Hands-On Chaos Magic: Reality Manipulation through the Ovayki Current - Andrieh Vitimus 2009

Sigil Magic III: Scrying Sigils

We can use intuition alone to determine a sigil with a little practice. Scrying is one of the more difficult forms of divination, but it is a useful technique for gathering sigils and mantras. Many online resources will break up the scrying process into different methods depending on which sense you are using, but scrying for the use of obtaining words, symbols, and gestures of power can be done with any of the senses.

Glossolalia

Glossolalia is one of the most common ways to try to discover mantras and words of power. It is the random speech of the crazy person or the religious believer speaking in tongues. Often, I will incorporate glossolalia in the beginning part of a working to find the mantra to work with in later parts of the ritual.

First, banish and state your intent. Start off by using one of the relaxation techniques that were discussed in the beginning chapters of the book or a combination of gesture, posture, and breathing that you yourself made. Speak random gibberish. Keep speaking random gibberish until the random gibberish is flowing without you having to think of what syllables to say next. If you can think of what next to say, your conscious mind is still interfering. Take your time and keep going with this. Using glossolalia can result in a significant trance state by itself. When you seem to get stuck on a phrase, you have the word or phrase of power you were looking for. If you struggle to find the next syllable, speed the mutterings up, because you are thinking too much. It's okay to repeat the same syllable over and over.

What effects do different postures and breathing have on the glossolalia? The first few times you try to get a verbal power word or mantra, use some form of divination to check your results. If the divination shows a positive result, thank and praise yourself for getting a mantra consistent with your intent. Using the partial random reward system we talked about earlier might also be a good way to practice. The subconscious mind will get the message, and your conscious mind will remember being rewarded for successful results. Every little bit will help you achieve better results.

Whispering Wind

We can also let the environment provide the mantra, word of power, or phrase. Try this technique in an extremely crowded place at first. Relax and state your intent to yourself. Proceed to do a type of relaxation exercise, and try not to focus on anything in particular. Keep relaxing. If you are in a crowded place, you will hear lots of conversations all around you. Your mind will try very hard at first to hear specific conversations. If the room is crowded enough, this will be almost impossible, but let your mind keep trying to do it. Focus on those conversations while trying to pay attention to more and more conversations at the same time. This should be disorienting. Keep breathing and progressively relaxing. Eventually, you should be relaxed enough (and correspondingly in a mild trance state) that you can hear all the words together from the crowd. Let this state go on, but if a phrase or sound sticks in your head while you are listening in trance, write it down. When you feel you have enough phrases, you have your mantra.

This exercise can be repeated either with no people around, such as in a forest (which I personally enjoy doing), or in the hustle and bustle of a big city while the cars go by (although the mantra generated might be very different). The trick you are practicing is to hear but not recognize. The sensory input is still present, but the interpretation of it is different. This sleight of mind, as Peter Carroll states, is often the trick for many magical operations (1992). This exercise also serves as a good initial introduction to hearing spirits in ritual. The idea, again, is to push aside the internal critic and just let what pops into your head come out of your mouth. Don't worry, we will be practicing more when we get to evocation.

Scrying Sigils and the Medium Used

Scrying often involves looking at a still mirror, pool of water (or other liquid), or any still surface, such as a crystal. The verbal examples of using intuition for enchantment purposes illustrate the process. Scrying as a divination technique is a very difficult art, but it is an art I find personally fulfilling. For me, scrying sigils and symbols is slightly easier than using scrying for divination. The process is very similar, however.

Banish, clear your head, and then state what you are trying to find. One method for doing this is to first relax completely, as we did in the earlier chapters of the book. The Ofnung and self-hypnosis exercises can work great. Just keep relaxing and releasing thoughts that come into your mind while staring deeply into your chosen medium. At first, while staring at the medium, your perception might pick up on little waves or details of the mirror. Keep staring, releasing thoughts, and relaxing. The best description for the process that I have read is called "seeing," from the Carlos Castaneda book journey to Ixtlan (1972). In the book, Castaneda mentions the need to scan an area with eyes crossed, meaning out of focus. Focus and perception are products of conscious awareness. Keep staring and relaxing; eventually some shape or symbol might form in the medium. If you are completely relaxed yet have trouble letting this shape go, this is the symbol you were looking for. Ideally, as you become more relaxed and your mind slows down, it will be more communicative of your subconscious mind at deeper levels.

Once you have the symbol, when you are first doing this, doublecheck the symbol you receive from your scrying session with a secondary divination system. You will eventually be confident enough in the process that a second divination is not needed. If a divination confirms that you correctly scryed a sigil to use in a working, reward yourself. Make sure you give yourself praise, which will help you train for more frequent success in the future, until you have almost complete confidence in your sigil-scrying ability.

Another way I have done scrying work is to do scrying of sigils right after sexual acts. The post-"sex" state is very receptive, and the endorphin release adds to the body relaxation. But for me personally, any state that produces a body high with lots of relaxation will work. Often, after intense experiences, I can close my eyes and get sigils of entities that I want to work with. After you practice to the point where getting good results is expected, scrying merely with your eyes closed (or using that darkness as the reflective surface) can be quite effective. Again, this will be discussed more in the evocation chapter, but it's a teaser to let you know what is coming.

In some cases, the medium you scry with may matter. Try the process on different mediums such as a glass of water, wine, or blood; a lake; crystals; mirrors; or even just by closing your eyes. How does the medium affect your personal scrying process? Test out scrying using different postures, breathing techniques, and perhaps even a mantra.

Scrying Sigils in Other Senses

It is possible to scry sigils in other senses besides hearing and sight. Some of the gesture exercises and the random dancing from Chaos Ritual (S. Wilson 2004) have produced some interesting kinetic sigils for me. At one time, I had a student in my magical classes who was a dancer. She could breeze through and intuitively come up with sigils that were kinetic by randomly dancing at different tempos. The key, again, is to relax, to move, and to take note of the pattern when it develops.

I do personally note that when I try to relax and just move to find a pattern, it often looks very tai chi-ish because that is the body meditation that I use the most.

For smell and taste, I challenge you to come up with intriguing methodologies to "discover" internal linkages.

When you are starting out, it is useful to separate the scrying process to find a sigil from the direct casting of a spell. After you are confident in your scrying, you can move from scrying to casting in the same ritual without skipping a beat. When I work with sigils in this manner, I will scry and then go further into trance, simply holding or repeating the pattern the sigil represents until I get to the point when I have a singularity of focus. Of course, developing scrying techniques in one particular sense tends to develop "psychic" ability in that sense. Actually feeling presences is a different process, and we will cover this later.