Mantra Sigils

The chaos magick approach to sigils has spread through the vast majority of modern magical traditions, and for good reason! They work. Many variations on the theme exist and I particularly enjoy working with the Mantra Sigil.

An operator creates the statement of intent much the same way as creating the more common pictographic sigil. Start with a statement of intent:

“I will succeed in obtaining my first Patreon pledge." (Back when I originally wrote this, I experimented with Patreon. No, I don’t currently have one.)

and then reducing that to a series of non-repeating letters:

IWLSUCEDNAGMPR

or something like that. Now, rearrange the letters into something one can pronounce and sounds somewhat pleasing to the ear. We want nonsense words, mind you. You might need to add some transition sounds as below:

IWUL SECNAD PRehMGuh

I would pronounce this something like eewool secknahd prehmguh, perhaps rolling the “R” or adding a little something here or there to change the feel and make it less like my natural language.

Now the operator can begin the work by preparing their self and their space in their preferred manner and then set about reciting the mantra. One can proceed by count or by time, or go by feel alone and recite the mantra until they achieve confidence in its success regardless of how long it takes or how many times they must recite it. I use either mala-style prayer beads or a “Chaos Rosary” I made. Malas, traditionally, have 108 beads; ten trips around a mala, or 1080 recitations, will almost certainly produce a suitable trance state. The rosary I made differs from the Catholic version in that it consists of eight octads instead of 5 decades. When using it, I’ll generally recite a different mantra on the large beads. Something like a mantra-sigilized “It is my will”. This method provides a decidedly different feel.

If you have neither a mala or rosary and still would like to count, the earliest forms of prayer “beads” existed as simple knotted cords. Some larger-diameter hemp cord, paracord, or even bulky shoelaces could work. Simply tie a series of overhand knots evenly spaced along the cord. You’ll want the knots close enough together to get a significant number of them and to minimize the motion/effort required to move to the next knot, yet far enough apart to make discerning one knot from the other easy.

I can see interesting possibilities with the knotted cord. Depending on the nature of the work, the knotting could serve as part of the ritual, and at the completion of the recitations the operator could burn, bury, or otherwise make use of it in support of their work.

For best effect, I recommend starting slow for a few recitations to get the feel of these unfamiliar words, then reciting them quickly and steadily. Not so fast that the operator trips and stumbles over the words, but fast enough that they do not have the opportunity to think about the mantra.