March 23, 2008
-
A Lesson in evocation vs invocation
Evocation Vs. Invocation
In magick, there is a great deal of confusion for beginners between the terms invoke and evoke. Both derive from the Latin vocare, “to call,” but the prefixes make the words mean two very different things. To evoke is “to call forth, to summon, to elicit,” while to invoke means “to call upon, to appeal to, to resort to, to beg or ask.” Magickally speaking, when something is evoked, it is ordered to appear before you, outside yourself; while invoking something can have a much broader application but basically means calling something in to yourself. Invocation can be as simple as prayer, calling upon your deities for support or aid, or it can apply to the act of calling a spirit into yourself, as in certain ceremonial magicks and voodoo rituals. By invoking a spirit, you invite it to become a part of you and/or act through you for the duration of the ritual. Evocation calls a spirit as a witness to your ritual or as a guardian or helper.
Depending upon the type of spirit you are working with, you will not want to practice invocation. Just like hanging out with friends who have a bad reputation, invoking a spirit with an unpleasant reputation can have lingering affects on your personality. In other words, they are a bad influence. Your body is the home of your soul. Don’t invite any guests over that might track “mud” on your carpets or might want to spend a few nights on your couch. If you do plan on inviting spirits with bad reputations into your body, it’s not something you want to do right off the bat. Better to start with lesser spirits with better reputations so you can get used to the idea of invocation and learn what to expect.
So why invoke a spirit at all? Well, it can be a consciousness expanding experience. You get a sense of your connection to the spirit and to all things connected to that spirit and ultimately your connection to all things. Despite the danger that something of the spirit may linger in you after it has gone, this isn’t technically a real danger unless you make a habit of drawing entities into yourself with little or no preparation or knowledge of the entity you are summoning. Knowledge is a magician’s best friend. A magician should know themselves as well as they know the aspects of the spirit they summon. Don’t fool yourself. Know your faults and try to fix them or, if you choose to summon unpleasant spirits, they will use them against you or augment them before they go. A vain or proud person will become more so, etc. (I’ve seen it happen!) If you want to interact with spirits, good or bad, you should hold yourself to the highest possible ideal. “Good” spirits will appreciate it and “bad” spirits will be unable to use any of your non-existent bad habits against you.
Actually (outside of prayer), evocation is much more common than invocation. It is much easier (and safer) for beginners to practice evocation. Different magick styles will dictate the way in which a spirit is summoned. A ceremonial magician may order a spirit to appear using various holy names as leverage while a practitioner of “low” magick may prefer to ask for the spirit’s presence, but not demand it. No matter which kind of magick you practice, doubt is any magician’s worst enemy. If you do not believe in the spirit or cannot believe it will come, then it probably won’t. Additionally, if you don’t tell the spirit to appear in some form you can recognize, you may only get a sense that it is present. You may only get a sense of its presence no matter what you demand. Spirits don’t have physical bodies, so some may choose to inhabit an animal to interact with you or just choose to appear as one, e.g. Freya might be a cat, Apollo might be a snake, Loki might be a Raven…. Not all spirits will show themselves if you don’t ask them to, and if you choose to deal with one of the more unpleasant (demonic) spirits, it’s best to be very exact in how you wish them to appear, i.e. in a pleasant form, or risk nightmares later. (Disclaimer: This I only know from reading. I have never invoked or evoked a demonic spirit so I have not had reason to tell one how to “dress.”)
You may choose to cast a circle before summoning any kind of spirit, but conversely if you maintain a sacred space, you don’t really need to cast a protective circle if you do not wish to. The sacred space should be sufficient protection. At least, that’s been my experience. Once you are finished with your ritual, you should thank the spirit for its assistance and respectfully ask it to leave. Even a friendly spirit can cause trouble if it is not thanked and dismissed. For one thing, it will resent the time and energy it spent on your behalf for which you were not grateful. It may not come back to help you if you call again. For another, if you don’t dismiss it, it may linger thinking you still want its assistance. If it stays, but you ignore it, it will get fretful and try to remind you it’s still waiting around. The longer it waits, the less gentle it will be in reminding you.
March 23rd
The festival of Marzenna is a Polish festival. Three to four foot tall straw dolls are woven to represent the waning season. Dressed in festive rags and ribbons, they are tossed into a body of water when spring arrives.
The Asatru festival of Summer Finding, sacred to Thor, acknowledges the light of the sun becoming more powerful than the darkness. Frey and Freya are also honored.
The Spring Imperial Festival, Shunki-Koreisan, is celebrated in Japan. At this, the midpoint of the Higan festival, Buddhists visit their dead.
Today (or on the 25th) there is a festival of Mars and Nerine. Nerine is equated with Neria or Nerio (strong), a Sabine goddess who is identified with Athena (Minerva) or Aphrodite (Venus).
A festival of Isis is held on the 8th day of Pachons
Comments (5)
I always wondered why Catholics and other Christians seem so against magic. After all, prayer is a form of invocation, and priests and others do some more kabalist evocation rituals as well. For the Church, they don’t want to give individuals that kind of power. Personally for me, though, it comes down to a matter of Will. Invocation and evocation seem as though a magician could use the power of her own Will to overpower the Will of another. Am I understanding/interpreting this correctly? Thanks.
Grrr, Xanga keeps messing up my comments lately, only posting part of them…. let me try this again.
@BoureeMusique - The application of will is the difference between high and low magic. High magick is generally ritualistic, relying upon the holy names of god and the hierarchy of heaven or hell. The spirit is not so much asked to appear as it is forced to appear and comply with the will of the magician. Some spirits are more obliging than others providing all the proper rituals and names have been spoken (like spiritual bureaucrats heh), but for the most part the spirit is still coerced. Low magick, on the other hand, does not require force to get the job done. While low magicians are less likely to call upon the higher spirits, they are also less likely to force a spirit to obey. There is more likely to be an exchange of services. For instance, a low magician might summon a nature spirit because their garden is ailing. The nature spirit wants a stream cleaned up of litter or a large rock moved. The spirit then makes sure the garden continues to thrive in a drought or despite poor soil. Both parties are happy. So a low magician uses their will to contact the spirit and ask for its presence, but they don’t force their will on it so there is also less energy used.
Thank you. I’ve been trying to clarify what to expect from invocation all week, in my head. I knew how it was different from evocation, and I’m not necessarily a beginner per se…but I needed some clarification and this was perfect.
@AlongTEH_Path - You’re welcome. I’m glad it helped.
Please post more of this. I largely enjoyed it.