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(sigil charging) Magick readers! Heed my call!

12:38 / 25.02.02

Kids took stuff from my car.
I want something back.

Wank for me?

[ 25-02-2002: Message edited by: grant ]

14:54 / 25.02.02

While I don't wank for my magic I'll do what I can in my own way.

Is your car ok or did they damage it breaking in?

16:04 / 25.02.02

Car's fine - they took a small flashlight, a bag with disposable razors and a hairbrush, ate a granola bar, and swiped an old wallet - no cash, no credit cards, but a lot of ephemera, including an indulgence my grandmother bought or was given ages ago (reign of Pope Pius). They left behind credit card bills, a cell phone, a knife, gloves, satchel, sweaters. Pretty clearly a couple kids walking down the sidewalk, noticed the door was unlocked and made themselves at home.

I've included the sigil in a basic "how-to" entry on one of my blogs, http://www.flyingfists.org

Lemme see if I can fix the link.

[ 25-02-2002: Message edited by: grant ]

Less searchable M0rd4nt

16:19 / 25.02.02

You got your charge. Hope things work out.

20:06 / 25.02.02

For you, sweetheart, anything.

Zap!

We're The Great Old Ones Now

20:16 / 25.02.02

I'm so wary of this. "I want something back" could mean all kinds of things. Just exactly what is the sigil going to do?

22:28 / 25.02.02

quote:Originally posted by Nick:
I'm so wary of this. "I want something back" could mean all kinds of things. Just exactly what is the sigil going to do?

That's always the catch Nick. If you know what the intention is, the charging won't work.

Trust or trust not - how well do you really know your magician??? Enough to hand them the keys to the kingdom?

We're The Great Old Ones Now

07:38 / 26.02.02

Where on Earth do you get that idea? You can make your own sigil and charge it yourself; there's no rule I ever heard says you can't know what it's supposed to do. According to Carroll, you have to foget after you release it, but I think that's mostly to avoid 'lust for result'. Since Carroll's books contain any number of exercises about focusing the mind, that shows a rather small amount of faith either in his readers or his techniques...

In fact, since you can charge a sigil yourself and since the only reason to get others to do it would be to get it done faster or stronger, you could even make a case that any working which appealed for others' help without significant grounds is compromised by 'lust for result' already.

But consider: in grant's case, I'm prepared to take a great deal on faith, but even so, that could be a sigil to bring them into contact with necrotising bacteria, for all I know. Either magick works or it doesn't. If it doesn't this is all just so much jerking off. If it does, it's a useful, bloody dangerous thing, and you can't just give every damn working nod, any more than you'd give your mate your crossbow without checking that they were going to shoot targets rather than traffic wardens.

07:44 / 26.02.02

But didn't Carroll also say it makes no difference if you have one or a million people doing the same spell/sigil?

[ 26-02-2002: Message edited by: bear ]

11:28 / 26.02.02

Will do.

We're The Great Old Ones Now

12:04 / 26.02.02

I don't remember, to be honest. Might well be. In which case...well. Some people obviously disagree.

I'm just trying to nudge towards a bit more thought about magick generally. It sort of seems to be thought of as a consequence-free toy, and I can't help but be uneasy about that. I'm not talking about the 'Rule of Threes' or any of the related reassuring notions of instant karma, just plain old life.

12:43 / 26.02.02

quote:Originally posted by Nick:
I'm so wary of this. "I want something back" could mean all kinds of things. Just exactly what is the sigil going to do?

Some fairly odd stuff (hairbrush, flashlight, etc.) got stolen from my car by what I assume were kids on their way to school. There's something i'd like back.

Oh, and y'all rock, by the way.

[ 26-02-2002: Message edited by: grant ]

12:55 / 26.02.02

consider it charged and found.

Less searchable M0rd4nt

15:09 / 26.02.02

quote:Originally posted by Nick:
I'm just trying to nudge towards a bit more thought about magick generally. It sort of seems to be thought of as a consequence-free toy

Well, point, but to be fair we have had the the ethics-in-magick debate quite a few times since I've been here. We generally end up with a six page shitstorm and then everyone sulks.

We're The Great Old Ones Now

15:19 / 26.02.02

You mean, not like the rest of the board? Heh.

Less searchable M0rd4nt

15:31 / 26.02.02

Believe you me, no-one sulks like a pissed-off mage.

15:43 / 26.02.02

Do they get 'mage rage'?

15:58 / 26.02.02

Mage Rage! What a fantastic idea.

"Anger building, rage becoming uncontrollable, must..charge..sigil.."

If someone did leave a sigil here to charge which would be detrimental to the charger do you really think said charger's higher self isn't going to notice and intervene?

16:40 / 26.02.02

quote:Originally posted by Gho5tD4nc3r:
Mage Rage! What a fantastic idea.

"Anger building, rage becoming uncontrollable, must..charge..sigil.."

LOL!

quote:If someone did leave a sigil here to charge which would be detrimental to the charger do you really think said charger's higher self isn't going to notice and intervene?

It's an interesting question. The issue Nick raises is perfectly valid. I don't charge sigils for people if I don't know them very well or if I'm not convinced of their reasons for creating the sigil. I trust Grant, and his request seemed fine, so he got the zap.

The question as to what would harm someone who was charging a sigil would depend on the sigil. If the sigil was designed to do something harmful, what could happen is that if someone was to track back the source of the damage they would come to many different signals all coming from the participants. A smart, but devious, magician would leave them open to attack while using that confusion to hide his/her own tracks.

Or, the sigil could be designed to siphon off the charge to be used to the creator's advantage in another way.

These are just two examples of how charging a sigil would be detrimental to the person doing the charging, if you don't know what the sigil is about, and/or don't know the person who designed it. I can think of many more permutations on this theme.

About Higher Selves intervening: well the rather obvious thing is that you would be nudged not to participate. This does not necessarily mean that the sigil experiment is wrong for everyone, but just wrong for you. If you participated despite your own misgivings then you are more likely to have problems as you're going against your true nature. If you participate in good faith, and are reasonably au fait with defenses, then you should be all right.

The problem with answering the question is that there are so many different answers depending on particular scenarios. I've suggested just a few examples to give you an idea of the field.

16:43 / 26.02.02

I should add that the very obvious solution to all of this is that you act sensibly. Ask your Higher Self/Allies/Guides/whatever if it is appropriate for you to charge the sigil or not. Intuition is very good for this question. If you get a no, then don't participate. It's a pretty simple, but important, precaution. Sometimes you might not get a clear answer so you can always resort to a bit of quick divination.

16:45 / 26.02.02

I'm just trying to nudge towards a bit more thought about magick generally. It sort of seems to be thought of as a consequence-free toy, and I can't help but be uneasy about that. –Nick

...to be fair we have had the the ethics-in-magick debate quite a few times since I've been here. We generally end up with a six page shitstorm and then everyone sulks. – Mordant C@rnival

Magick is most definitely not a consequence-free toy, and Nick has the right idea in asking Grant for clarification: "Do you want your stuff back or do you want payback?" Such a distinction is critical in the decision whether or not to invest one's energy in someone else's business.

That's quite different from the Duality is Essential/Duality is Wack situation (which is basically what all the High/Low, Left-hand/Right-hand bullshit boils down to).

Less searchable M0rd4nt

16:46 / 26.02.02

quote:Originally posted by Gho5tD4nc3r:
If someone did leave a sigil here to charge which would be detrimental to the charger do you really think said charger's higher self isn't going to notice and intervene?

Without wishing to precipitate another row on magickal ethics, I had actually thought of this.

The first time someone posted a sigil here and asked for a charge, my Paranoia Daemon (a fifteen-foot-long komodo dragon looking thing with crimson scales; I call it Polly) kicked up. What if the sigil didn't do what the poster said it did? What if it was actually an encryption of the magickal intent: "My will is for my ex's legs to drop off"? So, when I charge anyone's random sigil I get myself into a no-harm state of mind. Without getting too fluffy, I relax and focus on positive feelings, so that if the intent behind the sigil is a bad one my charge won't support that intent, it'll go towards cooling out the poster who created the sigil.

I hope.

[ 26-02-2002: Message edited by: Mordant C@rnival ]

Less searchable M0rd4nt

16:49 / 26.02.02

quote:Originally posted by Ierne:
I'm just trying to nudge towards a bit more thought about magick generally. It sort of seems to be thought of as a consequence-free toy, and I can't help but be uneasy about that. –Nick

...to be fair we have had the the ethics-in-magick debate quite a few times since I've been here. We generally end up with a six page shitstorm and then everyone sulks. – Mordant C@rnival

Magick is most definitely not a consequence-free toy, and Nick has the right idea in asking Grant for clarification: "Do you want your stuff back or do you want payback?" Such a distinction is critical in the decision whether or not to invest one's energy in someone else's business.

That's quite different from the Duality is Essential/Duality is Wack situation (which is basically what all the High/Low, Left-hand/Right-hand bullshit boils down to).

Nah, I wasn't thinking about that. I was thinking about a different 6-page shitstorm. Heh.

17:18 / 26.02.02

Higher selves: My 'Higher self' has failed to intervene in plenty of non-magical situations where I've inadvertantly fucked myself. I have no reason to believe that it will always work fine in magical situations as well. Hell, I'm not even sure a 'Higher Self' isn't just part of western magical dogma.

As for knowing what sigils do, that's one of the many reasons I don't use sigils. I trust Grant but if there was someone I didn't know or didn't trust I would do the same thing I'm doing in Grant's case: I do my own magic for what I feel is just.

In this case, Grant had items stolen and he wants them back. I can create my own rituals to enact that in a way that I feel comfortable with (helping the police find the loot; making the perps feel guilty so they dump the stuff where it can be found; etc.).

In the same way, anyone here can make their own sigils for the appropriate intent and cast it if they don't trust other people's sigils.

Nick brings up a valid point in that a lot of chaos magic newbies may not take that responsibility and extra effort necessary to make their own ritual/sigil. They would rather just have an excuse to wank.

<looks left... looks right...>
should this split off into it's own thread? Not necessarily one on ethics but practical ways that people can take responsibility and enact their ethics?