It's hard to talk about magical results.
If you've never practiced, you expect the results to arrive ceremoniously: Here's that thing you wanted, feel free to keep the silver platter.
But that's not how it usually works.
Often, you charged sigils a month, or many months in the past, and suddenly, the problem you had that you made those sigils for, gets resolved in a way you couldn't have forced.
It's an indirect form of problem solving.
But I read a book called 'Speaking Being', and after one thing bled into another, I realized, you can also *be* a sigil.
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This is all a bit similar to "Method Acting" (I suppose you could call this "Method Acting Magic").
You don't want to force results to take place, you want to slip into a character that represents your ambition, or goal, and then live that being out.
How do you do it? Let's run through that:
1) Just Be (And Get Rid Of Your Internal Storytelling)
When it comes to "Method Acting," you often hear tales about Daniel Day-Lewis learning a trade for a film role, or an actor never breaking character, even when someone tries to talk to him about the latest Lakers game next to the Danishes.
When the best actors practice Method Acting, I'd say they're ‘being’ more than they're ‘trying to be’ (though, I could only know for sure if I was in their minds).
But that "being" is what you're aiming for with this.
The next point I want to make clear is:
Understand that your past is a story.
Sure, certain events happened that created certain results, but the narrative is something you're adding to it.
To "be" a sigil, you'll be detaching from the story.
You'll also want to continually detach from your desire to see this or that result. The same way you avoid lust for result when working with paper sigils.
If this all sounds a bit contradictory, it's because you've gotta learn how to balance contradictory ideas to be effective (and to suffer less in the world).
There's the whole ultimate reality - consensus reality thing in Buddhism, which is about the same thing.
And I'd say balancing contradictory ideas instead of seeping ourselves in beliefs is one of the most difficult, but beneficial things we can do. Try to do that here.
And try that by relieving yourself of the stories that are detached from the undeniable reality of what actually happened.
If you're as much of a blank slate as you possibly can be at the moment, try to move the next step.
2) Choose A Way (A Sigil) You Want To Be, And The Area of Life You Want To Be It
What idea, accomplishment, or way of being do you want in your life?
Wealth? Love? Peace? Freedom? Creativity? Happiness?
Or is it being a fluent Spanish speaker, a leader, an athlete?
If you're separating yourself from your story, you're separating yourself a bit from your past.
And this way to be doesn't depend on your past.
Another thing to keep in mind is the area of your life you want to be this thing.
Maybe you want to be the context of "Leader" in the context of your career, but not necessarily with your friend group.
Just get clear on what area of your life you'd want to *be* this:
- Your relationship
- Your job/career
- Your friends
- Your family
- Your hobby
- Or something else
Tips for choosing a sigil to be:
- What are your strengths?
- What sigil/intention would be compatible with that strength?
- Ex: If a strength of yours is research, a potentially compatible sigil might be “The world sends me great opportunities” (because finding opportunities can be caused by good research skills)
3) How To Be Without Trying To Be (The Necessary Contradiction)
Being a sigil is invoking a sigil.
The sigil is the intention, or action that you want the world to do unto you, or use you to achieve.
So, in one sense, this sigil is almost like a God or a planet that a magician might invoke.
One way to “invoke” a “sigil” is to learn from actors.
I suppose one could say that an actor sort of "brainwashes" themselves into being a character for a role.
And I say to a certain extent, you'll be doing this to yourself.
The prompts to be without trying to be:
- A) What would life sound like if you were this? What would you hear? What would you listen for?
- B) How would you relate to others in this context if you were this? How would you be with them?
- C) How would others be with you if you were this? How would their actions facilitate you being this?
- D) What would you look like if you were this? What would you wear?
- E) How would you act and behave if you were this? What actions would you take? What would you do if you were this?
- F) Imagine a version of yourself that was being this. What do you see when you close your eyes and try?
- G) Was there a time in your life when you were this? Or were close to being this? What was it like, and can you tap into that with how you might be right now? (My favorite option)
- H) Is there a character, person, or archetype that exemplifies this way of being? Can you be your own version of that?
- I) What would need to be true of your behavior, demeanor, actions, thoughts, interactions, to-dos, to clearly be ____?
Additional Option
- J) Modified Practical Aesthetics
- Understand what's literally happening with you right now
- What do you want from others/the world right now
- What is the universal human desire beneath all of this
- What can you connect the universal human desire to something you have or could experience in your own life/history
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Consider all (or some) of those questions, and your answers, and let your actions unfold with them in the present (where things actually happen).
New behavior begets new results.
But just don't overthink it and start going into planning mind mode.
It's about being these things, not thinking them through.
Ex: If the "sigil" you want to *be* is wealth, you might hear opportunities that others don't, you may feel and produce a feeling of safety or comfort in others, you may dress a certain way, or smile more often than you frown
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Think of yourself as a character to an extent. One that embodies that way of being.
Be as *that* without *trying* to be as that.
Instead of trying to be more ("happy"), just be as ("happy").
Once you start trying to be, or trying to ‘get’, you're no longer being.
And accept that however you be as that is exactly the way you're supposed to be as that for the time being. You’re not doing anything wrong.
The only other wrong way of doing all of this is trying to be in order to get some specific result.
Just be as that sigil, and take the results you do get, without seeking them out.
It's a way to empower yourself, and be a new way. Not a way to go from step 1 - 100 to definitively achieve ____ specific result.
4) How The Results *Might* Play Out
To be clear, the goal here is empowerment.
Creating a way to be in the world that gives you more power than you had previously.
But just like when you start paying attention to a certain number on the clock, and seem to always look at it the same time that it jumps on your phone screen, the results may be subtle.
The world starts to occur differently as your orient yourself to this "sigil," or way of being.
I don't personally enjoy using the word "synchronicity," but since it's easily understood by most, that might be what happens to you here.
And that's kind of what happens with sigils in general.
You charge a sigil to learn a new system, and then after treading water for a couple of weeks, you find the *perfect* book that describes it in a way you understand.
The results may be more thunderous for you, or just a flash of lightning illuminating a path.
But I'd argue it's better to be a way and to take what you get along the path, then to always feel like a pinball in someone else's game.