How to Launch a Sigil

Once you have created a sigil, you are going to want to activate or launch it, or whatever terminology you want to use.

There are a lot of different ways you can actually launch your sigil, so I just want to go over some obvious ones, and although there’s a lot of information out there about the obvious methods, there are some methods that are a little less spoken about.

Now the objective here is to transfer the glyph from the conscious mind to the subconscious mind as I have mentioned previously. The way to go about this is to enter into a trance state, and that trance state can be done using whatever method suits you, so it is really a case of experimenting with as many methods as you can think of and come across in order to find the ones that actually work for you. Depending on the actual type of sigil or the type of work you are doing or even just the mood you’re in at the time, the method you use can differ. Finding those different methods that work for you gives you a nice little arsenal for you to work with.

Some of the obvious methods would be things like spinning, whirling, dancing, drumming, clacking, chanting, and singing. There really are a lot of different ways. There is also spontaneous singing which is a method I really enjoy using. It requires you to go into a deep meditative state and then all you do is just start singing complete nonsense. This means letting whatever sounds and words come out of your mouth just come out. I like to use spontaneous singing to work with energy and just mould that energy, which definitely helps it to move and at the same time, brings you into a trance state.

I have mentioned the Death Posture in the past, but I’ve never really described it, and there’s a very good reason for that. If you suffer from physical health issues, you definitely want to stay away from this, and if you suffer from mental health issues, don’t even consider this, just run far away. It’s a very intense method and it does get very painful.

I did do a bit of research, just to refresh my memory on the actual method of the Death Posture, which then brought up a whole lot of other memories of methods I experimented with several years back. Those methods were the Hanged Man position, and I also remembered the Heron pose which was said to have been used by the Celts to enter into a mantic state.

Concerning the Death Posture itself, this was described by Austin Osman Spare, who first wrote about it in his Book of Pleasures. There are actually three methods mentioned in the book, but the one that everybody seems to pick is the second one, so I am going to describe that one. This is a very painful method, but is very effective. The best thing to do is to stand with your back against a wall, clasp your hands together and put them behind your back, making your arms rigid. Then you get on your tiptoes and also stretch your head upward, and stay in this position. Through this process and by holding this position, your body becomes completely tensed, and it does start to cause a deficiency of air, because your neck is stretched out and also because of the strain which is placed on the rest of your body, so expect your breathing to become laboured. Stand in that position for as long as you possibly can. It’s going to get extremely painful and because of the oxygen deficiency, you will probably feel a lot of tingling in your body and also light headedness, but eventually you go into an altered state of mind. At some point you will collapse on the floor, so make sure you have got something soft to land on. It’s at the point when you enter into the altered state of mind or consciousness, that you would activate the sigil, using visualization.

When you collapse on the floor you might feel a bit hysterical. This actually reminds me very much of the mantic practices and mantic states of the Celts and the Bards, when they would sit on the Faery Mounds overnight to gain inspiration or Awen. It is mentioned in the tales that sitting overnight, the Bard would either leave inspired, or would become completely and utterly insane. This is why I say, if you have mental health issues, don’t even try this method.

Another very simple method that I like to use, is one whereby you take a pencil, although a ballpoint pen can work better because it makes a bit more noise, and start to draw a circle around the sigil which is on a piece of paper. Then, just keep circling, and what you will find is that you start to pick up a rhythm from the sound of the pen or pencil on the paper, which is usually laying on a desk or some kind of hard surface. You simply continue to circle around and around and get into the created rhythm which is very much the same type of concept as drumming. What also happens is that as you draw the circle around the sigil, your hand blocks the sigil with every pass and then it comes back into view, which is a type of flashing, as the hand covers and reveals the sigil. This whole process puts you into a trance state with the rhythm of the circling and the flashing of the sigil. When you feel you are ready, you can simply tighten the circle into a spiral and as you get into the centre, with the pen or pencil spinning frantically, build up that energy and then dramatically lift the pen off the paper and thrust the sigil into the subconscious.

Speaking of flashing (which incidentally has nothing to do with genitals, for the most part anyway), there are a few different methods, but one way you can do this is to simply gaze at the sigil. With this method you may also want to look into a yogic practice called tratak. With tratak, you usually start off with a dot, although you can use a candle but I don’t recommend it because you can burn your retina if not done properly. However, you draw a dot which is a couple millimeters in diameter, onto a piece of paper, and put it on the wall so that it’s at eye level. Sit about a metre and a half away from it and simply stare at the dot without blinking for as long as you possibly can. The actual practice is to stare at the dot without blinking for about half an hour or even longer, but that takes a lot of practice, so try to do it for as long as you can. You can use the same principle with your sigil. So in that instance you would take your sigil and simply gaze at it. The reason I mention tratak is because you might find that as you gaze at the sigil, you blink, and as you blink the image keeps shifting slightly and you feel that you need to start all over each time. However, if you use this method of gazing without blinking, it helps with the sigil activation because you will find that after a while the image starts to pulsate, or the lines move. You may also experience the sigil completely disappearing, or the background being removed which enhances the sigil. The sigil almost comes to life, and that is the sigil activating.

What you can also do is use colour by transferring the coloured sigil onto a surface where you see the complimentary colour of the sigil. Put the sigil up against a white wall, or have a blank white piece of paper next to it. You would draw your sigil in a specific colour, green for instance, and then after gazing at it for a while you then move your focus to the blank paper or wall. You will then see the sigil in its complimentary colour, in this instance it would be red. Continue to gaze at the red sigil on the white surface until it completely fades away.

I also know of people who use neon paint and a strobe light. I definitely wouldn’t recommend this for anyone who suffers from epilepsy however. You can even use neon paint in conjunction with sex magic, especially if you use glow in the dark paint. If practicing sex magic with a partner or group of people, the sigil would be painted on the bodies of all participating. I would suggest drawing it on different places of the body so that at the point of orgasm, no matter what position you may find yourself in, you will still have a view of the sigil.

Using sex magic to activate the sigil can be somewhat difficult and does take practice, but its a great deal more enjoyable to become skilled at. It is at the point of orgasm that you want to bring the sigil into view and concentrate only on the sigil. This is why it can be very difficult because during orgasm we tend to only focus on the sensations and the sexual act itself. However, it is that one-pointed focus and the complete exclusion of any other thoughts that make it such a good method. It brings you into complete focus and places you in a liminal state, excellent for transferring the sigil to the subconscious.

Sex magic can also be practiced by yourself, so don’t think that just because you don’t have a partner to practice with, that you can’t do it. My suggestion here is to use edging. Whenever you get close to orgasm, slow down or stop and pull back, but let the energy move up your spine and through your body. This builds energy in the body but also makes the final orgasm more explosive, taking you completely out of the current space and time and making the activation so much better.

With the use of sex magic it should be mentioned that it is not the actual sexual fluid or even the energy that is created that activates the sigil, its the liminal state that is a result of the orgasm which is required. Although the energy can be used in particular ways to project magick when that is required, and the sexual fluids can be used to create elixirs, charge talismans, create servitors, and such things, in the case of sigil magick, it is the liminal state that is the goal.

As I have mentioned, there are a lot of different methods that can be used to get into that trance state required to transfer the sigil to the subconscious mind. The main thing is to get creative. Try as many methods as you can, and see which ones work for you under different circumstances and for different purposes. You may want to use sex magic for love related sigils and the circling method for money magic for instance. Just get creative, and there is no reason why you can’t combine different methods to reach your goal. As Austin Osman Spare himself said, “…everybody needs to create their own method”, but considering the amount of Chaos Magicians in the world today, coming up with a new method gets a bit tricky, but you can create your own methods through combination, and your own set of methods.

To go with an extremely simple method, Gordon White mentions that he simply gazes at the sigil which has a certain magical quality to it, but once it loses that magical quality and becomes a normal image on a bit of paper, then he knows that the sigil has transferred.

So there really are a plethora of methods that can be used to activate a sigil and to get into that gnostic, trance or liminal state in order to do that, just as there are any number of ways to actually create the sigil itself. Explore, experiment and most of all, have fun.