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Sigils are probably one of the most common kinds of magic we all see in the modern world, but no one seems to notice. Sigil magic is the art of using symbols and imagery to manifest a specific intent or outcome. A meaningless shape or figure that is given meaning by the magician and then deployed, released among the target population to spread like a virus.



The best example of sigils are brand logos. The Nike swoosh or McDonald’s golden arches are both perfect examples of highly powerful magic in action. Just the sight of that yellow ‘M’ on a red background and your mouth waters for french fries. Even Coca-Cola’s cursive font, reminiscent of the green glass bottle, is instantly recognizable in any country no matter the language. It’s not simply that their marketing executives have imprinted their brand names and their products in our minds. Those symbols evoke actual emotional or even physical responses in us. Seeing the Coca-Cola logo makes you thirsty; the red and yellow hues favored by McDonald’s naturally induce hunger. These symbols, seemingly innocent, have a profound effect on us physiologically as well as psychologically.

So, the head honchos at these massive corporations have utilized the power of sigils to sell billions of cheeseburgers and sneakers. What will you use it for?

Sigils are not good or evil, they’re not black magic or white magic. They are like any other technology—they can be used for whatever purpose suits the user. Businesses use sigil magic everyday to influence people’s feelings, desires and ideas; but the technique can be employed for more benevolent purposes too. For example, influencing people’s feelings in a positive way—like encouraging the desire to donate to a worthy cause—could be a positive use of sigil magic to produce healing and healthy results. In general, you want to avoid sigils that are meant to be coercive or override someone’s free will. Though sometimes, a coercive method may be welcomed by the target, like if a friend asks you to perform magic to help them quit smoking.

Caveats aside, here’s a simple guide to the magical art of sigilcraft. There are many methods but we’ll focus on a simple technique to get you going.

1. Determine your intention.

The first step is deciding what you want and being absolutely clear about it. Don’t be vague about the details because you may regret the manner in which results are produced.

Write down your intent in a single sentence as a declarative statement. So, if you’re trying to bring in more wealth, write something like, “I HAVE A GREAT JOB THAT I LOVE WHERE I EARN FIVE THOUSAND DOLLARS A MONTH.” Don’t write, “I WANT A JOB,” because that’s projecting wanting and not having. Write your desire as though it’s already a fact.

2. Obscure the meaning.

The next step is to obscure the meaning of the sentence. There are a variety of ways to accomplish this task, from using magic squares to astrology. Here, we’ll focus on a very simple method that doesn’t require any magic tables but works just as well.

First, remove all of the vowels from your sentence and jam all the letters together into one massive word. So, using the sentence above as an example, we would be left with:

“HVGRTJBTHTLVWHRRNFVTHSNDDLLRSMNTH.” You can discard any punctuation.

Second, remove all repeating consonants from your sentence. Using the same example, we’re left with:

“HVGRTJBLWNFSDM.”

This seemingly nonsensical string of letters is a code embedded with your intention. It means the same thing as the original sentence, but it can’t be deciphered by anyone but you, giving it added magical power.

3. Design the sigil.

Here’s the fun part. Now, taking the coded string of letters you've got, start designing your sigil by arranging these letters together in ways that further disguise which letters are which. Layer letters on top of letters, arrange them around each other, reverse them, turn them upside down, and add embellishing lines, arrows, circles, stars, moons and swoops to shroud the meaning completely.

Most sigils made in this manner look like weird and witchy chicken scratches, or like an alien language. You can design the sigil to suit your style, as long as its meaning is indecipherable.

4. Forget the sigil.

Here’s the part most people skip. In order for a sigil to effectively work, the original intention behind the sigil must be so shrouded in mystery, that it should be unknown even to you. That means you have to forget the purpose of the sigil.

Most magicians solve this problem by creating a batch of several sigils for several different purposes all at once (sometimes under the influence of their preferred consciousness-altering potions). Then, the sigils are left in a safe place where no one—including the magician—will see them. Returning to the sigils a month or so later renders them all unintelligible, their real meanings forgotten.

Forgetting serves a practical purpose. Once we cast a spell—and creating a sigil is certainly casting a spell—we must detach from the original longing or desire that led us to cast the spell in the first place. If we dwell on the longing, then we are suffocating the magic of our spell. By letting go, we open ourselves to miraculous possibilities and improbable outcomes. If you continue to dwell on the problem after casting the spell, then your worrying and dwelling will cast a spell of its own, one dominated by longing and worrying. Instead, you must focus on the feeling of success and confidence that the sigil works.

If there’s some urgency to the spell you’re casting and you simply don’t have a month to spare, you can enlist a trusted magical friend to perform the final step of charging the sigil on your behalf. But both parties must have complete trust in each other to collaborate on such a task. You want to make sure the person charging your sigil knows what they’re doing. And if you’re the one charging a friend’s sigil, you want to make sure you trust your friend’s intention is not destructive or harmful in a way you might regret. Because there’s so much room for incompetence and deception, you only want to charge each other’s sigils after being certain of your loyalty to one another.

5. Charge the sigil.

The final step is charging the sigil: filling the symbol with the necessary energy to accomplish its task. The symbol of your desire is just a symbol until you charge it. Whether you call this charging energy ki, qi, prana, mana, or the Force, you can manipulate it with your attention.

There are many different methods for charging sigils, but they all depend on seeing and visualizing the sigil at a moment of mindlessness, i.e.: when the internal dialogue has stopped. So how do you hold the sigil in your attention while stopping your mental chatter? Mindlessness can be generated in many ways. Meditation, fasting, dancing, spinning, physical exhaustion, and orgasm, either alone or with a partner, are all effective ways to achieve mindlessness.

At the moment when the climax of your preferred activity is reached—be it orgasm or mindless spinning—you must visualize the sigil in your mind. It helps to picture the sigil blazing bright with energy, charged and powerful. The sigil will only be charged if there is an absolutely clear mind to visualize it with. The mind is like a lake, and its surface must be still enough to reflect your sigil. If there is a single ripple of thought across the surface of the lake, there will be distortions in the reflection of the sigil, rendering it useless or worse.

When you successfully charge the sigil, you’ll know. A sensation of knowing will come over you, and you will simply know that the sigil has begun manifesting your will. Believe it, trust it, and move forward knowing that the sigil worked.