What exactly is a sigil?

What exactly is a sigil? how do you come up with one, do different patterns symbolize different things? Are they always black and white, or can you use colors/

Thank you
Malinda

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This is a wonderful set of questions, malinda. Thank you.

While I can’t answer the color part, I know Megan and Francisco have some excellent replies here: Sigils, What to do? I can’t wait for the other responses to your questions because I don’t work with sigils and this is an excellent time for me to learn more.

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It’s like a little magickal symbol that you’ve created~if you’re feeling daunted there are online free sigil creators that can help you to get started!

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thank you! I’ll look for a sigil creator, that may help me understand.

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I have a very basic understanding but I wouldn’t know about creating them or anything. I think @MeganB or @Francisco work with them. I haven’t because I don’t fully understand them. I am going to pay attention to the answers as well!

Thank you @AliceInWonderdab, I have seen sigil engines in the forum but I never thought to search for one on my own. I like to have a good understanding of what I am searching for though. I’m kind of picky.

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The link that @praecog29 provided above has some useful methods to work with sigils.

Regarding what they are exactly, here’s my reply another topic where we were discussing deities and sigils:

Historically, noblemen had a “sigil ring” which was a seal (stamp) built into a ring. This sigil was a sign of authority which they could use to stamp (wax) on important documents as proof of authenticity.

463px-Byzantine_-Signet_Ring-Walters_572104-_View_A
536px-Loudoun_Castle_wax_seal

The Seal of Solomon, for example, comes from the legend of the signet ring attributed to King Solomon in medieval Arabic tradition. There are many versions of it, here’s one:

480px-Goetia_seal_of_solomon.svg


The term sigil derives from the Latin sigillum, meaning “seal”.

The word sigil… has a long history in Western magic. The members of the Golden Dawn were perfectly familiar with it (″combining the letters, the colours, the attributions and their Synthesis, thou mayest build up a telesmatic Image of a Force. The Sigil shall then serve thee for the tracing of a Current which shall call into action a certain Elemental Force″) and it was used in the making of talismans. The sigil was like a signature or sign of an occult entity.

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Thank you its all starting to make sense now!
malinda

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I agree with @malinda, now it’s starting to make sense. I have seen those rings elsewhere. So it’s sort of like the crests in other parts of Europe that, just it was on a ring that could be used with a wax seal. So that acted kind of like a notary does with their seals. (I’m a notary in MA & remember having the seal to do on documents. Now they allow you to use a regular stamp)

Thank you so much for the information @Francisco!

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I made a lot of sigils during the pandemic :slight_smile: for the protection of loved ones. I like to take the traditional approach and put a spin on it. So, for example, I wrote “Beverly is safe.” Beverly is my sister. I struck out all the vowels. I struck out repeating consonants. I had a little group of letters that still kind of looked like Beverly is safe :slight_smile: I count the lines and the curves in the letters. Here is the fun part. I make the lines or letters as big or small as I want but try to use the exact number. Now this just…happened. I was making my sister’s sigil. I was using pink because that is her favorite color. It turned into…a depiction of a mouse! And what was cool about that was she was just scolding me for putting down mouse traps. I thought how funny that her protective sigil would look like a mouse (that she had been trying to protect). Then I did her wife’s sigil. She is very proud of her Irish heritage, so I used a green marker. It just evolved effortlessly into a shamrock! The others I did were more abstract but I was so tickled about those. I don’t know if sigils are supposed to represent something figurative but it just “happened” so I didn’t change it. I put them in front of their framed photographs after “cleansing” them. I would post the photo of the sweet little mouse sigil but I’m not sure how to do that yet :upside_down_face:

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this is all so cool!! Thank you for sharing

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