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S2E33 TRANSCRIPT:----more----

Yucca: Welcome back to the wonder science-based paganism. I'm your host Yucca. 

Mark: And I'm mark.

Yucca: And this week we are talking about sigils. So it's another really fun one where we're going to get into the nuts and bolts the details. Get into a specific practice. 

Mark: Right. This is a time honored tradition. People have been making. Hmm, symbols that they consider to be magical for thousands of years. We have the, you know, the seals on the tombs of the Kings in, in Egypt Lots of really kind of very old symbols that are meant to have magical powers. So, this is something that we can do in our own time.

And it's fun and it can be psychologically effective. So we thought we would do an episode about it.

Yucca: exactly. And I think a really great place to start is to come back to our view on magic and magical practices and how we see that, because this is a. Non-thesis is a science based paganism podcast. So when we talk about a magical practice, we aren't saying that that this is, you know, magic with a capital M where we're really making things float or fly or casting spells.

This is a psychological process. 

Mark: Right. This, this is something that we can do, which will change us internally. Our, our brains are, our minds are incredibly programmable and are we're constantly creating new neural pathways to accommodate new experiences and new understanding. Our, our brains are very plastic in that way. And so we've, you.

The practice of rituals and magic and so forth as with the intention of changing something about what's happening in our minds, whether it's our emotional state or our our degree of focus on something that's important to us or our commitment to a goal any of those kinds of things. And what's really cool about a sigil is that it can give you this.

Sort of quick flash stamp of something, which will then remind you of a whole magical meaning that you folded into the creation of that sigil.

Yucca: Yeah. So. So given that, I mean, let's, let's get a little bit more into what a sigil.

is. I loved the imagery that you started with, right? The, the symbol on the tomb and the ancient pharaohs and things like that. But, but this is something that gets used in a lot of different cultures over millennia and something that we do today. 

Mark: Yeah. And some of them are some of those kinds of symbols are very standard eyes. Like the evil eye, for example, in many of the Mediterranean cultures is something that's been around. It appears for. At least a couple thousand years. 

Yucca: Predating the religions that commonly use them today. 

Mark: exactly. And so those, those symbols become freighted with not only meaning for the individuals that are putting them down, but then also there's that historical momentum coming in behind them.

And so when you create a new sigil that won't have that historical freight behind. But what it will have is the history of all sigil making through all human history, leading up to the moment that you inscribe your sigil for the purposes that you intend.

Yucca: And depending on how you create your central, you can work in. Some of those historic city rules as well, or elements from them, things that remind you of that and bring it in, I'm thinking about the evil eye or the Humsa or hand to Fatima. Like you can, if you already have a relationship with that, choosing colors or shapes or things that are reminiscent of that can just can strengthen it for you.

It's about what that association is in your mind. And what it communicates to you instantly. 

Mark: Right. Right. When I wrote a post to the atheopagan is a blog which is that atheopagan is some.org about sigils. I called them barcodes for the brain. Because I really think of them that way. They are something that your brain can read in a little short beep and get a whole, a whole collection of meani