November 19, 2007

• Rituals

  A Good Spell is Like a Three-Layer Cake….

  I generally go about creating a spell or ritual the same way I go about creating a new recipe. I figure out exactly what my goal is, research the best way to achieve that goal, then gather up my ingredients and start cooking. Usually I have a pretty good idea how I should go about it even before I start researching the particulars; my “research” is more like verification of the steps I will take. Ritual of any kind serves one purpose only: to put yourself in the proper mental state to connect with the universe to achieve your goals.

  Sometimes it’s very simple, as with Sigil magick. You don’t need to do any research, unless you plan to use letters or symbols from a language with which you are unfamiliar. Some people prefer to use ancient, or dead alphabets, for their Sigil, but that’s really not necessary. The only reason to do something like that is if using a dead language creates greater significance in your mind. At the risk of giving ammunition to the skeptics, most magick is all in your head. What I mean is, you don’t really need anything other than your mind. The tools don’t guarantee success, your will does.

  So back to Sigil magick… this is the simplest kind of ritual. Say you wanted to make a sigil to find a better job. You write out a phrase or list the attributes the new job should have. But say you just want a job that brings more money. You come up with a phrase like: Help find job with better pay. Take the first letter of each word: HFJWBP. If there were any duplicate letters, you could discard them. For the concept of “with better pay,” you could just reduce those words to a $ sign. For the concept of help, you could use a plus sign. Then you overlay the letters, turning them and morphing them as needed, till you have a brand new symbol to be used as a focus of your needs. The main concept in the creation of Sigils is reduction. It doesn’t matter how you reduce the initial concept to letters and the letters to one form, so long as you end up with a form you like. Usually, you will not even be able to recognize the letters in the sigil you create.

  Once you have a symbol you like, you can draw it on paper, inscribe it into clay or wood or paint it onto something you will handle or come into contact with on a daily basis. It is also important that once you have created your sigil, you empower it. This doesn’t have to be a big production unless you want it to be. At this point, you can focus all of your will on the charm you’ve created, or call upon whatever gods you worship or that you think would support your desire for a better job. Some people prefer to make a charm like a sigil and forget about it. I think it is better to be reminded of its existence as often as possible because the memory will contribute more energy to the idea you created, like an affirmation. You can use any kind of paper and any kind of ink or paint, but if it helps to put you into the proper frame of mind, then use whatever implements help you do that.

  Now if it were me using this sigil, I would draw the sigil onto a piece of paper and then wrap that paper around a sharpie marker. Then when I was looking for a job in the want ads, I’d use the sharpie to circle anything that looked promising. Beyond that, I’d also carry the sigil on my person at all times because you never know when you might be passing by some place that hasn’t notified the papers yet, but stopping in to inquire, you get hired on the spot.

  Creating sigils is so simple, it’s hardly worthy of being called a ritual.

  On the other hand, the most ambitious ritual I ever performed was to dispel ignorance in the world right before Bush was reelected. I really hoped it would go into effect before he could get a second term, but no such luck. I think it worked though because all but the most hardcore, right-wing republicans can admit their dislike of the man without feeling unAmerican about it. I have an affinity for Thoth and Ma’at of the Egyptian pantheon. So I called upon them to help me dispel ignorance from the minds of people all over the world. Thoth is a moon god, but more importantly, he is a god of intellect and facts. Ma’at is his wife. Her name means truth and in the after life, she weighs a person heart against the feather of truth (her symbol). If the evil that a person has done in life outweighs the feather, then the person is devored. I drew their names in hieroglyphics on a piece of paper and on the reverse, I create a sigil to ward off ignorance. Then I anointed the paper in olive and rosemary oils and burned it to ashes. I poured the ashes into a jar with water and sealed it with wax, sealing away the ignorance of the world. Then I buried the jar so that ignorance would be resigned to the darkness where it belongs. I hope no one ever finds it and opens it. That could be… messy.

  • 9:54 pm
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