A love sigil is a small drawn sign made as a focus for one intention: opening to warmth and connection. This page sets out the historical symbol systems Luckwell uses for that intention, and where each one comes from. It is an account of tradition and art, written so you can see what goes onto the sign and why.
What a love sigil is
A sigil, in the sense Austin Osman Spare gave it in 1913, is a compact sign that stands for a wish, so that the wish can be held in mind without being rehearsed in words. Peter J. Carroll (1987) and Frater U∴D∴ (1990) later turned Spare's approach into a method. In every version the sign is a focus for your own attention. It is a symbol of what you have named, not a mechanism.
Luckwell's label for this intention is Love, and its short focus line is "opening to warmth and connection". That wording is Luckwell's own choice, not tradition. The tradition supplies the materials: a planet, a number square, letters, a rune and a few spoken units. No promise is made about anyone's life, feelings or relationships.
Which planet and why: Venus
In the planetary scheme Luckwell follows, love belongs to Venus (♀), whose day is Friday. Agrippa, in Book II chapter xxii of his work on occult philosophy (1533), lists the virtues of the Venus table as "concord, ends strife, love, joy and good fortune to travellers". The Key of Solomon, book I chapter 2 (Mathers 1889), gives the operations of Venus as "friendships, kindness, love, pleasant undertakings, travel".
Two Venus pentacle purposes are recorded in Luckwell's data. Venus 2 is quoted as 'grace and honour'. Venus 3 is recorded as a purpose concerning love. These are descriptions of what old texts say the pentacles are for, and Luckwell presents them as history, not as results.
- Sefirah: Netzach, which the Hermetic Qabalah assigns to Venus.
- Metal: copper in the Key of Solomon, silver in Agrippa. The two sources differ, and both are shown.
- Colour: green in the Key of Solomon; emerald green in the Golden Dawn scale.
- Intelligence: Hagiel.
For the planet in full, see the Venus page of this archive.
The kamea, the letters and the 72-Name subset
The square of Venus is a 7×7 magic square. Its cells hold the numbers 1 to 49, every line sums to 175, and the whole square totals 1225. Agrippa pairs it with the intelligence Hagiel, הגיאל, whose letters add to 49, the number of cells. The divine names written on the table are Ahia אהא (7) and Bne Seraphim בני שרפים, which also totals 1225. The first row of the square reads 22, 47, 16, 41, 10, 35, 4. The kamea of Venus has its own page with the full grid.
A sigil is traced on such a square by turning letters into numbers and joining the cells where those numbers sit. The Hebrew letter attached to Venus is ד, Dalet, with the value 4. The Golden Dawn assigns it to Venus and gives it the colour emerald green. The Tarot trump traditionally attached to it is III The Empress.
Luckwell also draws on the 72 Names (Shem HaMephorash), derived from Exodus 14:19–21. For the love intention its data lists six three-letter Names, each with an angel name and rank following Reuchlin (1517) and a psalm reference:
- 12, He-He-Ayin (80): Hahaiah, Cherubim, Psalms 10:1
- 28, Shin-Aleph-He (306): Saeehiah, Dominions, Psalms 71:12
- 52, Ayin-Mem-Mem (150): Imamiah, Principalities, Psalms 7:17
- 35, Kaf-Vav-Qof (126): Chavakiah, Powers, Psalms 116:1
- 23, Mem-Lamed-He (75): Melahel, Thrones, Psalms 121:8
- 48, Mem-Yod-He (55): Mihael, Virtues, Psalms 98:2
The words attached to these Names in Luckwell's table, such as love, passion, generosity and unity, are Luckwell's own routing labels. They are not part of the old sources.
The rune and the key
Three Elder Futhark runes are assigned to this intention in Luckwell's data. Gebō (ᚷ) has the attested meaning "gift". Wunjō (ᚹ) means "joy". Berkanan (ᛒ) means "birch". Modern esoteric writers read them as partnership and generosity, joy and harmony, and growth and new beginnings. Those readings are modern, and Luckwell marks them as such.
The key is a short mantra built only from fixed units. For love the units are:
- Bīja syllables klīṃ (क्लीं), hrīṃ (ह्रीं) and yaṃ (यं). Luckwell's pronunciation aids are KLEEM, HREEM and YUM; these are Luckwell's choice.
- The Latin motto Omnia vincit amor, "Love conquers all", from Virgil, Eclogues 10.69.
- The Hebrew phrase אֲנִי לְדוֹדִי וְדוֹדִי לִי, Ani le-dodi ve-dodi li, "I am my beloved's and my beloved is mine", from Song of Songs 6:3.
The engine never invents words. It only combines these units, and it never writes the Tetragrammaton.
The daily ritual: ten seconds, say the key, forget
Luckwell's ritual follows steps 4 and 5 of Spare's method. Look at the sigil for about ten seconds. Say the key once. Then let it go: the sigil is hidden until the next day. Streaks and circles in the app are game mechanics and a record of practice. They are not claims about your life.
How Luckwell builds it
Several layers of the sigil come from this page's subject. The letter core is made from your name and your intention sentence. Luckwell's default sentence for love is "i am open to love", which is Luckwell's own wording. Repeated letters are dropped, and the letters become numbers by Agrippa's Latin table (A1 through Z500, with J, U and W folded to I, V and V). Hebrew letters use standard gematria. For the 7×7 square the letter count is capped at 16. Numbers larger than 49 are reduced by dropping trailing zeros until they fit, and the cell centres are joined by straight lines. A small circle marks the first cell, a short bar the last, and a loop a repeated cell.
The 72-Name for the intention is chosen from the six above by a hash of your birth date and intention, so it stays stable for you. Its three letters sit on the outer ring and are traced on the same square in the accent colour. Venus gives the ring colour, though on the site every planet ink is remapped to oxidised gold on obsidian, with the traditional colour left as a faint tint. Friday, the day of Venus, is the sigil's own day. The weekday ruler can tint the secondary ring when it differs. The rune of your name's initial sits at the centre, with your zodiac glyph on the ring. The full list of layers is in the archive index. If you would like a sign of your own, you can forge your own from a name, a birth date and the word Love.
FAQ
Is a love sigil a love spell?
No. It is a drawn sign made as a focus for your own intention, using historical symbol systems. Luckwell is entertainment and self-reflection, and no promise is made about other people or events.
Why is love tied to Venus?
Agrippa lists love among the virtues of the Venus table, and the Key of Solomon names love among the operations of Venus. Luckwell follows that tradition.
Do I need to know Hebrew or runes?
No. The engine handles the letters, the numbers and the square. You can read the sources on this page if you want to see where each layer comes from.
Will two people get the same sigil?
The same name, birth date, word and day give the same sign. Changing a single letter changes the result.
Sources
- Austin Osman Spare, The Book of Pleasure (Self-Love), 1913, 'Sigils. Belief with Protection'
- Peter J. Carroll, Liber Null & Psychonaut (1978/1987); Frater U∴D∴, Practical Sigil Magic (1990)
- Agrippa, Three Books of Occult Philosophy, II.xix, II.xx and II.xxii (1533)
- Key of Solomon, I.2 (Mathers 1889)
- Exodus 14:19–21; Reuchlin 1517; Wikipedia: Shem HaMephorash
- Song of Songs 6:3; Virgil, Eclogues 10.69
- Wikipedia: Elder Futhark; Magic square; Planetary hours; Hermetic Qabalah; Gematria; Sigil (magic)
Luckwell is for entertainment and self-reflection; a sigil is a focus for your own intention, not a promise about health, money or the outcome of any event; 16+.