Sigil Business!

Sometime in early 2009, I was approached by a person about creating a sigil to help him get more business. While I’m personally of the belief that if you want something, you should do it yourself, I was also intrigued by his request, partially because I was in the process of working to get more clients for my own business ventures. However, as I thought about it, I realized I wanted to do something magical that worked for more than just one or two businesses, and had more of a positive effect for people in general.

I took this request to a group of other magical practitioners I work with on a regular basis. We started out by asking ourselves what the best method of delivery was. Should we  use a sigil that we could give out to people, or should we work some kind of ceremonial magical working and then share that working with others, or should we work with a deity or daemon of wealth? We discussed all of those possibilities and ended up rejecting all of them for various reasons.

Another concern we discussed what exactly what we’d focus that’d really be representative of economic activism. We didn’t feel that helping corporations to be economically healthier was really benefitting everyone, and also felt that magically prompting people to spend money was both unethical and not a definite solution to the poor economy.

The more time we spent discussing what would be a viable form of economic activism, the more we realized that it was very hard to come to a group consensus about a magical act that all of us could be comfortable with. However one theme that consistently came up was that any magical work we did needed to incorporate the theme of collaboration in it, the idea that people would actively help each other out and work together.

Eventually we decided that we would create a networking entity; specifically an entity which would help people network better. While the stereotypical image of a networker is a person holding a business card in one hand and a drink in the other, the reality is that a networker is someone who is focused on creating quality relationships with the people s/he knows and finding out what each person needs, while matching him/her up with someone who can meet that need. In essence, the very quality of collaboration that we’d agreed on, and an essential ingredient in really building up a community.

The next step was to create an entity. We decided to use a technique where the entity would tell us it’s naming using a pendulum and letters. One of us would use the pendulum and be guided by the entity, while the rest of us put our energy into the creation of the entity. This was a fairly exhausting method for determining the entity’s name, especially for the person using the pendulum, but we also thought it was a useful way of introducing ourselves to the entity, while also creating it. Eventually we did get a name: Zi Fupsekip Vosri. It actually rolls off the tongue fairly well, and the image that came to mind was of some Eastern European person in a suit, with a pleasant smile and an eagerness to help others and collaborate.

Having the name wasn’t enough. We also needed a message from this entity that embodied what it had to offer and a symbol that embodied the concept as well as a method of transmission by which we could share the entity. The method of transmission we decided on was to create a business card format. Because business cards are used as a transmission of a person’s information we thought this might be a successful way to share the entity with other people.

On the front of the card we placed the name of the entity, and a symbol that represented networking, the bringing together of many different connections to form a pattern of success that could be shared to the benefit of everyone. We wanted the concept of networking to focus on success, regardless of whether it was monetary or bargaining or some other form of success, so we came up with a phrase: Mutually Assured Prosperity, Inc(arnated): Wherever people meet to create  abundance. The idea being that if people met to share and collaborate this entity would be there, helping them to do that, as well as encouraging the possibility of other opportunities. On the back of the card we provided further details about what Zi Fupsekip Vosri does and how to feed Zi Fupsekip Vosri (simply pass out the card to other people).

All it takes to activate Zi Fupsekip Vosri is passing out the card. We’ve already put together a small batch of cards, and more will be sent to a professional printer so that we can start passing them out to our local community. The best thing about this card is that it can be a conversation starter, which is the spirit of true networking. Passing the card provides the opportunity to explain what the card is about, but also will provide you the opportunity to find out more about the people you are meeting. Remember to ask the phrase, “What do you need?” It’s a powerful phrase that will allow you to find out what someone else needs and start figuring out who you know that can help this person. And of course, don’t be shy in sharing what you need. You never know who that person is connected to, who could help you!

Below are images of the front of the card and the back of the card. I invite readers to create their own cards and share Zi Fupsekip Vosri with the people they know and don’t know. Network, collaborate and share, and through that create an act of economic activism that helps everyone as opposed to only a few.

rear of card

I would like to thank Innowen, Cobalt, Rowan, MM, and Bill Whitcomb for their help and participation in creating this entity.

Taylor Ellwood

In Inner Alchemy, I wrote about my experiments with finding and working with neurotransmitter spirit guides and forms of life (such as bacteria) that exist in the human body. I created an alphabet of desire with each letter representing a distinct entity. The letter could be used to find the entity when doing internal work with the body or it could be used to evoke the entity, when healing someone else. The latter approach of evocation focused on the concept that although the symbol was a personal one for your body, it could still be used to find a resonance with the specific neurotransmitter or other entities in a body. The entities could then be worked with to aid in healing or doing whatever else a person might wish to do.

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My latest work with these concepts has continued to focus on creating better communication with the human body. Most of the communication that the average person seems to have with the body is reactionary, based more on what the body tells the person and less on a conscious choice to communicate. The rest of the communication that seems to occur focuses on cultural attitudes of the body disseminated to it by memetics. At least in the U.S., we live in a fairly body phobic culture, which perceives the body as a dirty, sinful sack of flesh, with impulses and desires that need to be repressed as much as possible, in order to avoid making a scene. A person rips a fart and everyone glares at the offender, the smell of it offending that most delicate of sensibilities that a person should never smell anything unpleasant.

In fact, it is the relationship a person has with the five external senses that tells a lot about how connected a person is with hir body. For many people, the senses of smell and taste are discounted, only coming into play when its time to eat. We are taught to use deodorant to avoid offending someone with the smell of the body. And heaven’s forbid you should happen to actually smell anything associated with human waste. We are taught to crinkle our noses, and avoid such smells. Taste also becomes a victim of the focus on what you’re eating. Don’t ever stick your tongue out in a city. You’ll taste all the pollution that it’s in the air. With sight, touch, and sound, there are various forms of similar aversive reactions, all brought about by cultural engineering. A cultural aversion of what seems unpleasant has overtaken our instincts. We are taught to avert our eyes, not touch, nor listen, and yet this very repression of our senses leads to a rebellion for the body itself, which knows that it must get our attention somehow in order to be taken care of.

When a person complains about how s/he doesn’t like hir body, I tell hir to try listening to hir body more. Choosing not to acknowledge what our external senses tell us only invites the body to respond in more drastic ways. For instance, the smell a person’s body exudes can tell that person if s/he is sick, healthy, even give a sense of what s/he has eaten. But when we choose to deny the information our senses provide us, we ignore the fundamental reality of the body and the fact that without it we could not exist in a meaningful physical manner. Bear in mind as well, that if we’re used to ignoring the external senses, we’ve also probably suppressed the internal senses.

Internal senses deal with an awareness of the actual state of the body. Balance, as an example, is an internal sense. We normally don’t think of balance as a sense, and rarely acknowledge it until we actually lose balance. Another internal sense is the kinesthetic awareness we have of the movement of our bodies. We’re aware of this sense, but it’s probably fair to say that most people take it for granted, or aren’t sure what to make of it when they feel it. There are more internal senses that could be explored, but for now suffice to say that your body has many wonders and mysteries for you to explore.

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When I originally decided to come up with a language to communicate with body, I limited myself, thinking I would create a language to facilitate better communication with the neurotransmitters and bacteria, and other such beings. But shortly into trying to develop such a language, my entity for dopamine told me I already had a language and way of communicating with him and the other entities, i.e. my AOD for the body. Realizing that, I knew I didn’t need a language for interacting with those entities and I puzzled over why I might even need a language at all, until that is my left knee began bothering me with some joint pain. I’d always had a kinesthetic feeling of pain in that knee and I’d never really come to terms with what caused the pain. I could lessen the pain if I popped the knee joint, but eventually it would come back. I knew, when I felt that pain that although I could communicate with my neurotransmitters I hadn’t necessarily communicated with my body as a whole.

I could’ve used breathing techniques and guided visualization to try and communicate with my knee. These approaches had worked with getting in touch with the neurotransmitters and even with some of the cell work I did, but I felt that although those techniques could play a role, they might not be the best way to get in touch with the consciousness of my body. And while focusing on the internal senses could be helpful in finding specific problems with the body, I also felt that alone wasn’t enough to address the body. I decided instead to look toward the biphotonic energy that’s within cells. This energy is used in the DNA of cells for communication and other functions. I also looked into a recent science article, which argued that nerves use sound instead of electricity for communication. This is done because the membranes for nerves allow sound to be sustained instead of gradually weakening. I figured that using sound or biphotonic energy I could develop a way to communicate with the body that would allow me to actually have a conversation, albeit in a different medium than language itself.

What I ended up developing looks like a lot of lines and dots on paper. The lines are long signals, while the dots are short signals. In addition, some shapes such as triangles and curved lines were also developed to help with the context of communication. Also it’s important to note that the language isn’t a linear language with one word follow after the other. Instead it might be fair to say it’s more of a pictograph language. As of yet there aren’t many of these pictographs developed, but over time more maybe developed.

My first experiment was to communicate with my knee. I used breathwork to put myself into meditation. I then focused my kinesthetic awareness on the pain in my knee. Once my awareness was fully on that location, I began communicate, imagining a series of sounds going from my consciousness to my knee. It did help me to visualize the sounds as lines and dots, but that was mainly for me, a convenient interface for my human consciousness as it interacted with the cellular consciousness in my knee. I used the sounds and visualization to guide the biophotonic energy in its work with the knee.

When I communicated with my knee in this way, memories of a bike ride down a rocky path and falling and hitting my knee, as well as hurting my leg and belly came to the forefront of my consciousness. Instead of dismissing this memory, I realized that my knee was communicating in return showing the cause of the pain. Long after a memory fades from the conscious mind, it can still reside in the flesh. The body retains the memory and can relive it at any moment and my knee was reliving the cause of its pain, as well as showing me that the issue dealt with more than just the knee. In fact, my left leg has always troubled me a bit, and now I knew what the cause was.

I continued using the dots and lines to communicate with my cells, but also interacted with the memory. The dots and lines instructed the biophotonic energy of my cells to start repairing any damage that might be in my knee and leg. The memory interaction involved comforting the earlier version of myself, while taking a look at the leg and doing some healing to that memory. Over the course of a few days I continued my interaction with my knee, going back to the memory, but also continuing to use the language I’d developed to communicate with my cells. I healed the pain in the knee and in my leg, to the point that I didn’t need to pop it as often. The kinesthetic sense of my knee is that it now feels stronger. I feel as if I can walk with more confidence on my left leg.

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I am still developing the language I use to communicate with my body. I’m doing it not only to have a better awareness of my body, but to also continue advancing the concepts I wrote about in Inner Alchemy. I am certain that just as I’m developing a language to communicate with my body, it’s possible for other people to develop their own language or use the one I create. The reason I mention developing your own language is because your body is your own. You must be willing to speak with it and listen to it, because it has its own forms of consciousness. By acknowledging that consciousness, you can work closely with your body and come to not only a better understanding of it, but also much more comfort with it. Since healing my knee and leg I’ve felt much more comfortable with my body. Another benefit as well is the potential to communicate with the body when ill, in order to coordinate its efforts to heal itself, but that is experimentation for a later time as the language is further developed.

Taylor Ellwood

Featured music this week is a cool live recording of the amazing Ma Meeshka Mow Skwoz by Mr Bungle.

Taylor Ellwood Biog:

Taylor Ellwood lives in Portland with his beautiful mate Lupa, and two cats. He’s a co-author of Creating Magickal Entities (with David Cunninghman and Amanda Wagener), and Kink Magic (with Lupa. He is the author of Pop Culture Magick, Space/Time Magic, Inner Alchemy, Multi-Media Magic and the editor of the Magick on the Edge Anthology, Manifesting Prosperity Anthology, and the Pop Culture Grimoire. When Taylor isn’t editing Non-fiction books for Immanion Press, or working on his latest work, he can be found gaming, reading, and enjoying the company of his lovely wife. For more information about Taylor, please go to The Green Wolf or visit Magical Experiments.

Following this episode will be an interview with the writer Taylor Ellwood, returning the show to the realms of the occult.

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