Sigil Magic: The Methods of Austin Spare and Peter Carroll

A sigil, in modern magic, is a design made from the letters of a written intention and then "charged" in a state of focused attention and deliberately forgotten, so that, in the theory of its inventor Austin Osman Spare, the desire passes beyond the conscious mind's interference. Spare set out the method in The Book of Pleasure (1913), and Peter J. Carroll systematised it for the chaos magic movement in Liber Null (1978), adding a spoken "mantric" form. It is now one of the most widely used techniques in contemporary occultism.

How to do it§

Keep the intention benign and about yourself: your own courage, focus, health habits or work. Do not make sigils aimed at another person's will.

1. Write the statement of intent. Write a short, positive sentence in the present or future tense, for example "I speak with confidence at my interview." Spare's own illustration was a wish to have the strength of a tiger.
2. Reduce the letters (word method). Write out the letters and cross out every letter that repeats, leaving each letter once. From "I speak with confidence at my interview" you might keep I, S, P, E, A, K, W, T, H, C, O, N, F, D, M, Y, R and V.
3. Combine them into a glyph. Draw the remaining letters interlaced into a single design, sharing strokes where you can, turning or mirroring them as you like. Simplify it again and again until it is a compact, pleasing shape that no longer reads as words. Redraw it cleanly on a fresh sheet.
4. Or make a mantric sigil (Carroll's method). Instead of drawing, rearrange the remaining letters into a few nonsense syllables that can be chanted, such as "SPIK-WATH-CONF-DYM-VER". Repeat it until it flows rhythmically.
5. Charge it. Both authors teach that the sigil must be implanted at a moment when ordinary thought falls silent, which Carroll calls gnosis. Use the quiet, "inhibitory" kind: sit still, breathe slowly, and gaze at the sigil (or chant the mantra) until your mind empties and only the shape or sound remains. Hold that state for a few moments.
6. Release and forget. Put the sigil away where you will not see it, or burn it safely in a heat-proof dish. Then turn your attention firmly elsewhere. Carroll recommends laughter as a banishing; many simply get up and do something ordinary. Spare's point is that you should not dwell on the wish again.
7. Act. Continue to prepare and work as normal; chaos magicians stress that a sigil works alongside action, not instead of it.

Origins and history§

Austin Osman Spare (1886–1956) was a precociously gifted London artist who exhibited at the Royal Academy as a teenager and briefly joined Aleister Crowley's order, the A∴A∴, around 1909–10. In The Book of Pleasure (Self-Love): The Psychology of Ecstasy, privately printed in 1913, he outlined a personal philosophy built around "Kia", a free and formless principle, and a technique of "sentient symbols". He described turning a desire into a monogram of its letters and implanting it in the subconscious by means of exhaustion, ecstasy or a meditative "death posture", after which conscious memory of it was to be abandoned. Spare drew on the long tradition of monograms and planetary seals, but his psychological framing, influenced by contemporary ideas of the subconscious, was new.

Spare spent his later life in relative obscurity in south London. Interest revived after Kenneth Grant published Images and Oracles of Austin Osman Spare (1975). In 1978 Peter J. Carroll published Liber Null, and with Ray Sherwin founded the Illuminates of Thanateros; their "chaos magic" treated beliefs and symbols as tools to be adopted for their effects. Carroll classified sigils into word, pictorial and mantric methods and distinguished "inhibitory" and "excitatory" forms of gnosis. Phil Hine's Condensed Chaos (1995) popularised the approach further, and the sigil spread through the internet, art and popular culture. Historians of contemporary esotericism treat it as a key example of the "psychologisation" of magic.

Variations§

The pictorial method draws a simple picture of the desire and then abstracts it. Some practitioners use a magic square or a "sigil wheel" to plot letters as lines. Others charge sigils collectively in groups, or hide many sigils among others so that they are forgotten more easily.

Safety and good sense§

If you burn a sigil, do so in a heat-proof dish, away from anything flammable, and never leave a flame unattended. Avoid "excitatory" methods that involve exhaustion, hyperventilation, sleep deprivation or drugs. If preoccupation with symbols, meanings or coincidences becomes distressing or consuming, stop and talk to a doctor. A sigil is no substitute for medical, legal or financial help.

Sources and further reading§

• The Book of Pleasure (Self-Love): The Psychology of Ecstasy — Austin Osman Spare, 1913
• Liber Null & Psychonaut — Peter J. Carroll, 1987
• Liber Kaos — Peter J. Carroll, 1992
• Condensed Chaos — Phil Hine, 1995
• Images and Oracles of Austin Osman Spare — Kenneth Grant, 1975
• Prime Chaos — Phil Hine, 1993