TWH – A new website called the Sigil Engine has caught the attention of those within and out of the community, making a key magickal practice easily accessible to all who are interested. At its core, it’s a tool for generating sigils which the user can screen capture or print out to empower as they see fit.
Unique sigil created using Sigil Engine by typing in “health and wellness.”
Digital technology has been enormously disruptive but also has created new opportunities, opening doors for the magickal community that were barely dreamed of even 30 years ago. So it’s no surprise that ritualists, occultists, witches, and magickal practitioners of every stripe have adopted it and utilized its power to connect and create communities, teach students from afar, attend conferences from the comfort of their home, sell magickal items, and even host rituals.
So it really should come as no surprise that a website like the Sigil Engine has emerged. Created by occult practitioners, it is becoming a popular way for anyone at all to visit and create a focus for what they would most like to see in the world. All that’s required is the will to make it so.
In fact, it’s not even the first online portal to do it, there are a number of others that have come and gone over the years, including mobile apps as well as traditional websites.
The difference with the Sigil Engine is a reliance on an interesting bit of code.
According to a recent article on Vice, “the application logs the speed of typing, the time between keystrokes, and compares these to the entirety of the Liber Cheth vel Vallum Abiegni, a Thelemic text that’s contained within the code.” After that, it does some “more number-crunching” and eventually results in your own –and quite unique – personalized sigil.
And if you’re feeling uneasy about the idea of sigils and technology teamed up, that might just be part of the point.
“There’s always been that kind of tension between the shift of technology: does it devalue? Does it still work? What’s the next step: can it work in digital format?” said co-creator Darragh Mason in the Vice story.
“From a technological and design standpoint, I think it’s fun,” said Laura Tempest Zakroff, author of Sigil Witchery and creator of a popular workshop also focused on sigil creation.
Sigil for our Times [Image Courtesy Laura Tempest Zakroff
She said that sigil creation has been a part of humanity since we were drawing with sticks in the dirt and digital experimentation like this has its place in the long tradition of crafting them.
“I think any process that someone finds effective for them is worthwhile, even if it’s not something I’m into,” she said.
Michael Hughes, author of Magic for the Resistance: Rituals and Spells for Change and creator of the popular Bind Trump campaign which uses a sigil as its core focus, agreed.
“If it works for someone, that’s wonderful and I’m all for it,” he said.
While he said it’s personally not for him because it’s based on Crowley’s work, which he doesn’t resonate with, it’s still a concept he supports.
However, the artistry involved in manual sigil creation was something that neither Hughes nor Zakroff could go without.
“I can’t imagine leaving it up to someone else—or to an algorithm. I use a modified (Austin Osman) Spare method; i.e., I write out a phrase and then take it apart and visually rearrange it. Watching the visual elements—lines and curves—come together as I experiment and then suddenly click is where the magic happens,” said Hughes.
Zakroff said that the process of physically transferring thought,
“through our eyes and hands, and into the receptive surface is where the magic lives. That’s a crucial part of the process for me.”
Involving the brain to assign meaning to the shapes on the page is where the spell begins, she said, noting that her process involves a deep degree of brainstorming to add layers of meaning into her work.
Accessibility issues are one reason that sites like this are important though. Having the ability to utilize a tool that allows people who might not have use of their hands, or other disabilities, to create sigils opens a doorway to magickal opportunity.
“For someone who might be physically unable to… and likes the methods it’s based on, something like this definitely could be very helpful for those folks. I’m trying to imagine a digital version of my method that would help those folks, and it would have to be far more user-involved, but fascinating to see if it could be done,” she said.
The rise of the popularity of sigil magick in both occult and popular culture spaces has been significant in recent years but it’s always been around. Hughes referenced the famous talk comic book author Grant Morrison gave at Disinfo Con in 2000 about using sigils in his own work as an influence.
Candles with justice and Hughes’ binding sigil – Image credit: Michael M. Hughes
“The Bind Trump sigil was more successful than I could have imagined,” he said, “It’s deeply satisfying to see how it caught on and spread, and how widely it was embraced, especially among witches… Any new mass magical workings will most certainly utilize empowered sigils—I think we’ve made that a must-have element of any future large-scale group rituals. Every movement needs a logo, right?”
Both expressed the hope that people who found the website would use it as a stepping stone rather than a final destination. Exposing new people to the use of sigils could bring new people to the practice of magick, creating more empowered people.
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