Sigils, What are they?¿ Options

I've been reading a lot on sigils, and can't seem to think of what they are for / how they work in the right way.
Could someone help elaborate please?

http://www.angelfire.com/realm2/amethystbt...igilmagick.html
"Your unconscious mind, while extremely powerful, only understands symbols sent to it from your conscious mind. It does not understand what we would consider simple and straight forward communication. Hence, the need for sigils which are really just combinations of the letters in your statement of intent (minus repeated letters, state of being verbs: is, are, etc. and any vowels)"

Trouble with whats written is that the unconciouse mind would be in control of the body whilst the concious mind is of doing the dreaming / travelling etc if you can imagine that your etheric body is not concious where as your physical body whilst being awake is. Unless meaning the subconcious?

The sigil can be interpreted in the wrong way. If I saw a triangle then it could represent a pyramid in the subconcious mind and an I shape could represent one of those roman colum thingys. I have thought though if you can picture this that it would build a picture in your mind about the person attached to the incoming thought if your mind thought it were coming from a person, although it doesnt need to be a person. Can also interpret in your dreams.

I kind of get what your saying but, could you do a dummies version?
Does it relate to this though?... If you were to picture a bowl with a spoon in then take the spoon away, the spoon has now gone subconcious. Same as burring something. Been wondering why however you choose to burn?

This post has been edited by Coffee: Sep 30 2006, 03:27 PM

I kind of get what your saying but, could you do a dummies version?
Does it relate to this though?... If you were to picture a bowl with a spoon in then take the spoon away, the spoon has now gone subconcious. Same as burring something. Been wondering why however you choose to burn?

Ah, I see...

Starting with the example of the bowl. What you are referring to is the difference between structured and unstructured energy. I will explain.

Structured energy is any energy (electrical, emotional, informational, subtle or gross, any energy at all) which is able to be percieved in some fashion as an identifiable concept or sensory object. A spoon is a structure of energy, and so is the image of a spoon.

If you call up in your mind the images of a bowl and a spoon, then you are gathering the previously unstructured energy that was in your unconscious mind, and giving it structure in the conscious mind. If that unstructured energy didn't exist in your unconscious mind, then you would not be able to call it up into your conscious mind.

The point of sigilization is to take discrete unstructured energies, give them form and purpose - structure - and then submit them into the recesses of the mind where your intention gives them structure in an unstructured environment.

I'm afraid i'm not very good at describing these matters in simpler terms than what i've given here. The key to it, though, is the focused intention to create a sigil with a purpose. For instance, imagining a spoon and then letting it go from your mind is essentially the same practice of imagination, however the spoon was not associated with a particular purpose, and so committing the image of a spoon to your subconscious/unconscious mind does not cause an overtly magickal effect. However, if you consider the fact that every time you go to eat a bowl of cereal, you automatically go for a spoon without having to think it through or plan your actions, you may see a parallel. A sigil works the same way.

The trick is to take out the physical reality aspect of the overall picture. All existence is energy. Take a moment to stop thinking about that energy in terms of "table" "book" "chair" "computer", etc., the labels and symbols in our physical existence that define things for us. Outside of those structures and their order, all that is left is the subtle aspect - that is, the aspect not directly percieved "as-is" by the five classical senses. An example of identifying the subtle aspect of a structure: Find a picture or object which is sentimental in some fashion to you. When you look at this structure (object/concept) you percieve it on two levels. First level is the gross (physical) level - the object itself as defined by it's atomic structure and space/time context. The second level is the subtle level - this is the emotional memory associated with that object, the totality of your experience of it. That part cannot be percieved by anyone except yourself and possibly a skilled empath. As a natural part of being human, you are able to connect that physical object's structure on the gross physical plane, to subtle energies on the astral (subtle) plane.

This is the principle upon which sigilization functions. It is a process of creating a structure which is associated then with subtle energies, and 'digesting' that structure and it's function into your unconcious mind.

For me, burning the sigil is symbolic of releasing it's energy into my reality. When an object burns, matter is converted to energy (heat) which radiates outwards. Conservation of mass states that energy is neither created nor destroyed, only altered and moved from one locale to the other. As the gross physical energy of the sigil is transformed into heat in the burning process, it's associated subtle energies follow the same movement, but in a holographic, non-physical plane of existence. While the heat is localized specifically in the physical plane, in the subtle plane that energy now exists throughout all the energy that I am connected to.

I hope I managed to explain everything in a cohesive manner... if anyone wants to take a crack at translating into more laymen's terms, you're welcome to try, I'm a gemini, this is about as good as I can do.

peace