Sigil magic and the masking of desire

[Eremita]

Hello folks, I'm dropping yet another thread on sigils (oh, joy!).

So, according to what I've read on sigils from Peter Carroll, Grant Morrison and Phil Hine, the act of charging a sigil requires strong visualisation of said sigil from within a state of intense gnosis - that is, one must exclude all forms of thought and (most importantly they say) desire concerning the aimed-for effect.

In other words, you forget completely about what you are trying to enchant for, and instead focus all your energy on the sigil. Once charged, you are to avoid thinking of the sigilised desire until it comes to fruition.

I found this notion very strange, as it seems that it is precisely the opposite of what is required in virtually every other kind of spell work. The Witches tell me that during, and especially at the climax of your ritual, you must be focusing intently on visualising the desired effect.

Is is truly necessary to banish all thoughts of the desire in sigil magic? I would have thought that once the desire has been "encoded", if you like, into the sigil, then it wouldn't matter because the sigil already has a clearly stated purpose/identity.

Any thoughts would be appreciated!

Cheers,
Eremita

[Atlanteandruid]

Yes according to Pete Carroll etc that is the whole idea of making a sigil. If it's a pictorial sigil it should not look like the object of your working, and if a word sigil it should not contain any recognisable words in your language. So you write out your desire and then strike out repeated letters and rearrange the remaining letters into a pronounceable but meaningless word. Same with the image- draw a symbolic image and then styleise it till it's unrecognisable.

Pete Carroll etc were inspired by Austin Osman Spare, whose idea was that by consciously thinking about the object of your desire, you are automatically thinking about the fact that you don't already have it, thus introducing negativity.

Not saying this is the only way to do magick, but it is their way so I personally find it best to follow the recommendations of each system in full for as long as you;re using it.

[Ramscha]

Peter Charoll indeed copied most of his stuff about sigils from Spare. Anyway, there are many approaches in working with sigils, again the practitioner has to chose what suits him best. Experiment!

- You could make them, charge them and destroy them.
- Charge and hide
- Charge and tape it on the wall
- charge and eat it
- simply draw it

Oliver Fehn made a very simple approach regarding visualization which I want to mention for you guys:

His method is based on the following assumtion. When a magician makes his visualisations, most authors recommend a long and intense one. However, he claims that the process of visualisation itself takes so much effort that the magician loses the actual aim, the sigil itself. Therefore, instread of making this effort in visualizing it he recommend a short projection for only a few seconds, maybe drawing it an additional time and then to do whatever the magician wants (eat it, destroy it, tape it on a wall, etc.).

I found this approach regarding visualization quite interesting and also made very interesting experiences with it. As an example, 2 weeks ago I had a cold and my nose was blocked completly. I took a vislualozation of a microscopic team of bob the builder which went into my nose and started "repairing" it for a few seconds. 5 minutes later I had one big sneeze and my nose was free.

Just my 2 cents

Ramscha

[deathbycicada]

You are right that intention is everything in magick. By bypassing conscious intention, one is able to internalize will with the unconscious/ spirit/ astral/whatever your beliefs about magick are.

Forgetting your intention is indeed difficult. In fact, it is almost impossible to make yourself forget something. As soon as you tell yourself not to think about your intent, you'll start to think about it.

One solution is to create multiple sigils and wait to fire them off. I keep all of my sigils in a drawer. After accumulating 3-5 sigils, it is very difficult to associate which intent went with which sigil. When I have time to fire a sigil into the astral, I'll randomly selected one my sigils with no recollection of the intent behind it.

[Eremita]

Pete Carroll etc were inspired by Austin Osman Spare, whose idea was that by consciously thinking about the object of your desire, you are automatically thinking about the fact that you don't already have it, thus introducing negativity.

This certainly makes sense to my mind - but in saying that, doesn't the same apply to other methods of spell casting, wherein the desire is visualised as strongly as possible?

What I mean is:
Spell - write desire, focus on it, build it up (via ritual, chant, candle burning, whatever), fire it off
Sigil - write desire, rearrange letters, mash it into an unrecognisable representation, fire off representation

How is it that what is good for the goose is toxic to the gander?

I'm not sure that there is an answer to this question, I'm merely fishing for your collecting brain juice on this one.

Has anyone experimented with sigils as a complementary component of a spell? That is, directing your energies into both the desired result of your spell, while simultaneously charging the sigilised representation of that desire?

[Eremita]

One solution is to create multiple sigils and wait to fire them off. I keep all of my sigils in a drawer. After accumulating 3-5 sigils, it is very difficult to associate which intent went with which sigil. When I have time to fire a sigil into the astral, I'll randomly selected one my sigils with no recollection of the intent behind it.

This is a brilliant idea!

I'd like to try this. Unfortunately, if I think of something I want to create a sigil for, I want to charge it now, goddamnit! :p

Patience is a virtue... I try to remember that...

[Ramscha]

One solution is to create multiple sigils and wait to fire them off. I keep all of my sigils in a drawer. After accumulating 3-5 sigils, it is very difficult to associate which intent went with which sigil. When I have time to fire a sigil into the astral, I'll randomly selected one my sigils with no recollection of the intent behind it.

This is a brilliant idea!

I'd like to try this. Unfortunately, if I think of something I want to create a sigil for, I want to charge it now, goddamnit! :p

Patience is a virtue... I try to remember that...

You could also make them all at once, this is also a possibility [wink] But then I guess you need more then a handful of them.

Ramscha

[deathbycicada]

You could also make them all at once, this is also a possibility

Absolutely! Chaos magick is a pragmatic approach. Do what works best for you!