Relevance of specific symbols

[VenusianEchoes]

When looking into the occult, certain images seem to matter. An example of this is the pentagram or various sigils.

However, these images often mean very little to me, if they dont mean much, how effective can they be?

I'm looking into chaos magick, and they tend to create their own sigils with personal meaning and they focus on it to create change.

Would this have the same effect as say, some symbol used in a book that I cant assign meaning to until after I read into it?

[Nahemah]

It should do yes, symbols are meaningful due to the personal and group ascriptions placed on them, but they do not need to be understood by everyone to have energy and/ or power.

Many people misunderstand or miscategorise certain symbols and the interpretation then changes depending on who is reading them, there are well known examples of this, The Sig rune and the Fylfot or swastika, for instance, to name but a few. Whether one views a symbol posively, neutrally or negatively depends very much on individual perspective and understanding.