Liber Azag: Book of Sigils, part 2

There are also several other ways how to use sigil mantras, some are simplified version of what was already said so I don't feel the need to go through them. What I would like to do right now is to slip out of the psychology paradigm and jump right into the energy paradigm, for that purpose I will explain the basics mechanics of elementalism, broad enough so it can be used in the following case but not broad enough to waste the space here. If you want a better and more in-depth understanding of elements, I recommend to read other of my books called Condensed Magick 101, in the Theory part there I give a very complex explanation of elements

The basic belief is that everything consists of 4 elements: fire, water, air and earth. Fire is associated with Will, Water with emotions, Air with intellect and Earth with physical reality. These elements all origin in the primal element called Akasha. According to the story first elements that emanated from Akasha were Fire and Water, but because these two negate each other, another element was needed, Air, to put a distance between the two. Last emanated element was Earth, Earth emanated to limit all 3 previous elements.

Traditionally we associate elements with these colors:

1. Fire: red
2. Water: blue
3. Air: yellow or white
4. Earth: green, black or brown
5. Akasha: Purple or violet

Let's now speak about the Akasha element and its use for mantras. We know tha everything emanates from Akasha, so it's a good to go element to cause change on various levels as opposed to other elements. For example Air is good for improving your memory, but not as good to force you to exercise more often. Akashic fluidum can also be "programmed", charged with an intent with a method we are going to learn in just a moment.

1. So, start by relaxing your whole body in a calm environment like during the previous sigil mantra exercise, get to the point when you can hear Nada. Then imagine the whole universe consists of a purple/violet fog, visualize yourself in the midle of this endless fog.
2. Now start repeating your mantra in your mind, feel how the Akashic element is full of the mantra, of its purpose, of its meaning.
3. Now with each inhale visualize how Akasha together with this intention enters your body, how it fills you with the mantra itself. And with each exhale vibrate your mantra out loud.
4. Keep repeating step 3 for a couple of minutes, concentrating the Akasha in your body more and more, making the Akashic light getting thicker and thicker within your body.

As you can see from the described process, this method is useful for manipulation of the self, but how about affecting the outside reality? Easy enough, instead of attracting the Akashic fluid into yourself, visualize it entering the desired object or person (or, of course, a sigil of what you want to charge). This method can be also used to charge fluidic condensers and Magickal items like wands, daggers, mirrors, pantacles, etc.

Other sigils

We have already talked about visual and oral sigils, or more precisely we have spoken about how to specify your desire and sigilize it, either into a symbol or a mantra. We have yet to speak about gnosis, the last needed part to let it work, but for now let's speak about other types of sigil, because a sigil is much more than a drawing or a sequence of sounds. The main power of Sigil Magick comes from the very definition of a sigil. A sigil is a symbol associated with our desire, with what we want to accomplish. We can associate gestures with our intent, these would be called a Sigil Mudra, or even full body postures (Sigil Asana). For a sigil you can also use a certain breathing pattern (Sigil Pranayama).

Later in this book we will speak about the Alphabet of Desire and its applications, but for now let's just define it as a set of sigils for different purposes which you combine together for a certain outcome. Now imagine that your sigils were only gestures, postures and breathing patterns, then building your spell would look like a dance or a karate kata. Actually, a sigil doesn't need to be static at all, do you know the modern version of a circle casting when a caster turns clockwise while point with his finger forward and visualizing how a colored circle is being drawn by that finger? That whole act itself is a sigil with a quite clear desired outcome, protection during the ritual (even when most traditional systems use circles rather as a lighthouse that spirits can use as a navigation mark to get to your ritual).

If you take the definition of a sigil to its final conclusions, you will notice that even Wiccan rituals or Ceremonial Magick rituals can be considered as sigils or a set of sigils and it actually makes sense. Take it this way, you turn off all electrical lights, light up candles, you cleanse the space, cast a circle... That's all associated with "there is something going on". Then you call to your deities, that's like saying "I want to do Magick right now", then you do things to seal the deal, you request help from the entities, you give offerings, stuff like that, that's when you state what your actual desire is. Finally, you go for licensing to depart, cleansing the space again, hiding ritual items, once again a huge association: "My ritual is finished, back to the mundane now".

As you can see, each act in Magick can be stripped into its general meaning and that means that the act itself works based on its association with its meaning, just like the association between a sigil and a desire. Sigils themselves can be used for the very same thing, replacing a different portions of rituals. The interesting part is that you cannot do different parts of the ritual at the same time, but sigils can be meshed together and used as one, saving time for the preparation and also execution of your work. I don't want to go too in-depth on the matter as this is basically what we are going to do in a chapter focus on the Alphabet of Desire.

Other famous type of a sigil is a so called Hyper Sigil. This term was coined by a great artist, Grant Morrison. Generally a hyper sigil can be a book, a song, or even a whole album, it's a work in which you describe what you want to achieve. Morrison's first hyper sigil was his comic book, Les Invisibles, in which he pretty much lined up his own life through the story and actions of one of the characters, a bold headed, leather jacker wearing badass. Needless to say that this method worked great for Grant as is apparent from his life story, maybe even from his own appearance, he also became a bold headed, leather jacket wearing badass.

Gnosis

It's time to speak about gnosis. Gnosis, traditionally speaking, is a term that can be defined as a divine revelation A state in which one does no longer need to believe in something as the true nature of the universe was already revealed to him. In Sigil Magick and Chaos Magick this term has a little bit different meaning. In these paradigms a gnosis means a state of the mind when all the mental chatter is stopped and psychic censor is deactivated. We divide between two forms of gnosis, inhibitory gnosis and excitatory gnosis.

Inhibitory gnosis is achieved via meditation. This state is easy to control and lasts for a longer period of time. Unfortunately achieving this state takes a massive amount of time and practice

There is a simple description of meditation for this reason, remember a practice makes perfect:

1. Sit in a comfortable position and relax your whole body.
2. Close your eyes and focus on your breath, focus on the rhytm, be sure that inhales and exhales take the same amount of time, keep focusing on your breath and how inhales fills your lungs till it is the only thing you are aware of, as if the breathing was the only thing in the universe.
3. Then stop focusing on your breath, till that disappears too, now you should be in a state with no mental chatter and no pereception of the outside world.
4. Say to yourself: "I will now count from 20 to 1 and when I reach one, I will enter the state of trance needed for performing Magick".
5. Count from 20 to 1.

As you can see, reaching the inhibitory gnosis is not easy, even people experienced in meditations will have hard times reaching the state. But once you reach the state, you can actually make an anchor there to reach the gnosis easier next time. For that purpose you can e.g. select a gesture (or any type of sigil, really) and state that next time you use this sigil, you will enter this state of the mind. Then whenever you need to reach gnosis, you simply use the sigil you have chosen and while you are doing that, you will count up to 20 deep inhales, after that voila, you are there. The anchoring sigil really does make the job easier, you just need to do it properly the first time and set up the sigil.

Excitatory gnosis

Because the inhibitory gnosis is hard to achieve, we should also mention the excitatory gnosis, which uses "external" stimuli to get us into the desired state. This state is less controllable and fades much faster, but it will make the work done. Very first type we should speak about is drug induced. Many chaotes use drugs to achieve the desired state, and whether we are talking about DMT, Ahayusca, LSD, witch's flying ointment or any other, I do not recommend using drugs at all. I personally did smoke a mixture of herbs and during that time I had few nearly successful astral projections. Nearly successful because I always stopped the projection in the middle and then tried my best to stay in the body with all my Will. The point was that the projection was nearly uncontrollable and in that state I really didn't want to appear on a totally unknown plane with no assurance that I would even be able to return to my body, so I say it now as clearly as possible: DO NOT USE ANY DRUGS.

Let's now speak about the easiest (and most pleasant) way how to get into the excitatory gnosis: masturbation. During the state of orgasm your mental chatter stops for a moment and your psychic censor shuts down, if at that time you see your sigil or you at least visualize it, it will get planted to the unconsciousness. You of course can also use gestures during masturbation, just remember to use the "other hand". Mantras are generally not used with this method, instead you shorten it to the word of power and keep it in your mind or yell it out loud with your whole lung capacity during the orgasm.

When using the excitatory gnosis it is also important to forget all about the sigil and desire as soon as possible. The reason is that a psychic censor, once it is reactivated might try to interrupt the work once it is noticed. For that purpose you can banish banish with laughter. Right after you enter the excitatory gnosis and charge your sigil, you then quickly close your eyes and start laughing as hard as possible, at the beginning the laughter will be forced, but after some time it will turn into a real maniacal laughing, during that you can also dispose of the sigil so you won't see it once you stop laughing, if your sigil is drawn on a paper simply flip the page and when it is in your notepad simply close it. Once you stop laughing, it is highly advised to start doing something else, some food or some cleaning, to keep you busy in the mundane world. Sometimes the sigil and desire reappears in your mind, simply start thinking about something else or recharge the sigil. The best method how to really forget about the sigil is to expect no result at all, if you keep striving for the results you are giving your psychic censor a space to affect or even nullify the outcome and that is something we should avoid because we want our desires to be fulfilled.

We have described a basic way how to enter the gnostic state and also described how to banish with laughter. Keep the banishing with laughter in mind, it must be used right after each charging with the excitatory gnosis. Now let's speak about different ways how to achieve the gnosis. As we have already said, an orgasm is one way to do it, but you can also use over-breathing, breath deprivation, sensory deprivation, spinning, muscular over-extension, orgasm deprivation, sleep deprivation or any combination of the aforementioned. Practices using these methods are commonly called Death Postures. Death postures are quick ways how to reach the excitatory gnosis, some of them are more dangerous and some are less dangerous, I will explain mainly those that are pretty safe and I will only merely mention those that can seriously injure you, both physically and mentally.

First let's start with a simple and traditional death posture. For this one you want to sit down in a chair with a table in front of you. Your sigil can be placed on the table, in case of words of power or gestures, you of course want to use them during the gnostic state, with this being clear I will continue describing the version for visual sigils. Sit on the chair and rest your elbows on the table, your sigil should be ideally placed right between the elbow or it can also hang on the wall right in the front of your eyes. Take a deep breath and keep holding it while you use your hands to block your eyes, ears and nose. Keep this position and keep holding your breath till you cannot keep any longer and then hold it till you really can't any longer. The fun fact is that you cannot choke yourself, in the worst case you will pass out and your body will start breathing normally. So when you reach the state when you really cannot keep it any longer, put your hands away, open your eyes, gazing at the sigil while exhaling what was kept for so long, then immediately close your eyes and while you are grasping for air, banish with laughter.

Another death posture goes as follows:

Stand still with your back pushing against the wall, hand should be connected behind your back, make sure all dangerous items are moved away from your proximity, else you might hit your head. Speaking of preparations, you are most probably going to fall down on the floor so preparing some soft "landing spot" might be a good idea.

Close your eyes and start breathing as deep and as fast as possible, breathe faster and faster till you become really dizzy, you will know when that moments appear. Then quickly take a very deep inhale, hold your breath and stretch your whole body as much as possible, while doing that, visualize your sigil or if it is a sigil mantra or a word of power, say it in your mind. This combination of over-breathing and stretching out while holding your breath will most likely cause a massive overload during which you will hit the "reset button" and wake up few seconds later on the floor. That's why it is a good idea to have a supervisor for this death posture, someone who will hold your body and slowly help it to the floor once you black out.

It's time to share some dangerous death postures. First one is simple, you won't go to sleep for a specific amount of days, usually 5 to 10 will do the trick. The point is to get to the state when you start hallucinating. At that point your psychic censor is very weakened and just by focusing at the sigil you can charge it. Of course once again banish with laughter.

Now we are getting at the grail of dangerous death postures, this one can actually kill you from the massive overload, a partner is needed for this one and I really advise not to even try this one. So, you are tied to a bed, a scarf or something is used to block your sight and your hearing. That scarf is the only thing you have on, except that you are completely naked. Your goal in the beginning is to maditate while your partner stimulates you to bring you to the verge of orgasm and then stops, then again and stops, this goes on and on for hours. This process will completely exhaust you and you will start having hallucinations, at that point you should visualize your sigil or say it in your mind when it is a sigil mantra or a word of power. Then you give a sign to your partner for a "release".

I think I may have overdone an explanation for the last one when I said in the beginning I will only mention the most dangerous ones, but there are a few ways how to "spice up" this death posture a little bit that I am not going to mention.

Now, let's finish this with a very simple and kinda silly death posture. Simply spin in circles so you become so dizzy you fall down to the floor, there, while your head is still spinning, visualize or say your sigil, then banish with laughter. There, really simple, really silly, not very effective, but pretty much fun. You can of course combine different key elements of death postures we have already talked about and come with something new, don't be scared to experiment, just be reasonable, practice safely and have fun, lots and lots of fun.