Pagan Student Association Holds Potter-Based Magic Workshops

By Alejandro Vasquez on March 26, 2016

According to Johnathan Steele, Director of the Pagan Student Association (PSA), the most basic thing to understand about spirituality, or “Witchcraft 101,” is intent. He says, “It is the point of most ritual activity – shaping and directing your intent or willpower towards a goal.”

An example would be speaking your will to the universe: declaring that you can do something sends a message to the universe that you really can, and then you really will do it. After explaining all this, he smiled and said to those of us in attendance at the Sigils Workshop on March 23, “For example, if you say you’ll go to this event, you’ll go.” And there we were.

Zoe Walker’s sigil, with her experiments in the background. (Picture taken by me with her permission)

Throughout this semester, the PSA has been hosting a series of workshops themed around the magical practices used in the Harry Potter series. They focus on a different Hogwarts class for each month: January saw workshops based on Divination, February had them teaching about Potions, and March was based on Defense Against the Dark Arts. They are basically giving all the fans who waited all their childhoods for that special owl-delivered admission letter to finally live the dream of studying witchcraft and wizardry at school.

When asked why the PSA devoted an entire semester to the real rituals and practices behind the fictional wizard and world, Steele explained, “There are a lot of Pagan practices incorporated into the films, sometimes at a pretty complex and subtle level and other times at an overt, funny Hollywood way.” He also added that they just really like Harry Potter.

Some may find it odd that they did not think to do this before. By now, JK Rowling’s ubiquitous franchise is known as an easy and lazy way to pander to our generation. However, there are huge differences between real-world spirituality, which is largely based on rituals and entreaty to gods and entities; and the magic taught at Hogwarts, which is a more mechanical application of matter-manipulating spells. Interestingly, Rowling herself has gone out of her way to say that she cannot imagine Wiccans as Hogwarts students. She tweeted in 2014 that Wicca follows “a totally different system of magic to the one laid out in the books, so I don’t really see how they can co-exist.”

Apparently, this got the PSA thinking, and they noticed that the books feature many magical and witchcraft tropes. Steele concluded that Rowling “knows exactly that she borrowed these religious and spiritual practices from Paganism and Wicca,” albeit with plenty of creative liberties. Finding any common ground between the two seems to have spurred this workshop series. For example, the series has “sigil-esque designs,” so on the night of a full moon and mere days after the Vernal Equinox, the PSA decided to host a Sigils Workshop.

Jarid Mills’s attempts. The one he ultimately liked is at the top-left corner. (Picture taken by me with his permission)

Now is the part where I prove that I was paying attention. Sigils – at least with the definition used in chaos magic – are signs and symbols that their creator embeds with a specific purpose, which is then projected to the universe so that it can make that purpose reality. For example, apparently the ancient Romans apparently drew phalluses on doorposts and crossroads to ward off evil. It is actually not limited to pagan religions: the mezuzah, from Judaism, and the hamsa, which is part of multiple ideologies, could be considered akin to sigils.

However, the most interesting thing I got out of this workshop was how easy it can be to perform magick. Sigils are drawings! Our process for making our own was styled as an arts-and-crafts thing with paper and markers. It is just a few steps.

It starts with thinking of your purpose and find a way to word it. This can be the toughest part, because you must find a specific way to phrase what you want.

  • According to Steele, our host and mentor, you cannot use negativity because the universe does not understand it and will ignore the negative word. This means if your phrase is “I will not fail,” the universe will take it as “I will … fail.” Hm, perhaps this is where jinxes come from (“At least it’s not raining!”).
  • Words of desire, such as “want,” are also not advised because the universe provides everything.
  • Lastly, it must be in the present tense, because the future is hypothetical and therefore not reality. Once could see it as “fake it ‘til you make it.”
  • We were also told that the traditional way to begin the phrase is, “My will is …”

Once you have your phrase, you must remove repeated letters. You can do it so that you only remove the repetitions (the word “statement” would become “staemn”) or every letter that is repeated (“statement” would then become “samn”). Using the first method, my phrase became “MYWILSABETOPRCFNDH.” As you can see, it can be pretty cumbersome, so I went with the second one and got “BPF.” Much more workable.

My many, many pencilled attempts at a sigil. (Picture taken by me with my permission)

After that, you combine your letters into one image and play around with it. Turn them on their sides, change fonts, just do whatever until you find an image that satisfies you. Gradually, you should start forgetting that they were letters at all and only see an image, a symbol – the sigil. Interestingly, while most other kinds of spells and rituals require serious focus or meditation, sigils gain power when they become an unconscious thing to do, which makes it even simpler.

I should finish off by saying that I am not pagan myself (just a guy who is really interested in pagan ideas and lifestyles, and reads tarot cards), and therefore I am not the most qualified person to be teaching anyone about how to properly do these practices. That is why if you are really interested, you should just go to their workshops and learn from the pros themselves! The PSA is so friendly and inviting, and they will gladly let you join them if you come with an open and receptive mindset. Next Wednesday, March 30, they will be doing a House Blessing Workshop, which Steele says is for “essentially cleansing and creating energetic barriers for protection and peace” – not unlike the barrier created around Hogwarts in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. Updates and event pages can be found in the PSA’s Facebook page!

My more colorful attempts at settling on a sigil!

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