Sigilization is a magical technique, central to the modern current known as chaos magic, in which a statement of intent or desire is condensed into an abstract symbol, a sigil, that is then charged and released into the unconscious to bring about its aim. The method in its influential modern form was developed by the English artist and occultist Austin Osman Spare in the early twentieth century. The practitioner writes out a desire as a simple sentence, strikes out the repeated letters, and combines the remaining letters into a single stylised glyph that no longer visibly spells the wish. This sigil is then "charged" in a moment of intense concentration or, characteristically, in a state of exhaustion, ecstasy or emptiness, Spare's "death posture" or the peak of arousal or trance, and, crucially, is then deliberately forgotten, banished from conscious thought so that it may work, in the theory, upon the unconscious mind unimpeded by the doubt and desire that conscious striving introduces.
Sigilization exemplifies the pragmatic, belief-light approach of chaos magic, which sets aside elaborate traditional symbol systems in favour of results and treats belief itself as a tool to be adopted and discarded. Its underlying rationale is often framed in psychological terms: the sigil is understood to plant the intention in the unconscious, which then guides perception and action toward the goal, rather than to compel external reality by occult force, though practitioners differ on how far the effect is psychological and how far genuinely magical. Simple, adaptable and requiring no initiation or apparatus, sigilization has become one of the most widely practised of contemporary magical techniques, spreading well beyond formal occult circles.