I initially posted this article in the "Other Religion" forum becasue that's where I'm used to posting such things. But, it has nothing to do with religion and I thought this was a more appropriate forum. So here it is.

I LOVE sigil magick and use sigils all the time. Symbols are so important and effective. Most people don't realize how much. Anyway, I stumbled across this...


Sigils Reboot: How To Get Big Magic From Little Squiggles

Sigil magic was my least favourite thing back in my Baby’s First Grimoire days. It offended my sense of theatre. Where was the ritual, the incense, the scary looking altars? It was also… ahh… how you say… “messy”? So I kept away from it for years.

Then I accidentally ended up with a moderately successful career in the global advertising industry.

It was here that I saw the same techniques that underpin sigil magic -backed up with a huge amount of brain studies- being put to potent use.

Advertising relies on an understanding of how images work and how they work on the brain. Just changing a word or even a colour in an ad campaign would result in thousands of dollars profit for a client. The audience is rarely if ever aware they have been impacted in some way. And you yourself are somehow never influenced.

It’s not as evil as it sounds. In fact, consciously filtering out sensory data is an evolutionary advantage. But you’re still absorbing it via ‘low attention processing’. As for your lack of individual awareness of being influenced, this is due to a psychological phenomenon called Third Person Perception: the belief that advertising affects other people more than you. If you don’t agree with it, put down your Starbucks coffee, tap your converse sneaker angrily on the ground while you get out your iPad and use it to send me an angry gmail. More on this later.

Clearly, using images and words has a huge impact. Over the last thirty years, millions and millions of dollars have been spent trying to understand precisely what sort of impact visual stimuli have on the human brain; from violence in computer games to font choices in mortgage ads.

This is the kind of research and exploration that the first exponents of modern sigil magic could only dream about.

So maybe sigils are in need of another look? Maybe there is a way to fold all this research into sigil magic and… reboot it?

It’s worth the effort. 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. Even the most stringent atheists can get something out of working with sigils. They can fit into any magical system. You could teach a nun sigil magic. (Somebody please teach a nun sigil magic.)

How do you use sigils?

That was very interesting Ruth I'd like to more about it. And by the way... your comment made me laugh more than you know

Yeah, it's a very interesting subject and effective form of magick. I'll post more later when I feel better.

Spider, I'll post how I personally use them tomorrow. My head hurts.

The article gives specific instructions farther down on how to use the sigils. It's a little different than I use them but I'm more of a folk magick girl and dont go in for the big dramatic rituals.

think Grant Morrison is big into Sigils

I hope you feel better soon Ruth

No rush. Take care of that pretty head of yours.

Thanks you two.

Here is how you create one.

>> Classic Sigil Construction
‘Classic’ is meant in the loosest possible sense, of course. What it really means is post-Spare. There is no better introduction to classical sigil construction -and chaos magic in general, I suppose- than Grant Morrison’s late nineties gem, Pop Magic.

Here is what you do:

Write out your desire/goal.
Cross out all the vowels.
Cross out all the repeated letters.
Mash the remaining letters into a single (hideous) glyph.
Then start amending this glyph until it starts to look more pleasing. I try to make mine look organic or tribal but that’s a personal preference. Your unconscious is different to mine. (Probably.)


(in case there is any confusion, I am copying and pasting these instructions from the linked article)

My words:

How you use your sigil will vary from practioner to practioner. But the idea is that symbols affect the brain on a very deep level. The same way advertisers use symbols and slogans to get people to buy things. The symbols make deep changes in the brain and in one's thinking which causes change to occur in your life. I do a terrible job of explaining the science behind it which is why I posted the article. It does a much better job for anyone who is interested.

As far as how you use the sigil in a magickal working will depend entirely on what you need to reach your subconscious. Ritual is about creating an atmosphere that changes your deepest thought patterns. Thoughts and beliefs you may not even be aware you have. Once those patterns are disrupted and changed, the energy you put out changes. And when the energy you are putting out changes, what becomes your reality changes.

The hardest part of learning magick is finding the system that works best for you. This can take some time. Magick is the easiest thing to do and the hardest at the same time. I know that doesn't make sense, but this why I'm not a teacher of magick.

So once you have found a style of magick that works for you (he gives some great suggestions for finding one) he gives a few suggestions for using the sigil. Including this one which is his preference ( I think he's into ceremonial magick....something I'm way too lazy to engage in).

>> Sigils Redux: Activation
This is really more your bag than mine. Once again I refer you to Grant Morrison’s Pop Magic for a fuller treatment of the subject. Over the years I have honed an activation ritual to the point that just rolling out the casting cloth (I use an old tarot cloth) starts altering my consciousness. Like all the best things in life except possibly eating carbs… practice makes everything better. Find what works and work it.

Delineate your magical space. This can be as simple as filling the room in your mind’s eye with a fade out of brilliant white light.

Lay out your sigils in front of you. I’m either usually seated on the ground or at a large low coffee table. My kit tends to be a few candles, stick incense and the squares of paper, all arranged as artfully as I am capable of (ie not very) on a casting cloth.

Light candles and incense. Colour correspondence is optional. I seem to get results from candles I actually like the look of rather than ones that supposedly match. (The way I do them, pinks and yellows look to my mind like I’m at a hobo kids birthday party.)

Summon relevant beings. Either beings you have pre-existing relationships with or beings affiliated with road/gate openings. My activations seem to have more of a séance feel rather than a ‘blasting’ feel. Efficacy is better served by having a clear conduit to the other side to allow the shoal passage rather than maximum firepower at the base of a rocket.

Meditate on each sigil individually. You’d be surprised how easy it is to genuinely forget which sigil encodes which magical goal. Pick up one up, breathe and just stare at it in a comfortable, detached way. Your eyes will eventually warp the squiggle. Soon after it will feel ‘inert’… like it was once alive and has reverted to simply being a piece of paper. Mentally repeat Spare’s “Does not matter, need not be.” Put the sigil down and move onto the next one.

Close down your space. When complete. No need to banish. You can if you want… it’s not really my bag.