Intro to Chaos Magick

	This portion of the path is allowing things to happen without directly making them happen, when the practitioner puts faith into their ability to translate desire directly into effect. The biggest tool used in this portion of the path will be sigils. A sigil is a glyph or picture, typically drawn, that has symbolic meaning to the practitioner that created it. A very simple and widely used sigil is the Celtic Knot. http://i.imgur.com/ffoMsWZ.png

	The Celtic Knot is a sigil that represents how everything is interconnected. The point behind this symbolism is to help grounding and centering when meditating on the symbol. Sigils are very powerful tools that use the meaning attributed to them to subconsciously cause an effect. In this example, the interconnectedness of all things opens up the mind to share energy outside of the body, which allows the practitioner to cleanse themselves with outside energy while centering the energy within themselves as a focal point. This will be covered in greater detail later.

	Another example of a classic and popular sigil is the pentagram. http://i.imgur.com/6N1aoX5.png This symbol has changed meanings so many times that its true symbolism is up to the practitioner in how they would like to use it. Its current cultural meaning in the West is either related to Witchcraft or Satanism. Both of these practices do use the pentagram in their symbolism. The pentagram has also been known to stand for the five wounds of Christ, the 5 senses, the 5 elements (earth, wind, water, fire, spirit) just as examples. The applied symbolism is nearly limitless.

	Using predefined sigils is fine, but this path recommends using sigils created by the practitioner. The personal touch from creating an original sigil and imbuing it with original meaning adds more to the effect. There are many different “correct” ways to create a sigil, and several will be covered here.

	The first method is the classic letter mashup [ 1 ]. Take all of the letters from a mantra phrase you wish to focus on, and use them to create a sigil that represents your mantra into a visual form. In this example we will use the phrase “This shield will protect me.” to create a shield with energy. We will first remove punctuation and capitalization. “thisshieldwillprotectme”. Our next step will be to use all capitol letters. “THISSHIELDWILLPROTECTME”. Next remove all duplicate letters. “THISELDWPROCM”. If there are still too many letters, remove vowels. “THSLDWPRCM” this gives the practitioner a manageable number of letters to work with to create the sigil.

The first process begins with the practitioner laying out the letters to see what they are working with. The practitioner starts this process by lining up the available letters to get an idea what the sigil will look like.  http://i.imgur.com/zh03Ps7.png .

 After getting an idea of the direction the sigil will be taken, the practitioner reduces unneeded letters, in this example those letters are: S, P, and R. This stage the practitioner also combines the core letters to start forming symbols: http://i.imgur.com/0l0jZ9G.png .

  This next stage the practitioner defines their secondary symbolism, and makes final changes to any remaining letters to be used within the sigil http://i.imgur.com/1nTtFPQ.png .

 By this point, the practitioner has the sigils final look in mind, and adjusts the size and starts placing the parts into the whole http://i.imgur.com/apZwvCm.png .

 The final step the practitioner takes finishes the sigil with all of the parts, and adding in anything that feels “right” http://i.imgur.com/5qN9oY3.png .

 In this example, two circles were added to fill in blank space and to complete the “wall” created to symbolize protection. At this stage, the sigil is ready to be charged and fired.

	This single method of creating sigils is not the ideal choice for the path, but shows the reasoning behind the creation of sigils, how they work, and the personalization behind them. The preferred method to creating sigils within the path will be covered later.

	What is important is to note that every meaningful part of the sigil links to the subconscious idea the practitioner made the sigil for in the first place. The Sigil itself represents a wall, made of letters denoting protection, and will be charged with the idea of protection in mind. This allows the subconscious mind a visual representation the practitioner can use to protect himself with, and through working with the sigil the subconscious mind will build the practitioner a shield with the programming entered when the shield is created and charged. The same subconscious suggestion and programming is done when a practitioner preforms a ritual as well.







[ 1 ] This method of creating sigils inspired by the Barebones Magick Guide for Beginners http://www.lucidchan.org/pdf/src/19167114-Bare-Bones-Magic-for-Beginners.pdf