This is a sigil I made today after reading this article and discussing it with a friend. I suggest you go and read the article, or just research the topic if you want to try the sigil. It describes how scientists are learning more about what they currently know to be life on earth’s Last Universal Common Ancestor, which they refer to as LUCA. The article, and others like it, explain a bit of what this ancestor may have been like, positing (for example) that while somewhat complex, LUCA likely didn’t have DNA as we understand it today, but nevertheless, shares genetics in common with everything alive on earth today.
How does this relate to sigils, you might ask? Well, A. O. Spare popularized the art of sigil-making, and one thing he was very interested in was atavistic nostalgia. Spare often attempted to achieve this via magical workings. In Practical Sigil Magic, Frater U. D. describes Spare’s notion of atavistic nostalgia as follows (part is redacted here for brevity):
The fundamental rationale of this practice is Darwin’s Theory of Evolution. I’m sure you are familiar with Darwin’s theory that man is but the momentary end-product of a long process of evolution that has been going on for millions of years and which has led from unicellular organisms and reptiles to mammals, including ourselves. Unlike popular “Vulgar Darwinism” (which was mainly monitored by the Church), Darwin did not so much claim that “man derives from monkey” but rather that we carry in us the entire heritage of all life forms and that we literally incorporate it. This “carrying in us” has been proved, for the most part, by modern genetics as well as by anthropology, physiology, and other disciplines of human biology, although Darwin’s theories underwent tremendous transformations and challenges within the last 150 years… The information of these earlier stages of our development is stored in our genes up to the present day and, according to Spare and many other magicians, it may be revitalized and tapped. (The parallels to Carl G. Jung’s concept of the collective unconscious— at least in one of its possible interpretations— should be obvious.) This is exactly what happens with atavism, which in biology denotes a retrogression of sorts into earlier stages of evolution.
The term nostalgia calls for some clarification. Spare uses the English word nostalgia (New Latin nostalgia), deriving from the Greek notos = “homecoming” and algos = “pain”; thus, “homesickness” is one of its meanings. It is also related to Old English genesan = “survive” and to old German ginesan of the same meaning; Gothic ganisan = “being saved (healed)” also reveals Spare’s frame of reference when using this term. He does not use the word so much in the sense of “longing for something (the source),” although this may be included as well, but rather he employs it to signify an act of conscious revitalization of old, archaic structures of the consciousness. Consequently, Spare tried to go back into early, pre-human stages of consciousness by activating genetic or hereditary memory. This, for him, was not an end in itself, for his basic premise was that our greatest magical power, probably even the source of magic itself, lies hidden in these early stages of evolution.
U.:D.:, Frater. Practical Sigil Magic: Creating Personal Symbols for Success (Kindle Locations 875-891). Llewellyn Worldwide, LTD.. Kindle Edition.
Inspired by the article, and Spare’s fascination with evolution, I created the above sigil using (mostly) Spare’s own method. It just Incorporates the letters LUCA, and the idea is to use it to tap into that primordial unity all life happens to share, whether by design, accident, or some other mechanism. I chose green as the color to surround it with (and a little bit of pink) because both are associated with the life-creating power of Venus. As to how to use the sigil, I’m planning on doing so prior to bed, with the intent of connecting with early life on earth and that of it which still exists within me. It sounds silly in some respects, but, depending on how you view it (as an actual mystical connection to the universe, or as a complex metaphor), I think it could be interesting.
@blackbearmagic – this seems up your alley?
I am absolutely looking forward to giving this a whirl.
