Sigils

[shazwie]

ok....now i am really interested on sigils....i want to know what are they for and how to make them...and mostly..how to use sigils..if any of you know please teach me since books aren't really the best for me..

[Frater_NT]

..please teach me since books aren't really the best for me..

We already went over this in your other thread. You have to do the work yourself, no one is going to hold your hand!

http://www.amazon.com/Liber-Null-Psycho ... er+carroll - Liber Null & Psychnaut
http://www.amazon.com/Condensed-Chaos-A ... y_b_text_z - Condensed Chaos
http://www.amazon.com/Prime-Chaos-Adven ... =phil+hine - Prime Chaos
http://www.amazon.com/The-Theatre-Magic ... +of+magick - Theatre of Magick

Now, go read. Do the lessons in the books, study them, and practice! Failure after doing one sigil isn't reason to waste time looking for a teacher.

Fr. N.'. T.'.

[Occultess]

..please teach me since books aren't really the best for me..

We already went over this in your other thread. You have to do the work yourself, no one is going to hold your hand!

http://www.amazon.com/Liber-Null-Psycho ... er+carroll - Liber Null & Psychnaut
http://www.amazon.com/Condensed-Chaos-A ... y_b_text_z - Condensed Chaos
http://www.amazon.com/Prime-Chaos-Adven ... =phil+hine - Prime Chaos
http://www.amazon.com/The-Theatre-Magic ... +of+magick - Theatre of Magick

Now, go read. Do the lessons in the books, study them, and practice! Failure after doing one sigil isn't reason to waste time looking for a teacher.

Fr. N.'. T.'.

Frater. No offence, man, but some people just don't learn well from books. It's a learning style thing. I don't learn well out of books. I do better learning from other people. And if I'm not mistaken, before all the Witchcraft executions and such, learning magick was a very personal thing. Something that you had a personal instructor for. And if I'm not also mistaken, the only reason the modern witch, wizard, etc. learns out of books in the first place is because it is extremely difficult in the modern (largely shaped by the Witchcraft execution days) world to find an instructor so there isn't much choice.

[Azkhet]

Frater. No offence, man, but some people just don't learn well from books. It's a learning style thing. I don't learn well out of books. I do better learning from other people. And if I'm not mistaken, before all the Witchcraft executions and such, learning magick was a very personal thing. Something that you had a personal instructor for. And if I'm not also mistaken, the only reason the modern witch, wizard, etc. learns out of books in the first place is because it is extremely difficult in the modern (largely shaped by the Witchcraft execution days) world to find an instructor so there isn't much choice.

Well, by the same logic, someone who can't learn from reading is shit out of luck getting help from a forum. There's more interactivity, sure, but if the problem is audio/visual/kinesthetic, then this is as poor a medium as a book. Further, it's unrealistic to expect anyone to hand-feed someone the fundamentals over a message board. That's a Christly amount of typing, and it's already written out and written well. If you have questions, sure, ask -- but don't expect someone to type out all the answers for you because you won't read the basic book that we're already paraphrasing.

Also this thing about the witchcraft executions... you're not referencing the Burning Times thing, are you?

[TheSeeker]

Well, by the same logic, someone who can't learn from reading is shit out of luck getting help from a forum...
...Also this thing about the witchcraft executions... you're not referencing the Burning Times thing, are you?

This is funny. Surly but funny... [greensmile]

[Occultess]

Hi.

Ok. I'll try to help you out with sigils, but I really haven't done much with them myself. I've made one so far, and I'm not really sure it worked.

Here is one way to do it. It's not the way I used, but it's a way...who knows maybe you'll like it:

http://genamason.wordpress.com/2009/11/ ... cal-sigil/


Here's another site. It touches on the above method, but is mostly about the Magickal Square method (which is the one I used). This particular site is pretty thick, but if you read through it you can still find some useful information, like what the squares look like and the types of things they are used for.

http://www.angelfire.com/journal/cathbo ... igils.html

Another site. This one explains it in plain English, has instructions, and has good pictures of all of the magickal squares. And if you continue down and read the replies (as this is actually a thread in a forum) you will find even more good information.

http://www.magickaschool.com/boards/vie ... 60&t=13093


If you have any questions I will help you out as much as I can. Just ask here or send me a Private Message.

[Azkhet]

Well, by the same logic, someone who can't learn from reading is shit out of luck getting help from a forum...
...Also this thing about the witchcraft executions... you're not referencing the Burning Times thing, are you?

This is funny. Surly but funny... [greensmile]

[yay] [yay] [yay] [yay] [yay]

[Frater_NT]

Frater. No offence, man, but some people just don't learn well from books. It's a learning style thing. I don't learn well out of books. I do better learning from other people. And if I'm not mistaken, before all the Witchcraft executions and such, learning magick was a very personal thing. Something that you had a personal instructor for. And if I'm not also mistaken, the only reason the modern witch, wizard, etc. learns out of books in the first place is because it is extremely difficult in the modern (largely shaped by the Witchcraft execution days) world to find an instructor so there isn't much choice.

Alright, fair enough. Some people learn better from experience rather than books. That's fine and dandy but it still doesn't change the fact that in order to do occultism you *HAVE* to read books and use the material given. If I were to sit here and say, "you know what, fuck books. I want someone to email me all the information I need instead", well, I would look like one lazy asshole because I would refuse to be doing any of the work myself. For anyone to say that they refuse to read because they "just don't learn that way" comes off as extremely lazy. As for your comment about learning hands-on before "witchcraft executions", there was a reason people learned from a teacher before the modern era and it was called illiteracy. Reading and writing didn't become common through the major population until the mid-19th century. This also ties in with why people learn occultism from books today, because, yes, some people don't live near a coven, temple, etc, it's mostly the fact that the major population is capable of reading, even if it seems extremely difficult for some people.

P.S. The OP was asking for a teacher because s/he didn't feel that reading was the best method for their learning, yet you post links to a couple websites. You don't notice the flaw in logic there?

Fr. N.'. T.'.

[shazwie]

ok guys..thanks for your reccomendations and teachings....i have read a few things about sigils....but there is only one thing that comes into my mind....does a sigil need an altar??

[Azkhet]

ok guys..thanks for your reccomendations and teachings....i have read a few things about sigils....but there is only one thing that comes into my mind....does a sigil need an altar??

No. Rarely, in fact. The typical process for creating sigils is a tool-less approach where all you need is a post-it note and a pen, not an altar and candles and pentacles and wands and all that other horseshit. That's why chaos magic (from which sigil magic is derived) is often referred to as "open-handed magic."

[Nahemah]

That's why chaos magic (from which sigil magic is derived) is often referred to as "open-handed magic."

Sigils and magickal workings involving the use of sigils/sigilisation,were known and used long before Chaos magic was invented.

Norse and Saxon Runes are sigils.

The Magic Square method,as touched on by Occultess, is the traditonal one used to generate Planetary Sigils in the Western Mystery Trads.

The symbol for your Zodiac sign [my Sun sign :Aquarius's sigil being the representation of waves,for instance] is a sigil too.And there are many more examples of traditional and ancient symbolism that qualify as sigils.

Sigil is from the Latin sigillum and it means a sign,seal or symbol,it is a diminutive of signum [sign]:

"early 13c., "gesture or motion of the hand," from Old French signe "sign, mark, signature," from Latin signum "mark, token, indication, symbol," from PIE root *sekw- "point out" (see :see)."

I included the preamble above,as it references hand movements/gestures i.e: 'signing'. Open handed magick is not exclusive to Chaos magick either and gesturing [whether open or closed in expression] as a form of magickal casting is rather old and time honoured as a method also.

http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?ter ... in_frame=0

http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?all ... hmode=none

A.O.Spare popularised Sigilisation,certainly and those who came after him expanded on it,but to claim Sigil magick is derived from Chaos magick is actually putting the cart before the horse.

Just saying.

[Azkhet]

Sigil magic, by means of taking an intent, obscuring it from consciousness mind by encoding, passing it into the subconscious to do work, and then intentionally forgetting about it is basically the work of AOS, on whom the chaos mages build a lot of their stuff. The sigil types you are talking about (ie, using a magic square in context of types of Renaissance magic) while similar, do not operate on the same basis and therefore are not the same. Rune magic works where you take signs that mean something and construct something based off of an alphabet of their meaning in some sort of ritual format (methods vary, but generally that's the idea.) Again, this is not obscuring your intent from your conscious mind at all. Far from it.

Do not put the train before the horse cart.

[Nahemah]

I stand by the post content I made above.

The information given is accurate and the time frames referenced show clearly that the concepts, terms,symbolism and structure of sigils were not created by Chaos magick,but rather were extant and in use in times before the concepts labelled as Chaos magick were redefined and labelled by the founders of it.

Rune magic works where you take signs that mean something and construct something based off of an alphabet of their meaning in some sort of ritual format (methods vary, but generally that's the idea.)

Hmm...the above quoted sentence dosen't really make sense.

'signs that mean something'...oh,perhaps like :SIGILS?

Referring back the the etymology of the term Sigil:

http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?all ... hmode=none

sigil (n.) Look up sigil at Dictionary.com
"sign," c.1600, from Late Latin sigillum, from Latin sigilla (neuter plural), diminutive of signum "sign" (see sign (n.)). In astrology, an occult device supposed to have great power (1650s).


And then referring back further in time to the parent term signum/sign:


sign (n.) Look up sign at Dictionary.com
early 13c., "gesture or motion of the hand," from Old French signe "sign, mark, signature," from Latin signum "mark, token, indication, symbol," from PIE root *sekw- "point out" (see see).

--------------------------------------------------------------------And the evolution of the term to include it's other common uses:

Meaning "a mark or device having some special importance" is recorded from late 13c.; that of "a miracle" is from c.1300. Sense of "characteristic device attached to the front of an inn, shop, etc., to distinguish it from others" is first recorded mid-15c. Ousted native token. In some uses, the word probably is a shortening of ensign. Sign language is recorded from 1847; earlier hand-language (1670s).
sign (v.) Look up sign at Dictionary.com
c.1300, "to make the sign of the cross," from Old French signer, from Latin signare, from signum (see sign (n.)). Sense of "to mark, stamp" is attested from mid-14c.; that of "to affix one's name" is from late 15c. Meaning "to communicate by sign language" is recorded from 1700. Related: Signed; signing.

...and construct something based off of an alphabet of their meaning

'construct something' ...like a magickal working,perhaps? [shock2]

' based off an alphabet of their meaning'

I'm not with you sorry,this needs clarifying from you.All language has meaning,all symbols and sigils are representations of something else,whether they are used alphabetically or not.

The map is not the territory.

Rune magic works where you take signs that mean something and construct something based off of an alphabet of their meaning in some sort of ritual format (methods vary, but generally that's the idea.)

I read this above, as confusion from you,in trying to explain a concept you do not possess a clear understanding of.

[shazwie]

well now i know just a few things about a sigil....the only thing needed is a piece of paper and a pencil/pen. Sigils are either a word which is scrambled up and morphed around a little or a drawn picture which is morphed until you would not know the true meaning of the word/picture right?? and you need to charge the sigil and then 'fire off' the sigil and forget about it...right??that is the summary which i ended up with >..>

[Azkhet]

I stand by the post content I made above.

The information given is accurate and the time frames referenced show clearly that the concepts, terms,symbolism and structure of sigils were not created by Chaos magick,but rather were extant and in use in times before the concepts labelled as Chaos magick were redefined and labelled by the founders of it.

Rune magic works where you take signs that mean something and construct something based off of an alphabet of their meaning in some sort of ritual format (methods vary, but generally that's the idea.)

Hmm...the above quoted sentence dosen't really make sense.

'signs that mean something'...oh,perhaps like :SIGILS?

Referring back the the etymology of the term Sigil:

http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?all ... hmode=none

sigil (n.) Look up sigil at Dictionary.com
"sign," c.1600, from Late Latin sigillum, from Latin sigilla (neuter plural), diminutive of signum "sign" (see sign (n.)). In astrology, an occult device supposed to have great power (1650s).


And then referring back further in time to the parent term signum/sign:


sign (n.) Look up sign at Dictionary.com
early 13c., "gesture or motion of the hand," from Old French signe "sign, mark, signature," from Latin signum "mark, token, indication, symbol," from PIE root *sekw- "point out" (see see).

--------------------------------------------------------------------And the evolution of the term to include it's other common uses:

Meaning "a mark or device having some special importance" is recorded from late 13c.; that of "a miracle" is from c.1300. Sense of "characteristic device attached to the front of an inn, shop, etc., to distinguish it from others" is first recorded mid-15c. Ousted native token. In some uses, the word probably is a shortening of ensign. Sign language is recorded from 1847; earlier hand-language (1670s).
sign (v.) Look up sign at Dictionary.com
c.1300, "to make the sign of the cross," from Old French signer, from Latin signare, from signum (see sign (n.)). Sense of "to mark, stamp" is attested from mid-14c.; that of "to affix one's name" is from late 15c. Meaning "to communicate by sign language" is recorded from 1700. Related: Signed; signing.

...and construct something based off of an alphabet of their meaning

'construct something' ...like a magickal working,perhaps? [shock2]

' based off an alphabet of their meaning'

I'm not with you sorry,this needs clarifying from you.All language has meaning,all symbols and sigils are representations of something else,whether they are used alphabetically or not.

The map is not the territory.

Rune magic works where you take signs that mean something and construct something based off of an alphabet of their meaning in some sort of ritual format (methods vary, but generally that's the idea.)

I read this above, as confusion from you,in trying to explain a concept you do not possess a clear understanding of.

I can't agree with you - just because a word shares a definition (ie, "sigil" being a word that has an occult meaning) doesn't mean that all sigil magic is the same thing. Is some shaman saying he performed a healing ceremony now performing ceremonial magic? Of course not.

The basic premise of chaos magic is that you take some kind of intent, like SWEET DREAMS, and then turn it into an intent that your conscious mind can't wrap itself around, power it, and then forget it so the conscious mind does not interfere with its success. There's a billion ways to do this (the simplest is to repeat eliminating letters then rearrange into something unintelligible, although putting letters into a square and making a sigil works too.) Renaissance magicians (speaking specifically of John Dee here) would come up with an angel's sigil, for example, by tracing its name out on whatever square on the table to which the angel belonged, thus coming up with a squiggle that meant the angel's name. This is not remotely related to the practice of sigil magic as I related it above. Get it? John Dee did not use chaos magic because he used sigils. Chaotes stole his method of making squiggles as a means of randomizing their intent to keep it away from their conscious minds. These are not the same thing, or even remotely equivalent.

Runes are used inside of a ritual format and are selected based off of their meaning (I'm no expert on rune magic, but skimming from Flower's book, anyway.) They are selected based off of their meaning and the meaning in the ritual. This is not taking intent, encoding it so your conscious mind can't understand it, powering it, and then forgetting it. This is selecting specific ritual components based off their meaning. Could you call them sigils? Well, just as easily as you could call Dee's angel signs runes, I suppose. The dictionary says you can, but it's not the same thing.

[Frater_NT]

I would like to throw my two cents in here, I may not know very much when it comes to chaos magic but I don't agree that symbols and signs from other systems have anything in common with sigils from choas magic. Nahemah brought up the point of runes, astrological symbols, etc and these symbols are clear symbolic representations of ideas or philosophies in picture form. These symbols are so common that they have become part of the collective consciousness of society. Take for example astrology and its weekly horoscopes in the newspaper. Everyone is at least aware of their astrological sign. Here is where I see the difference, and my cause from disagreement with Nahemah. Sigil magic, on the other hand, is the creation of a personal symbol and the use of certain methods to BYPASS CONSCIOUSNESS so the symbol is implanted into the subconscious mind. Take for example the Rose Cross and the creation of signs and symbols. You would take that sign or symbol that you create and put it on a taliman, for example, and then charge it in a ceremony and keep it with you until the goal was accomplished. Now, this is HUGELY different than chaos magic where a symbol is created, implanted in the subconscious mind, and forgotten about. The problem that we are having here is not the name you are giving to the symbol; a rune being a symbol, sign, sigil, whatever, and the chaote creating a personal symbol, sign, sigil, whatever, but the *method of use* and application of said symbol, sign, sigil, whatever. So, in my limited understanding of chaos magic, are we talking about the same things here? No. Chaos magic isn't the same as using astrological signs, runes, angel sigils, etc. A sign is a sign, a sigil is a sigil. This all comes down to method of use, not the name given to a picture.

Fr. N.'. T.'.

[shazwie]

ok now i am confused....is the symbol supposed to be in the talisman or the sigil?? and can sigil be kept until it is done?? and does a sigil give much influence on everyday life??

[Occultess]

P.S. The OP was asking for a teacher because s/he didn't feel that reading was the best method for their learning, yet you post links to a couple websites. You don't notice the flaw in logic there?

Fr. N.'. T.'.[/quote]

No. This is the internet. There is little way around reading something, obviously. But he didn't say reading. He said "books", which is an entirely different thing. I can have a book on something. I could have 20 books on something. I'm not going to learn how to do anything from them. I'm not going to develop an understanding of the concepts written about in the books. A human being can explain the concepts. They can do it in a fashion that is most understandable to me, because they can talk to me. They can condense things a bit. They can give step-by-step instructions. They can give me feedback. If I'm lucky enough to have them in the room with me could even guide me, show me, correct me. Books just can't do that. Websites are a bit different. Maybe not entirely different. But enough that they can go around some of the issues you run into with books. LIke for instance, one of the sites I linked had little animated gifs of how to draw a sigil. A book cannot show you, physically, how to do something. No matter how many photos they print into it. And I offered that he could talk to me. A book can't do that either.

Just think of it this way. A surgeon has books that he reads to learn how to cut people open and fix them up. But he does not have books alone. That would be a frightening situation indeed. Having a surgeon working on you say he learned purely from reading books. No. The surgeon had a book a few inches from his face and a teacher a few feet from his desk. There were questions, answers, lectures, feedback, assignments, graded tests, and practice cadavers.

It's not necessarily that reading is utterly bad and impossible to learn from...it's that it's bad and impossible to learn from when there isn't anything else.

[Occultess]

@ Shazwie

I'm seriously not trying to ignore your questions. I'm just not really able to answer them. I hope someone else with more experience/knowledge about them can give you a good explanation.

[Frater_NT]

I can have a book on something. I could have 20 books on something. I'm not going to learn how to do anything from them. I'm not going to develop an understanding of the concepts written about in the books.

umm, if you can't read a book, take the material and put it to use I suggest you read it again. It's seriously not difficult. To say that someone can't do anything after reading a book only says to me you didn't actually read it or put the material to use.

A human being can explain the concepts. They can do it in a fashion that is most understandable to me, because they can talk to me. They can condense things a bit. They can give step-by-step instructions. They can give me feedback. If I'm lucky enough to have them in the room with me could even guide me, show me, correct me. Books just can't do that. Websites are a bit different. Maybe not entirely different. But enough that they can go around some of the issues you run into with books.

I completely agree that humans can give feedback about instructions that books can't. However, a vast majority of people will never find reliable instructors to teach them occultism. The key word here is RELIABLE. People who are lacking in knowledge themselves have no place teaching. Let's not forget that a lot of people prefer to work alone. After working with groups in the past, I currently have no interest in joining another Order, Lodge, Temple or anything of the like. Am I supposed to give up on occultism because all I will be working with is books? No, of course not, that would completely illogical. Let's get to the point here. Lot's of people don't have access to a reliable teacher and you yourself said books are useful for those very people. Let's not kid ourselves, if you try learning from someone on the net you *still* have to do research yourself yourself because you have no idea who the teacher is or if they are even giving you a good answer. Hell, for all you know I could have been trolling this thread the whole time screwing with everyone. You never know!

LIke for instance, one of the sites I linked had little animated gifs of how to draw a sigil. A book cannot show you, physically, how to do something. No matter how many photos they print into it. And I offered that he could talk to me. A book can't do that either.

I disagree. An animated gif showing the steps is just as good as step by step photos in the chaos books on my bookshelf.

Just think of it this way. A surgeon has books that he reads to learn how to cut people open and fix them up. But he does not have books alone. That would be a frightening situation indeed. Having a surgeon working on you say he learned purely from reading books. No. The surgeon had a book a few inches from his face and a teacher a few feet from his desk. There were questions, answers, lectures, feedback, assignments, graded tests, and practice cadavers.

In a perfect world all occultists would have their books and access to a good teacher who is well experienced (just like the doctor-in-training). This, however, is not the case. Unlike the doctor-in-training, the doctor-in-training actually would have done the work of reading, not just saying "I don't learn well from reading, so fuck it, someone teach me".

It's not necessarily that reading is utterly bad and impossible to learn from...it's that it's bad and impossible to learn from when there isn't anything else.

This makes no sense to me at all. I was studying and practicing occultism for years before I joined my first group and was going pretty damn well for myself. How reading books alone is "utterly bad and impossible to learn from" is beyond me! Again, in a perfect world everyone would have access to a reliable teacher, but that's just not the case. It seems to me that if people have this idea so ingrained in their heads that they *must* have a teacher to learn occultism, well, you might as well bail on it now or you're going to be highly disappointed for a long time.

Fr. N.'. T.'.

[Azkhet]

ok now i am confused....is the symbol supposed to be in the talisman or the sigil?? and can sigil be kept until it is done?? and does a sigil give much influence on everyday life??

/rams her head into the desk a few times for fun

A long time ago, in a galaxy far far away, there existed a shitload of Renaissance magicians. They were working off of material saved by the Catholic Church and imported (one way or another, usually violently) from the Near East. A lot of it was in Hebrew, Greek or Latin because those were the languages of the educated at the time and the information also came from the regions where those languages are normally spoken.

In England during the reign of Queen Lizzie there was a dude named John Dee. He was a most magical dude. His buddy, Edward Kelly, and he came up with a specific system of ceremonial magic that they said was given to them by angels, in a language called Enochian. The angels supposedly told them to put the letters of the Enochian alphabet into a big grid-like table that looks like this:



They wanted you to draw on them certain seals when you used them. The way that you derived the sign representing the angel was to take it's name (usually something ridiculously unpronounceable like CZFTA) and locate it on the appropriate part on the Enochian table, which would then make a sigil would look something like this:



This meaning is not hidden from the mind. It is not unknown to others. This is a signature for an Enochian angel. It is known to other people because other people can look at the table and draw the exact same sigil. There were other signs involved in dealing with angels, some of which you'd trace in special fluids, or only with a certain wand, or whatever. They were designed to work in conjunction with the angel sigils. Again, these are known to other magicians and used together in a ceremonial magic style ritual. Banishing rituals are often performed in Hebrew, special robes and consecrated tools are used, magic circles are cast, there are looooong invocations of spirits and powers. Consider the source of the rituals - highly educated and wealthy nobles and priests.

See this? This is the Rose Cross thing Frater N.'.T.'. was talking about. It's used by the Golden Dawn, another group of ceremonial magicians:



Yup, it's a flower. Those three center petals represent the elements of air, fire and water (notice that earth is missing), the next ring the seven planetary powers and the outermost ring is for the signs of the zodiac. Those Hebrew letters can be traced connect-the-dots style again to form intents -- you can spell out something in Hebrew (spirit names being uber common), or use the facts of its construction to make something new. If I wanted to make a talisman for myself, I might trace my name out over the petals, and then combine it with the seal of Raphael for healing. I'd put these on an anointed disk in my pocket I might carry around after ritual consecration, for example, and continue to prod it for power by reciting a prayer to Raphael over the talisman. These are sigils as described by ceremonial magicians, which is not "sigil" magic - same word, yes, a magic pictogram, absolutely (like it was helpfully pointed out it comes from the Latin word sigillum... well, what the hell language did you expect Dee and the others do use? Klingon?) but not what people are referring to when discussing sigil magic in general, no more than when a shaman performs a "healing ceremony" did he perform ceremonial magic - the shaman didn't whip out the dead or mystical language and sword and wand and seals and shit, now did he?

AOS was a member of the OTO. Kellner, the dude who founded the OTO, made up his shit off of Freemasonry until Crowley got his hands on it. So, is it at all likely that AOS knew about the Rosy Cross sigil generator, and Enochian angel magic and all those sorts of things? Of course he did. Where the practice of chaos magic differs is that the chaote is trying to remove the influence of his conscious mind from the operation altogether. Keep in mind at the time that this sort of magic was being developed was also the time of Jung and Freud - new thinking about the conscious and the subconscious mind and how they influence us. The idea is basically that if your conscious mind is aware of what your subconscious is doing that it will interfere. Therefore if you confuse or somehow misdirect it away from what your spell is really trying to do it cannot interfere with your subconscious mind's implementation. By removing the psychic "drag" your subconscious is freer to act. This is why there's so much focus on creating a sigil and then forgetting it -- your conscious mind won't recognize what that squiggle is for, but when you ram it full of energy your subconscious does remember and it will work unfettered. Does the method of squiggle generation look the same? In a lot of cases, it does - AOS knew all this stuff -- but his implementation is different by a country mile and that's the key.

[Azkhet]

No. This is the internet. There is little way around reading something, obviously. But he didn't say reading. He said "books", which is an entirely different thing. I can have a book on something. I could have 20 books on something. I'm not going to learn how to do anything from them. I'm not going to develop an understanding of the concepts written about in the books. A human being can explain the concepts. They can do it in a fashion that is most understandable to me, because they can talk to me. They can condense things a bit. They can give step-by-step instructions. They can give me feedback. If I'm lucky enough to have them in the room with me could even guide me, show me, correct me. Books just can't do that. Websites are a bit different. Maybe not entirely different. But enough that they can go around some of the issues you run into with books. LIke for instance, one of the sites I linked had little animated gifs of how to draw a sigil. A book cannot show you, physically, how to do something. No matter how many photos they print into it. And I offered that he could talk to me. A book can't do that either.

Just think of it this way. A surgeon has books that he reads to learn how to cut people open and fix them up. But he does not have books alone. That would be a frightening situation indeed. Having a surgeon working on you say he learned purely from reading books. No. The surgeon had a book a few inches from his face and a teacher a few feet from his desk. There were questions, answers, lectures, feedback, assignments, graded tests, and practice cadavers.

It's not necessarily that reading is utterly bad and impossible to learn from...it's that it's bad and impossible to learn from when there isn't anything else.

Well, if it's a kinesthetic/audio/visual thing like you mentioned earlier, I don't see how a website is necessarily better than a book. Sure, it's more interactive - in a sense - but it's still not hitting the necessary audio or kinesthetic triggers that would make it "better" somehow than a book. Does the intarwebs make it more digestible? TLDR doesn't count; consider the book just a really long post.

I agree with Frater N.'.T.'. about teacher reliability, and I think that's what also drives people to message boards. After reading some of the horseshit in publication (Zell-Ravenhurst, Ravenwolf, Penczak, Ford...) I think people can see it's twaddle and they're looking for something with more substance. Still, you do have to read. You just need to find quality bathroom material.

[Elmer Romero]

Going off on a tangent here, something that puzzles me about the methodology for charging a (chaos) sigil. Why would it not be possible for one person to create a sigil and pass it off to a second person who didn't know what it represented, so the second person could charge it? That would bypass the consciousness censors pretty thoroughly...

Such a simple idea; if it worked I'm sure people would be using it... so the fact that people don't do it that way must mean it doesn't work. Maybe there's something I'm not understanding...

[Nahemah]

Going off on a tangent here, something that puzzles me about the methodology for charging a (chaos) sigil. Why would it not be possible for one person to create a sigil and pass it off to a second person who didn't know what it represented, so the second person could charge it? That would bypass the consciousness censors pretty thoroughly...

Such a simple idea; if it worked I'm sure people would be using it... so the fact that people don't do it that way must mean it doesn't work. Maybe there's something I'm not understanding...

Yes,it's possible and yes it's been done and several times at least, on forums I frequent occasionally.

There were two experimental attempts I can recall,among them and one of these was very successful,but it had a wee backfire effect too.
Some chargers got given the intent instead of charging the sigil,by accident,or so it's claimed [jury's out on that: caveat emptor,lol] and they reported funky, more intense and often psychedelically incined dreaming experiences than usual,lol.

It turns out,as explained later,the originator designed the sigil for enhancement of lucidity and astral vision. [thumbup]

If it's a fact that people don't do this,how so?

[Elmer Romero]

Yes,it's possible and yes it's been done and several times at least, on forums I frequent occasionally.

There were two experimental attempts I can recall,among them and one of these was very successful,but it had a wee backfire effect too.
Some chargers got given the intent instead of charging the sigil,by accident,or so it's claimed [jury's out on that: caveat emptor,lol] and they reported funky, more intense and often psychedelically incined dreaming experiences than usual,lol.

It turns out,as explained later,the originator designed the sigil for enhancement of lucidity and astral vision. [thumbup]

If it's a fact that people don't do this,how so?

Ah, thanks for the info.

I don't know for a fact that people don't do it, just working with a series of inferences. (Seems like if they did... and it worked... that the news would have spread like wildfire.)

If you (or anyone) be interested in conducting that experiment, I have a sigil handy that I designed this morning and would like to charge quickly, rather than wait till I forget the intent... Wanna play?