eyes get unfocused, imagine that gun, or a bow and arrow, symbolise "shooting if off" memorise the design of the sigil, merge with it. Chaos theory has you to memorize it and think of it in an intense emotional moment such as during sex, anger, and then to "fire" it.. Either way is fine. 4) If you paint the sigil on your body instead, use the chakra points. 5) Close your circle and do your appropiate closings, banishings, if you use a candle, let the candle burn down. It's so simple, but extremly effective. Using sigil magick will strengthen your focus and your will. FINIS Soror Osira, 2002
