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Difference between sigil and hypersigil.

18:46 / 07.07.03

So what's a hypersigil? I've obviously only learned about the sigil through the Invisibles, and my only impression of the hypersigil is that... it's supposed to change according to your life?

22:19 / 07.07.03

A hypersigil is basically a very complex, probably dynamic, sigil. Whereas King Mob may use a sigil, The Invisibles as a whole constitutes a hypersigil. The entire narrative is a magickal act intended to manipulate the reality(ies) it comes in contact with.

22:38 / 07.07.03

Thanks. Now in that case, is a hypersigil always in the form of narrative? or could it be something else like a daily routine one follows, a lifestyle pattern even?

00:23 / 08.07.03

Well, I'm not the one who created the concept of the Hypersigil (most people say it was Grant Morrison who coined the term). But I think that it's a somewhat loose term mainly referring to a sufficiently advanced and dynamic sigil. In this sense I suppose a hypersigil could be a narrative, a lifestyle, a video, music, etc. I think the key is that it is a mega-sigil that is formulated over an extended period incorporating many influences and experiences. It may also be that the delivery vector lends to it's hyper-ness. I.e. a bathroom sigil isn't going to get the same exposure as a published narrative or music video.

10:19 / 08.07.03

What LVX23 said. Also a hypersigil is charged by lots of people (i.e. the audience) rather than just one. A Narrative hypersigil is basically a hypersigil in the form of a story, which makes it easier to entice an audience into it.

11:33 / 08.07.03

Some questions here in the back!

I see no similarity whatsoever between a sigil and a "hypersigil" like the Invisibles. What makes 70+ issues of a comic a hypersigil? I know I didn't wank over every page of the thing. Nor did I drum and chant vacuously for 11 days while staring at them. Did Grant? Is it simply the intention with which a comic/video/book/movie is made? And is the experience of the thing charging it? The Invisibles is one of my favorite titles and I've had stunning things happen during/after reading the whole tale. I guess I'm confused as to methodology behind this, and I'm certainly tired of waiting for Pop Magic part 3 for hints.

19:17 / 08.07.03

This has all been very helpful so far. I wonder if participation in and of itself would be sufficient in terms of 'powering' the hypersigil - in which case by merely reading the Invivibles collection you are contributing towards the hypersigil.

And if a hypersigil is dynamic, how much of the initial intention of the hypersigil itself would be reflected in the 'end product', in a sense? I suppose 'end product' is a poorly chosen term. Using the Invisibles as an example, a narrative hypersigil, the initial intentions were to change the writer's (Grant's) life, and meet like-minded people(I'm sure there's more to it than that, but for the sake of argument- ), then the 'end product' that we see here are, aside from the aforementioned two, the hordes of readers and readers-to-be, webpages like Barbelith that continue to grow despite the series completion, etc, and more results that have grown well beyond its initial intention. That about right?

In that case, hmmm, how do you manage something as dynamic as that? In terms of predicting (I hesitate to use the word controlling) outcome?

20:59 / 08.07.03

To address Warhol's q: What makes 70+ issues of a comic a hypersigil?

I suggest you read the Grant Morrison interview in Disinfo Interviews (the link is to the book, not the interview).

The period that GM was writing The Invisibles was characterized by much drug use, chaos magick, voudon, NLP, sigil work, etc on the part of the author. These experiences were integrated into the narrative as it unfolded, and many of the things Grant wrote off the top of his head would often manifest in his own life soon after. Somewhere in the midst of this he experienced an "adbuction" type experience in I believe Nepal. Basically he entered a trance state and was met by 5th dimensional entities who explained to him that our universe was in a larval state of 4Dness waiting to pupate into a 5D organism. Obviously this was a strong influence on his narrative.

So in this example the hypersigil is characterized by an ongoing magickal confrontation/vision on the part of the author which informs and is informed by the evolution of the narrative. Hence, the narrative itself becomes a part of the working acting as a vessel and channel for the powers that have been invoked.

Now, in the case of a published work, the hypersigil is then released to the public where it is devoured and integrated and continues to mutate through each host. The narrative grows with the interpretations of each reader and the effects it has on their lives. This is where the sigil really becomes Hyper - a fine example is this board which originally grew out of the Invisibles readership and has since evolved into it's own hypersigil of sorts.

21:08 / 08.07.03

Think of a hypersigil as a tiny mechanical god. You pose a situation, lay down some rules, and watch it fade in reverse out of an idea and into reality bit by bit as it's fed by the belief and subconscious musings of whoever comes into contact with it. So your little metamathematical formula jumps off the page and applies itself to the universe. Great. As to how these relate to sigils, well, a sigil is a singular manifestation of subconscious will. Affirmation plus soul imperative gives you a desired effect. But it's just you.

A hypersigil does the same thing, but to a potentially far grander scale, because it's not just feeding off of your dreaming mind, but all the minds that it has touched.

Hence the relation between viral and hypersigils. Think about the golden arches for a second. It's a full-fledged narrative 99 billion customers long, condensed into a single symbol. That's how it all fits together. And that's how the terms are related.

21:09 / 08.07.03

Put more simply: A sigil is endothermic. A hypersigil is exothermic.

04:39 / 09.07.03

Or autotrophic and heterotrophic.

09:20 / 09.07.03

When one creates a sigil, one does his or her own wanking. When creating a hyper-sigil, one gets as many other people as possible to wank for it as well.

trouser the trouserian

10:25 / 09.07.03

If The Invisibles is a hypersigil project, could one also think of Kenneth Grant's various trilogies as an extended hypersigil? After all, even though he stressed that his various books were not 'practical', he nevertheless influenced a whole generation of occultists with his ideas about the Tunnels of Set, Mauve Zone, Lovecraftian magics, etc., I recall KG's editor (the late Chris Johnson) at Skoob saying that even proofing KG's stuff gave him the willies...

10:46 / 09.07.03

You don't have to wank over a sigil you know... there other ways of empowering.

11:58 / 09.07.03

Quantum: You don't have to wank over a sigil you know... there other ways of empowering.

I know. Oversimplification for humour's sake. Didn't work, huh? ;-)

Thanks folks, for shedding some light. I can't tell you what a great resource and sounding board you people are. I'm steadily getting over my fear of being roundly shouted down on these boards (I'm a social outcast by design as much as by choice).

I'll have to attempt a hypersigil one of these days, but only after I can sigilize entirely in my head.

12:56 / 09.07.03

I didn't realise until recently that anyone did toss one off over their sigil, it makes me laugh every time I think of it :-)

(I'm a social outcast by design as much as by choice).
That seems to be the norm here, to be a Barbelith outcast you have to be really mainstream and care what people think- that'll get you ostracised in a matter of minutes ;-) (that or using too many smileys)

I'll have to attempt a hypersigil one of these days, but only after I can sigilize entirely in my head.
Why wait? Join in the RPG narrative hypersigil project Kether it's easy as pie.

16:32 / 09.07.03

>>When one creates a sigil, one does his or her own wanking. When creating a hyper-sigil, one gets as many other people as possible to wank for it as well.

HA!

But yeah, I know that it was for the sake of simplification, but there's more than just one way of powering up a sigil. I tried stuff from speeding down a road - breaks open - that leads to a hill on my bike, and visualizing the sigil before I hit the hill and things get even faster to meditating on it.

Does anybody else have any other hypersigil experiences aside from the narrative type? There's a few on the board that I've discovered. And yeah, second that on this being a pretty resources discussion place.