Original Magic: The Rituals and Initiations of the Persian Magi - Michael M. Hughes 2018
The Art of Sigils and Magical Writing
Toolkit for Magical Activism
Written and carved images and symbols have been part of magic since prehistory, probably since early humans could draw a triangle in the dirt with a stick. The symbols found on cave walls and carved into rocks by Neanderthals in Europe and at Tassili n’Ajjer in Africa were likely part of magical or shamanic practices. Some of the oldest magical writing dates back to ancient Egypt, where hieroglyphics and protective spells were carved into amulets and excerpts from the Book of the Dead were written on papyrus before being inserted into cylindrical gold cases to be worn as pendants.
Spells may be written out or words may be broken into parts or arranged in shapes, like this well-known bit of text from the Greek Magical Papyri (PGM) that was worn for protection:
Abracadabra
Abracadabr
Abracadab
Abracada
Abracad
Abraca
Abrac
Abra
Abr
Ab
A
Magical symbols, names of spiritual beings and deities, and seemingly nonsensical words (known as voces magicae) like abracadabra have been used in magic since the dawn of writing.
Textual magic was used throughout the ancient world by Pagans, Jews, Christians, and Muslims. The texts were often rolled or folded and worn on the body. In Jewish magic, sections of the Torah are worn as talismans or placed around the home (like the mezuzahs placed on doorposts). In the grimoires of the Middle Ages and Renaissance, writing, symbols, and images were combined into glyphs or sigils and employed in natural magic, spirit summoning, and protective circles.
In the modern era we can see a continuity in magical writing traditions going back to antiquity. In Hoodoo, Rootwork, and Conjure, sections of the Psalms or torn pages from the Bible are carried as apotropaic (protective) magic. Written names have sympathetic power, and personal signatures even more so. Names, petitions, Biblical verses, and curses are written out and manipulated to magical effect. Nearly identical traditions are found in witchcraft.
Graffiti and tagging are also forms of sigilization, with their own rules and culture.
Words and symbols are extraordinarily powerful magical tools. Manipulating written words and symbols is an important technique in magic, and you’ll find it employed through the spells in this book.
Let’s look at one of the most practical and potent forms of symbolic magic: sigils.
Sigils
Sigils are magical symbols designed to influence and cause changes in the inner and outer worlds. The magician, witch, or shaman may utilize existing sigils or create her own.
Sigils are not the sole province of magic, either. If I asked you to visualize the logos of popular soft drinks, computer companies, and fast food chains, you could very likely call them to mind and even draw them. Corporations spend an enormous amount of money to design and test logos, and whether they call it magic or not, they are using the same techniques as magicians. A successful logo can spread across the world and be understood in any language.
Imagine what you can do with a magical logo.
In resistance magic, a sigil can be created for a single spell or to encapsulate an entire movement. Historical examples are the peace symbol, the black power fist, and the symbols for ecology (created by artist Ron Cobb in 1969) and women’s rights (and notice that the feminist sigil is based upon the astrological symbol for Venus).
I spent a few days developing a sigil for the Trump binding spell, and within hours of my introducing it on Facebook it had spread like wildfire through social media. Many of the spell’s participants adopted the sigil as their avatar on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram and added it to their altars during their monthly binding rituals. People asked to have it printed on T-shirts and hoodies, and I soon set up an online shop to sell 3D-printed plastic and metal sigil pendants and altarpieces.
So let’s look at the process of sigil creation and then how to empower or “charge” them.
Sigil Creation
There are a number of techniques for designing magical sigils. I’ve used most of them, and the following combines attributes from a variety of authors (and you can find their books in the resources section and the bibliography). The most influential is without question artist and magician Austin Osman Spare (1886—1956). Spare’s technique was adopted and popularized by chaos magicians in the late twentieth century, and his practical techniques remain the basis for most modern sigil magic.
First you must condense your spell’s intention or goal into a short, concise phrase. For the Trump binding spell, it was easy: bind Trump.
Then write it out without spaces between the words and remove duplicate letters:
Bindtrump
Many people remove the vowels, leaving:
Bndtrmp
To use or not use vowels? Spare didn’t use vowels because Hebrew, a language considered magical in many Western esoteric traditions, doesn’t have vowels. I sometimes incorporate them, sometimes not. The key is to create a sigil that feels and looks right—and that takes time and tinkering. Try vowels or simply leave them out.
If you use vowels, the letter O can always be drawn as a bounding circle around your sigil. Magical symbols from the medieval era were often drawn inside of circles and crafted into talismanic disks.
You may also want to incorporate other symbols. If you want to work with the energies of Venus or Mars, for example, you could incorporate their astrological symbols. Ditto with alchemical or elemental symbols. If you’re doing a spell to expose a corrupt corporation, you could incorporate the drawing of an all-seeing eye. For a spell for peace, you might include the well-known peace sign. If your goal is to commemorate an important date, say July 4, you could use 7 and 4. The possibilities are endless and only limited by your imagination and creativity.
Now comes the fun part.
Take the letters (and other symbols if you are using them) and begin combining them creatively. Don’t worry if you’re not a great artist—you don’t need to be. Combine the letters. Overlap them. Merge them. Turn them upside down or sideways. Distort, mangle, flip, break apart, and otherwise work your letters until you have an image that looks … well, magical. It should be simple enough to draw easily but should feel like it is more than just some lines and squiggles on paper.
When you think you’ve nailed it, work with it and try to finesse it even more. You will often know exactly when it is finished. I often describe my best sigils as looking like an alien alphabet or a hieroglyph from a lost civilization. You might not know what it means, but you can tell immediately that it has meaning.
Voilà! You have created your sigil.
Preparing the Sigil for Magic
For most spells, it’s easiest and most effective to draw your sigil on a piece of paper before employing it. You can use any kind of paper, but after reading a suggestion in Gordon White’s The Chaos Protocols, I now regularly use metallic ink pens on black card stock. In candlelight the sigils really come to life, seeming to glow, glimmer, and pulse.
I also sometimes use papyrus (available online or at specialty paper stores) because of its ancient magical provenance, especially for sigils I want to keep on my altar (papyrus holds up very well).
Experiment with different pens, paints, markers, papers, and other media. But don’t confine yourself to ink or paint on paper. I’ve fashioned my sigils into pendants made with clay, especially polymer clay, which comes in an enormous variety of colors and styles, including metallics, fluorescents, even opaque and transparent. You can create exquisite faux-gemstones that are nearly indistinguishable from the real thing.
Any surface can be covered in a sigil—crystals, wands, cauldrons, ceramic, leaves, clothing, envelopes, even your skin (a very ancient and obviously still common practice). You can even paint surreptitious and invisible sigils onto surfaces with water or oil or trace them onto objects or in the air with your finger.
One of my favorite techniques is to add the symbol to a glass-enclosed prayer candle. You can draw it directly on the glass with a permanent marker or draw or print the sigil on a piece of white paper and use a glue stick to apply it to the candle. Especially if you are doing a long-running working, you can use the sigil candle on your altar for days, weeks, or even months, depending on how long you leave it burning. The effect is quite extraordinary for such a simple and easy-to-make object.
Charging Your Sigil
Now it’s time to empower or charge your sigil.
I view the process as bringing the sigil to life—taking a purposely crafted symbol and imbuing it with magical energy. After the charge, it transcends simple lines on paper and becomes an image of power, carrying your intention into the spiritual realm.
Methods of charging sigils are just as varied and diverse as those for creating them. I’ve tried many, and all have been effective, more or less. I suggest trying the following, which has worked exceptionally well for me.
First, we’ll consecrate the sigil. Have the four elements represented on your altar, along with your incense censer. Use copal or frankincense (loose incense is best, but sticks and cones are fine).
Arrange three small white candles (tea lights are fine for this) in the center of your altar in an upward-pointing triangle. Light the candles to begin the ritual.
Stand or sit before your altar and perform the Centering Ritual (see page 152).
Light your incense. Hold your sigil in front of you and say,
Bless this sigil, powers of earth (touch the object to your earth symbol), water (touch water to your extended index and middle fingers and wet the object with them), fire (hold the object over your fire symbol), and air (hold it in rising incense smoke or touch it to the feather); spirits of the heavens (lift it toward the sky) and of the underworld (lower it toward the altar or ground).
Still holding the sigil in front of you, say,
Consecrate this sigil so that it may (state purpose/intent). May it serve the highest good. So mote it be.
You can expand upon your purpose or intention—you don’t need to stick to your simplified statement. For the Trump binding sigil, for example, I would say, “so that it may bind Donald Trump and all those who abet his wickedness.”
Lift the sigil to your mouth and blow into it. Feel your personal energy empowering the sigil’s intention, the breath of life moving into it and awakening it. Say,
Awaken to your power.
Then hold the sigil in front of you. Relax your eyes and gaze at it. Don’t strain your vision. The sigil will likely blur, shift, wiggle, even double as your eyes soften. Just breathe slowly and let it remain the sole subject of your attention. Enjoy the process as it mutates. This is when it is gestating. As you are gazing at it, visualize the end result—the goal—of your intention. Allow yourself to experience the satisfaction you will feel when the sigil’s purpose is accomplished. Really feel it as if it has happened.
At some point it will simply seem to go dead. What was a living, breathing thing now looks like a dull collection of lines.
Place the sigil within the triangle of candles. Let it settle or bake for as long as you would like. When the process feels complete, blow out the candles and place the sigil upright (lean it against something) on your altar.
Setting It Loose and Propagating It
At this point, your sigil is charged. Duplicates of it will carry that charge in the same way a yeast starter culture can propagate infinite loaves of sourdough bread.
The key to effectiveness is putting the sigil in front of as many eyeballs as possible. It doesn’t matter if those eyeballs (and the brains behind them) understand its intent. I don’t know why it works that way, but it does. The image gains power and effectiveness the wider it circulates, even if those who see it have no idea what it means.
Some traditions suggest burning or otherwise destroying the sigil, under the belief that it is then utilized by the subconscious to work its magic. My experience in advertising and marketing, as well as decades of practical magical experimentation, have convinced me otherwise. Contrary to A. O. Spare’s opinion, keeping the sigil alive and spreading makes it far more effective.
So create a sigil for your cause and incorporate it into your spells. Then set it loose in the world. Here are some possibilities to get you started:
• Paint it on banners or signs for a march.
• Get it printed on t-shirts, hoodies, tote bags, and other forms of clothing. There are numerous web-based shops that will print and produce them.
• Turn it into jewelry or an object for your altar (using clay, polymer clay, plastic, wire, wood, etc.). If you create it in clay, consider making a mold so you can mass-produce them for your fellow activists. You can also incorporate appropriate roots, leaves, herbs, resins, and other materials into the clay before drying it (see correspondences on page 226).
• Turn it into a model via 3D printing. It’s very easy to take a 2D symbol and convert it to a 3D file via website conversion tools. Then it’s just a matter of submitting it to a 3D printing company, paying a fee, and getting your sigil delivered in a huge variety of materials, from plastic to pure silver. You can then create a storefront to enable others to use or wear your design.
• Print small versions of them (perhaps fifty or more on a single sheet of recycled paper), cut them out, and distribute them discreetly, leaving them in unusual and unexpected places. Years ago, I came up with the term “meme microdots” for my tiny (one-half-by-one-inch) propaganda flyers. I loved the process of leaving them in heads of lettuce in grocery stores, in stacks of newspapers or magazines on a display rack, in the coin slots of vending machines, and tucked into rolls of toilet paper. The more unusual and surprising the better.
• Have your design printed on stickers. But please, be judicious and thoughtful about where you place them. Don’t put stickers on business property (unless, of course, you’re targeting the business), private homes, public art, trees or plants, or anywhere else they infringe on others or detract from a pleasing environmental aesthetic. The best locations are on utility structures (electrical boxes, the backs of street signs, parking garages), spots already tagged or covered in flyers or graffiti, or other dull, unsightly surfaces. There is an art to stickering—do your best to do it artistically and responsibly.
• Draw or paint it on crystals or rocks, and then consecrate (see the Consecration Ritual on page 160) and deploy them in strategic locations.
• Trace it with your finger on the surface of campaign materials.
• Print postcards and mail them to a person or targeted organization (for support or to bind). You can print the sigil on the postcards or trace it energetically or with oil or water.
Countersigil Magic
What if your target or opponent has a widely distributed sigil—that is, a logo?
Corporations and politicians hire high-priced magicians (logo artists) to create sigils to manifest their intentions (which largely involve making money). It’s almost as if marketers have studied books about magic like this one!
So if you’re going to resist their magic, you’ll need to counter their empowered sigils. Luckily for you, with a printer and a few keystrokes you can have a printed copy of their logo on your altar in minutes.
Antilogo Magic
Print out or draw the logo of a corporate target. You can then write a message across it, put a giant X through it, or otherwise deface the image. In my Hex the NRA spell (page 201), an excerpt from Psalm 37 is written across a printout of the organization’s logo. In written magic, writing across a word or image imposes power upon it. Burning is an age-old form of sympathetic magic, with good reason. It was employed to great effect in the Trump binding spell, during which an “unflattering” (is there any other?) image of the forty-fifth president was burned while the participants chanted “You’re fired!”
Another option is to alter the image. I once saw an alteration of a famous soft drink logo in which the logo’s half circles were transformed into a cartoon human’s distended belly. Now I can’t look at the logo without seeing a gut bloated by excessive sugary soft drink intake. That, friends, is antilogo magic at its finest.
Sigil magic, like all magic, has defensive applications. Use it or lose it.
29. Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology, “Burning Incense Is Psychoactive: New Class of Antidepressants Might Be Right under Our Noses,” ScienceDaily, May 20, 2008, www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/05/080520110415.htm.