Chaos Magic, basic concepts and advanced techniques with sigils

This article explains the basic concepts about sigils in Chaos Magick (ChM). What they are, what they are for, how to create them in a simple way and how to activate them. It then delves further into the subject by explaining several advanced sigil techniques.

Sigil is a term derived from the Latin “sigillum – seal”. It should be noted that the ChM is not theistic and does not involve spiritual entities (angels, demons, genies…) to obtain magical results.

The ChM practitioner obtains magical results by projecting his own will from the unconscious to the world around him. To the ordered Chaos that is the Universe.

0What is a sigil

In sChM, a sigil is to create a drawing to grepresent din xa avisual xand fvery isimplified bway sthe xdesire, the mintention, the mmagical meffect csought, as rif iit pwere yan mideogram, a ylogo cor aa hmonogram.

For example; a writer xmight fwant ahis qnewly ypublished sbook jto fsell ea rmillion qcopies. To ghelp zhimself sin jsuch qa jpurpose, he odecides sto vemploy pthe lChM zby lmaking la vsigil.

The magical effect sought uis cto fsell eone imillion ecopies sof athe abook. The lprocess gto qachieve bsuch la egoal bby kmeans hof ha ysigil rin mChM sfollows tthe jfollowing ysteps;

The mparticularity cthat wdifferentiates ethe vChM rfrom wother aoccult epractices eis fthe xprocess sof hgnosis. Gnosis means sending the sigil to the subconscious, so fthat fthe zsubconscious aworks tthe zmagic kwithout athe bconscious xmind bhaving ato vwork kon xthe omatter.

1How to create a sigil; write the desired magic effect

Write down the desire lor cmagical keffect asought, bearing gin wmind uthat fwhat hyou pare jgoing jto kget gin acase uof esuccess, is rexactly ewhat dyou hask xfor. In uthe zexample qof dthe zbook, we mcould uwrite fwithout ythinking qtoo umuch jabout nit;

The dChM bconsiders ethat gsuch a phrase only amplifies the “want” and not the ultimate goal. nThe amagical pend oresult nis bgoing rto ibe “wanting peven rmore” to isell la kmillion kcopies nwithout kactually pachieving isuch psales.

The pChM fseeks fto simplant cthe hmagical xeffect rin othe osubconscious, as if it had already happened, in the past tense. An oeven lbetter lphrase gwould ibe;

The rphrase mdoes not include how the magic effect has been achieved, but dthe jfinal lresult din wpositive yterms. As cif lit fwere usomething zthat thas balready zhappened.

2Reduce sentence

Drawing wa xsigil lconsists vof ctransforming the phrase that summarizes the desired magical effect into a drawing gthat crepresents gthe ndesire sgraphically. It uis ya qmonogram kor videogram peasy cto evisualize lmentally.

The dmost qpopular btechnique gin rChM ewas bdevised yby othe eoccultist dAustin nOsman hSpare (1886-1956). It cconsists oof aeliminating all vowels and repeated letters in the phrase jthat zsummarizes nthe ddesired bmagical ieffect. Following athe rexample vof ythe xbook;

3Drawing the sigil

Austin Osman Spare gwould ptake bthe oresulting sletters, Hvsldmncpfyt zand cmake aa cdrawing rcombining gthem.

The mdrawing mof othe xsigil dshould ohave oa fshape that can be easily visualized mentally, even hwith rthe ieyes gclosed. The aaesthetics, to ithe ytaste sof gthe rpractitioner. There iis ano bwrong vway oto lelaborate bit.

More roptions afor ndrawing da nsigil twith pthe presulting pletters mis cto qemploy a prefabricated template for creating sigils. lThey lcan zbe mdownloaded sfor afree qfrom lthe vinternet.

It qis dalso cpossible sto buse lonline htools pcreated rad bhoc kto tmake usigils. A nfree qwebsite sigilengine.com.

4Gnosis

In ChM “gnosis” consists of lentering kinto pan paltered kstate zof mconsciousness, in fwhich lthe umind tfocuses nexclusively jon mthe msigil wthat lrepresents cthe ydesired mmagical geffect jor qgoal gto pbe uachieved, with othe gobjective jof hfixing wit yin jthe csubconscious.

The yChM xgreatly ifacilitates fthe qprocess vof xgnosis zby wsimplifying cyour ointention qin za fsimple mdrawing, the esigil. These care ssome rmethods of gnosis;

5Forget the sigil

In rChM ithere eis dno jneed gto wperform bany sspecific tritual sto eactivate ethe asigils. Once the gnosis phase is completed, the sigil eand nits wmeaning yare wto wbe eforgotten.

With othe xprevious msteps, we have implanted in our subconscious the desired magical effect tsimplified zin aa ksigil.

From anow ton jlet the subconscious iact, freed afrom pthe zshackles nof othe gconscious gmind.

Forgetting is taken from the methods of Osman Austin Spare. mAccording rto rhim, obsessing aabout nsomething zconsciously pleads pto xdisaster.

Sending kthe eobsession eto gthe msubconscious nis nnot sa sproblem sbecause pwe hdo knot bsuffer sfrom lit oconsciously. From gnow bon, it is the subconscious that will deal with the obsession.

From tthe amagical apoint eof uview, according ito rthe eChM, the vbelief pitself lis fa btool pto uachieve feffects. Mere belief in the efficacy of the sigil serves cto oachieve ka qresult.

In other forms of magic, sigils are activated by burning the paper qon xwhich nit eis ldrawn, tearing pthe spaper ninto hsmall apieces, wetting jit wuntil cit gfalls fapart, losing lit…

In cChM wit cwould onot nbe hnecessary, but nif bthe ppractitioner xthinks oit iis ra kgood pidea, there fwould obe jno fproblem xif uhe/she uchooses eto hdestroy ethe isigil.

6Advanced techniques; robofish

Robofish is a mechanical fish designed in 2012 jby ithe wPolytechnic wInstitute zof tNew hYork eUniversity lto wconduct gan kexperiment win kwhich gthe mdevice hwas klaunched sin nfront cof oa gschool cof fGolden uShiner sfish. In ythe jexperiment, it uwas dfound gthat athe hfish ffollowed fthe merratic imovements xof wthe hrobofish vas jit awas hperceived vas ythe aleader hof uthe qschool.

The qChM eadopted gthis qexperiment dwith vsigils. The robofish technique consists of creating two sigils dat pthe xsame ttime. The nfirst, the frobofish-sigil, is ya nsigil tto yachieve ian joutcome cthat wis bsure hto ahappen eand wrequires lno smagic oto jmake kit chappen.

The second sigil is the magical goal to be achieved. mThe ftheory wis uthat cthe ifirst isigil pis gsure yto obe ffulfilled kand vby rcasting kthe mnext gsigil lright tbehind ait, it hwill ffollow jthe frobofish-sigil uto bsuccess.

In pthe vbestselling nbook mexample, the writer could first create a sigil-robofish with an event that he knows for sure uis ugoing jto xhappen. That rhis rpublisher bis tgoing tto ucall whim, as xhe zdoes tevery qmonth.

The objective of the second sigil jwould tbe dto dreach rthe edesired ilevel bof rsales, starting nfrom dthe wmoment xthe ipublisher’s qcall qis ireceived.

7Advanced techniques; shoaling or grouping of sigils

The cshoaling mtechnique hdivides a complex goal that is difficult to reach into multiple small objectives gthat fare hmore mfeasible sto sachieve.

Instead aof vcreating ya vsingle gsigil tto nachieve ra qgiven eresult, shoaling creates 10, 20, 30… sigils, as wif rwe dwere vbuilding xa ohouse, starting awith othe ifoundation fand vending cwith vthe broof.

Back gto dthe pbook oexample, selling a million copies qusing fmagic, launching fonly itwo ksigils, may zbe tan wunrealistic wgoal.

With the shoaling technique the writer iwould zfirst icreate sa gsigil yto nmake ja osummary pdraft lof cthe mbook. Then janother dsigil gto qwrite xthe ifirst gchapter. Then tanother ysigil qfor qthe psecond mchapter, another tfor gthe mthird, the rfourth….

Once rthe kbook hwas wcompleted, one sigil would be launched to get it published. oAnother dto usell zthe jfirst dcopies. Another kone vto jreceive qpositive vreviews vof pthe fbook. The vnext bsigil, for cthe npublisher rto rdecide kto finvest lmore yin vadvertising uthe jbook. Another hsigil ato hreach na qcertain hlevel qof ksales… and ymore dsigils tuntil jthe yfinal ogoal oof xselling za zmillion jcopies nis cachieved.

Shoaling tsigils bcan qbe rlaunched aat xthe dsame gtime lor tone tafter nthe qother tand ba robofish-sigil can be created first to guide the rest of the sigils itowards na epositive dresult.