Sigils have a long lineage, from the sacred seals of antiquity to the do-it-yourself glyphs of today. Knowing that history reveals how a once-elite practice became one of the most accessible forms of magic.
The word sigil comes from the Latin sigillum, meaning 'seal.' In antiquity and the medieval period, sigils were fixed symbols believed to hold the essence or signature of a spirit, planet or divine power. Grimoires such as the Key of Solomon catalogued elaborate seals used to summon or command spirits, and each entity had its own prescribed glyph. These were sacred, secret symbols, not designs a practitioner invented for themselves.
The modern sigil was born in the early twentieth century with the British artist and occultist Austin Osman Spare. He rejected the idea that sigils must be inherited from grimoires and devised a method for creating personal ones from a written desire — removing repeated letters and combining the rest into a glyph. Crucially, he taught that the intention should then be forgotten so the subconscious could act on it. This shifted sigils from summoning spirits to programming the self.
Spare's technique was taken up in the 1970s by the chaos magic movement, which prized results and personal experiment over tradition and dogma. Chaos magicians refined the charging and release process and spread the method widely. In the internet age, sigil craft has exploded in popularity, embraced by a new generation who value its simplicity, creativity and lack of required belief. Today it is among the most practised entry points into hands-on magic.
A sigil sets your intention — a tarot reading shows the ground it's landing on. Draw your cards and see what the moment is asking of you.
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