"There is a Grimoire of
symbology, of vague phonic nuances that conjoins all thoughts and is
the cryptic language of the subconscious world." "What sounds the depths and conjoins
Will and Belief? Some inarticulate hieroglyph or sigil wrought from
nascent desire and rhythmed by unbounding Ego.”
- A.O. Spare
"A man is insane who writes a secret
in any way other than one which will conceal it from the
vulgar."
- Roger Bacon
How do we form the nucleus of magical operations,
the knot woven out of energy, the earthing of a particularized force?
Concepts can be grounded in arcane artifacts of various kinds, which
serve as containers of psychic energy and subliminal reminders of the
focus of the sorcerer's will and desires. In the ancient world divine
powers were personified in brightly painted images of the gods, which
were served as though they were human; fed and clothed with fresh
offerings daily, entertained by dancers and musicians. Ancient
Egyptians used the ritual of the Opening of the Mouth, which activated
the senses of statues or brought mummies back to life. Among the Romans
the emperor was often accompanied by a statue of the goddess Fortuna,
attended by a slave whose duty it was to ensure that her gaze ever
faced him, thus watching over the leader and ensuring his luck and
therefore the luck of the nation; sacred kingship has always been
encircled by rites and taboos of various kinds. When besieging a city
the Roman legions would also employ spies to discover the secret names
of that people's gods; they would then have their Roman priests invoke
and invite those gods to abandon their city to its fall and join the
imperial pantheon.
The images and tales of the primordial Olympian gods
of Greece long remained a living influence upon the more educated
classes and courts of Europe. Even during the Renaissance there were
hermetic magicians and artists in sculpture and painting who would
create complex images or eidolons that personified protective or other
forces, vivifying them by the system of astrological correspondences.
These practices were derived from the late-classical theurgists, who
would place the appropriate plants, metals, perfumes and written
invocations within statues in an attempt to activate daemonic presences
and bring them to life, as active channels of divine communication.
Roger Bacon was said to have a head cast of bronze that would speak and
utter oracles, and such prophetic skulls extend far back in time, to
the Norse Mimir and the Celtic Bran, and the prehistoric headhunters
beyond.
Amulets, good luck charms, and talismans of all
kinds continue the identical principle, made or infused with
appropriate planetary metals or other substances and charged by
invocation at the correct astrological times; the art of their making
has fallen into undeserved neglect in recent times. Rings, bracelets or
pendants can easily be worn publicly, and they accumulate stores of
your personal power over time. Paper, wood, metal or parchment
talismans are easy to conceal. Such things are among the oldest and
most common human artifacts found worldwide; they help to strengthen
the ego and define the sense of self, to establish connection with
sources of wisdom, healing, attraction, and protection. Technically,
amulets provide protection while talismans invoke or attract particular
powers.
To earth the ethereal energies in a work of art,
whether carving or painting, in jewelry, poetry, collage, recorded
music, architecture, or whatever, is to provide a vehicle or container
for the will to manifest through a constantly growing yet subliminal
reminder to the dormant powers of the deep mind. In what is perhaps its
most streamlined form, we arrive at Austin Spare's vital design of the
sentient sigil, which encodes the desire and conceals it from the
censorship, conflict and doubts of the conscious mind.
"Real magic is just the introduction
of an idea, so that it eventually becomes a reality."
- Paul Jenkins
This seminal concept of sigils has become central to
groups like the IOT and ToPY; they are devised by clearly expressing a
desire in a sentence, eliminating all duplicated letters, and combining
the resulting sequence into a monogram or geometric form which suggests
no immediate associations to the mind, whose alleged rationality and
second-guessing must be eluded. This now-encoded cryptogram or
hieroglyph is then charged in various ways (including magical rituals,
sexuality, violence, hyperventilation, nitrous oxide, the rush of
sky-diving, bungee-jumping or roller-coaster rides, concentration at
moments of shock or stress) and projected into the deep mind to
germinate. Forgotten by the surface mind and sidestepping the censor of
the super-ego, it creates an astral stress that is reified in results.
These obscure icons of desire may be integrated into artworks in
various ways and left scattered about the house to influence the mind,
and Spare's drawings abound with them. The I.O.T. also suggests making
the scrambled letters of this sentence into a pronounceable ‘subliminal
mantra’ which may be chanted in the customary manner; or alternatively
the use of simply drawn pictorial symbols of the goal rather than
letter-forms,
which may also be woven into aesthetic graphic designs.
My own contribution is the notion that these
word-formulas may be linked to such planetary forces as are appropriate
by diagramming them upon the mathematical kameas or planetary squares
used by the Golden Dawn and everyone else subsequent to Cornelius
Agrippa: the letters are turned into numbers by qabalistic gematria and
then drawn as a line on the squares, in the same way as the names of
spirits were used to form their seals. Yet another method of linking
the planetary forces to the purpose of the sigil is the simpler
expedient of drawing the figure in the appropriate color of ink. I may
note that while Spare employed the English alphabet for his sigils, I
have found that the Norse runes combine very easily and aesthetically,
and add a rather significant additional dimension of magick to the
process; called bind-runes, such archaic monograms are completely
traditional, surviving for many centuries as merchants and masons
marks. Frater U.D. suggests the use of simple geometric figures as
borders to focus sigils, and they can be used as design elements to
link a desired series of runestaves, or as additional reminders of the
qabalistic sphere being worked. I note a suggestion by Benjamin Walker
that all the vowels also be eliminated from the sigilized sentence,
which would simplify the verbal formula even further; while this might
be congruent to some non-english linguistic forms, I'm not sure that I
agree. Jason Cooper suggests condensing the longer phrases to be
sigilized by completely removing all the repeated letters and using
only those that appear just once.
An experiment in collective working would be for
every member to formulate a sigil of desire and place it in a vessel,
then draw one at random and charge it in their own manner; or to
consecrate each individual’s sigil as a group. Results could be
monitored to gauge success.
The process of sending the sigils may also be linked
to the four elements. After burning we may sacramentally drink the
ashes, or the sigil may be drawn upon a piece of rolling paper and
ceremonially shared and smoked, or marked upon fireworks and exploded.
Offerings in wishing wells or deep marshes extend into prehistory,
perhaps combined with a small symbolic sacrifice of food, coins, or
brightly colored ribbon; or they may be floated away as messages in
bottles or on small model boats. For air, the sign may be placed high
in a tree, or drawn upon a paper airplane or balloon, or even reduced
to confetti and released into the atmosphere. Earth holds many
possibilities: charms were often buried at crossroads, under the very
doorsteps of those they were meant to affect, or planted in their
footprints. Their frequent burial in graveyards also implies a contact
with the underworld and the potent spirits of the ancestral dead, and
such curses and love spells were often carved on small tablets of lead,
many of which have survived. Sigils may be planted with actual seeds,
and the magician tends the plant as it grows; in Egypt a frame in the
shape of Osiris was used to grow a small field as the body of the
grain-god, and in India the same method was used with an image of the
Goddess. They may be drawn upon boards and then ritually smashed with
the focused chi of the martial artist, or concealed in articles of
apparel or talismanic jewelry; woven into cloth with needlework
embroidery or chanted in subliminal tapes. A sign may be drawn in chalk
upon a stone Pantacle and washed into the cup with the sacramental
wine; the absorption of some specific power by the eating or drinking
of its symbol incorporates concept into organism. In ancient Egypt
statues of healing deities were carved with spells, and liquid
medicines
were charged by being poured over them and then given to the patient.
Often the sigil is repeatedly charged with blood or
sexual fluids. Spare speaks of the use of a vessel with dimensions
slightly larger than the member of the magus, with the sigil at the
bottom; this is charged by autocopulation, buried for a lunar cycle,
and subsequently disinterred and recharged and then reinterred. This
device he termed an 'earthenware virgin’, and stated that such urns
were the origin of the tale of King Solomon's spirits or djinn kept in
brazen vessels. Some modern magicians have similarly impregnated
pyramidal Enochian tablets. The core concept of the magickal will may
clearly imply the focus of levels of attention by unique methods.
This returns us to the question of willed forgetting
as a means to bypass both doubt and the ‘lust of result’; Pete Carroll
suggests various ‘sleights of mind’ for this, mostly variations on
running such veiled symbols past the conscious censor and tricks of
belief which become reality ("fake it till you make it!"). Spare also
spoke of making sacrifices of desire to fuel a sigil, such as giving up
smoking until the will was accomplished (a “very great sacrifice” for
him!). Paul Huson refers to a similar cursing technique called the
Black Fast, wherein the sorcerer stops eating and sleeping and projects
obsessive hatred until his target is extinguished. Desire when balked
of its normal outlets finds new channels to run through, which may
account for the appeal of fetishistic sexual ‘perversions’ to some, and
of constant novelty to others.
Energy may be projected into sigils by any of the
methods given in this book, and deeply emotional energy is the most
potent: Spare suggested focusing upon sigilized forms at peak emotional
moments such as rage or fear or ecstasy, joy or frustration or
enthusiasm; and also when some great personal betrayal,
disillusionment, despair or disappointment served to empty the belief
that one's core concepts contained into the void of Kia.
The seed-concept or bud-will of the sigil is encoded
or formulated in Earth, deliberately veiled or concealed with Water,
charged with the energy of Fire, forgotten by Air, and reified or
accomplished as Spirit.
"I say to you: Make perfect your will. I say: take no thought of the harvest, But only of proper
sowing."
- T.S. Elliot
Words of power and mantras are essentially verbal
sigils as codifications of magickal formulae, expressions of various
currents of power and deep meaning. Qabalistic methods of numerological
analysis and gematria form the matrix from which such jewels are mined
and polished, and magickal alphabets of whatever cultural tradition are
the conceptual building blocks. The sounds of goetic evocation, whether
pure glossolalia or meaningful phonetically, have a deep effect on the
organism. The Greeks and Egyptians vibrated sacred vowel sounds, and so
have many tantriks, gnostics, magicians, rune-workers, chaoists and
surrealists all throughout history. Spend some time in solitude
expressing your self through imaginary languages and build up a
vocabulary of sounds. Whistles or whispers for air, erotic moans or
humming for water, roars or screams for fire, deep vibrating tones or
grunts for earth? Classical accounts of witchery describe a grotesque
chorus of animal or bird-sounds, and Typhonian texts abound with long
strings of obscure letter-formulas to be vibrated by the adept. These
are the well-known onomata barbarika, foreign or barbarous names of
power that have a stimulating or hypnotic effect. The voces magicae, or
magical words, are spoken in a voice of command, a voice informed with
the power of truth and the assumed authority of the divine: "The great
god, he who lives, who commands you, who exists from eternity to
eternity", as an ancient text puts it. Perhaps the most common
descriptions of spell casting worldwide specify whispering, and charms
must often be repeated 3 or 7 or 3x3 times.
Part of the work of a magus is the discovery or
formulation of a Word or Name that expresses the Law of their being.
Crowley devotes considerable analysis to the Words of various prophets,
such as ALLAH for Mohammed, ANATTA for the Buddha, or his own formulas
such as ABRAHADABRA, THELEMA, AGAPE, LAShTAL, fIAOf, AUMGN, NIHIL, et
AL. Edred Thorsson's work flowered when he heard the word RUNA. I
explore the word SELF; for a good friend, it is ART. Perhaps for
Isadora Duncan it was DANCE; for someone else it might be SEX or WINE
or QUANTUM or CHOCOLATE or MIND or even CERTIFIED PUBLIC ACCOUNTANCY.
Among the most potent are the names of pagan gods, which often express
the formula of their invocation, as well as the keys of sound-vibration
that manifest them. The letters of a name may be transcribed into their
corresponding Tarot images to create a meaningful pattern.
Another aspect of the magickal art is expressed in
the work of the Scribe as manifested by the Egyptian god of wisdom, the
ibis-headed Tahuti or Thoth. The very process of writing renders a
verbal spell or formula permanent, for the Word becomes eternal.
Development of literacy is a key moment in all arcane traditions, and
the culture-heroes or gods who create alphabets (Thoth, Hermes, the
Norse Odin or Celtic Ogma, for example) are always very potent in
magick. Most early letter-forms have numerological and symbolic
correspondences: Hebrew, Greek or Coptic qabalas, Runes or Ogams,
Egyptian hieroglyphic or demotic scripts, all have a sense of the
individual glyphs as living cosmic forces.
I have mentioned before the links between the Hebrew alphabet, the
Tarot trumps, and the paths of the tree of life. If words or names
create the cosmos, then letters are the roots of creation. The word
'Grimoire', a book of spells, is a corruption of 'grammar'; and
grammarye is an old word for magick. We may also note that the alphabet
itself is a potent charm, as it by definition contains all possible
words including the Holy Unspeakable Name of God. Some of our knowledge
of the Norse runes comes from early inscriptions consisting of the
alphabet or Futhark written out in order, and part of the consecration
rite in early Christian churches included the inscription of the
complete sequence from Alpha to Omega.
The various techniques employed by traditional
qabalists for manipulating such formulas include:
Gematria: in many early alphabets, most notably
Greek and Hebrew, the letters also serve as numbers: A=1, B=2, and so
forth. Every word can thus be expressed as a mathematical total as
well, and all words with the same number are considered linked. There
is an enormous body of such analysis devoted to the Bible, and a great
deal of work has been done in exploring English-language qabalas as
applied to the Book of the Law. Many magicians find themselves haunted
by particular numbers related to personal formulas like magical names,
as Crowley was by 31, 93, 156, 418 and 666, or as I am by 101, 365, 380
and 69/96. Robert Anton Wilson obsessed over 23, and as the famous
mathematician and code-breaker John Nash once remarked, “23 is my
favorite prime number.” They constantly pop up as omens in the external
world in all kinds of places, or are found by random word analysis or
in qabalistic dictionaries. Synchronicity is the telltale thumbprint of
the Creator. We might also recall Douglas Adams’ ingenious solution to
the ultimate question of “life, the universe & everything” as 42.
The essential reference books are Crowley’s 777 & Other Qabalistic
Writings and Godwin’s Cabalistic Encyclopedia.
Notariqon: expands each letter of a word to begin
the initial letters of a sentence, as with the alchemical formula of
VITRIOL: Visita Interiora Terrae, Recificando Invenies Occultem Lapidem
("Visit the interior parts of the earth; by rectification thou shalt
find the hidden stone.") or Captain Marvel’s super-empowering SHAZAM!
formula (the wisdom of Solomon, strength of Hercules, stamina of Atlas,
power of Zeus, courage of Achilles, speed of Mercury). Alternatively, a
sentence can be reduced to a single word of power, using the process in
reverse; as with the qabalistic ARARITA, drawn from the Hebrew phrase
for "One is His beginning: One is His individuality: His permutation is
One."
Temura: uses linguistic or mathematical methods of
substituting various letters to create codes, as with the 'Qabala of
the Nine Chambers' method. This is a nine-squared grid, each of which
contains the linked number/letter sequences for 1, 10, 100 or 2, 20,
200 and so forth. It is used to condense and encode word-formulas in
various ways, including the kameas or mathematical magick squares
mentioned above.
Another common qabalistic cipher is called AthBsh, which works by
writing the first half of the Hebrew alphabet in one direction and the
second half beneath it in reverse. One then transposes the pairs of
letters: Aleph & Tau, first & last; Beth & Shin, second
& next to last; then Gimel & Resh, and so on. As an
interesting example we may uncover a mystery of Baphomet, the
mysterious 'idol' of the Knights Templar. In Hebrew we may take
BaPhOMeT as Beth Pe Vau Mem Tau, which then becomes Shin Vau Pe Yod
Aleph, or the famous female emanation Sophia. Sophia, of course, is the
Greek for Wisdom, and she is more-or-less the Shakti of Gnosticism and
its countless cults. The best-known image of Baphomet is Eliphas Levi's
famous version: half angel, half devil; half man, half woman; half
deity, half beast. How many ever thought of this as a Goddess? Yet one
of the earliest interpretations of the name Baphomet was as a
corruption of the Greek for “Baptism of Wisdom", or Metis. Metis was
yet another Greek Goddess of Wisdom, first wife of Zeus and mother of
Athena. Apparently the Templars may have been preserving some sort of
heretical gnostic secret. Other early writers saw in Baphomet a mere
corruption of Mahomet or Mohammed, fearing that Islam was infiltrating
European knights at the time of the Crusades. A more recent author,
recalling the descriptions of this idol as having the form of a Head,
suggested that the Templars actually had the Shroud of Turin, folded to
show the face.
A sheet of paper may symbolize the field of the
universe, or body of Nuit; the moving point of the pen manifests Hadit;
the lines of script are the words spoken by Ra-Hoor-Khuit and the
overall balance of the composition reflects Maat. Alternatively, we may
see the brush, pen or quill-plume as the Wand, the inkpot as the Cup,
the papyrus as the Disk, and the Blade used to cut the paper and
sharpen the pen.
Another aspect of such written magical forms is the
use of magical squares that take the form of a palindrome, reading the
same vertically or horizontally. Many of these are provided by
Abra-Melim the Mage; the most famous example is the so-called Sator
Square, which for centuries has served as a powerful protective formula
in a number of western cultures:
SATOR AREPO TENET ROTAS
Often such word-formulas are written so as to
increase or diminish, a technique which goes back to ancient Babylon:
ABRAHADABRA BRAHADABR RAHADAB AHADA HAD A HAD AHADA RAHADAB BRAHADABR ABRAHADABRA
There is also the custom of writing which takes
pictorial forms, called technopaignion; see Tibetan Tantric Charms
& Amulets by Douglas or the Greco-Egyptian magical papyri for some
examples. I also highly recommend Lazlo Legeza's Tao Magic for amazing
cult forms of esoteric Asian spirit-writing; and since representational
art is usually forbidden by Islam, the Arab world has also developed
elaborately beautiful calligraphy, often of verses from the Koran or
names of God. Another technique called boustrophedon ('as the ox
plows') involves writing alternate lines from left-to-right and
right-to-left. Nor can we forget the practice of automatic writing,
utilized by spirit mediums, early surrealists, and trance channelers to
receive transmissions from the vasty deep beyond.
“Language is a virus from outer space.”
- William S. Burroughs
"My theology, briefly, is that the universe was dictated but not
signed."
- Christopher Morley
Lastly, words are the language of the conscious
mind, and symbols are that of the deep mind. Please reread that last
sentence a time or two: words are the language of the conscious mind,
and symbols of the deep mind. In the weave of tantra, we find the unity
of the mantra as the verbal, and the yantra as the pictorial: twin
living forms of the ritual representation of an invoked energy or
god-form. Hermes rules magick because his power is that of
communication, between every level and plane of being, the interior or
external, real or ideal. To mediate between entities or aspects of the
self, a common vocabulary is required. I will thus conclude this
section with a note on the formula of its title: the SiGiL reverses the
LoGoS, the sign or image and the word, the yantra and the mantra; and
their component letters Samekh, Gimel and Lamed once again total the
mystic 93:
S i L o G os i L
"The work of the Artist is his
awareness that anything has its beauty and significance, giving
'visual' reality to his conceptions, however fantastic; transforming
all falsehood into truth."
- A.O. Spare
