Destroy your sigils?, Do you or don't you? Options

This has been a hot topic among some of the area sigilizers in my town.
Do people here destroy their sigils after their "mission" has been completed?
I have always felt that when the goal has been acheived that I should destroy the sigil that i created. If it is one i am especially proud of I might take a picture or a scan before disposing of it. If their is not a clear end to it purpose(as in perhaps ("this sigil is to encourage my creative nature") I will keep it. IF it has an end to it's use (this sigil is to aid in the acquirement of "specific object or idea") i will burn it when this goal is acheived. Afterwards I feel that the sigil and it's energy is then cleared for my mind. In some ways it works as both a physical and mental banishment, leaving my mind clear for new projects. Ultimately I think anyone can do whatever they want with their sigils but I am wondering what members here do?
chaoscrowley.txt

This post has been edited by chaoscrowley37: Jul 6 2005, 10:25 PM

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The point is to destroy your sigil the very moment after it has been charged... Once this has been accomplished you are meant to forget everything about the sigil, including the ritual you did to charge it, this is the only way it can bypass the psychic censer and become embedded within the subconscious.

Well... this is just how Spare and Carroll did it, and I learned how to do sigils properly from reading their works. If you havent..... THEN GO FORTH AND READ!!!

You can find their pfd's all over the internet, just google him, you can even find his works on the archive on this site, although you'll have to pay for it. Search for 'The book of Pleasure (Self Love)'.

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Well... this is just how Spare and Carroll did it, and I learned how to do sigils properly from reading their works. If you havent..... THEN GO FORTH AND READ!!!

You can find their pfd's all over the internet, just google him, you can even find his works on the archive on this site, although you'll have to pay for it. Search for 'The book of Pleasure (Self Love)'.

I have read both Spare and Carroll extensively and I have always viewed their writings as documented experiences rather than descriptions on how to do things PROPERLY.

Declaring a technique proper or inproper seems to negate the very idea of "Nothing is true, everything is permitted".

Rather than simply duplicate the processes that these authors undertook I was more interested in developing a personal system of magick through experience, experiment, and practice. Could I simply follow the rules set forth by others? Of course! Would I rather undertake the process of destroying the sigil immediately, destroying it when the action is complete, or keeping it for an extended period of time and determining which technique was the most effective? This would be the path I would choose in order to determine which is most effective for my personal use. There are groups and individuals who have found each one of these techniques to be ideally suited for their purposes and the question was to see which people found most effective. It was not meant to be a chance to instruct me in the "proper" actions to be taken in sigil magick.

This post has been edited by chaoscrowley37: Jul 7 2005, 04:30 PM

I didnt mean to instruct you, sorry if thats how it came across. I never once said you were wrong, although I do not believe in the maxim "Nothing is true, everything is permitted". As I do believe that some things are true/do work, even if these things only apply to you as an individual. Simply put, I believe in truth, not Truth. Nothing is universal, Kant can suck my ass.
I never liked the way Chaotes clung to the above maxim, its a peice of dogma that I hear all the time, something the chaos current is supposed to transend. If this maxim Truly was the case then I could fire sigils by standing on my head and shouting happy birthday. This is not the case. Forgetting sigils, enchantments etc etc is PART of the process of magical acts. If this part of the theory had always been ommited then all people would be doing is staring at a funny pattern and thinking that that changes the universe in acordance with their will.
Gnosis and the act of forgetting are true magical formulae, without these two elements then you are not working magic.

One of the things I have noticed though is that I can forget the sigil by merely placing it aside, I needn't go to the length of burning it or burying it.
The reason I usually set it aside until the action is complete is that I think it allows it to act upon the physical plane while still being around. It will gather energy and complete its task much like a talisman. The idea of destroying I feel can aid in its forgetting but I don't think it entirely necessary for the success of an operation. There is no doubt that the sigil needs to be destroyed or forgotten by the mind but is it necessary to destroy it physically? I don't know how necessary this is because I have found that I can forget the ritual and the sigil without burning and attain success. The idea of gnosis and forgetting as magical formulae I no doubt support. Whether a "universal" truth or not I won't argue. How those two formulae are fulfilled though I think can be open to some interpretation. I don't think burning or destroying a sigil is a dependent factor on whether gnosis or forgetting is acheived.

I don't think burning or destroying a sigil is a dependent factor on whether gnosis or forgetting is acheived.

Well no. It just helps to get rid of the sigil so you dont accidentally see it again and alow its purpose to rise to conscious awarness. The idea of using them as talismans is cool, but I would find it too distracting and I think it would take energy away from my sigil workings.

With me it depends on the purpose of the sigil.
Some sigils i keep with me, in my pocket, all the time after i energized them.
I often touch them, and think about them during the day.

I do not see how thinking about a sigil after it has been energized harms it workings, unless you highly doubt your own skill and start doubting about the success of the sigil.

I don't think that nothing is true and everything is permitted.
There are universal truths, but this sigil forgetting is just a technique, not a truth nor a belief. Many people when thinking about their sigils start doubting their effectiveness, and by doubting they are in fact working magick against the sigil. Their doubt becomes a magical act countering the sigils magick.
For those people burning and forgetting the sigil works wonders, i for one don't need such techniques, i just don't doubt myself.

It is always helpful to realize and know why certain techniques are used, if you understand the techniques, only then you can change them to your liking successfully.

You can't improve your car's engine when you don't understand how the engine works.

That is an important observation that many chaotes overlook.

Also, i believe there are many truths in magick.
The nature of magick.
The creative forces in the universe.
The nature of the human soul.
The nature of the astral plane.
The nature of the after life.

Face it, on these things and many others there can only be 1 single truth.
You can believe the earth is flat, many people did that once, but in the end the world was still as round as we know it is today.

I like chaos magick, but sometimes the chaos paradigm is wrongly being used as an excuse for ignorance. By dabblers with no real knowledge on anything, This is not directed at you folks! (IMG:style_emoticons/default/happy.gif)

This post has been edited by A_Smoking_Fox: Jul 8 2005, 08:29 AM

You are meant to forget the desire of the sigil! Otherwise you are not working sigil magic, everyone doubts their abilities, even subconsciously, which is why you must forget, so there is no lust for result. The minute a conscious part of your ego knows what the sigil is for then you will doubt it, when you doubt it your mind is not focused and the sigil will not work properly. This is why the neither-neither is so useful.

Jeez I feel dogmatic today.

I cannot see how lust itself is able to counter the magick.

I really have no problems with doubt, i tend to keep pushing and reinforcing the sigil whenever i have the chance. I cannot do magick and then simply forget about it, for a few simple reasons.
1: My mind just does not forget that easily. I have good memory. I would remember the sigil any way, there is no way for me to forget about it.

2: Magick is ingrained into my life, i play with my energy while riding the bus, while lying in my bed in the morning, always.
Its in my veins, i cannot simply do it and then forget about it, i am always doing it.

That is why i keep the sigil with me and keep playing with its energies.

I can see very well how the burning can be effective, i would suggest it to friends if they came to me for advise on sigils. But it just isn't me.
So keep on burning Alarum, i am certain your method is perfect for your style.

The WHOLE POINT of sigils is to stop lust of result and conscious awarness of the desire!!! Thats why you make an incomprehensible glyph out of the words of your desire! How can you not know this? There is no point in making a sigil if you deliberatly intend to remeber its purpose.

Sure there are millions of different ways to charge sigils, but the very foundation of Sigil magic relies on the act of forgetting. Knowing the desire of a sigil deliberatly completly undermines the whole point of sigil magic.

No one asked me, but doubt has very little to do with destroying the sigil in my mind. And to say that we all doubt even subconciously will surely bring trouble eventually. The act of destroying the sigil symbolizes your thought pattern of knowing you've already attained what it is you seek. After all it wouldn't make that much sense to put buy carrots on your grocery list when you've already obtained as many carrots as you could possibily need. It would still make even less sense to go around desiring carrots when you already have your fill of carrots. Having said that, not destroying the sigil probably isn't the end of the world.

This post has been edited by Bb3: Jul 9 2005, 07:32 PM

you are certainly very sure of your technique alarum.
Can you prove that yours is the only working form of sigil magick? I cannot prove my techniques, I only know that they work for me.

My sigil magick works just fine, it never failed me, not even once.

But you are very right, i do not always follow the predefined dogma.

I am very sure of my sigil technique. I practice it as it is taught by A.O.S, Carroll, Hine, Frater U.D., and many many more.

I maintain that it would not be sigil magic if you knew the intention of the sigil, this may be talisman magic, enchantment, or a billion other things, but not sigil magic. The very POINT of sigil magic is to create a symbol that can not be recognised by the conscious mind, alowing it to bypass the psychic censor at the moment of gnosis and saturate the subconscious. Once this is done your will is manifested within the universe. Just how you do this is completely up to you, this is why sigil magic is so popular within the Kaos paradigm, but Chaotes have lost the original idea and think that they can literally do ANYTHING just because Carroll revived the ancient words, "Nothing is true, everything is permitted."

You can not achieve invocation without following a formulae to accomplish this, just as you can not use Sigil magic without the use of the correct formulae.

I realise that magic is a totally subjective subject, and I do not mean to preach as this is definitley not something I have a right to do. Please understand that Im just trying to help.

very well, i can agree to that.

I do not really practice the same sigil magick, i just name it sigil magick because it involves using sigils.
this seems to me the most logical name for it, perhaps wrongfully so.
My charging and the rest is much like the way you practice, i just do not find it necessary to forget about it.

You are right, since you practice the way it has been thought before, it is me that goes astray from the normal ways. I do not deny this truth.

perhaps i should name it something else then, but what's in a name..

My point was this.
It is important that you know the why's in your techniques.
I know why one needs to forget in sigil magick, and so do you.
It just leads us to different techniques. You view it as logical and necessary, i view it as unnecessary.
We both understand our ways correctly, which in the end is the thing that divides a skilled mage from a fool.
Remember that our minds function slightly different, and this difference is clearly shown here.

This has been highly interesting. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/happy.gif)

My sigilisations follow the bare-bones Spare technique, with a few variations. Two names are created, one for normal use and one to be used at the birth/dissolution of the egregore. If it was created without a specific 'delete' command, I will destroy it myself once the desired effect is achieved (normally by burning the sigilised 'true name'). I think leaving an egregore to live on can sometimes turn nasty... at the end of the day, you've created an entity and invited it to live in your head. Letting it run wild there doesn't seem a particularly good idea. The old rule of thumb, 'four no more' is a guide I've always followed, for the same reasons (as well as the difficulty of maintaining a steady energy flow when there are hungry mouths to feed...) .


(IMG:style_emoticons/default/offtopic.gif) I once remember reading an article by a guy who tortured his egregores (I don't know why): has anyone attempted anything like that before? If so, why?? I think he might have created them with a Goetic paradigm in mind.

So you use sigils to charge egregores then.

(Not to be a cock again but you know there is a difference between egregores and servitors? Servitors are simply spirits, etc that the magician uses himself; Egregore are servitors that exist for many people at the same time. For instance, the entity that can be summond by magicians that is responsible for attracting people to McDonnalds is an Egregore, as it is affecting/influencing many people. When a group make a servitor that they can all use, it becomes an Egregore. There is a subtal difference, I'd just like to clear that up.)

I have never had more than one servitor running at the same time, but Carrolls recomendation of four max does seem very logical.

Interesting, I dont think I've heard of anyone else ever using 'true names' for their servitors. I have used this as I have been influence by fiction, and I found it very stimulating and it worked well. Basically, if the magician knows the True Name of an entity then he has ultimate control over it. It can be used as a password etc when using the entity, and ultimatley be used to destroy it when you are finished with it.

I dont think I'd ever torture my servitors, thats just cruel, why the hell would they work for you if all you did was harm them?! I prefer to reward them and treat them when they complete a task, positive reinforcement is much better than negative.

Classifications are endless... I'll bear the servitor/egregore distinction in mind for clarity's sake.

I agree about fiction contributing to the 'true name' idea being easily accepted into a belief structure (although the idea itself is present in various mythologies). Most conditioning/learning can be put to good magickal use.

Not sure I agree about the positive re-enforcement; it depends on whether or not the creator needs to sustain the entity consciously. I sometimes do this by offering incense, though normally simply recognising it as present&active is enough.

I reward if something gets done, and take away reward, but dont punish is the task is not completed. If it hasent then I ask why, or continue waiting for the desire to manifest. However, if it does something wrong or not what I told it to do.... then I might threaten it a little.... (IMG:style_emoticons/default/laugh.gif)

Have you ever had the experience of the servitor or egregor being bad?

eg. doing the opposite of what you asked?

Do they have any will of their own? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/m_monkey.gif)

Do they have any will of their own? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/m_monkey.gif)

.... thats kind of the point, but this is totally (IMG:style_emoticons/default/offtopic.gif)

Making a servitor without will is like charging a sigil and knowing what it was designed for.

I'd just like to comment here that I've found the discussion on this thread very satisfying. I'm not trying to patronize youall but this discussion has brought forth ideas from both (and more) viewpoints. They all have something of merit. I think that some misunderstanding was based on a semantics problem and some in the way the practioner views the world. Needless to say, good work colleagues! (IMG:style_emoticons/default/clapping.gif)

AOSpare was/is considered to be the Father of Sigils (my words only). It was his methods that the later authors drew on to form their own systems. What has passed for Sigils (and I mean no denegration to the artist(s) ) here on Forum are really Mandala patterns. But this is the subject of another thread... (IMG:style_emoticons/default/rolleyes.gif)

heh.
I don't think the ideas of one author, or even e few authors can accurately describe all the truth there is to sigils.
My sigils are sigils, not because of the way they look, but because of the magical intent i use when i shape them.
I can call them whatever i want, its one of the many freedoms i enjoy.

Cast your chains of dogma where you want, they will not find grip on me.

Just saying, with a smile on my face and a small sense of pride...

I think some people need to remember the origin of sigil magick, and that is chaos magick. And the maxim of chaos magick is still "Nothing is true, everything is permitted"

off topic:
my sigils only seem like mandalas, because of the flowers i make around them, but those flowers are geometrical figures rotated around their center of gravity.

The throat chakra sigil is a triangle rotated around its center at a regular interval. I don't know if mandalas are made that way, but i liked the graphical effect and found it magical, then i changed the degrees of rotation so that the number of triangles equals a certain number.

The triangles are totally separate shapes, and the flower is just an illusion of many triangles standing beside each other.
In other sigils i have used squares, ovals and other more complex shapes, which i all just rotate around their center of gravity.

I thought a mandala was one continuous shape, like from a spirograph, my sigils are not one continuous shape, but many shapes placed close to each other.

We both understand our ways correctly, which in the end is the thing that divides a skilled mage from a fool.
Remember that our minds function slightly different, and this difference is clearly shown here.

This has been highly interesting. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/happy.gif)

Agreed. I would say that magic is as diverse as the amount of people practicing it. And if we all had the same ideas about everything then the whole scene would not be half as interesting and colourful as it is.

A maxim that holds a lot of power for me is, "Strength through diversity." I believe in this much more than the maxim, "Nothing is true, everything is permitted."

I believe our differences make us stronger, which is why I love the occult and paganism so much as there are hardly any people that totally agree on every subject.

WE ARE NOT DRONES!!!

Harrah of diversity!

I think some people need to remember the origin of sigil magick, and that is chaos magick. And the maxim of chaos magick is still "Nothing is true, everything is permitted"

Sorry, but this isnt true. Spare revitalised Sigil magic at the turn of the 20th century, and even then it wasnt totally his idea and had been taught to him by his teacher. Spare 'sexed' up the process by adding in a contempory approach to it based on Freuds work and other such psychological theories. Sigil magic is very ancient. The Kaos paradigm started in the mid 70's and Carroll again made Sigils popular as he was very interested in 'Results Magic', which was the original name for Chaos Magic, and Sigils were very effective for results.

And Carroll was playing a trick on the reader of his books by using the maxim, "Nothing is true, everything is permitted", as Chaos should hold to NO maxims at all! Even this statement is dogma that can hinder the mage. Other tricks by Carroll include Monasticism, which is totally rediculus if you understand CMT.

I'm saddened that you think that I'm 'casting chains of dogma' around you. I am not. Just saying, shaking my head in trying to understand the defensive posturing of a colleague.
Sigil Magic had its roots before the Newage homogenizers decided to coin the phrase "Chaos Magic(k)". The catch phrase from the Matrix is vapid, IMHO!

Sigil Magic had its roots before the Newage homogenizers decided to coin the phrase "Chaos Magic(k)". The catch phrase from the Matrix is vapid, IMHO!

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Chaos Magic is most definatly NOT 'Newage', and was created in the 1970's, loooong before the Matrix. Nor does Chaos aim to homogenise! In fact its the complete oposite! Chaos aims to create diversity!

This post has been edited by Alarum: Jul 13 2005, 01:54 PM

No offense Alarum! LOL! The 70's IS Newage! When do you think it started?
My comment about the Matrix is where I first saw the expession coined. It may have been borrowed for the movie! Newage homogenizes! All gods are one god, etc. ad nauseum. Chaos Magic leapt to prominence when Chaos Theory was intrtoduced into the scientific community. Chaos Magic has adroitly homogenized various aspects of Ceremonial Magic, psionics, meditational techniques, Sigil Magic, fantasy literature, etc. and 'formed' a loose association between the various belief structures and yakked up an outline of magical techniques. Let's open a thread in Chaos Magic that gets into the heavy philosophical discussion of Chaos and our Ability to Perceive?? Any takers? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/laugh.gif) Chaos doesn't necessarily mean diversity. Chaos is or it isn't.

Just because it came from the 1970's doenst mean it is by definition 'Newage'. Nor do I think it has anything especially relavent to the film, The Matrix. I also disagree about homogenisation, sure it takes many techniques form many different trads, but its the way its practiced that counts. Chaos mages do not all act the same, nor do that all have the same opinion, in fact, they are among the most diverse bunch of occultists to roam the Earth.

As for the new thread idea, go for it, I'll jump in.

Chaos Magic was delivered to the public DURING the beginning of the New Age movement. Information on occult topics were around pre 70's if you knew where to look for them but were really coming into their own in the 70's. Chaos Magic had its beginnings there. True, the actual theorems and ideas were percolating abit before (Sigil Magic, for instance, is, in fact, prehistoric). I'm referencing time lines here. I also stated that my views of homogenization were 'IMHO'. It doesn't matter unless we were to debate the issue. I will start the thread. I'm glad you are interested, I'd like to get your thoughts about it. And if Smoking Fox hasn't buried himself in selfimposed 'chains of dogma' then I'm sure we can all have a great discussion! (IMG:style_emoticons/default/laugh.gif)