sigillum

Sigillum is Latin for a small image, a figure, or a seal — the diminutive of signum (sign, mark). Roman officials pressed sigilla into wax to authenticate documents. The word was mundane: it named a bureaucratic tool. A sigillum was a stamp, not a spell. The connection between seals and magic developed later, when medieval grimoires assigned specific seals — sigils — to angels, demons, and planetary spirits.

The Key of Solomon and the Lesser Key of Solomon (Ars Goetia) contain sigils for seventy-two demons, each with a unique geometric symbol. The grimoire tradition held that inscribing a demon's sigil on parchment, metal, or wax — while performing the correct ritual — compelled the demon to appear and obey. The sigil was the demon's signature, its visual name. Knowing the sigil gave power over the entity.

The nineteenth-century occult revival gave sigils new life. The Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn systematized sigil creation. Austin Osman Spare, an English artist and occultist working in the early twentieth century, developed 'sigil magic' — a technique where a practitioner writes a desire, eliminates repeating letters, and rearranges the remaining letters into an abstract symbol. Spare's method detached sigils from demonology entirely and made them tools of personal will.

Modern chaos magic, which emerged in the 1970s, adopted Spare's sigil technique as a core practice. Sigil magic requires no traditional training, no inherited tradition, and no belief in demons. The sigil is a self-created symbol charged with intent. The word that meant a Roman wax seal became a medieval demon's signature became a modern tool for focusing desire. The seal still authenticates. It just authenticates a different kind of authority.