Summoning

Summoning, also known as Invocation, is using objects or the environment as inspiration to enhance magical rituals.

Okay, that's a really shitty definition but it's the best laymen's description for what has some complicated history behind it.

One of the more well-known types of magic is sympathetic magic (which is essential to the workings of voodoo dolls). The magician sets up a magical connection between two un-connected objects (for example, a doll and a person). Manipulation of one object produces changes in the other.

Scientists have found sympathy between atomic particles whereby scientists divided an atomic particle in half and separated the two halves, only to find that changes made in one half affected the other despite large distances.

More pseudo-scientific theories have abounded, from morphic fields to Odic force, that claim there is a physical or energy interconnection between the life force of all living creatures, and to take the idea a step forward, an interconnection between EVERYTHING, including man and natural forces.

I don't know how far I would go in believing these pseudo-scientific hippie claims but I have seen more valid models related to the Summoning concept.

First, I know from pure experience that art has an effect on the consumer if the consumer is able to make a connection with the art. After watching a movie (or actually usually during the movie), I often find myself having brainstorms of creative ideas. Similarly, while listening to a particular genre of music, I am also emotionally affected, so heavy metal might increase my anger and adrenaline while New Age relaxes me and lets me focus better.

Second, I've also seen in neuro-linguistic programming a ritual called modeling which I have seen to be effective. With modeling, the nlp-er or magician imitates the body language of a person for the purpose of creating some type of cognitive change in the nlp-er. The theory is that body language affects thought and emotional processes. Walk, talk, move, or act like a person and you begin to assume that person's personality. For example, I dated a guy who was just morbidly depressed. One day out of boredom and curiosity, I modeled his physical posture, in particularly his way of sitting. He sat stiffly and tightly with his arms tucked to his stomach like he had a stomach ache, leaning forward. Try this posture and tell me how you feel after a minute or two.

Theoretically, then, art, modeling, sympathetic magic, etc, can be used to bring about changes within the magician's behavior, personality, or life in general.

To engage in Summoning, the magician needs first to consider what results he or she is looking for. Recently, I was undergoing therapeutic magic to help deal with my constant brooding, sulky behavior. Currently, I am developing some anti-depression magic rituals.

Once a statement of intent is formulated, the magician gathers together materials that best symbolically capture the intent or final goal. These objects or materials should represent a variety of senses.

For my brooding ritual, I gathered together the following materials:

1. A video clip of the Buffy the Vampire Slayer series titled "Innocence" when Buffy's vampire boyfriend Angel turns into a bad guy after they have sex.
2. A photo of Lord Byron
3. A painting depicting a scene from Lord Byron's poem "Childe Harold's Pilgrimage."
4. A copy of the poem "Childe Harolde's Pilgrimage"
5. The wikipedia entry describing traits of the Byronic hero
6. A page from James O'Barr's comic book The Crow
7. MP3 clips from Nirvana, Nine Inch Nails, the Cure, and the Doors
8. A copy of Neil Gaiman's The Sandman issue 42

Each of these objects is connected to depictions of brooding behavior, but the brooding depicted in these works is utilized into an artistic form. My goal wasn't for me to stop brooding but to turn my brooding into a positive, creative trait.

Photos and paintings are used for visual appeal. Comic books combining words and pictures provide both visual and linguistic reinforcement. A video clip is audio visual while the MP3's are audio. Poetry and expository writing provide different forms of textual representation. Additional sensory information involving touch, smell, or taste could also be provided.

The purpose of the collected items is to build an immersive multi-sensory abstract persona or mood. With Summoning, we are summoning the essence of an abstract idea to possess us like a demon.

Each of the items provides a modeling ritual. For example, pages from The Crow provide body language clues to imitate, as well as a general pattern of behavior to model. Likewise with The Sandman and BtVS. The music of the Cure, the Doors, Nine Inch Nails, and Nirvana also channels audio mood-makers and psychophonic influences: listen to the Doors for a short while and notice the changes in mood. Our heads are filled with a particular language that takes over our normal style of thinking. I find that just a moment or two with someone with an accent, I begin imitating the person's accent.

Typically, these moods and models were once the gods of ancient cultures. The magicians of old created godforms that represented aspects of nature that the magician wanted to understand and control. Through ritual worship of these gods, the magicians attuned themselves with the nature of the god's symbols. Similarly, Norse Berserkers would dress in animal skins to gain the power of animals like bears or wolves in battle. Totems are a type of summoning.

Listening to Nine Inch Nails while reading The Crow is a modern type of ritualistic worship of contemporary godforms.

Grant Morrison in his “How To Chat Up Gods” section of Pop magic explains

People tend to become possessed by gods arbitrarily because they do not recognize them as such; a man can be overwhelmed with anger (the Greek god Ares), we can all be "beside ourselves" with passion (Aphrodite) or grief (Hades). In life we encounter these Big Ideas every day but we no longer use the word "god" to describe them. The magician consciously evokes these states and renames them gods in order to separate them from his or her Self, in order to study them and learn.

To summon a god, one has only to concentrate on that god to the exclusion of all other thought. Let's just say you wish to summon the Big Idea COMMUNICATION in the form of the god Hermes, so that he will grant you a silver-tongue. Hermes is the Greek personification of quick wit, art and spelling and the qualities he represents were embodied by Classical artists in the symbol of an eternally swift and naked youth, fledged with tiny wings and dressed only in streamers of air. Hermes is a condensation into pictorial form—a sigil, in fact—of an easily recognizable default state of human consciousness. When our words and minds are nimble, when we conjure laughter from others, when we make poetry, we are in the real presence of Hermes. We are, in fact, possessed by the god.

You may wish to connect with Hermes if you're beginning a novel or giving a speech or simply want to entertain a new beau with your incredible repartee.

The form the Big Idea takes depends upon your tradition or desire. The beautiful electric youth of the Greeks is a well-known image in Western cultures, having been appropriated for everything from Golden Age FLASH comics to the logo of the INTERFLORA chain of florists.

Call fervently upon Hermes. Luxuriate in his attributes. Drink coffee or Red Bull in his name or take a line of speed, depending on your levels of drug abuse. Fill your head with speedy images of jet planes, jet cars and bullet trains. Play "Ray of Light" by Madonna and call down Hermes. Surround yourself with FLASH comics and call down Hermes. Tell him how very wonderful he is in your own words, and then call him into yourself, building a bridge between your own ever-growing feelings of brilliance and the descending energies of the Big Idea.

I am mentioning Summoning during my focus on sigils because in the concept of the ultrasigil that I introduced a couple weeks back, I've found Summoning to help increase the magician's focus on a sigil. I create file folders on my computer and then load them up with paraphernalia related to my statement of intent: I fill the file folder with pictures, movie clips, music, artwork, and such so as to have these instant mood makers. I change the icon of the file folder to an appropriate sigil and work my magic from there.

The Summoning doesn't last forever and rituals are meant to temporarily harness the godforms to accomplish a specific task, like a mother's adrenaline pumping to lift up a car. Summon and worship your gods but don't forget to take a lunch break and come back to the real world.

Color Magic, at last

As I've been working with sigils, color magic became more important not only because of the importance of adding color to a sigil but also because the organization of color magic can also provide a magician focus for a sigil program.

Color magic is primarily associated with Terry Prachett’s book The Colour of Magic. The inside joke of the title and concept is that there is no color of magic, so whenever something doesn’t exist, it needs to be invented. Because Prachett is primarily a parodist, I am skeptical of the widespread incorporation of his creative writing into magical theory but one must use what looks useful.

There are eight colors to magic, each representing a particular group of concepts.

1. Octarine: No, octarine isn’t a normal color but rather invented by Prachett to be the eighth color, the color of magic itself. It is generally described as hot pink/purple but octarine will vary depending upon the magician’s ethos. Octarine is used as a symbol for magical study itself. This whole blog is octarine magic (what I might re-dubbed, meta-magic). Octarine represents the magician’s interest in magic, creativity, imagination, art, and otherworldly interests such as astrology or mythology. Godforms include Odin, Loki, Thoth, Hermes/Mercury, the bearded wizard, Veles, Isis, Oghma, and Hecate. I would call a sigil program using Octarine magic, the binding of magic. Ha, ha, really original, but the magician's purpose is to immerse him or herself into study and experimentation in magic lore and creative development.

2. Black: Black magic is a semantic drift. Black magic was originally referred to as necromancy, necro meaning dead and mancy meaning magic or divination. Eventually, necromancy became negromancy, black magic. Black magic is magic involving death. It is not necessarily evil except in the philosophy of the user or the superstitious. Black magic is used to study the aging process, entropy, and of course, death and dying, 1) in order to prevent death and/or 2) to kill people. Godforms include Thanos, Yama, Arawn, Kali, the Grim Reaper, and Jack Kavorkian. A binding of death should be similar to a death studies course -- I took one in college -- and involve an understand of the psychology and necrology of death, both the magician's on bodily health but also attitude on death and the views of his culture.

3. Blue: Blue magic is money magic, or more correctly, wealth magic. The goal of wealth magic is not to earn a lot of money, per se, but to create an energy flow of money. Money needs to be saved and invested, spent on living, but also used for personal enjoyment and charity. Wealth magic creates a surplus of money to produce an enjoyable and balanced experience. A pennypincher is not using wealth magic because nothing is spent. A credit card debter binge-spender is not using wealth magic. A corporate executive who works 18 hours a day is not using wealth magic. Wealth magic is about examining one’s negative beliefs about money and learning how money works (as if money was an intelligent being, its own godform). Godforms include Plutus, Saturn, Daikoko, Lakshmi, Tsi Shen Yeh, Vasudhera, Pecunia, Aesculanus, Abundantia, Copia (yes, those are actual deities) and Midas, as well as the dead presidents. Wealth magic is typically associated with earth astrology (which confounds me as to why blue is the color of wealth). Blue magic sigil programs are often called the binding of necessity: the magician engages in money magic spells but also an intense financial education.

4. Red: Red magic is war magic, but not necessarily death magic. The goal of war is not death but winning. Red magic involves bodily health, aggression, energy, morale, and competitive skills (either physically or strategically). Common godforms include Ares/Mars, Orion, Achilles, Beowulf, Gilgamesh, Heracles, Perseus, Athena, Thor, Horus, and modern weapons like guns and bombs. Fire is a primary tool, so the use of fire and flammable materials is important. I would refer to a sigil program of red magic as a binding of the body, focusing on physical health and exercise and competitive strategy.

5. Yellow: Yellow magic is more difficult to explain conceptually. Yellow magic involves illumination. It involves analyzing and changing aspects of the self that include self-image, humor, creativity, charisma, and social control. Yellow magic requires firstly introspection, a detailed analysis of the self in order to make retroactive changes in self-image; the past is not a series of traumas but rather of amoral events subject to either negative or positive reinterpretation. The yellow magician reinterprets his or her past to make changes in self-image. Non-verbal communication is a second tool: clothing, hygiene, body language, and etiquette are studied and manipulated to develop maximum attraction. Social control is a related concept. Lastly, laughter and good humor are important tools. Godforms include Ra, Helios, Apollo, Balder, the Three Stooges, the Simpsons, and Family Guy. A binding of illumination whereby the magician develops insight into his self-image and a projection of a positive self-image should be a primary focus in the beginning of magical study.

6. Green: Green magic is love magic. The most important part of green magic is self-love and insight into the positive beauty of life. Green magic also involves friendship, appreciating the value of people and showing interest in what interests them. Godforms include Venus, Ishtar, Freya, Hathor, Cupid, and Narcissus. The binding of the heart relates to the binding of illumination: introspect on what it is you want in a lover, what you value in a friendship, and how you can better relate to people.

7. Orange: Orange magic is the magic of deception and trickery. This type of magic involves quick wit and conniving and most in particularly the introduction of skill into gambling odds. Godforms include Hermes/Mercury, Loki, the Looney Tunes, and Coyote. (Interestingly, the first two are also gods of magic). I'll admit that I never considered dabbling in orange magic so I wouldn't even know what to call a sigil program based upon it. I would guess that the magician learns the rules and how to break them, studies games of chance and how people cheat, an ddevelops his own counter-program. Orange magic could be an educational tool on the ways of the world.

8. Purple: Purple magic is sex magic (not to be confused with green magic). The general goal of purple magic is not to achieve sexual harmony or seductive power but rather to transform sexual turmoil into art; the emotion behind art isn’t created by sexual stability. The object of desire, whether it be an actual significant other or just someone you’re stalking becomes a poetic Muse similar to Alan Moore’s Promethea. Related to green magic, the Musing is circular, where the magician in turn has to model the interests and personality of the Muse to seduce him or her properly. Androgyny is also an important factor. Godforms here depend upon your own images of sexuality, either the opposite sex (George Clooney, Bruce Willis, Chow Yun Fat, for me) or the same sex to identify with (Milla Jovovich, Kate Beckinsale, Jennifer Connelly) or with whomever your love obsession is. Other godforms might include Pan, Dionysus, Priapus, and Adonis. The binding of the muse, well, I'll leave that one alone.

Color magic introduces a new element into sigils and gives the magician a sense of focus inthe use of sigils. Each color program should be developed as its own individual brand, but more sequentially. Experimenting with eight branches of magic at once will dilute your intensity. Prioritize and proceed.

ULTRAsigils

As I began experimenting with sigils more, in particularly in response to this blog, I started realizing the inadequacy of the traditional sigil methodology to work for me.

Over the past week, I have been experimenting in particularly with dealing with my sulkiness.

Research on sulking behavior and brooding didn’t give me much insight other than to characterize me as an abusive personality.

I finally found some sort of illumination in a literary archetype known as a Byronic hero (or the female version, la belle dame sans merci). The Byronic hero is the typical anti-hero, larger than life, antidisestablishmentarian, rebellious, moody and abusive but also intellectual and poetic. This bad boy (or girl) archetype has been extensively portrayed throughout the works of Lord Byron (after whom the archetype is named), Wuthering Heights, and vampire mythos, as well as the general love triangle of girl-nice guy-bad boy.

Instead of viewing my sulkiness as a dysfunction, it was more important for me to come to terms with my behavior and submit to it to use it better. I didn’t say control it but rather acknowledge it and integrate it into my personality rather than allowing it to dominate me. Cooperate with it.

In constructing my sulky sigil, I realized a limitation in sigil magic: statements of intent cannot be expressed in negative terms. You cannot sigil for something not to happen because the subconscious only works in terms of positives, like distance – distance can never be negative because moving backwards is still movement. Inaction is still action. I could not sigil to not sulk (it is also splitting an infinitive). This problem was pointed out to me also in a re-reading of Philip Cooper’s Basic Sigil Magic.

But the statement of intent became more problematic. If I didn’t want to be sulking or brooding anymore, how would I phrase the statement of intent in a positive manner? What is the conceptual opposite of brooding? There is no simple term or the term escapes me. We are seeing a limitation of the conscious linguistic statement of intent to capture desire.

The statement of intent best functions as a guide to isolating smaller steps of behavior. For example, a weight loss sigil should lead the magician to focus first on sigiling for healthy eating habits before attempting a forward “I want to lose 10 lbs” sigil.

Ultimately, though, statements of intent should be abandoned for more subconscious plotting. There is no way for me to create a linguistic construction of my desire to be un-sulky. Instead I should focus on creating direct subconscious forms.

What then would be the effect of working directly with the subconscious instead of creating a bridge between the conscious and subconscious? I don’t know yet but I don’t anticipate a problem.

Also, creating this new sigil lead me one step closer to creating a hypersigil.

When I did my comparison and contrast between sigils and logos, in a statement I made about sigils representing a statement of intent while logos represented a specific semiotic, I may have been more pedantic than practical.

Stripping away the statement of indent may be an improvement to better tie in associations to the sigil for better realization of the sigil. A sigil for weight loss no longer needs to represent “I desire to eat healthy for one week” but rather can represent a simple “eat healthy” intent.

In creating this sigilogo, I found computer literacy to be handy, as well as knowledge of summoning rituals.

What follows is a possible alternate means of creating sigils:

I am going to use computer metaphors to describe the process. If you don’t have the computer savvy to actually do what I am recommending, then simply use visualization techniques instead (but I would recommend learning computer savvy because a magician should use whatever technology is available and up-to-date).

Imagine creating four new folders on your computer desktop. Each of these folders represents the four basic elements: fire, earth, air, water. What I did was change the icon to these folders to represent their element, which, for example, can be a fire symbol for fire or perhaps a wand. If you don’t know how to make or change icons, try the user friendly RealWorld Icon Editor.

Once these folders were made, I returned to my previous organizational strategy and created sub-folders based upon my sigil desires. For example, within my water folder I created sub-folders labeled sulky, whore, depressed, moody, passive-aggressive, negative, insecure, control freak, fear of success, self-centered, self-absorbed, and non-verbally in-astute. Naturally, as my training continues, I would refine and condense these sigils as necessary. For example, what is the difference between self-centered and self-absorbed – likewise, these are also fire traits and I wouldn’t want to overlap or repeat sigils.

Having organized my desires, the next step would be to begin the sigiling process. I created a sigil for my sulky brooding desire and changed the icon to the sigil.

Next, I began loading my sulky brooding icon with content chosen to best exemplify the nature of the sigil. For example, since a lot of my sulky brooding desires were based upon an image of Byronic heroism, I loaded a Wikipedia shortcut to the Byronic hero entry, a copy of Lord Byron’s “Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage,” a photograph of Byron, a painting by JMW Turner on "Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage," a copy of the brooding issue of Neil Gaiman’s Sandman (Brief Lives, issue 42), scans from The Crow graphic novel, a clip from Buffy the Vampire Slayer where Angel turns evil, and what I might consider Byronic music, in particularly the Doors, the Cure, Nine Inch Nails, and Nirvana.

(As a side note, the question of androgyny popped up while I was putting together this sigil. What happens when a female magician deals with what may be perceived as masculine archetypes? My responses are: 1) I am using water as my element for this sigil, water being a feminine emotional sign as compared to using fire, a masculine active sign; 2) androgyny is prevalent in the artistic Byronic archetype, for example, Jim Morrison and vampires are androgynous figures; 3) I prefer Byronic masculinity over la belle dame sans merci femme fatale archetype because these images are unappealing – the typical femme fatale is a black widow who uses sex as a weapon through passive aggressive manipulation and that is not what I am looking for; 4) substitute associations may be used to summon a belle dame sans merci archetype.)

The effect of incorporating multi-media is to hyper-charge the sigil. The sigil takes a step closer to hypersigil as these new dimensions are being added. The act of creation is further enhanced as numerous additional steps were involved: creating the sigil, creating the icons (and learning how to do that), researching the Byronic hero, collecting pictures and music, actually making the video clips since youtube sucks, and more.

I will call this type of sigil an ultrasigil, not quite as dynamic as a hypersigil but incorporating the illusion of multi-dimensions.

The creation of this more advanced sigil is similar to Summoning magic.

These ultra-sigils can be repeated for each sub-sigil in each element. The process is exhausting so take your time.

Once you feel you have created a sigil portfolio, the next step is to pocket this portfolio into either a thumb drive to take with you or into a visualization routine. If you’re using a thumb drive, I’d recommend investing in a major gigabyte customized drive.

I do a lot of walking meditation, controlled breathing and body movement when I am out and about, and part of this routine is practicing my visualization. Cooper refers to this routine as the Sun/Moon Cleansing or the Four Gateways to Power. I can’t remember the exact names. I copied the basic ritual into my note book and then lost the Basic Sigil Magic book so I only have my notes to work from. Anywho, I’m actually using a modified version of Cooper’s idea because traditional ritual magic is just too fagly for me.

Begin by imaging a ball of light above your head. Yes, just like in Fight Club. Visualize this light moving down through you and into the ground. I practice this first step on its own, in particularly when I am being tested on my flaws, like waiting in a line at Wal-Mart knowing that I’m gonna flip out on somebody.

Spread your arms. Body movement is important to help focus. Visualize your elemental icons –fire to your left, earth to your right, air in front of you, water behind you.

The flow of the light from crown to ground joined with the four elements creates a sphere. I imagine it more like a hula-hoop: when I desire a certain state of performance, I swing the proper sigil to the front of me. For example, when I need some order in my life to get my work done, I visualize the hoop of elemental icon/sigils and rearrange them so that earth is now in front of me, sweeping my right hand to the left in front of me. Again, body movement is important, at least moving your hands in a martial arts style.

Next week, I will talk about color magic and the organization of sigils into a more ambitious routine (that is, one that the typical n00b magician experiments with magic for). In two weeks, I’ll detail Summoning rituals more.

Generic Title about Using Sigils

I have seen at least two theories on the way to use sigils. As with any tool, naturally, there would be different uses, benefits and drawbacks to each.

The most common use for sigils can be described in either the metaphor of a firecracker or maybe a machine gun. The magician lights the firecracker, throws it, and then runs away waiting for the firecracker to go off. Or the magician sprays a wild rain of bullets and hopes that he hits his target.

Sigils are often used with hope rather than skill. The magician creates a sigil, charges it, launches it, and then boom! is done with it. The magician’s HOPE is that the magic will work.

I don’t like this approach but I will admit that I am still contemplating it.

When you throw your firecracker or spray your machine gun bullets, you are pretty assured that you will hit something, but you assurance is not based upon skill but rather the design of the tool. A good sniper can kill with a single bullet from a dozen yards away; someone with a machine gun is hoping for a kill by spraying randomly in high volume.

Throwing out your desires to the universe is chaotic mathematics. When I first started working in real estate, my cold calls were horrible. I sounded like a little girl pleading with people to come to my open houses. Do you want to cold call the universe and sound like a whiny little girl? Please, Mr. Universe, help me out here. Also considering the general loathing towards telemarketing, how many prayers do you think God gets? My responses were minimal but I did get the occasional response. Telemarketing is based upon quantity rather than efficiency; if you make a hundred calls then statistically you are guaranteed to get an appointment. But how then can we make it so that we only have to make one call or fewer calls?

Magic may get you want you want but can you handle it? This is a basic Machiavellian principle: people will generally prosper through a combination of skill and luck. For example, I send out resumes every couple years or so just to keep myself in practice and up-to-date. What factors determine whether a company responds to a resume? Most of the time companies respond when there is a need and the job hunter is qualified. There is a difference between applying to a company just checking out if they have any opening versus applying in response to a job listing in the newspaper. Similarly, you can send out a hundred resumes but if you are not qualified, you won’t get any response. Skill is important. However, at times luck may play a factor from the view of the magician. I have had the situation numerous times in which I sent out resumes, forgot about them, and had responses that were beyond what I was expecting. I had a job offer where they said, hey, instead of us hiring you when this position opens in three months, we want to hire you now. I recently had a job application from a resume that was two years old – the company hired me for double the traditional wages.

Luck is often a crucial factor in opportunity. A magician, however, needs skill to either make his own luck or to take advantage of a situation. Studies have shown that people who win lotteries – which is magic at its purest, most wildest – return to their original poverty within a couple years because it isn’t the money but rather the way in which the person handles money. My first hypersigil was a disastrous success. It was a love spell that got me someone who I consider to be the most important lover I have ever had. It was an impossible love affair with a rich doctor from a rich family; he was ten years older than I with a twin brother! What a passionate impossible affair it was and it turned out ridiculously self-destructive. He became a doctor because he had a serious psychiatric illness; that fantasy of a twin sandwich went out the window when I found out his brother had an interesting birth defect. His money didn’t come from success but rather penny-pinching so he wouldn’t spend a dime on a wish. But I digress…

But still, these hopeful sigils are a way of testing the limits and capabilities of life. My most surprising results come from enterprises I never expected to happen or succeed – hopeful sigils greatly reduce lust for results because there isn’t any real investment in them. They make good passive supplementary income – you sow the seeds and reap the benefits, but don’t make a living on hope and luck.

A different type of sigil requires more investment and introspection.

Imagine this metaphor. You write a letter and place it in a sealed envelope that is blank. If you just throw the envelope out, the chances of it getting to its destination is unlikely. You have to add proper postage and then an address and maybe a name. It is possible for a letter with a name to have the wrong address and still get to the right house but you reduce your chances with inadequate labeling. A return address is also a safety feature in case of failure or to let the sender know of any problems.

These components are necessary for the letter to get delivered properly.

What a sigil is, is FedEx where you have overnight delivery with package insurance and tracking and the receiver has to sign a confirmation slip to receive the letter. You still need to pay for delivery (and you pay a lot more) and you still need name, address, and a return address, but the service is hypercharged with something extra. Sigils provide that extra service, enhancing a typical ritual with an X factor that improves the odds of success.

Sigils do not always work. Each sigil will need its own particular stamp and address. A love sigil might require patience and good conversational skills, while a money sigil might require a good resume and a reason to send it out. Otherwise, sigils will fail without the stamp and address and in that failure you need to reflect upon what particular conditions are absent to prevent the sigil from working. Typically three factors are involved:

1. Subconscious resistance – some fatal flaw that is sabotaging your mojo

2. What is called lust for results – a watched pot never boils

3. Probability – if the probability of an event occuring is low or impossible then the chances of the magic working is low or impossible – it becomes necessary then to enact rituals to increase probability and decrease likelihood of failure.

Failure of a sigil requires some type of readjustment in the sigil process. You have some type of problem that is preventing your message from being delivered. What is it? What is sabotaging your results?

Mastering sigils require introspection. A magician should start by considering his or her problems first, what subconscious resistance is occuring to block the magic from working. If you do a love sigil but you have no patience for shit testing or flirting then the sigil will fail. You should then do a patience sigil instead and reconsider the above factors…the solution isn’t always obvious. If a sigil fails, it will not automatically return to sender with an explanation why. Sometimes the failure is for obvious reasons, other times those reasons need to be divined.

Grant Morrison writes in Pop Magic,

Study YOURSELF the way a hunter studies prey. Exploit your own weaknesses to create desired changes within yourself.

This is an important principle of magic: know thyself.

A magician’s first use of sigils should be to deal with subconscious blocks that are limiting the magician’s use of magic.

Philip Cooper in Basic Sigil Magic refers to this process as washing the ego clean.

In mythology and folklore, we see constant tales of rampant demons who are captured and imprisoned by powerful magicians who force the demon to grant wishes. This folklore theme is a symbolic representation of washing the ego – what I will call binding the demons. The demons are symbols of subconscious blocks and flaws while the binding rituals represent the sigiling process of dealing with these flaws to attain higher levels of magic.

My recommendation is to keep a diary of critical self-analysis. Whenever the urge strikes your fancy, write down an unrestrained overly harsh list of your flaws, even if you are being over-critical. When I started doing this, it was difficult at first but once the flood gate was opened, I could easily sit down and brainstorm these massive critical lists.

My results?:

• Anger
• Lack of motivation
• Hate inconvenience
• Sulky
• Over-stimulation
• Whore
• Depressed
• Moody
• Passive-aggressive
• Over-aggressive
• Bad conversationalist
• Cocky
• Unfocused
• Hasty, impatient
• No maintenance ability
• Mechanically disinclined
• Binge spender
• Negative
• Over-critical
• Insecure
• Control freak
• Fear of success
• Naïve
• Never finish anything
• Self-centered
• Self-absorbed
• Out of shape
• Ambiguously gay

I could keep going.

Cooper suggests that a critical self-analysis be organized according to the basic elemental pattern.

The four elements are fire, earth, air, and water. If you watch Avatar: the Last Airbender, they have them out of order.

Each element has its own particular association, both negative and positive:

Fire: Fire mainly represents creative and active pursuits. These are all the adventures and plans that you want to plot and enjoy. Fire wants power. Descriptions include creative, enthusiastic, unrestrained, sexual, spontaneous, volatile, temperamental, inspirational, (anti)social, controlling, blunt, honest, direct, forceful, active, energetic, insensitive, intense, high-maintenance, vengeful, etc.

Earth: Earth represents materialism and practical. They deal mainly with money magic and earthly pleasures (financial comfort, indulgence, sensuality). Earth wants material gains. Descriptions include stable, practical, hard-working, dependable, materialistic, narrow-minded, inhibited, in control, isolated, easy-going, down-to-earth, passionate, loyal, stubborn, responsible, dutiful, concrete, sensual, conservative, etc.

Air: Air represents intelligence or at least communication. Air talks and talks and talks but not necessarily intelligently. Air is for people looking for social graces or analytical abilities. Air wants information. Descriptions include talkative, analytical, graceful, elegant, superficial, social, impractical, unrealistic, attention-deficit, abstract, charming, experimental, shallow, opinionated, deceitful, curious, perceptive, etc.

Water: Water represents unadulterated emotion. Water feels with no logical ability whatsoever. Water is for those looking to deal with emotional problems. Water wants personal security most of all. Descriptions include self-destructive, manipulative, passive-aggressive, moody, artistic, intuitive, (over)sensitive, nurturing, romantic, delusional, sulky, imaginative, nonverbal, secretive, possessive, judgmental, etc.

Organization of flaws might not be an exacting science and may be a little bit awkward at first, but part of the purpose is not only to be aware of these flaws but also to connect them with deper magical principles.

My organization chart might look something like this:

Fire: Anger, lack of motivation, hate inconvenience, whore, over-aggressive, cocky, hasty, impatient, no maintenance ability, binge spender, over-critical, control freak, never finish anything, naïve, self-centered, self-absorbed, out of shape

Earth: Mechanically disinclined, binge spender, control freak, fear of success, general financial and stability issues

Air: Over-stimulation, bad conversationalist, unfocused, ambiguously gay

Water: Sulky, whore, depressed, moody, passive-aggressive, negative, insecure, control freak, fear of success, self-centered, self-absorbed, non-verbally in-astute.

If you notice my elemental balance, you can guess what sign I am. I am a Leo (fire sign) born towards the cusp of Cancer (water sign).

In some instances, I placed traits in two (or more categories). In some instances, I put traits in categories that they are the opposite of, for example, bad conversationalist goes in air because air deals with conversational abilities while I put binge-spender in fire and earth because binge spending is a fire trait but earth deals with material and financial issues. I also added a couple new flaws that came to mind as I was organizing.

I’m going to stop here and continue with this sigil program next week.

Tying the Gordian Knot on Brands and Sigils

If a question is unanswerable then the question needs to be changed. If a deadend occurs in progress then steps need to be taken backwards to remove certain givens to allow temporary freedom under new rules.

A sigil is not a brand, a brand is not a sigil, but I would like them to be the same. How then might I make the connection? Let’s look at the basic laws of sigils:

1. Sigils are disposable.
2. Sigils are non-linguistic.

And that’s really it. Can any changes be made in these two major sigil laws?

Is it necessary for a sigil to be disposable? Actually, yeah, it kind of is. The power of a sigil isn’t strictly in its form but rather in its creation and its charging. Once a sigil has been created and launched, it is like a battery subject to the laws of entropy. It loses power: if you had to eat hot dogs every day for a month, you’d get sick of the hot dogs. The psychic stimulation of the sigil disappears.

But batteries can be recharged. If you limit your craving for hot dogs you can still keep your taste for them.

Can a sigil be recharged? Possibly through de-association and re-association with it. For example, I hadn’t seen this guy in like a year. When I contacted him through e-mail, he was all horny for me but after a bit that excitement wore off. When we met in person by accident a short while later, that bond between us was recharged again. It may be possible to put a sigil aside for a long period and then re-discover it, like being reacquainted with an old friend or lover. Of course, the psychic charge will drain away again but that is beside the point.

A sigil can also be designed so as to improve its shelf life. Normally sigils are bizarre Asian looking figures but a sigil can also be a work of art. Art is almost a perpetual motion machine whereby a good work of art stimulates the viewer; an artistically designed sigil could stimulate the magician as much as the magician stimulates it.

Extending the sigil into hypersigil, then, is a necessity to extend the effect of the sigil.

Can sigils be linguistic? No, they have to be non-linguistic, but it is common for a brand to have both logotype and ideogram, linguistic and pictorial. A sigil can be developed into a binary creation, part ideogram (the sigil) and part logotype, creating possibly a bridge between the subconscious ideogram and the conscious logotype. For example,








Yeah, it's a crappy design and the Q looks like a G but I'm doing it as an example rather than a personal sigil.

How then might the laws of branding be applied to sigiling?

Okay, then, here are my 12 Laws of Sigils

1. The Bi-Laws of Expansion and Contraction: A sigil or series of sigils should be applied to a specific area of focus, for example, self-improvement, meeting new people, money magic. If you are sigiling for everything then you will eventually lose focus and start ignoring the RAP requirements. Build a particular association to your sigils and limit your experiments or practice to this one particular brand at first.

2. The Law of Publicity: A sigil must be made public, that is, exposed to the public so that people are aware of it. No more secret society private MySpace diaries. If you can’t announce yourself to the world, how then can you announce yourself to the universe? As part of this sigil launching party, you must find a way to reveal yourself as a magician without people thinking you are a freak; you also want people to invest in your sigil. Give someone a love sigil. Wear it on a shirt and give out business cards with the sigil (and your website) if people ask. Even though I worked in the hated real estate business where I'm supposed to aggressively sell houses, I believe sigils should be sold through interest, not aggression. No one had to sell me the idea. I wanted to explore them myself. Likewise, neither would I approach people saying, here's my sigil.

3. The Law of Advertising: Sigils must be maintained and recharged. How do you extend the mortality rate of a sigil? Change something minor like printing it on environmentally safe recyclable paper or transform the same sigil into a different medium. Relaunch the sigil through a different type of exposure or publicity.

4. The Law of Association: Build into your sigils some type of recognition factor so that they are more easily identifiable. Maybe you print them on flash paper or have a particular medium. You sigil is unique compared to others and conveys a particular association (wacky, artistic, friendly, fluffy, whatever).

5. The Law of Quality: Hype up your sigils. Pretend that they always work. Or kill people they don't work for so they don't tell anyone.

6. The Law of Category: Create a new type of sigil that is different. Grant Morrison created hypersigil so create yourself a sub-sigil or bi-sigil or quantum sigil or eco-sigil or contra-sigil. Don't you just love the creative absurdity of Greco-Roman prefixies?

7. The Law of Creator: Stop referring to your sigils as sigils and name them after yourself. I can call my sigils “quits” if I want.

8. The Law of Siblings: Since obviously you will want to use your sigils for more than one purpose, create sigils in families, that is one particular brand, for example, health sigils all on recyclable paper while creativity sigils on red construction paper.

9. The Law of Shape: Horizontal sigils, nuff said.

10. The Law of Color: Yeah, I know, I’ll get to color magic someday.

11. The Law of Consistency: Don’t go crazy with experimentation. Develop a stable sigil form first instead of a million wacky innovations.

12. The Law of Mortality: Know when to move on.

What is the necessary next steps for sigils is to focus on their use and to begin developing them into hypersigil form. In the next couple blogs, I will discuss the important sigil rituals and hopefully work into hypersigilia.