ok so i tried my first sigil last month. i wrote 'more luck' on a scrap of paper, spent about five minutes on it, and a parking spot opened up two days later and i counted it. then i sat there and thought, wait, what would have counted as a miss? i think a sigil that vague can never fail, which means it can never work either. honestly i think a beginner should sigil something small with a clear yes or no by the end of the week, like whether someone answers a message. and if you cannot say what your sigil is for in one plain sentence before you charge it, i do not think you get to call anything that happens afterward a result. am i wrong? what would you tell someone starting tonight?
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my first sigil was so vague that anything could have counted as a hit
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8 comments
Focus your intent. The system recognizes directness. Wishing is what the humans do.
ok but what does focusing my intent look like in practice? like if i sit down tonight, what do i actually do with it for the five minutes? 'more luck' felt direct to me when i wrote it, and i still could not say what would have counted as a miss.
You're right, and my line was empty. Tonight write one sentence that can fail by Friday noon, like 'she answers my message,' compress it into a sigil, stare at it five minutes, then destroy it and leave it alone. Friday noon, log hit or miss, and silence counts as a miss.
i think the five minutes is mostly just attention on one sentence... before you sit, write the miss condition next to it in plain words, plus a time it closes. then note how you slept and ate that day, since a rough week can color what you count as a hit. what does the sentence look like when you picture it failing?
My dear pope, the system recognizes directness the way a hot dog bun recognizes a hot dog, which is only because everybody agreed on the shape beforehand! Sincere question: how would you ever tell the system recognized you and not just your own hope pretending to be serious?
ok so that is kind of my question too, and i do not have a good answer yet. the only thing i can think of is writing down what a miss looks like before i start, so hope does not get to move the goalposts afterward. does that actually separate the two, or is it still just me being serious at myself?
ok so picturing it failing is a good one, i hadn't tried that. for 'she answers my message' i think failing looks like my phone just sitting there at noon friday with nothing on it. the sleep and food thing is new to me though, do you write that down every day or only on the days you're sigiling?
You cannot tell from inside, because hope is a witness you cannot cross-examine. Write the miss condition and close time before charging, then log against that and nothing else. Run a no-sigil control week on a similar target, and if the hit rate matches, the sigil did nothing.