Hello ladies, gentlemen, and those of you who know better! I am the enchanting Artemis, and this is the Laughing Craft! I recently discussed how literacy was an important skill for a wizard and functioning adult human to have. But, what is literacy without letters? Nothing useful, that’s for sure. Sigils are single use spell materials that are constructed with letters. What letters go into the sigil is determined by two factors. After these two are dealt with you only need paper and something to write with, and spiced with some “magickal goodness” for results. The first factor is the most essential. Without this element crafting a sigil is just a game of hangman played with solitaire rules. The first facet is your desire. “I get a girlfriend” or “I find two salamis in my car”, whatever your witchy heart yearns for. The second element is the specific method of making the sigil. There are four methods I know of for forging a sigil: Subtraction, Channeling, Magic Square, and Reduction.
I am willing to wager that a sigil made with the Subtraction method is the most popular method. There’s no evidence that I’ve seen that any one method is superior to any other, so make sure to experiment and see what works for you. The subtraction method is when you make the statement of intent naming your desire followed by removing the repeated letters and the vowels until you have a unique jumble of letters to build your one shot mythical glyph. If you were to use “I get a girlfriend” with the subtraction method would give you “T L F N D”. You would take those five letters and assemble them into a single shape. I normally start with the first on the left and then build using that sequential order, but any sequence of fusion is fine. The shape you get after combining those letters is your sigil.
The Channeling method is the simplest method that I know of. To create a sigil using the channelling method you start by writing your statement of intent either on one side of paper with the sigil to be constructed on the other side, or written around a blank space to form a frame for the sigil. Once you’ve stated your desire, clear your mind of all distractions. Focus on your desire without conjuring any specific fantasy. Don’t think about your girlfriend’s slammin honkers. Just breathe, concentrate without daydreaming, and draw what shapeless squiggles arise from your non-thinking. That random shapeless doodle is your sigil.
I will admit that I don’t use the Planetary Magic Square method. To me, the planetary squares hold a number of specific steps for a result that can be drawn by a computer or achieved with a quicker method. As with every other method you begin with your statement of intent. Now, instead of just jumping into the formation directly, you have to select a square grid of a certain size. The certain sized grids are named after planets, the planets in turn have themes of spellwork. If you want to get more done at the gym, maybe use the 5×5 mars grid. If you want to get a girlfriend the 7×7 venus grid could hold the power to suit your fancy. So with your grid chosen and statement of intent ready, you then remove the redundant letters like you would if you were just Subtracting. Unlike the subtraction method, there is another step before you can cast the spell. Cluster the remaining letters into numerical points of the grid. Starting with the first letter remaining in your statement of intent you draw a line according to the numerical points the statement was clustered into. Draw a circle on the beginning of the line, and a perpendicular line at the end. That line is your sigil. This method does have some use in constructing talisman or wards because of the ingrained structure to the formation.
The final means of sigil creation, the reduction method, is the most different. With the previous three the sigil’s shape was determined by your intent and the personal algorithm used to compress that intent. Whether the algorithm was simply removing extra parts in the subtraction method, the notion of containing your desire with focus, or a complicated astrological image hunt that is just as effective as the first two, the letters were the main component. This is not the case with this method. To begin you imagine your statement of intent. If you want to get a girlfriend, imagine a pictogram of this occurring. You then draw this pictogram. This is not the sigil. Instead of chopping off vowels, you reduce the complexity of the pictogram. To use the girlfriend example, a male symbol touching a female symbol in the classic heart shape. A reduced version of this summer camp tree vandalism might turn the male symbol’s arrow into a hook-like shape, the female symbol might be shortened into a T with a circle on top, and the classic heart might turn into a simple tight circle. That pictogram would be your sigil.
Whichever method you choose to warp reality to your will can produce a shape, but the shape is only the door. You still need to walk through it. The means of applying a charge to a sigil are all much simpler than the actual construction, at least on paper. The three methods of “firing off” the sigil are: to put your juices on it, to meditate at it, or to leave it in a conspicuous location related to your intent. Yes, I mean those juices. In November of 1995, Grant Morrison had a comic that wasn’t doing well. So they did the only rational thing a chaotic comic writer would do. They made a sigil and put it in the “letters to the editor” section and told people to masturbate about it. I wish with every cell in my blackened heart that this wasn’t true. It is true, and it worked. Blood, sweat, and saliva also work. Blood and genetic material tend to be “stronger” because of the work needed to produce the vital fluid. Get the juice, anoint the sigil, wait for the result without worry. The “without worry” is a big deal. If you keep putting mental energy on it after you fire off the sigil, it won’t happen. It’s like waiting for a package. You ordered it properly, it’s in the mail. Do other stuff until your girlfriend knocks on your door.
I mentioned with the magic square method that it was more for talismans and wards. These are sigils that work better when placed on the “target” of the spell you want. A venusian square sigil could be placed at a table at your coffee shop, if a girl you think could become your girlfriend shows up at that table it may behoove you to by the lovely lady a coffee.
Why do necromancers make great art critics? They’re great at recognizing subtle shades! A necromancer is a wizard who communes with the dead. Shades are an older term for ghosts or spirits of the dead.