Editor's Corner

Tis the season to be jolly, fa la la la la…

Wait! No, that’s months away! Now, tis the season to be scary!

I tell you; I’ve been wracking my brain for something new and exciting. I’ve read articles about “fall vs. autumn,” terms that mean “scary,” and the history of October as a word. I think in the past, we’ve covered a lot of this material.

Then, last night, as I was watching yet another Marvel-related show (Agatha All Along), I had to grab my pen and write down sigil. The show is about witches, so I figured that a sigil was something like a spell. The witches wonder who “put this sigil” on one of the characters.

So, what is a sigil? According to Wikipedia:

A sigil is a type of symbol used in magic. The term usually refers to a pictorial signature of a spirit (such as an angel, demon, or deity). In modern usage, especially in the context of chaos magic, a sigil refers to a symbolic representation of the practitioner’s desired outcome.

The term sigil derives from the Latin sigillum (pl. sigilla or sigils), meaning "seal". In medieval magic, the term sigil was commonly used to refer to occult signs which represented various angels and demons which the practitioner might summon.

In the ceremonial magic of the Middle Ages, sigils were used in the summoning of these beings and were the pictorial equivalent to their true name.

This is the demon Gamegin’s sigil, and there are more here.

As mentioned above, there is also something called chaos magic, which “Emerg(ed) in England in the 1970s as part of the wider neo-pagan and esoteric subculture.” Here is a more modern sigil.

There is so much more to learn about here, if that’s your thing. My thing is words, and I found another one in the article that intrigues me, but I’ll save that for next time.

Kara Church | Technical Editor, Advisory | Technical Publications

Pronouns: she/her | Call via Teams | jackhenry.com

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