This is the first installment of a series on narrative magic.
Quick note: My completely reworked and expanded M.A.G.I.C. Goals course is kicking off next week and I still have a little space in the class. Be the author of your own story by learning how to set doable, enchantable goals that give you the best chance of getting to your desired destination. Become the kind of person who decides where they want to go and has the tools to get there. Four live/recorded classes, two workshops/office hours, and access to future office hours throughout the year — only $75 (10% off for Inner Circle Members and RSPM).
A HyperSigil is an “an extended work of art with magical meaning and willpower, created using adapted processes of sigilization” (Wiki). The still hot at age 64 (don’t judge me) Grant Morrison coined the term in regard to their seminal work The Invisibles. I recommend you start with their own words on the topic.
I was recently having a conversation with a fiction-writing friend about HyperSigils and he commented that he was concerned that some of what he’d written in an unpublished manuscript had actually happened. Meeting characters he’d written in real life, events that were ‘of a kind’ with events in the book happening, etc. Now this sounds very cool, but he was concerned because, as in most compelling works of fiction, some really BAD SHIT happens to some of the characters… including the character that was basically a fictionalized version of himself.
This is what Morrison talks about as well. The King Mob character is basically their Mary Sue — a completely badass version of the author written into the comic. The character gets injured/tortured/shot. Lo and behold, Morrison became seriously ill and suffered a collapsed lung. So HyperSigil in action. It’s useful to note that in later volumes of the series, King Mob heals completely, gets laid a lot, and becomes a peaceful, non-violent version of himself. Morrison obviously learned their lesson and leaned into positive narrative change.
But this isn’t a argument against HyperSigils as much as an argument against Mary Sues. Sellable fiction requires conflict and trials and troubles (at least most of the time) in order to be interesting. Which is why actual Mary Sues (different from Morrison’s, where bad things do happen to the character) are a bit of a literary joke.
Most of us aren’t fiction writers, so whether or not we are accidently Mary Sue-ing ourselves into trouble with a HyperSigil isn’t relevant. However, I think there’s a really powerful lesson for the rest of us as well… the narrative we tell ourselves in our heads is basically the ultimate Mary Sue. And we aren’t the only audience either — the things we tell others (whether individually one-on-one or to an audience of friends / blog readers / etc.) also have power to reshape our experience.
You know that bit in the Bible where God’s all like “let there be light” and then there was fucking light? That’s God telling the story of creation and creating as He went. And since we are supposed to have a spark of the divine within us (whether or not we are particularly Bible aligned), we too have the power to create through our story.
Certainly, if you wander around telling everyone how awesome you are all day long, you won’t have many friends (because awesome people don’t have to tell people they are awesome — my marketing guy is rolling his eyes right now, sorry DB!). Still, if your personal narrative is that everything sucks and will never go right and bad things keep happening to you, there’s a real risk you will HyperSigil yourself into that exact situation. Now I’m not saying we should go full Pollyanna and refuse to acknowledge when bad things happen (because shit happens, you know). It’s just that the stories we tell — ourselves and others — have POWER.
My personal example is getting diagnosed with cancer, which by any measure is a BAD THING ™. My narrative about having cancer was something like: “This is a powerful and challenging initiatory experience that’s calling me to embrace radical sovereignty, explore my own limitations and blocks, learn the fine art of asking for help, and teach me deep lessons about how I process emotions and engage with the world. I’m moving through this experience with full acknowledgement of living in an enchanted universe and if I’m being called on to face certain demons, I will go full Jungian and open my heart to my own shadow side (because closing my heart formed as a black stone in my chest).”
That narrative worked very well to support me through my healing. However, even if the outcome was not positive, reframing it is still a better way to go through it. It’s literally better to die as the hero of your own narrative than live without a sense of your story.
Think about the stories you tell yourself about the experiences you have and ask yourself these questions:
- Are they positive and empowering (or negative and disempowering)?
- Do they center you as the main character in your own narrative (or are you NPCing yourself)?
- Do they contain a “true” narrative about your own personal character arc (rather than a comfortable fiction that doesn’t help you grow)?
- Are they set in an alive, enchanted universe where existence and choice matter (or a dead, clockwork where there’s no real choice)?
Our stories are never as simple and clear as the arcs of characters in fiction, but they are OURS and we get to live our way through them. Might as well lean in and enchant the hell out of them.
