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Diaryland
Analyzing the Solomonic Spirit Seals May 29, 2008 @ 7:05 p.m.
Had a great session today rereading the Lemegeton with some new eyes and knowledge, and discovering all sorts of wonderful things I never
noticed before but which sheds light on all kinds of magic. One of the things I noticed and wanted to ask y'all about: have you ever noticed that the spirit seals in books like the Goetia and the Theurgia-Goetia are not random, but rather assembled from discrete and identifiable elements?
I got to thinking about this today after having reread Donald Tyson's book on Familiar Spirits last night. Tyson introduced a system for obtaining (and even creating) admixed elemental familiars through means of a personal kind of sigil alphabet that he either developed or channeled. Like Agrippa or Spare's sigils, they are drawn from the letters in the name, but UNLIKE them, instead of constructing them out of actual letters (English, Hebrew, or otherwise), they are instead constructed from a pictorial, even runic, kind of alphabet. In Tyson's alphabet, each letter is a rune, symbol and sigil in itself, with its own attributions and meanings, making each element of the set much more than just a phoentic sound equivalent. In his method, one artfully combines the elements that compose the essential name of the spirit to create an aesthetically pleasing sigil that is not merely abstract, but actually a kind of picture of the entity
that expresses something more than the sum of its parts.
Now, looking at the seals for the goetic or aerial spirits, you can identify the same kinds of elements over and over again, just like in Tyson's sigils. In this case, we find crosses, triangles, lines, curves, circles, and other discrete sub-elements.
Perhaps you guys can help me out with deciphering this? My goal is to have the ability to completely understand, deconstruct, or derive a medieval-style spirit seal. I haven't been able to identify the precise pattern and equivalence yet, but I just know there's got to be a connection!
I tried to see if there was a connection between the spirit's name and its letters and the elements of the composition, but so far I haven't been able to find the pattern. For example, I looked to see if a sigil with 4 black triangles lined up with a spirit name that had 4 of the same letter. So far, no cigar. I'm wondering if perhaps copies or additional elements might be added for aesthetics or symmetry in the seals? They might not be derived from the name at all even -- maybe its from something else? But most of the time, you can definitely see them as picturing the entity in question according to his qualities, within the bounds of the system (whatever it is). Bael, for instance, has a seal that looks quite like the toad he's said to manifest as or with. Nothing arbitrary about these seals;
forgive the pun, but they are certainly "evocative" of the characteristics of their spirits.
"Details in the Fabric" - May 31, 2009
Not So Quick Questions - April 6, 2009
The Morning Stars - Lords of the 15 - April 9, 2009
Sincerity and Faith in Magic - April 10, 2009
Not So Quick Questions (2) - April 14, 2009
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