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THE CARTOMANCER

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Formless Sigils

Formless Sigils

Last updated on: November 7, 2017 at 4:38 pm by Camelia Elias

Formless Sigils 2017-11-07T16:38:43+02:00 Camelia Elias

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camelia elias

It was entertaining and inspiring last night to see the flood of sigils people have crafted for Halloween, as a means to connecting with ancestor power.

But what’s in a sigil beyond the expectation that it works magic for you? What’s in a talisman beyond the expectation that it channels star power for you with view to protect, gain success, or influence an outcome?

It wasn’t difficult for me to answer this question, as I know exactly why I craft sigils and talismans. I use this motivation as a quick answer to the ones commissioning them in the belief that I do the work, whatever work, and that the work works. Fair enough.

But here’s what I point to that others might consider useful this time a year.

All my magic rests on using a very sharp method or system and a very sharp exit into the void. The method is arbitrary. The void is not.

What I appreciate in the method that I use – from Graeco-Egyptian magic to Austin Osman Spare, all arbitrary systems of thought and imagination – is sharpness. I insist on sharpness.

What I appreciate about entering the void is plain common sense.

Sigil and Photo: Camelia Elias

It is a known fact that the magicians of old operated and manipulated with formlessness. This is plain common sense. You want something done, you must first detach from your obsession with it, for what is there to cling to? Forms conjured to your mind as solid shit? Get over yourselves, the magicians of old would say, and I totally get it. Thank you magi.

I’m in awe of the human imagination that figured out emptiness before quantum physics came along to prove that the more you zoom in on things the more you find nothing there.

With this in mind, I craft a sigil in a ritual that takes 4 days. Why 4 days? For fancy, of course. Remember the arbitrariness of all systems? In some the number 4 is deadly, and I have a penchant for death in magical working.

Then I write an invocation that the other must read aloud. I instruct the person thereafter to carry the sigil on themselves – wallet or pocket – until they get what they want. Once that is realized, burning time. We don’t cling to shit. We detach from it.

The invocation follows the oracular poetic tones and is always based on divination with the cards.

Photo: Camelia Elias | Cards: Dondorf 1890 in author's private collection

Photo: Camelia Elias | Cards: Dondorf 1890 in author’s private collection

Most importantly, however, is the idea of how I work with the void. What I do in this ‘space’ is work with raising the level of the other person’s awareness about the possibility of getting whatever needs getting done, done.

So it’s never a situation about me creating financial success, conjuring a new man or woman in people’s lives, or generally ‘fixing it’ for people. It’s about raising the level of their perception of what is unmeasurable and therefore possible. This is the power of formlessness.

If you crafted as many sigils as I have, you wouldn’t be amazed at how precisely this self-enchantment works. Because that’s all there is to it. There’s only you. It’s all about you. Never anybody else. This world doesn’t exist without your perception of it. The catch is that you must know this, not just pretend that you do.

But let’s save this discussion for later.

Make some sigils, and if you never thought about entering the void before, while you’re at it, meaning, that you bypass the very obsession with getting what you desire – what is desire, anyway – then you might enjoy what it means to mould the human imagination at high level voltage: you think the shit, and then you burn it.

The dead ones are laughing. They give us poems:

Light from the moon of clear mind

Drinks up everything in the world:⠀

When ‘mind’ and ‘light’ both disappear,⠀

What is this?⠀

⠀ – Death poem of Kyong Ho Sunim (1846-1912)

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