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A Mess of Sigils

by Bruce KroezeFor pure will, unassuaged of purpose, delivered from the lust of result, is in every way

perfect. -AL I.44

The use of sigilized statements of desire is perhaps the simplest, quickest and most

effective technique in the modern magicians armory. However, this method has a glaring

flaw. How is the mage to get around the lust of result that goes hand-in-hand with the

creation of the sigil? This paper gives a method I have found useful for circumventingthis inconvenient limit.

The creation of a sigil is a simple and interesting exercise. At its most basic, the worker

writes down a statement of desire, phrased as a positive. If there is any doubt about the

proper way to phrase your desire, consultation of any of the huge pile of new-age dreckwritten about affirmations will shortly remedy any confusion. Do not buy these books,

just read them at a bookstore as the idea is - necessarily - very simple.

Once a satisfactory statement has been selected, the magician reduces it to a form wherehe no longer consciously recognizes its meaning. This is quite entertaining, and endless

variations of this reduction process can be invented to amuse the creative sigil-mage.

Note the light-hearted tone of the process here. The avoidance of result-lust begins with

laughter. Work with the sigil until you find an aesthetic symmetry and simplicity that youfeel comfortable with.

Once the sigil is complete and ready for activation, copy it to a piece of paper and put itaway for a while. I put mine in a little sigil-pot, where I store all passive sigils. If youcreate ten or so sigils at one time, or over a short period, then wait a couple weeks, you

should find that you have no sure conscious idea which sigil is which. This helps get rid

of desire because it is quite difficult to simultaneously lust for the fulfillment of ten

desires.

Put your sigil pot somewhere where you will see it occasionally. Then forget about sigils

entirely for a couple weeks. Then, one day when it occurs to you out of the blue, a sure

sign that you are ready to activate, randomly pick a sigil. It is normal for the

remembering process to begin right away but it is easy to deal with this problem. Simply

tell yourself, Oh, it doesnt matter. This normally stops the process in the bud; if it doesnot, put the sigil down and wait a while longer.

Activating a sigil is done by achieving some state of gnosis while concentrating on thesigils image, words and/or sounds. I suggest that the magician vary the techniques used

to accomplish the charge, as some will be found to work much better than others. Even

when a favorite technique has been found, it is still valuable to vary the approach now

and again, as the best technique may change over time.

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After the sigil is charged, it should be destroyed. This should be a physical and mental

destruction. Burning a piece of paper is easy, but deliberately losing a memory less so. I

have found the practice of simply saying to myself I dont need to remember that rightnow to be extremely effective. More aggressive efforts at forgetting usually fail for me,

but a few repetitions of I dont need... usually cause the sigil to be gone in short order.

It is difficult to reconcile this need to forget with another obligation of a magician, which

is to document her work. I compromise by quickly writing the time and circumstances ofthe activation (but not any image of the sigil), then doing something mentally distracting

such as playing a computer game.

After you have activated the final sigil, wait a couple days for full memory loss. Then,

you are finally free to look back over your records & check for results. You will certainlyfind some obvious and powerful activations working in your life. Of course, a journal is

vital for the final step in the sigilizing process. It acts as your last line of defense against

Lust of Result by enabling you to get through the temptation to re-interpret your recent

experiences.

So the Wise Man acteth without lust of result;

achieveth and boasteth not; he willeth not to proclaim his greatness.

Tao Te King, Crowley translation, 77:4.