The Crafts: Wixes, Spells, and the Weaponized Placebo Effect

Sigils are weird for me. What I've seen on Tumblr is always swoopy and graceful.

Mine never Look Right until I've nixed all the curves completely or turned them into angles.

 

Sigils are a magic I can't figure out much so good luck there, chaps.

I need to get back on my witchblog I haven't touched it in like, a Month.

 

Even when I try to do something else, my sigils always end up as a bunch of circles and straight lines.
On a somewhat related note, I just bought a small notebook I intend to use as a spellbook/sigil collection. I already put a personal protection sigil in there, but now, it seems to break/wear down anything I put it into. Let's just hope it's coincidences/confirmation bias, because if it's not, it would be kinda annoying.

 

So recently I've been reading a book about Sinhalese worship of Visnu as a Buddhist god. Which got me thinking that crazy Buddhist magic is totally a thing that more people should know about.

For me the best and most obvious place to start out would be the Paritta. So basically Paritta is a sort of chanting for the purposes of protection. Specific bits of the canonical texts get chanted out, usually in Pali, and this is held to do a few things. The first thing is that it earns the person chanting merit. You're speaking truth and that's good. Even if you don't get it entirely or at all you are still racking up good karmic fruits for it. Specific chants have specific purposes though. Some are for blessings, others for protection. In Thailand at least some are used during funeral rites. This shit can get very long and often what you do is you go to a temple, offer stuff to monks, and have them chant for you. Which transfers their merit and also you are just protected by the Dhamma just by hearing it.

You yourself have a very easy one that you will probably learn to chant if you go to a Theravada temple. Namely the Three Refuges. Which go...

Buddham saranam gacchami
Dhammam saranam gacchami
Sangham saranam gacchami

Typically you repeat these three times each. Adding on dutiyampi for your second round through and tatiyampi for the third. So by the end you'll be saying "tatiyampi buddham saranam gacchami" as an example.

The Refuges are you basically stating that you are placing yourself in the care of the Buddha, the Dhamma, and the Sangha. It is a statement that you are taking up, in some fashion, the Buddhist practice.

In addition to earning merit this thing is disastrous for malicious beings to hear. So yeah some rakshasa might be wanting to fuck your shit up but your karma just isn't lining up entirely right for him to do it and then you start chanting this shit. And so the rakshasa leaves in shame because they have realized that you are unfuckable. You cannot be fucked. You've got the monks on your side and they make even Mara look like a chump ass bitch.

Paritta alone isn't always enough to save you though because well karma is still a thing. What you did in the past is still going to come to fruition at some point. But paritta is a sort of protective effort. It's a small measure to better your chances against what you did. And even if you fail hey you at least earned a bit of merit, right? That's good. Build that merit up so you can look dastardly bhut and rakshas in the face and tell them to get bent.

 

Sometimes though you need more help than just yourself or even just monks. Sometimes you need divine intervention. While the gods are still limited by karma the fact is that Guanyin has a hell of a lot of a better idea about how this shit works and she is super good at exploiting it. Also she has 1000 arms and lots of swords. How the fuck do you fight that?

While many Buddhists will say that you don't pray to or worship the gods this is in fact what you do. You don't respect them as infallible beings that you are inferior to and must serve as slaves or something, granted. But you do respect them as particularly amazing teachers who happen to have fuck tons of eyes and may also be on fire. And you do pray to them.

Praying can just be praising the god when you need and on the spot or it can be somewhat more involved. I myself have a general Buddhist shrine area set up for this sort of thing in part myself. There's a bowl for offerings, an image of Guanyin, a candle, and a censure among other things. The offering bowl and the censure are the really important bits.

Basically you'll need some incense. If you hate how the stuff smells then you are in luck because the stuff offered to the gods is usually unscented in my experience. Both in Thai and Chinese temples. The smell isn't important. The smoke is. Anyway you get your incense stick and hold it between your palms. Like you're praying (which you are). Then you bow your head and the stick a total of three times while quietly giving your prayer. Stick is lit off a candle and placed in the censure. The smoke is held to reach the heavenly realms that the gods live in.

But there is other stuff too. Such as approaching an image. The images of the gods cannot just be walked up to. You walk up to them and then you get on your knees. Your palms are pressed together, again like praying. You bow your head so that your forehead is almost but not quite touching your finger tips. Then you bow down into what is referred to as prostration or as kow towing. You kow tow a series of three times and while praising the god silently. Following that you may stand an approach the offering area itself. Traditional offerings are fruit, flowers, and water in my experience. Give the gods gifts damn you.

If there is a Buddha image near the god image then you need to carry out standard Buddha image approach procedure too. Which is very similar to the god one. Just that before you kow tow you recite the Namo Tassa in particular. Aloud or silently doesn't matter. Just you need to do that. These are your honored teachers so you kow tow. Don't be rude.

Gods can be called upon for...Anything basically. Though certain gods have their own specialties and their own moods. They will not do anything malicious or evil, keep in mind. If what you ask for involves some sort of punishment that will only occur if the person is deemed deserving of it karmically. And even then you can't ask Guanyin to make someone lose their job. She's fucking Guanyin. I have absolutely no idea which god you would call upon for "getting things done and quick" but it isn't Guanyin. That is for damn sure. Guanyin is more someone you call on to watch over you and others. Keep you and others safe and happy. Help chase off bad brain thoughts. That sort of shit. She is basically your cosmic mom. Love Mom. Appeal to Mom. Asking Mom for help and to do specific shit for you is not wrong in and of itself. It's what she's there for honestly. Your relationship with the gods is as much practical as it is reverential. Guanyin wants to help so go ahead and ask for help with that final. And go ahead and thank her if shit turns out well.

 

Sounds like how my "protect this home" ward plant was the only one out of 5 that was getting damaged/wilty/etc.

It makes sense to me, at least. The energy has to come from somewhere.

 

So what I tell myself in relation to "this sigil isn't looking the way the original i'm basing off it did" is that the intention is the most important part and as long as you know what you're going for it's not like (the goddess, in my case, but whatever deity/power you so choose) is gonna be upset that it's not EXACTLY like the image on your screen.

Similarly (and this kind of relates to @Aviari as well--which, that sounds like a pretty interesting process I may actually try out at some point, if that's okay with you?) running w/ personality quirks in relation to drawing just reinforces that you're charging the thing and it is Your Magic.

Anyway, they seem to work out really well for me bc aside from simply helping me feel supported I can look down at them/rub circles over them when I'm stressed and they act as a kind of calming reminder of that intention: I am going to stay calm. I am not going to let my anxiety run away with me. I am going to be secure in who I am.

 

Yes! I've been reading about this idea in relation to grounding when charging sigils and spellwork--to have a set source (yourself, water, air, the moon, earth, whichever) you're drawing energy from. Different sources work better for different things and are implemented in different ways. So like, if you're going to do a home protection ward and you don't want to have a dead plant around as a result, mb try doing a home protection ward with a crystal (no idea which one, for the record) or salt or moonlight or water or somesuch

 

@Coriander Absolutely!

All my sigils are from scratch anyway. Using others' sigils has never felt right with me, it's less personal. I found a how-to thing I will add in an edit when I'm not on a phone. New post!

Also I base most of my wards and spells in plants off a feng shui trick. You put coins in a potted plant, so that as the plant grows, so does the money. I don't see why it can't apply to any other spellwork.

Also, correlation/causation bias... But Mysterious Fuckery was going on with that ward, and I later found out my estranged mother had been harassing other people in my family to spy on me for her sooooo...

 

Edit!
1. Decide on a word, words, or phrase that explicitly describes what you want out of the sigil. Things like "I will" or "I am" tend to be strong ties.
(Silly) Example: I WILL BECOME QUEEN OF THE MOLES

2. Drop all your vowels. Words are distinguished by their vowels. See: Their, There and They're
Example: W L L B C M Q N F T H M L S

3. Drop all your doubled letters, they only need to be in there once.
Example: W L B C M Q N F T H L S

4. Those letters are now the base of your sigil. Break the lines apart so M is now |\/| and only use half of it, mush them together, change the sizes, just fuck around with them in general. Take the short nubby crossbar off the F and stick it on the T, now it's both letters. Break the B in half and stick it on the Q like mouse ears, IDGAF. Mess around until it feels Right.

I ended up with one that started out as like, 8 or 9 letters and ended up looking like someone put a letter N through a tree shredder and handed it to a 4yo with a bottle of krazy glue to reassemble.

5. Charging it is up to You. If it's a sigil to Do Something like, the ones I did for my promotion, I'm fond of writing the sigil on a dried bay leaf and burning it. If it's one that's a long-term thing, I like writing it in oil or water or ink or whatever on a surface I won't generally see. Like the ends of the floorboards that are SUPPOSED to get installed this week.

/Edit

 

I rather like making sigils, myself. I even made a personal one representing me, though idk if it has any purpose besides Looking Cool? But damn, it definitely looks cool:



I mean, normally I make sigils with a purpose in mind, but still.

 

I have yet to figure out a personal sigil. Right now I'm basically using my for-reals signature, which is actually just my first and last initial swirlified because I sign way too many things to write the whole damn thing out.

 

okay this was like super helpful b/c I've been trying to come up with a sigil against nightmares for ages now and I FINALLY DID THANKS TO THIS
it looks so weird but it's great now to test if it works, hopefully it will
I'mma sew it on my pjs
how do you charge a sigil though I am unaware of this

 

Push energy into it somehow. Meditate on it, draw it on something and burn the thing (it will never cease to amuse me how much of witchcraft is "bury or set it on fire") SUPPOSEDLY focusing on it/its intent during sexy shenanigans and then releasing it when you orgasm is a good energy kick but I have yet to try that one because Husband is not into the crafts and it's be weird to involve him.

If you want it to be a permanent visual thing or like a touchstone just touch it and/or meditate on its purpose whenever you see it.

I know someone who has a protection sigil/charm near their door and they do that as part of their "lock up the house for the night" routine.

***I am not a sigil expert this is just was works for me, sigil peeps please feel free to correct***

 

I found, while digging through dad's ebook library, a List of Things You Never Want to Hear a Chaos Magician Say. I thought I should share a few gems.

• Anyone seen that talisman of mine? I seem to have misplaced it.
  
• Now it's time for the triple invocation of Loki, Coyote, and Baphomet.
  
• Help!
  
• I'm glad you asked...
  
• I really wish I had some chalk right about now.
  
• But the theory is sound.
  
• Now if only I had some bungee cords.
  
• Oops.
• No, I planned this, honest!

 

Sounds like a well-spent Friday evening.

 

Oh, another one I found from what seems to be that List:

Which I find incredibly amusing because I just keep imagining that the context of this quote involves BOTH occult rituals and explosives.

 

heeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

I just finished painting wards and runes allll over my new floor and doing a full cleanse and and and eeeeeeeeeeeeee I'm so happy my house isn't full of muddy stained carpets and dog-butt stench it's cleeeeeeeeeean and smells like pine smoke and lemon oil eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

 

I want a censure for outside incense too no. Argh. So far I just use the inside one for double "the fragrance reminds us of what we strive for" and "THE GODS MUST HEAR MY WORDS" duty but argh.

I also want to start attacking our trees with clootie rags and have one tree in particular be the place where I put offerings outside.

IN GENERAL I WANT TO INFECT ALL THE HOME.

 

My only wards are mental and visualization-based, but they're kinda... Uh... I have one against monsters under my bed. Such mature, very responsibilities, wow.