Finding Symbolism in Words: Building a Symbol Library
We’ve gone through a lot of common shapes, signs, and symbols, with their suggested interpretations. The next step is to consider what symbols you associate with the words you might use to create a sigil. For some people, this symbol-word association will come easily. For others, it may take a bit of practice. But on some level everyone has an image they associate with a word. The trick is to move out of a traditional, representational image into a simplified symbol.
For example, let’s look at the word community. A community is a group of people, usually with something in common—an idea, place, or trait that brings them together. For some people, the shape they may associate with the word community is a circle—referring to a circle of friends, a protective group, or a spiritual gathering. For others, they may see it as a square—in the sense of a foundation or building block. Still others may see it as a triangle, referencing a steeple, an organization, or a balance between different viewpoints. Someone else may visualize community as a collection of dots arranged in a hexagon—representing individuals coming together to form a loose collective or hive. All of these associations are correct, so it’s important to take the time to figure out what feels right for you.
What about verbs? They have associations just like nouns. Consider the word growth. An image of growth could be a straight, upward-facing arrow emerging out of a dot. Or maybe you’re thinking of organic growth (in terms of time and experience), so perhaps the shaft of the arrow will be wavy. Maybe it’s a vertical line accompanied by chevrons (ends pointing up), ending in an upright-pointing star. Or you could use a mandorla coming off a vertical line to represent a leaf shape.
To help prepare you for the next chapter, I’ve included a list of words that are commonly found in sigil work. Look them over and take the time to consider how you would translate each word into a symbol. The purpose of this practice is not to create a dictionary of word-symbol relationships that will be set in stone. Words do change over time and vary according to the situation, but it’s good to encourage your brain to connect words and images. Then put your ideas down on paper—you’ll see why this is important in the next chapter. This practice will definitely aid you in many magical practices—not just sigil witchery!
Feel free to add other words to this list or use synonyms for ones provided that resonate more with you. There is no harm in building up a reference list of words and symbols to guide you. Just make sure that it’s your own, and that you get comfortable with naturally associating shapes and words in your head over time.
Your Word-Symbol Associations
Word
Symbol
Word
Symbol
Acquire
Align
Art
Balance
Banish
Blessing
Change
Cleanse
Community
Create
Your Word-Symbol Associations
Word
Symbol
Word
Symbol
Decrease
Dream
Emerge
Family
Fertility
Friendship
Give
Grow
Guide
Happiness
Your Word-Symbol Associations
Word
Symbol
Word
Symbol
Healing
Health
Home
Ignore
Increase
Inspiration
Invoke
Journey
Love
Luck
Your Word-Symbol Associations
Word
Symbol
Word
Symbol
Manage
Money
Mirror
Negotiate
Overcome
Power
Prosperity
Remove
Restrict
Romance
Your Word-Symbol Associations
Word
Symbol
Word
Symbol
Solve
Strengthen
Study
Success
Sustain
Time
Trust
Work
[contents]
Chapter 3
Making Magick
I think one of the best ways to think about sigil witchery is that it’s essentially condensed spellcraft. It doesn’t require a lot of space, special supplies, herbal knowledge, or a metaphysical degree. All you need to make a sigil is a surface (something to write on), a writing implement, and the ability to focus on a goal or desired outcome. Have a few minutes, a ballpoint pen, and a sticky note? You’re golden!
Of course, you can get much more elaborate if you want to. Want to make handmade paper infused with special herbs processed during a certain phase of the moon? Go for it! Want to milk your own squid, liquefy some dragon’s blood resin, and conjure up your own ink? Then by all means do it! Basically you can make sigil witchery as simple or as complex as your heart desires.
In order to figure out what will work best for you, let’s investigate how and why sigil witchery works, metaphysically and physically. We’ll explore the uses, go step by step through the creation process, and consider the large variety of options available to you for implementing your sigils.
Understanding Magick and Spellcraft
Magick is the art of focusing your will or intent in order to bring about change in yourself and influence your environment/the world around you.
If that description of magick seems extraordinary, consider what you’re doing right this moment—reading. The ability to read this book involves a transfer of energy through cells, nerves, and muscles, all while the rest of your body is going about its business. You understand the letters, form the words, see the sentences, and create the structure in your mind. It goes beyond visual recognition to be stored as memory for you to call upon again in the future. It’s technically an “invisible” transfer, but it happens anyway. We constantly influence ourselves and others through our thoughts, emotions, and actions. How does your favorite cat or dog know when you’re sad? They can pick up on the subtle signals you put out, even if you’re not displaying obvious signs of distress.
Magick and spellcraft fun
ction in a very similar way. An idea becomes thought, which becomes action—intentional as well as subconscious—setting things in motion. We can stimulate our senses by burning colorful candles, crushing herbs, anointing with oils, burning incense, choosing certain phases of the moon, framing images, writing words, playing music—all symbols we respond to and coordinate with the goals of our intentions. Still seems farfetched to you? Consider a place where you feel relaxed, perhaps a spa where there is soothing music playing, the floors are warm and comfortable, the air smells of fresh lavender, and the light is soft and atmospheric. All these things have a calming effect on both your brain and your body. Similarly, stress—while often designated as a mental strain—can manifest really harmful effects on your body, including high blood pressure, hair loss, skin irritations, and lowered immune response. But stress is invisible, just “in your head,” right? The very real and physical symptoms speak volumes about what our brains can do to our bodies.
So hopefully that explains magick a bit more practically for you. Unless you’re living in a Harry Potter film, you can’t wave a wand, say some words, and expect fantastic CGI effects to instantly happen. But you can focus your will and change patterns of energy within and around you, like how a thread interconnects with other threads in the weaving of fabric.
If we accept and understand that magick is intent put in motion, then spellcraft is the art of arranging the physical to affect the metaphysical. It can be the chanting of a certain rhyme to change the weather, the gathering and burning of herbs with aligning magical correspondences to cleanse a room, or the making of a poppet to heal a person. For our purposes, we’re looking specifically at how sigils can be used as spellcraft. That means that sigil witchery is creating and using specific symbols to influence a person, situation, or environment. The act of drawing the shape, recognizing the symbolism found within that sigil, and deciding what to do with it afterward will all play into how we make sigil magick.
By the way, if you’re wondering about that k, I tend to use this specific spelling of magick when discussing metaphysics with a familiar audience. There are all sorts of debates about the origin and appropriate use of this spelling, with the simplest being the appeal of using an older spelling of the word and distinguishing it from illusion-based stage magic. Frankly I’m not a huge fan of the word with or without the k, as I think it falls flat in describing the process. It conjures up fantasy when we’re dealing with a very real and effective use of energy. But until I find or create a better word, magick will have to do. (If the k gives you hives, take an allergy pill and move onward to focus on more important things.)
How Does Drawing Sigils Work?
If you understand that colored candles, herbs, oils, and poppets all work in terms of stimulating the senses through sympathetic magick (like things corresponding to like things, or the part affecting the whole), you may be wondering how just drawing sigils can be effective. All sigils correlate to two very important basic things: sight and touch. Sight would be your eye recognizing the shape and its assigned meaning. Then there is the tactile sensation of making the drawing itself, connecting your eye, hand, and brain in a loop of physical and thoughtful recognition.
How important is it that you hand-draw your sigil? Very. Multiple studies on memory have shown that people who make physical notes with pen and paper versus typing them remember more.11 Why? It turns out that our brain uses a different kind of cognitive processing when we write versus when we type. When we listen and type, we are in transcription mode—transcribing audiovisual content without thinking cognitively about it much. Drawing and notetaking by hand takes more time, so you’re more actively processing and condensing the information you’re seeing and/or hearing. Your brain is far more engaged and involved in the whole process, so you will remember it much better.
Photo of the Artist at Work
Furthermore: “When we write something down, research suggests that as far as our brain is concerned, it’s as if we were doing that thing. Writing seems to act as a kind of mini-rehearsal for doing. ... Visualizing doing something can ‘trick’ the brain into thinking it’s actually doing it, and writing something down seems to use enough of the brain to trigger this effect.” 12
So in the process of crafting a sigil, you are accessing the higher cognitive thinking centers in your brain. You’re clarifying and editing down information in order to remember the most important parts. You have engaged your brain in such a way that it’s already preparing for and visualizing that magick taking effect. The right side of our brain revels in images, so sigils align with the most intuitive and instinctual part of ourselves. It’s far easier to manifest something when you can picture it, instantly and subconsciously coordinating it with meaning. The sigil helps create the feeling that what you’re looking at engages with all of your being. Pretty impressive for some squiggly lines, eh?
After you’ve taken the time to create the sigil, you then apply it. Some people talk about “activating” it after you have drawn it. I believe the sigil already becomes activated in the process of making and finalizing it as a drawing. Your brain and being know it’s a thing from the experience of creating it. The next step is applying and acknowledging it. Application refers to how you will use it to help you accomplish your goal. Acknowledgment is renewing your association with the sigil. These actions are determined by what you’re planning to use your sigil for.
Uses for Sigil Witchery
Essentially, whatever you can think of to do in regular spellcraft, you can do with sigils—and possibly more! Healing, banishing, binding, unbinding, cleansing, attracting, protecting, fertility, prosperity, love, friendship, partnership, glamour, divination—the list goes on and on. If you can think it, you can draw it.
In addition to sigils being shorthand for traditional spellwork, they can correspond with ancestors, deities, and other spirits—as our ceremonial magician friends know. But you’re not confined to working with that specific set of angels, demons, and other beings, especially if you work in a different culture or system. You can work with your familiar spirits and deities to craft a sigil that’s a kind of call sign, mark of familiarity, or symbol of devotion for them.
You can also use a sigil as a mark of ownership (as in, this here thing the sigil is on is mine). You can work with a group, tribe, coven, church, or community to design a sigil that represents the organization and its goals. It can be a logo for your business or a personal mark that identifies and describes you as a being. It can even be a family or household crest.
I’m sure that once we go through the creation process and the related application and acknowledgment options, you’ll have an even better idea of the multitude of uses for sigil witchery.
Step by Step: How to Plan and Create Your Sigil
Now that you know the sky’s the limit, where to begin? There are four basic steps to sigil creation:
Step 1: Define your goal or identify the problem.
Step 2: Brainstorm a list of what is needed to accomplish that goal or solve the problem.
Step 3: Design the sigil.
Step 4: Apply the sigil, and acknowledge it as necessary.
I’m going to explain in depth the processes behind these four steps. We’ll use a practice scenario to illustrate how to work your way through each step. I’ve included more examples for you in the practical exercises in chapter 5, so you can explore a wider variety of situations and compare possible solutions.
Step 1: Define Your Goal or Identify the Problem
First, consider what it is you wish to accomplish. It’s vital to be realistic about the goal, and to take time to consider the possible outcomes, consequences, and ramifications. I have always told my students, “Magick takes the path of least resistance.” There is many a myth in world folklore that involves poorly thought-out wishes and the problems they cause. It’s better to model your thinking on the savvy mythic figures who exercise fores
ight and critical thinking. If you just follow your desires and impulses without thinking it through, you will probably not be satisfied or pleased with the result. All actions will lead to a variety of reactions—intended and unintended, positive and negative—so you need to think several steps ahead and be responsible. Being responsible means acknowledging that Witchcraft is more about having power over yourself and your environment than over others. Here are some examples:
Example 1
Good Goal: To be in a romantic relationship that is healthy and happy
Bad Idea: Make Pat fall in love with me
The former allows for options and a better outcome. What if Pat turns out to be a total jerk? Then you’re stuck with getting rid of Pat.
Example 2
Good Goal: Being financially secure, stable, and successful, with an income of at least $42,000 a year
Bad Idea: Getting a job or getting a raise at my job
The former focuses on a larger cycle and a specific goal. The latter may not provide you with the money you need for financial stability or provide the environment you need or want. Maybe what you need is a different job.
Example 3
Good Goal: Owning the right home for us that is safe, at or under our goal price, and what my family needs within the next six months in Sky County
Bad Idea: Making sure we get that one house we put a bid on at 303 Happy Place
The former gives a set timeline, financial limit, and area and covers your needs and expectations. That one house you saw may not be best for your needs. It may cost more, have hidden issues, or put you out of the running for a more ideal home.
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