Posts Tagged ‘Sigils’

A Friend’s Manifesting Stopped Working. Here’s Why (and How to Fix It)

Monday, April 17th, 2017

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“The sigil I created in your class worked amazingly well. But none of the sigils I’ve done since then have worked,” said D, a talented energy worker with no formal training. She was speaking about a sigils / manifesting class taught by M, who has at least a decade of experience with Chaos Magick, Thelema, and other systems.

It might not seem like it, but that’s enough information to make a good guess at the problem. What do YOU think it might be? Yes, you, reading this article. Debugging techniques is an important skill, and here’s a chance to practice. If you want to play along, make a guess, just say it to yourself or write it in the comments.

One friend suggested a possibility: Work done in private can feel different than work done in public. Maybe D just gets better results in a public setting? This lead to much conversation about public vs private and how to adjust.

But that answer didn’t seem to quite fit. If I were to verbalize my reasons, it’s that the difference (“great results” vs “total failure”) was too large to be caused by something as subtle as “work done in private can feel different.” We should be looking for a structural error in D’s technique, some missing piece that was filled in by being in the class. That’s how I’d verbalize my reasoning. But in the moment, it was closer to an unconscious, “No, that doesn’t break enough pieces.”

For those of you playing along at home: Revisit your guess, see how it sounds now, and make another guess if you like.

Here’s my answer: In the class, M was engaging their ethereal software as they demonstrated the sigil techniques. That made it easy for D to (unconsciously) connect to M’s ethereal software. D, being talented with energy, got good results using M’s ethereal software. (And M, being well-trained, has good ethereal software for manifesting. M would refer to that ethereal software as a Servitor or Egregore, btw.)

But D wasn’t conscious of any of this. She didn’t make a lasting connection to M’s software, and couldn’t access it on her own. So at home, D performed the same outward steps, built the same energy, but didn’t have M’s ethereal software to handle the actual manifesting, and therefore got no results.

How can D fix this? Do another sigil with M, and pay attention to the forces involved. Either make a lasting connection herself, or ask a spirit she knows to remember the force for her. (D does a lot of work with spirits.)

M has previously described my classes as “a kick to the side of the head, in a good way.” M pondered my analysis, then excitedly agreed.

This was a fun puzzle for me, debugging D’s technique. It was also validating, to use my work to help a friend. I hope you playing along at home.

If you liked this post, consider visiting my current blog at mikesententia.com.

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Posted in Beginning Conscious Magick | 8 Comments »

How to Use the Sigil

Sunday, September 4th, 2016

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Christina, trained in Reiki and other systems, asks:

When I tested your first sigil [in 2012], the response was clear to me, at least the first time. After that, not so much. And this time, I missed the mark. Why could that be?

There are several possibilities.

I want to back up and say: When a scientist says, “There are several possibilities,” he’s really saying, “I don’t know, but here’s where I’d start looking.” And that’s what I’m saying: I don’t know why it didn’t work. (If I did, I probably would have fixed it.) But let’s talk about the moving parts, what might have gone wrong, and how you can start exploring this with me.

First, the moving parts:

  • A sigil, with ethereal software bound to it.
  • These forces need to notice when you look at the sigil.
  • They need to pick up your request and create the obvious connection.
  • You need to notice the connection.

What might go wrong?

If I didn’t bind the ethereal software to the sigil correctly, none of this will work. That’s certainly possible. But I tested it on myself and it seemed to work for me. Also, this isn’t something you can test with me. So let’s assume the ethereal software is bound correctly.

What about the forces noticing your gaze? Try this: You know how to connect to someone by looking at their picture, right? The sigil uses some of the same forces. So practice connecting to a person based on their picture a few times, then do the same thing when you look at the sigil.

What about picking up your request and creating the obvious connection? This requires a bit of background. People often use multiple pieces of ethereal software. As a Reiki practitioner, you already have the Reiki software (typically called “The Universe.”) If you practice other systems, you might have other software. (You might also have ethereal software not associated with a formal system, such as for natural psychic intuitions some people have.) So, multiple pieces of ethereal software.

Usually, that’s fine. Occasionally, the ethereal software conflicts with each other. I’ve seen software that wants to be the only one working with a person. I’ve seen software that interpreted the “obvious connection” as an attack, and protected the person. Sometimes, different ethereal softwares don’t get along.

Try this: Engage your normal ethereal software. Just think about doing your normal practice, building Reiki energy or asking for psychic intuitions or whatever else you do. Then send the message (the same way you’d send a request for information, energy, or anything else): “I’m about to connect to another force, I want you to allow it to connect and trust it.” Keep thinking that while you focus on the sigil.

Before asking for the obvious connection, tell your other forces, “I’m about to have the new ethereal software make some obvious connections. Allow them, even if it seems like an attack.” Then try the obvious connection.

Also, if you shield yourself against energy or connections, try opening your shielding before doing all this.

Will this work? I don’t know. We’re debugging this technique together, thinking about what might have gone wrong, testing it out, seeing what matters and what doesn’t. I’m excited to get your results, because this is how we all learn about ethereal software and sigils and the mechanisms behind our practice.

Thanks for exploring with me.

If you liked this post, consider visiting my current blog at mikesententia.com.

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Posted in Experiments | 2 Comments »

Placebo-Controlled Sigil Testing: Results

Sunday, August 14th, 2016

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One month ago, I posted a double-blind placebo-controlled test of ethereal software and sigils.

Over 30 of you participated. Thank you! It feels amazing to have this community to help test these techniques.

(The rest of this post assumes you read the procedure. Summary: Two symbols. One had ethereal software attached, the other was placebo. It involved a coin flip, so I call them “heads” and “tails.”)

sigil experiment resultsToday I have the results. Short answer: The sigil didn’t work. Six of you felt the connection on heads, seven felt it on tails. On average, you felt a connection strength of 2.6/10 on heads, and 3.7/10 on tails. So a very mild preference for tails, both on strength and on popular vote. See the chart to the right, or download the file.

(Update: SVH points out, I failed to tally her clear Tails signal, so it should be 6H, 8T.)

Tails was the active sigil (heads was the placebo), but the results are too close to call it a success.

And yet, I feel good. That’s my first take-away: The point isn’t to get positive results from every test. The point is to become the kind of person who isn’t afraid to test their beliefs. Or who is afraid, but tests anyway. The lightness and liberation I felt immediately after posting the test are still with me.

The second take-away: Placebos are tremendously important. Of the 32 testers, 20 felt at least a 3/10 on one of the sigils. That’s over 60% of respondents. If I’d only posted one sigil and asked if you felt something, it would look like a success. I already knew that placebo controls are important, but seeing it first-hand makes a deeper impact.

I also learned about test design. Less than half of respondents tried both sigils. This is probably because I said to wait until the next day to do the second sigil. If I’d more clearly said to do both sigils, and only asked for a 10-minute break between them, I think we would have gotten a lot more data.

Why didn’t the sigil work? There are several components of this technique:

  • Connecting the ethereal software to you via the sigil. (This includes binding the sigil, and instructions for how to use the sigil.)
  • Asking the ethereal software for an obvious connection.
  • Creating sensations with the obvious connection.
  • Also, testers need to avoid building their own energy. If you build energy yourself, then you might feel that, regardless of what the ethereal software does or doesn’t do.

I can’t say which step(s) didn’t work, but I have plans for improving most of them:

  • I didn’t have any instructions to not build your own energy. I’m going to add that next time, along with an exercise on quieting your energy. This might reduce the sensations from the placebo.
  • I’ve returned to my work on creating sensations, with promising results. It’s such a useful demonstration, plus learning to create sensations can tell us a lot about healing techniques for pain. Once I get a solid technique working in-person, I’m going to program it into the ethereal software and repeat this testing.
  • I’m also thinking about in-person testing for sending instructions to the ethereal software. Maybe I can create a command like, “Create an obvious connection to Mike,” then have a friend use the command. That would let me verify that people new to using this ethereal software can successfully send it instructions.

In all, I feel good, despite the technique not working. Facing these fears and passing through them has been amazing. And it’s nurtured me to share this process, both the testing and today’s post about results and next steps. As a solo practitioner, I’ve never had much community, but this blog is starting to feel like a home. Thank you for being part of that.

If you liked this post, consider visiting my current blog at mikesententia.com.

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Posted in Experiments | 13 Comments »

Testing My Techniques: Double-Blind Placebo-Controlled Ethereal Software

Thursday, July 14th, 2016

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In 2012, over 50 readers helped me test a sigil I’d made. It was amazing, tapping into this community to verify my results. So many of you helped — thank you!

That helped me move forward with confidence in my book, my writing, and my own practice. Participating and feeling the results helped many of you build confidence in your own work, too. But the test wasn’t scientifically rigorous, and as a result it hasn’t given us as much confidence as it could.

This post is about fixing that. I’m repeating the test, this time as a double-blind placebo-controlled version — the gold standard for scientific research. It’ll help me become more confident in this work, and participating will help you be confident that the sensations you’re feeling really are from energy, not from placebo or suggestion.

This post has three sections. First I’ll explain exactly what we’re testing. Then I’ll discuss today’s version, and why it’s better than the 2012 version. Then I’ll show you exactly what to do to participate. Or skip to the participation now.

Update: Results are here.

The Technique — What’s a Sigil?

A sigil is a symbol with ethereal software bound to it. (Ethereal software is the general term for the forces that healers and mages channel. Other systems refer to these forces as Egregores, The Universe, or other names.)

These bound symbols aren’t the same as symbols you see in everyday life. Company logos and family crests don’t usually have forces bound to them. But there are some examples you might know: The symbols used in Reiki, symbols from magickal systems like Golden Dawn and Enochian, along with sigils commonly used in Chaos Magick. Those symbols have power precisely because they are bound, because they cause ethereal software to connect to a person who focuses on them.

The symbol can be basically anything. I just made some lines in Paint. The lines had nothing to do with anything, they were just random squiggles. They were not specially designed in any way.

To bind my ethereal software to my sigil, I contacted another force (another ethereal software) that seems to handle this. I asked it to, “Associate this symbol I’m looking at with this ethereal software I’m connecting you to,” and it said OK. And I thought to myself, “It can’t possibly be that easy. The universe can’t possibly work like this.” That’s why I tested it.

To use a sigil, a person focuses on the symbol, and the ethereal software connects to them. How does that work? Before the 2012 test, I would have said that the person already has a connection to the ethereal software, and the sigil reminds them of that force, activating the connection. But the whole point of the 2012 test was that no one had used the ethereal software before, and it still connected to them.

Even today, I find this whole phenomenon odd. But when our expectations disagree with the results we observe, we trust our observations. That’s really the only rule of science.

That’s why I want to do a better test today.

Why Do Double-Blind Testing

In 2012, I gave readers a sigil, told them what a success would look like, and asked them to try it. The results were great: Most experienced practitioners successfully felt the connection, and some even used it for manifesting.

But… Everyone experienced what they expected to experience. How could I know it was the result of energy and ethereal software, and not placebo and suggestion?

The truth is, I can’t. The testing wasn’t rigorous.

For those of you wondering why I spend so much time on scientific testing, this is the exact reason: A good test lets me be confident of the results. A bad test leaves doubt. Scientific testing is about moving from unconfident belief to confident knowledge.

I knew all this in 2012, but flinched away from that idea. Proper testing has a brutal honesty, it can tell me I’m wrong. That’s the whole point. But that’s also scary, so I punted with a good-but-imperfect test. (That’s also why this post is a few days late.)

Here’s what I’m doing this time:

There are 2 sigils. One bound to my ethereal software, the other (the placebo) not bound. You won’t know which is which. You’ll randomly select one, try it, report what happens. I have over 1,000 readers, so we should get a bunch of data on both sigils, and we can see if they give the same results (meaning the sensations are placebo) or different results (meaning the binding actually does something). I’m excited to find out.

As I write this post (and the twitter and facebook announcements), I don’t know which sigil will be bound. I’ve created the images, but I won’t bind them until this post is entirely finished and ready to post. This ensures I don’t subtly, unconsciously suggest to you which one is bound — I can’t, because I don’t know. That’s what “double-blind” means, that neither of us knows which one is real. After this post is fully written and ready to go up, I’ll randomly pick a sigil (by flipping a coin) and bind it. (By the time you read this, one of the sigils will be bound.)

(For readers who have used my book’s ethereal software and wanted confirmation that they were getting actual results, not just placebo, this is a great time to test that. Try both sigils, see what you notice, then come back when I reveal the results.)

I’m going to leave all comments in Pending state for 4 weeks, until August 14. That way no one will be influenced by anyone else’s results.

Nothing about this is technically difficult. 99% of the difficulty is emotional. That’s often the case when scientifically testing healing and magick.

How You Can Participate

Step 1: Focus on the sigil: You’ll find links to the two sigils at the bottom of this post. Flip a coin to pick one randomly. Click the link, focus on the sigil. Look at the whole image, then focus on each symbol. Do this for about half a minute.

Step 2: Request an obvious connection: Continue focusing on the sigil and think the message, “Give me an obvious connection.” It’s OK if you rephrase it, but keep the words / concepts “obvious connection” and specify it goes to you. If English isn’t your primary language, use whatever language is easiest for you — the ethereal software responds to concepts, not the words themselves. Focus on the sigil and repeat this command for another half-minute, or until you notice the connection.

Feeling the connection: The connection should feel like an intense energy: Tingling, possibly pressure or heat. It’s tuned to be obvious to most people, so those more sensitive to energy may find it too intense, but don’t worry, it’ll stop as soon as you ask it to. (And please accept my apologies, along with my gratitude for helping with this project.)

Step 3: Turn off the connection: To turn off the connection, think the message, “Turn off the obvious connection.” This should stop the sensations immediately.

If you want to try manifesting with this ethereal software, just ask it for what you want. “Cause me to [whatever goal].” It also has commands for shielding, awakening your ethereal muscles, and more. See my book-in-progress for some ideas.

Step 4: Disconnect: When you’re done, tell the ethereal software to disconnect by thinking the message, “Disconnect from me.” In total, testing one sigil like this should take 1-2 minutes.

Step 5: Test the other sigil tomorrow: At this point, you’ve tested one of the two sigils. Maybe you felt something, maybe you didn’t. Either way, wait. Don’t go on to the other sigil yet — give the ethereal software time to disconnect. If it’s still connected, you could receive energy from it even if you’re looking at the placebo sigil. So wait. Do the other sigil tomorrow.

Similarly, please do this test as your first act of magick / energy work of the day. If you’ve already been working with other forces (such as my book’s ethereal software, channeling healing energy, doing ritual magick, etc), it’s possible you’re still connected to those forces, and they could influence the results.

After testing a sigil, please fill out the form below and post it as a comment. I’ll leave all comments in “Pending” status until August 14, so they don’t display for other readers and influence their expectations.

Thank you so much for helping me test sigils!

Here are the links. After clicking the link, you can click the sigil to make it full-screen. (Remember, flip a coin to pick the sigil, and only do one per day):

Sigil 1 (heads)

Sigil 2 (tails)

(It doesn’t matter which sigil goes with heads, but it’s important to decide that before flipping the coin. If we flip the coin, get heads, and then decide which sigil goes with heads, we haven’t actually randomized. That’s why I labeled them.)

Here’s the results form, paste it into the comment field below:

Sigil used: Heads / Tails

Did you notice a connection just from focusing on the sigil?

What did you feel when you asked for an obvious connection? (Description, 1-2 sentences)

How strong was the obvious connection? (0-10, 0 = no sensation, 4 = gentle breeze, 7 = light touch, 10 = firm touch)

What’s your experience with energy / magick / healing / etc?

Did you participate in the 2012 testing?

Other notes / comments:

Thank you!

If you liked this post, consider visiting my current blog at mikesententia.com.

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Posted in Experiments | 44 Comments »

How Do Sigils Create Luck? And More Reader Questions

Monday, February 15th, 2016

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Sharon, a new reader, experienced psychic, and curious scientist, sent me some excellent questions. Today, I’m answering the second half of her email. (First half is here if you missed it.)

Once again, her text in italics.

5. What is the driving force, place, plain, thing, that sends me these messages in my mind? Why does it send me these intuitions?

Short answer: Ethereal software. Longer answer is below.

6. How do sigils change behaviour and events physically?

This was one of my initial driving questions. Even before I realized I was developing a new system of magick, I wanted to know how a symbolic action over here (like a ritual or a sigil) could cause a change over there. Also, borrowing a question from Chaos Magick, how is it that all these different systems, with different techniques and explanations and theories, all produced such similar results?

I didn’t have the language at the time, but looking back, those questions hinged on complexity. Creating luck is complex. It requires predicting events, evaluating many options, and understanding which specific states of the world will satisfy the request. Decisions that complex couldn’t happen in, say, a bird’s mind. And if they happened in my mind, I would probably be aware of all the options and paths my mind was evaluating, which simply wasn’t my experience. So I hypothesized that those complex decisions happened in the forces we channel — what I now call ethereal software.

I’m glad I wasn’t thinking about sigils back then, because that adds a few steps, and I don’t think I would have guessed them correctly. Let me explain:

If a person does a ritual, and they’re already connected to ethereal software, then it’s obvious that the software can respond to their ritual. And if a person touches a stone or jewelry or other object, connects their ethereal software to the object, then mails the object to someone else, it’s obvious that the recipient could touch the object and connect to the software. All of that just makes sense to me.

What about sigils? If you have a dozen stones, all with different software attached, you might want to label them. The label wouldn’t be magickally important, but it would help you grab the right stone. Similarly, if a person associates a sigil with a certain intent, seeing the sigil might keep their unconscious focused on that intent. (This is more or less A.O. Spare’s sigils.) So, sigils as labels and reminders, that was my model for years.

In 2008 or 2009, I tested it. Actually, I was experimenting with making connections based on pictures and voices and videos on youtube, looking into how that worked. I found that, after I focused on the picture but before I got the connection to the person, a specific piece of ethereal software connected to me, just for a second. I called this “lookup software,” because it was looking up the person associated with that picture.

A few months later, I was looking at a symbol for Golden Dawn or something similar, and found similar lookup software. Somehow, it detected that I was looking at the sigil and automatically connected me to that system’s ethereal software.

I still didn’t fully believe it. That result just seemed so odd. Where did that lookup software come from? How did it know when to connect? But then I wanted to distribute some ethereal software with my book, and I decided to test it. I made a sigil, contacted that sigil-detecting ethereal software, asked it to associate my book’s ethereal software with the sigil. Then I tested a sigil, online, with all of you. I really expected that test to fail, it just seemed so odd, so unlikely to be the way the world actually works. But now over 50 readers have tested it (thank you!!!) and it works. So, based on being able to use that sigil-recognizing software to bind a software of my choosing to a sigil, I’m fairly confident that’s how sigils work.

Your blog has helped me to get close to the answer to questions 5 and 6, so thank you very much for your help :-)
To answer no. 5, this blog gives ‘etheral software’. I would like a clarification of what this is, if possible. I’m the sort of person who is not able to do magik until they deeply understand all the parts involved, the same way that I don’t plan on eating a food till I know what every ingredient is e.g where it came from, what it is made of, who gathered it etc.

You’re absolutely correct, the name “ethereal software” isn’t an answer. It’s just a word. If a person doesn’t understand what that word refers to, then it’s only a curiosity stopper.

The best way to understand ethereal software really is to use it. That’s why my book starts by showing how to connect to it.

You receive psychic intuitions. So instead of connecting you to my ethereal software, let’s make you aware of your own. Try engaging your mind to ask for a psychic intuition, but instead of asking for luck, ask, “Give me your basic usage instructions.” That’s a common and useful command for most ethereal software.

Therefore, it is difficult for me to do magik if I do not know exactly what this software is. Is it in the sky? Is it outside of the universe?

Ethereal objects don’t have a location in the same way that your laptop or house do. That’s like asking, “Where is the internet?” It’s more accurate to ask what ordinary physical object the software is bound to.

And how does it affect the future?
How does my intent change it?

Ethereal software seems to work by connecting to the user’s mind and reading their thoughts. This is another idea that used to be a hypothesis, but now I’ve used it to help a friend get new software for new psychic intuitions, and to activate psychic intuitions for myself (with a lot of debugging), and some other techniques.

In terms of how it affects the future, I don’t know. I have some ideas. And I hope you’ll help us in answering that one day.

I have heard that magik works because it is you changing the brainwaves in your mind and charging your mind with those brain waves e.g. when a person laughs, they send out positive energy so you laugh to.
Therefore, different crystals and herbs give off different energies, wavelengths, frequencies etc. That have an effect on us. But this is easy, meaning I can charge a bag of crystals, carry them with me, and my intent will work out since the crystals give off the right frequencies to bring about change.

In my previous post (which wasn’t up when Sharon sent these questions), we talked about the difference between visualizations to engage the unconscious vs models of how magick actually works. Both the ideas you mention (broadcasting brainwaves and crystals carrying intent) seem like fun visualizations, but are probably not the real mechanism of magick.

How can we tell? Ask, “If the world really worked like that, what would we expect to see?” If smiling (and presumably other actions) really released waves that other people could easily, reliably pick up, we would expect to see psychic experiments producing dramatic, obvious successes — 90% accuracy, not slightly-higher-than-random accuracy. And if crystals were the key ingredient to creating luck, we would expect all the systems of magick that don’t use crystals to fail.

I struggle to comprehend how there is a system independent of all of us that we can tap into, tell what to do, and it does it for us AND at the time needed . How I can sit doing a ritual with the intention to get a job and this software does it for me at the exact time I need it in 3 days or even it may mean I miss that job interview and get an even better job. It sounds like an unnamed diety to me, and I’m an atheist :-( (who strongly beleives in ghosts and spirits, maybe even faeries)

Indeed. I think we do our best work when we face the true complexity of manifesting, when we realize the magnitude of decisions and knowledge and guidance it requires, and grapple with the forces involved in creating that. This is why answers like “crystals channel your intent” or “brainwaves transmit your intent” never sounded right to me — those are simple mechanisms, and a simple mechanism doesn’t create a complex behavior.

But ethereal software isn’t a deity. It’s a powerful tool, like your computer. It knows how to retrieve information that you, as a human, cannot easily access. And it can act on that information in ways that you, as a human, cannot easily do yourself. But it’s a tool, not a deity to be worshiped.

With all of this, I’d encourage you to explore. Try it yourself. Get some experience with ethereal software, the spirits that make it, and all the rest of magick. Then you’ll be able to trust your own experiences, instead of my words. Which is how it should be.

If you liked this post, consider visiting my current blog at mikesententia.com.

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Posted in Beginning Conscious Magick | No Comments »

Complexity Isn’t Free: Sigils

Monday, January 27th, 2014

You found my old blog. Thanks for visiting! For my new writing, visit mikesententia.com.

This post is about how I think about magick, and how I find holes in my knowledge worth exploring.

It grew out of a discussion with Ananael about how sigils work. In my chapter, Using Ethereal Software. I said:

I’ve always been puzzled by sigils. How can looking at lines on a computer screen do anything?

It seems there’s an ethereal software that notices when people look at sigils. […] [I] registered my own sigil and software with it.

Ananael disagrees:

My point is that once you tell your “software” to synchronize itself with the sigil it will continue to resonate with it and therefore for any subsequent use there’s no explicit lookup step. When you hold the sigil in your mind, the similarity link is formed by the neural firing pattern, which in turn is governed by the sigil’s exact shape. […] That’s just the way the human brain works.

(Our discussion has other interesting ideas, on both sides, that I’m not citing here. Worth reading.)

Whenever I get an explanation, I try to imagine all the pieces, and step through how it works. Here’s what happens when I do that with Ananael’s model:

  • I tell my software to synchronize with the sigil. Great — not exactly what I did, but close enough, and what chaos magicians do with egregores all the time. (Note: Ergegore and ethereal software probably refer to the same external forces, using different metaphors and explanations.)
  • Not sure what “resonates” means, but let’s say that, if a person asks the software, “Is this your sigil,” it will answer “yes.”
  • Then I post the sigil online. It becomes an image file, then a bunch of electronic impulses, then some light on a computer screen. And you look at it, which makes your nerves fire in a way that’s “governed by the sigil’s shape.” Yup, that all sounds like standard technology / biology.
  • But then what happens? How does nerve firing create a connection to the software? Remember, the software doesn’t understand the image compression and electronic impulses, doesn’t follow them anywhere. What talks to what, where does that information go?

In computer programming, there’s a concept of bad code smell. That’s when a piece of code just feels wrong. It doesn’t necessarily make your program crash, and it’s often nothing you can prove is an error. Occasionally there’s even a good reason to do something that smells bad. But usually, something that smells bad is bad, and it’s just that you haven’t found the error yet. It’s more art than science, but after coding for a few years (or decades), you get a sense of it.

That model has a bad smell. Specifically, it smells like “free complexity,” that is, imagining that a step is simple when it’s actually complex. It’s easy to read “the similarity link is formed by the neural firing pattern,” nod your head, and get swept away by the long words. And it’s easy to imagine a sentient homunculus floating out of a person’s mind, walking over to the ethereal software that we all know goes with the sigil, and making that connection. It’s easy to ignore that the homunculus wouldn’t know which software it wants, or not to think about searching through those 1000s of softwares, or to ignore how darn complex it would be to create something that can even do that searching. After all, it’s natural for humans to imagine that everything has a human mind inside it. It’s easy to ignore all that complexity, and never realize that this step doesn’t “just happen.”

I never expected these sigil-based connections to work in the first place. I always assumed sigils were like CD labels: The connection went to the object the sigil was drawn on, like how the data is on the reflective side of the CD. The sigil / CD label is just for convenience, so you know what force / data you’ll get. Slapping a label on a blank CD doesn’t suddenly fill it with music, and making a symbol on a computer screen shouldn’t suddenly connect it to a force. I assumed that everyone using sigils for magick were just using the connections to the physical objects, or they were already connected to the software and the sigil just told their unconscious to engage that connection. I figured the people saying sigils actually did magick were just mistaken.

I was wrong, of course. But I wonder, if I had learned magick from books rather than my own explorations, and if those books had explained these “similarity links” as simple and natural and not deserving of any special attention, would I ever have realized that step was really complex?

I’ll stop there. Ananael (or anyone else), if you want to continue the discussion of similarity links, please feel free. And if you pick it up on your blog, please leave a comment here with a link to your post. Thanks!

If you liked this post, consider visiting my current blog at mikesententia.com.

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Posted in Science | 9 Comments »

Mystery Solved (Book’s Ethereal Software)

Saturday, August 10th, 2013

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If you’ve followed the comments on the old post about beta testing the ethereal software for my book, you know there was a mystery recently. Today, I solved it. And, as is often the case, the answer is less of a deep revelation, and more of a simple technique I was doing wrong.

A little background: To teach readers magick, I had some spirits I work with make some ethereal software. I tied the software to a sigil, so readers can access it. And I posted the sigil, to verify that readers would, in fact, get the connections.

A week or two ago, a reader said she didn’t notice anything while looking at the sigil. That’s common enough, since non-mages generally don’t notice connections, but in writing my reply, I looked at the sigil too, and didn’t notice any connections myself. Odd, but I tied the software to the sigil over a year ago, and I’m no expert at that. Maybe it wore off?

Then another reader tested it out again. (This is one of the reasons I love blogging: Getting this kind of feedback and help from readers. Thanks, guys!) He found that everything was working. So I tested it again, and again found nothing. My guess was that his mind was used to contacting the software, and looking at the sigil simply reminded his unconscious of the software, and it made the connection based on his memory of the software’s signature, without actually using the sigil itself.

A few days later, another reader tested it, and also found it was working. Which makes it less likely that the sigil has faded. I tested it again, and again found nothing. But I kept at it, and noticed a very light connection being blocked by my shielding.

Yup, that’s the software’s connection. Once I let it in, everything’s working again. And once I told my ethereal muscles to trust that connection from the software, the sigil works again for me, quite quickly.

Here’s what happened: I hadn’t used that software in a year or more, and my ethereal muscles forgot to trust it. Like if you don’t visit a website for a year, and then you stumble on it again, and you’re not sure if you recognize it. Since they didn’t trust it, my shielding wasn’t allowing its connections in. A simple error on my part, and a nice reminder that magick is really complicated.

And once again, thank you to Grab, Nikki, and all my readers who’ve helped me with this testing.

If you liked this post, consider visiting my current blog at mikesententia.com.

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Posted in Intermediate Conscious Magick | 5 Comments »

My Magick This Week (June 10)

Sunday, June 10th, 2012

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I’m adding a new weekly post: The magick practice I did this week, so you can see what I’m working on and what I do with direct magick.

I had 3 projects this week: Quiet mental posture, making the sigil, and awakening another large mental muscle for communication.

Quiet Mental Posture

Remember the technique to quiet my mind in an afternoon? I did it for more of my mind. A bit of background:

There are 4 major groups of mental muscles: Access (which handles connections); mental activation (which works with getting power to all the right places to awaken mental muscles and other things); effects (which handles altering energy and form for energy healing, influencing emotions, and so on); and communication (sending and receiving messages with spirits and ethereal software). Each group has a lot of individual mental muscles that work together to accomplish that goal, and until I had a lot of muscles active for each group, I had a hard time seeing what that group was for.

Last week, I prepared thinking mind to receive information from the “access” group of mental muscles. It took me 2 days, once you add in the practice time to do magick while in the new quiet posture, and I was feeling all productive. Then I went back to my trainer, who watched me, and said, “I know I told you to just set that up for the access group, but really, you also need to get the mental activation group and the effects group in that posture, too, so they can all send you information accurately.” I didn’t feel so productive anymore.

This is fairly common, actually. A lot of my work involves learning a technique to make my mental muscles work better, then spending a week applying it to all my muscles. It’s not the exciting part of magick, but I just work through it, telling myself that this sort of repetitive practice is what makes the difference between an expert and a hobbyist. (Not sure if that’s entirely true, but it helps me work through the exercises, and sometimes, being effective matters more than being entirely accurate.)

Two days later, I had a quiet mental posture set up for three groups of mental muscles, and it is indeed more clear when I look around my mind, body, and the paths that supply power to both of them. So I’m happy with the results, though a bit bummed because I thought I’d get to start new projects this week.

Making the Sigil

I’m very slowly moving forward on tying the book’s ethereal software to a sigil, so you can all get access to it. The work itself isn’t hard, I just need to:

  • Channel a sigil from the Enochian spirits. (Done — this was surprisingly easy. I thought it would be tiring, but the shapes came through easily.)
  • Computerize the symbols. (I downloaded several computer softwares for this, but haven’t actually done it.)
  • Train in how to tie the ethereal software to a symbol, then actually do it. (Should be 1 day of work for all 6 symbols.)
  • Test it on myself and some friends, then post it for all of you to test.

Honestly, I’ve been dragging my feet on this. I expect to fail several times before I get it right. Maybe the sigil won’t connect you reliably, or it’ll require the mage to participate in making the connection (which many readers won’t know how to do), or I’ll have other problems I can’t yet foresee. That’s just the nature of learning a new technique: It will require debugging. But I’m worried I’ll look foolish, debugging this technique publicly based on your feedback. And so, I keep putting it off, hoping that learning a bit more magick will turn this into something easy that I succeed with right away. But I made progress last week, and I’ll probably do a closed beta this coming week (where I email the sigil to some friends to verify it works for them), then post it after that.

By the way: A friend is already using the ethereal software with good results. I’ll post some of her experiences soon, too.

Awakening a Mental Muscle

I spent a couple of half-distracted days awakening a new mental muscle. Really, a group of mental muscles, devoted to communication, making it as large as my other groups of mental muscles. This should make communication much easier, helping my training, manifesting, and a lot of other work.

That should excite me, but I’m not quite ready to be excited. Before it’s useful, I need to update my mental posture to take advantage of the new muscles (1 day), then update the connections my mental muscles use to send and receive messages with my thinking mind (1-2 days), then develop a quiet mental posture for all the areas that receive messages, which is basically my entire mind (who knows how long this takes). So this is probably 1-2 weeks of work, and since I’ll be making lots of changes to how I do communication, it’ll probably get harder before it gets easier. Which means that I’m kind of dreading this project. But this work is the price of becoming more skilled, and it’s nothing complex at this point, just a matter of repeating techniques I already know.

Summary

Wow, that was kind of a downer. Sorry. Really, my work goes in waves. At first, I’ll be excited about learning something new and seeing it work. (That was two weeks ago.) Then, I’ll repeat that technique on all my different mental muscles, and the new and exciting technique will become a repetitive task that I just work through. (This past week.) Then, as I finish applying it everywhere, I’ll see all these improvements in my magick and become excited again. (This coming week, I hope.) It just happens that I’m in the slow part of my work this week, but this is all normal for me, and it will all pass.

Thoughts? Was this helpful for you? Should I make this a weekly post? Thanks for the feedback.

If you liked this post, consider visiting my current blog at mikesententia.com.

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Posted in Advanced Conscious Magick | 1 Comment »