Liber Azag: Book of Sigils: part 3

Different methods of sigilization

Let's speak about few different methods of sigilization now. In the beginning I have mentioned 3 basic methods used in Sigil Magick: Meshing letters together, pictorial method and automatic drawing. These 3 methods were used by Spare and are commonly used by Sigil Magicians across the globe. There is nothing wrong with these methods, but we must understand is that these methods are quite modern. If we go back into the past, into the history of Magick, we will find much older methods of sigilization. These methods can also be used in the modern Sigil Magick.

First of all we have the Nine Chambers system. In this system we have a table with 3 rows and 3 columns, giving us a total of 9 cells. In each cell there is a set of letters, outer border of the table is non-existent, giving us a variety for the sigilization.

To create a Nine Chambers we can use a common numerology system, where we write numbers 1 to 9. Under each number we then write a letter of the alphabet, A under 1, B under 2, C under 3, D under 4, etc. When we finish writing a letter under 9, we then continue writing under letter A.

Once this is finished, we have a set of letters and their numeric representation. Now we draw the table for Ine Chambers and letters under number 1 goes to the first cell (first row, first column), letters under 2 go to the second cell (first row, second column), till the whole table is finished.

To use Nine Chambers, we simply cross out all repeating letters in our desire statement and then we follow the letters one by one in the table, except of drawing the letter, we draw the outline of its cell, meshing these outlines together as we go. This makes our sigils a little bit less original, but we don't need to spend too much time with our artistic side and due to the limited variety of shapes it is much easier to mesh these outlines together to make a sigil. This is the Aiq Beqar (nine chambers) method.

Next method we can speak about is the Rose Croix method. This method is really simple, you just take the rose croix and connect the letters on it in the sequence matching with your desire statement. These connected lines then represent your sigil. It is quite unclear what's the true origin of the rose cross in this particular design, it officially appeared in Golden Dawn but of course a much older heritage was claimed. What is not ancient in the systems of traditional magick like it wasn't worth the effort. It's partially due to the human nature, trying to find the lost wisdom of ancient races, partially also caused by the arrogance of members of these "ancient" lodges. But this method is used quite often and there actually exist even variations, Here is one from the TOHO order:

Another system we can speak about uses the planetary Magick square. I have described this method very deeply in the Astro Magick Essentials, so I will be rather give a summary here. It is believed that there are cosmic energies affecting our little planet and these cosmic energies can also be used to enhance our Magick if we follow a set of rules and observe the stars and planets to find out which energies are currently available for us to use. Planets we normally observe are Sun, Moon, Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, Venus and Saturn (yes, in astrology Sun and Moon are considered planets). A certain occultist named Agrippa has derived a set of Magick squares for these plaets to be used for sigilization, namely to derive signature of intelligences and spirits of these planetary energies. But what else is a signature than a sigil?

First of all we need a conversion table between numbers and letters:

1. A: 1
2. B: 2
3. C: 3
4. D: 4
5. E: 5
6. F: 6
7. G: 7
8. H: 8
9. I: 9
10. J: 10
11. K: 20
12. L: 30
13. M: 40
14. N: 50
15. O: 60
16. P: 70
17. Q: 80
18. R: 90
19. S: 100
20. T: 200
21. U: 300
22. V: 400
23. W: 500
24. X: 600
25. Y: 700
26. Z: 800

Now, let's say we want to create a sigil for money, then we create our desire statement:

I ATTRACT A LOT OF MONEY

then we cross out all repeating letters:

IATRCLOFMNEY

Now let's convert it into numbers:

9, 1, 200, 90, 3, 30, 60, 6, 40, 50, 5, 700

Now we want to use a planetary Magick square of Jupiter, as our request is money related. But if you take a closer look then this square contains 16 as its biggest numbers so some of our numbers do not match. For that purpose we have to cut down zeroes to the point when our numbers match:

9, 1, 2, 9, 3, 3, 6, 6, 4, 5, 5, 7

Now our numbers match but some repeating in the sequence. When you have one number twice in a row (e.g. 6,6), you make a mark on the number, usually a small arc. It is also a good custom to start the sigil with a small circle and end it with a dash.

Here I am going to give you a list of planetary correspondences and their Magick square so you know which square is good for which outcome. Squares themselves are also symbols so their understanding is part of Sigil Magick, this is unfortunately out of the scope of this book, still, if you are interested about what these squares represent and how to build them, I can only recommend you to read my book named Astro Magick Essentials where you have all the information about these squares and how to create them that you will ever need, with both traditional squares as described by Agrippa and their modern versions made by me.

Alphabet of Desire

It's time to speak about the AoD, the final stage of A. O. Spare's system, the beauty of Sigil Magick and the most powerful tool of al sigil magicians. AoD, as we mentioned earlier is a set of re-usable sigils that can be combined together to create new ones. This explanation sounds kinda interesting, but what does it really mean? With AoD you create your own set of correspondences, these correspondences can then be used even outside the scope of Sigil Magick. As we said before, a sigil can be anything from a symbol to the position of the whole body, it can actually be a combination of one or more of these. Now, if you ever tried Rune Magick, you would see a similarity here, as each rune has its own meaning, it also has a sound, a gesture and a position of a body. Visual depiction of runes is usually used for divination, body positions are used for meditation and gestures are used for spell casting (together with its sound). With AoD you can easily re-invent the whole Rune Magick and obtain a system that is good for meditation, divination and spell casting, also creation of charms, talismans, amulets, as I said before, this is a complete system of Magick on its own.

To start with the creation of AoD we first need a set of opposite emotions, of dualities. Write down as much as you can in a following format:

1. Love - Hate
2. Anger - Passion
3. Fear - Courage
4. Happines - Lust
5. Luck - Poverty
6. Nudity - Security
7. ...

Write down as much as you can, any pair of whatever seems to be dual opposites to you based on your subjective feeling. This AoD is yours and yours only, fit it for yourself. Once our list is finished, we can proceed to the next part, remember if at any time you figure out another pair of duality, you can always add it later. For the next part we now take each word from the pairs and sigilize it, using our favorite method of choice, so you make sigils for LOVE, for HATE, for ANGER, till you have sigils for all of your "emotions". Once sigils are finished, we should pre-charge them, we can either use a death posture for each of the sigils or we can use each sigil for a focal meditation while we mentally invoke and experience its emotion. That means that during focal meditation on e.g. LOVE you try to feel the love during the whole operation, this is all the pre-charging that is needed.

After the pre-charging is done, we ca try to use our AoD for the first time. Build your desire statement from the emotions from AoD and then either merge the sigils together into one big sigil or write/say/draw/use them in a sequence, building your very first sigil sentence. You can either use your AoD in the archaic manner, then all you need will be your basic AoD, or you can sigilize new words, verbs and nouns, expanding your AoD. This expansion is not limited to words only, whole phrases can be used for sigils if this can make your work easier. For example when I still used THIS MY WILL as the beginning of my desire statements, I had it ready as just one sigil in my AoD so I could built my formulae very quickly. It is also fair to say that if you use mudras (gestures) or asanas (body postures) as your AoD sigils, you should draw some archaic depictions of these as a reminder of what is what. It is also fair to say that more you use your AoD in your work, more powerful it gets as each use of your sigils will charge them, making them stronger. Now, if you used the very same method, but instead of drawing your sigils, you would carve them into a wood or metal, you could easily create a persistent holder of their energy, a charm of sorts. Same goes to amulets and talismans, only difference is their purpose. A charm is for luck, amulet for protection and talismans are to bring fourth something into your life, whether love, money, fortune. Just choose right sigils and engrave them into their holder. The holder can be made from wood, stone, metal or wax and can also be artistically shaped and decorated to enhance its "mystical" value. In other words more "magickal" the holder looks, more easily you will be able to charge it after sigils are engraved.

The next we should describe how to use AoD for divination purposes. For this use we will need our sigils on a separate pieces of paper. These pieces should be small enough to be easily manipulated. Certain companies like Bicycle sell blank cards, these are perfect for our occult endeavors, but whether you choose paper, stones, pieces of wood or blank cards, the output is same. Simply shuffle the deck, select a couple of cards at random with your left hand and place them into a spread just like if you did with tarot cards. Simplest spread contains 3 cards, for past, present and future. If you intend to use these cards purely for divination, you can also write the "emotion" word under each sigil, making the interpretation easier. To learn about more spreads that can be used, read my book named Liber Azag: The Book of Tarot. If you omit the word of sigil on cards, having purely sigils on your cards, you can easily use these cards to create your sigil statement, just placing down cards you want and using them for dynamic charging or death postures, this is the fastest and the most ultimate way of spell casting, always ready to use as long as you have your AoD deck with you.

So far we have described how to create our Alphabet of Desire and how to use it for spell casting, talisman creation and divination. What are other uses? Well, you can also use AoD for scrying. A sigil built from a statement I SEE THE FUTURE can be easily used for focal meditation to bring forth the visions of future. This sigil can be also placed under the black mirror or built directly within the frame of the blac mirror to enhance its power, aiding in black mirror's ability to see the Astral and bring visions.

AoD can also be used to attain power, statements like I AM VERY POWERFUL MAGICIAN turned into a sigil can be used repeatedly to enhance one's own Magickal potential. Now, if such a sigil existed as a visual sigil, mantra, gesture and posture, you would gain a very nice meditative ritual for a self development. Speaking of that if each of your sigils also contained a word of power, you would get your own very effective Magickal language even with its own alphabet, add gestures and postures to it and use it on regular basis and you will one-handedly overpower any rune magician as the AoD will be your very own, not borrowed from some distant culture.