If you have never used sigils in your practice and you are a creative and artistic witch, you will love getting to know all about sigils and how to make them. There is something in sigil crafting for everyone. A green witch may use them to bury in the soil near their plants to encourage them to grow. A kitchen witch may draw sigils for health in their soups while stirring or breads before baking.
What are Sigils?
Sigil comes from the Latin word for “seal,” which is also the root of the word signature. Thinking of it in this way, a sigil is like a magickal signature or seal that shows your authority in crafting your spells. The way we use sigils today comes from the chaos magick practice. Chaos magick is different from folk magick in that everything is specifically your own ideas and beliefs, there are no traditions passed down or common knowledge or references shared. Everything is your own.
The important thing to remember about sigil crafting is you need to create your own design in order for it to work and it will only work for you. I see people sharing and using other practitioners’ sigils online but for this reason, it simply does not work. When you make sigils yourself for yourself to use, it becomes your own personal kind of magick. The power behind sigil crafting comes from creating the design, because it is infused with your intention and it is something that only you will use. Sigils are as unique as the practitioner. You infuse them with your intention by the very act of creating them.
Why do Sigils Work?
The reason that sigil crafting is such an effective form of magick lies within the power of symbolism. When we see common imagery associated with certain actions or feelings, we too begin to unconsciously make those associations in our minds. Take tarot for example: the imagery in the Rider-Waite deck is full of symbolism in a way that just observing the art can give you an accurate interpretation of the card’s meaning.
Turning your intention into imagery, such as creating a sigil, helps it bypass your conscious mind and cement into your subconscious. This also works in much the same way as tarot, bypassing your logical brain and tapping into the knowledge and power you already carry within.
Different Methods for Sigil Crafting
When deciding how you want to create your sigil, first think about how you want it to work. When you activate it by creating it, putting your intention into making a beautiful sigil to display long term. It can take longer to manifest but the results will be long-lasting. If you want a sigil that acts fast but doesn’t need to be pretty, you can make a destructible sigil. These are activated by whatever method you are using to destroy them, burning with fire or dissolving in water for example. However, the results may not last as long as a permanent long-term sigil.
Settle on a strong intention and make it into a short sentence stating what you would like to achieve by using this sigil. As always, it is important to use positive language when creating an intention, focusing on what you want instead of what you do not want. An easy way to do this is to begin with an I AM statement, written in present tense as if it is already happening.
Once you’ve decided what kind of sigil is best for your intention, there are several different ways of sigil crafting. I personally use a combination of the two methods I am about to show you.
How to Craft Your Own Personal Sigils
The way I create mine is by using the letter method first, which I will go over now. Write out your intention. What do you want this sigil to do for you? This can be a word or a short sentence. Then cross out the vowels and repeated letters. Arrange the letters to create a shape or a picture.
For example “I AM PROTECTED” becomes “MPRTCD.” Doodle these letters until you come up with a shape you are happy with or incorporate them into a picture that makes you think of protection. In magick and witchcraft, pointed objects are often used in protection spells. For a protection sigil, you could use sharp angles and spikes when creating the design.
If you are using this method, you may want to take into consideration whether you will be using uppercase or lowercase letters. This will change the look of your sigil since you are creating the shape with the letters. Uppercase creates sharper angles and lowercase creates softer, rounder designs. Experiment with it and see which you prefer, you may like using a combination of both.
Another option is to use the Witch’s Wheel (pictured). Draw a line, angled or curving depending on your intention, through the letters of the wheel in order. Using the example above, you would draw lines from M, P, R, T, C, to D. You can use one method or the other, but combining these two gives me a more sigil-like shape as a guideline to follow while still being customizable. I mix this together with the letter picture I created until I end up with a sigil I’m happy with.
It takes me a couple different tries drawing it and changing it to get to my desired result. The best thing about creating your own method is that no one will have the same sigils as you and they are unique to your own craft.
How to Use Sigils
Something I like to do is draw my sigils on the inside of my arm with roll-on perfume, according to what I need that day before I go out. Other things you can do: Draw invisible sigils with moon water on the walls of your home to ward the property. Etch appropriately intentioned sigils into the wax of spell candles. Burn it on a bay leaf or piece of birch bark, as these both bring favor. Make it into a wearable amulet or talisman. Draw it on your skin with makeup. Keep a sigil for prosperity or business success in your wallet. Use chalk to draw it on the bottom of your shoes. They can pretty much be put anywhere with any method of drawing them!
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