Invocation
Encyclopedia
An invocation may take the form of:
These forms are described below, but are not mutually exclusive.
See also Theurgy
.
, a god or goddess
, a person, etc. When a person calls upon God, a god, or goddess to ask for something (protection, a favour, his/her spiritual presence in a ceremony, etc.) or simply for worship, this can be done in a pre-established form or with the invoker's own words or actions. An example of a pre-established text for an invocation is the Lord's Prayer
.
All religions in general use invoking prayers, liturgies, or hymns; see for example the mantra
s in Hinduism
and Buddhism
, the Egypt
ian Coming Out by Day (aka Book of the Dead
), the Orphic Hymns and the many texts, still preserved, written in cuneiform characters on clay tablets, addressed to Shamash
, Ishtar
, and other deities.
.
In some religious traditions including Paganism
, Shamanism
and Wicca
, "invocation" means to draw a spirit or Spirit force into ones own body and is differentiated from "evocation
", which involves asking a spirit or force to become present at a given location. Again, Crowley states that
Possessive invocation may be attempted singly or, as is often the case in Wicca, in pairs - with one person doing the invocation (reciting the liturgy or prayers and acting as anchor), and the other person being invoked (allowing themselves to become a vessel for the spirit or deity). The person successfully invoked may be moved to speak or act in non-characteristic ways, acting as the deity or spirit; and they may lose all or some self-awareness while doing so. A communication might also be given via imagery (a religious vision). They may also be led to recite a text in the manner of that deity, in which case the invocation is more akin to ritual drama. The Wiccan Charge of the Goddess
is an example of such a pre-established recitation. See also the ritual
of Drawing Down the Moon
.
The ecstatic, possessory form of invocation may be compared to loa
possession in the Vodou tradition where devotees are described as being "ridden" or "mounted" by the deity or spirit. In 1995 National Geographic journalist Carol Beckwith described events she had witnessed during Vodoun possessions:
Possessive invocation has also been described in certain Norse rites where Odin
is invoked to "ride" workers of seidr (Norse shamanism), much like the god rides his eight-legged horse Sleipnir
. Indeed, forms of possessive invocation appear throughout the world in most mystical or ecstatic traditions, wherever devotees seek to touch upon the essence of a deity or spirit.
The following is a curious example of such an invocation, found engraved in cuneiform on a statue of the Assyrian demon
Pazuzu
. Although it seems to constitute an identification with the demon, it was actually considered a protective amulet
with the power to command this entity not to harm people or their possessions.
Another example is found in the book Aradia, or the Gospel of the Witches
during the Conjuration of Diana
, where the Goddess Diana is evoked into a piece of bread and threatened to grant a wish:
or the ferocity of Kali
. In this instance the being is literally called up from within oneself (as an archetype
) or into oneself (as an external force), depending on the personal belief system of the invoker. The main difference between this type of invocation and the possessive category described above is that the former may appear more controlled, with self-identification and deity-identification mixed together. In practice, invocations may blend many or all of these categories. See for example this Hymn to Astarte from the Songs of Bilitis, first attributed to a contemporary of Sappho (but actually written by Pierre Louys in the 1890s):
- SupplicationSupplicationSupplication is the most common form of prayer, wherein a person asks God to provide something, either for the person or who is doing the praying or for someone else on whose behalf a prayer. This because of a supplication is being made, also known as intercession.The concept of supplication is...
or prayerPrayerPrayer is a form of religious practice that seeks to activate a volitional rapport to a deity through deliberate practice. Prayer may be either individual or communal and take place in public or in private. It may involve the use of words or song. When language is used, prayer may take the form of...
. - A form of possession.
- Command or conjurationConjurationConjuration is used in many video games, mainly RPGs, where it is usually referred to as summoning.* A notable example is the Final Fantasy franchise which incorporates summoning of monsters to fight alongside the characters....
. - Self-identification with certain spirits.
These forms are described below, but are not mutually exclusive.
See also Theurgy
Theurgy
Theurgy describes the practice of rituals, sometimes seen as magical in nature, performed with the intention of invoking the action or evoking the presence of one or more gods, especially with the goal of uniting with the divine, achieving henosis, and perfecting oneself.- Definitions :*Proclus...
.
Supplication or prayer
As a supplication or prayer it implies to call upon GodGod
God is the English name given to a singular being in theistic and deistic religions who is either the sole deity in monotheism, or a single deity in polytheism....
, a god or goddess
Goddess
A goddess is a female deity. In some cultures goddesses are associated with Earth, motherhood, love, and the household. In other cultures, goddesses also rule over war, death, and destruction as well as healing....
, a person, etc. When a person calls upon God, a god, or goddess to ask for something (protection, a favour, his/her spiritual presence in a ceremony, etc.) or simply for worship, this can be done in a pre-established form or with the invoker's own words or actions. An example of a pre-established text for an invocation is the Lord's Prayer
Lord's Prayer
The Lord's Prayer is a central prayer in Christianity. In the New Testament of the Christian Bible, it appears in two forms: in the Gospel of Matthew as part of the discourse on ostentation in the Sermon on the Mount, and in the Gospel of Luke, which records Jesus being approached by "one of his...
.
All religions in general use invoking prayers, liturgies, or hymns; see for example the mantra
Mantra
A mantra is a sound, syllable, word, or group of words that is considered capable of "creating transformation"...
s in Hinduism
Hinduism
Hinduism is the predominant and indigenous religious tradition of the Indian Subcontinent. Hinduism is known to its followers as , amongst many other expressions...
and Buddhism
Buddhism
Buddhism is a religion and philosophy encompassing a variety of traditions, beliefs and practices, largely based on teachings attributed to Siddhartha Gautama, commonly known as the Buddha . The Buddha lived and taught in the northeastern Indian subcontinent some time between the 6th and 4th...
, the Egypt
Egypt
Egypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic: , is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world...
ian Coming Out by Day (aka Book of the Dead
Book of the Dead
The Book of the Dead is the modern name of an ancient Egyptian funerary text, used from the beginning of the New Kingdom to around 50 BC. The original Egyptian name for the text, transliterated rw nw prt m hrw is translated as "Book of Coming Forth by Day". Another translation would be "Book of...
), the Orphic Hymns and the many texts, still preserved, written in cuneiform characters on clay tablets, addressed to Shamash
Shamash
Shamash was a native Mesopotamian deity and the sun god in the Akkadian, Assyrian and Babylonian pantheons. Shamash was the god of justice in Babylonia and Assyria, corresponding to Sumerian Utu...
, Ishtar
Ishtar
Ishtar is the Assyrian and Babylonian goddess of fertility, love, war, and sex. She is the counterpart to the Sumerian Inanna and to the cognate north-west Semitic goddess Astarte.-Characteristics:...
, and other deities.
A form of possession
The word "possession" is used here in its neutral form to mean "a state (potentially psychological) in which an individual's normal personality is replaced by another". This is also sometimes known as 'aspecting'. This can be done as a means of communicating with or getting closer to a deity or spirit and as such need not be viewed synonymously with demonic possessionDemonic possession
Demonic possession is held by many belief systems to be the control of an individual by a malevolent supernatural being. Descriptions of demonic possessions often include erased memories or personalities, convulsions, “fits” and fainting as if one were dying...
.
In some religious traditions including Paganism
Paganism
Paganism is a blanket term, typically used to refer to non-Abrahamic, indigenous polytheistic religious traditions....
, Shamanism
Shamanism
Shamanism is an anthropological term referencing a range of beliefs and practices regarding communication with the spiritual world. To quote Eliade: "A first definition of this complex phenomenon, and perhaps the least hazardous, will be: shamanism = technique of ecstasy." Shamanism encompasses the...
and Wicca
Wicca
Wicca , is a modern Pagan religious movement. Developing in England in the first half of the 20th century, Wicca was popularised in the 1950s and early 1960s by a Wiccan High Priest named Gerald Gardner, who at the time called it the "witch cult" and "witchcraft," and its adherents "the Wica."...
, "invocation" means to draw a spirit or Spirit force into ones own body and is differentiated from "evocation
Evocation
Evocation is the act of calling or summoning a spirit, demon, god or other supernatural agent, in the Western mystery tradition. Comparable practices exist in many religions and magical traditions.-Evocation in the Western mystery tradition:...
", which involves asking a spirit or force to become present at a given location. Again, Crowley states that
To "invoke" is to "call in", just as to "evoke" is to "call forth". This is the essential difference between the two branches of Magick. In invocation, the macrocosm floods the consciousness. In evocation, the magician, having become the macrocosm, creates a microcosm.
Possessive invocation may be attempted singly or, as is often the case in Wicca, in pairs - with one person doing the invocation (reciting the liturgy or prayers and acting as anchor), and the other person being invoked (allowing themselves to become a vessel for the spirit or deity). The person successfully invoked may be moved to speak or act in non-characteristic ways, acting as the deity or spirit; and they may lose all or some self-awareness while doing so. A communication might also be given via imagery (a religious vision). They may also be led to recite a text in the manner of that deity, in which case the invocation is more akin to ritual drama. The Wiccan Charge of the Goddess
Charge of the Goddess
The Charge of the Goddess is a traditional inspirational text sometimes used in the neopagan religion of Wicca. Several versions exist, though they all have the same basic premise, that of a set of instructions given by a Great Goddess to her worshippers...
is an example of such a pre-established recitation. See also the ritual
Ritual
A ritual is a set of actions, performed mainly for their symbolic value. It may be prescribed by a religion or by the traditions of a community. The term usually excludes actions which are arbitrarily chosen by the performers....
of Drawing Down the Moon
Drawing Down the Moon
Drawing Down the Moon may refer to:*Drawing down the Moon , a Wiccan ritual*Drawing Down the Moon , 1993*Drawing Down the Moon , 2010*Drawing Down the Moon , a 1997 movie starring Walter Koenig...
.
The ecstatic, possessory form of invocation may be compared to loa
Loa
The Loa are the spirits of the voodoo religion practiced in Louisiana, Haiti, Benin, and other parts of the world. They are also referred to as Mystères and the Invisibles, in which are intermediaries between Bondye —the Creator, who is distant from the world—and humanity...
possession in the Vodou tradition where devotees are described as being "ridden" or "mounted" by the deity or spirit. In 1995 National Geographic journalist Carol Beckwith described events she had witnessed during Vodoun possessions:
A woman splashed sand into her eyes, a man cut his belly with shards of glass but did not bleed, another swallowed fire. Nearby a believer, perhaps a yam farmer or fisherman, heated hand-wrought knives in crackling flames. Then another man brought one of the knives to his tongue. We cringed at the sight and were dumbfounded when, after several repetitions, his tongue had not even reddened.
Possessive invocation has also been described in certain Norse rites where Odin
Odin
Odin is a major god in Norse mythology and the ruler of Asgard. Homologous with the Anglo-Saxon "Wōden" and the Old High German "Wotan", the name is descended from Proto-Germanic "*Wodanaz" or "*Wōđanaz"....
is invoked to "ride" workers of seidr (Norse shamanism), much like the god rides his eight-legged horse Sleipnir
Sleipnir
In Norse mythology, Sleipnir is an eight-legged horse. Sleipnir is attested in the Poetic Edda, compiled in the 13th century from earlier traditional sources, and the Prose Edda, written in the 13th century by Snorri Sturluson...
. Indeed, forms of possessive invocation appear throughout the world in most mystical or ecstatic traditions, wherever devotees seek to touch upon the essence of a deity or spirit.
Command or conjuration
Some have performed invocation for the purpose of controlling or extracting favors from certain spirits or deities. These invocations usually involve a commandment or threat against the entity invoked.The following is a curious example of such an invocation, found engraved in cuneiform on a statue of the Assyrian demon
Demon
call - 1347 531 7769 for more infoIn Ancient Near Eastern religions as well as in the Abrahamic traditions, including ancient and medieval Christian demonology, a demon is considered an "unclean spirit" which may cause demonic possession, to be addressed with an act of exorcism...
Pazuzu
Pazuzu
In Assyrian and Babylonian mythology, Pazuzu was the king of the demons of the wind, and son of the god Hanbi. He also represented the southwestern wind, the bearer of storms and drought.- Iconography :...
. Although it seems to constitute an identification with the demon, it was actually considered a protective amulet
Amulet
An amulet, similar to a talisman , is any object intended to bring good luck or protection to its owner.Potential amulets include gems, especially engraved gems, statues, coins, drawings, pendants, rings, plants and animals; even words said in certain occasions—for example: vade retro satana—, to...
with the power to command this entity not to harm people or their possessions.
I am Pazuzu, son of the king of the evil spirits, that one who descends impetuously from the mountains and bring the storms. That is the one I am.
Another example is found in the book Aradia, or the Gospel of the Witches
Aradia, or the Gospel of the Witches
Aradia, or the Gospel of the Witches is a book composed by the American folklorist Charles Leland that was published in 1899. It contains what he believed was the religious text of a group of pagan witches in Tuscany, Italy that documented their beliefs and rituals, although various historians and...
during the Conjuration of Diana
Diana (mythology)
In Roman mythology, Diana was the goddess of the hunt and moon and birthing, being associated with wild animals and woodland, and having the power to talk to and control animals. She was equated with the Greek goddess Artemis, though she had an independent origin in Italy...
, where the Goddess Diana is evoked into a piece of bread and threatened to grant a wish:
I do not bake the bread, nor with it salt,
Nor do I cook the honey with the wine,
I bake the body and the blood and soul,
The soul of (great) Diana, that she shall
Know neither rest nor peace, and ever be
In cruel suffering till she will grant
What I request, what I do most desire,
I beg it of her from my very heart!
And if the grace be granted, O Diana!
In honour of thee I will hold this feast,
Feast and drain the goblet deep,
We will dance and wildly leap,
And if thou grant'st the grace which I require,
Then when the dance is wildest, all the lamps
Shall be extinguished and we'll freely love!
Self-identification with certain spirits
Invocation can refer to taking on the qualities of the being invoked, such as the allure of AphroditeAphrodite
Aphrodite is the Greek goddess of love, beauty, pleasure, and procreation.Her Roman equivalent is the goddess .Historically, her cult in Greece was imported from, or influenced by, the cult of Astarte in Phoenicia....
or the ferocity of Kali
Kali
' , also known as ' , is the Hindu goddess associated with power, shakti. The name Kali comes from kāla, which means black, time, death, lord of death, Shiva. Kali means "the black one". Since Shiva is called Kāla - the eternal time, Kālī, his consort, also means "Time" or "Death" . Hence, Kāli is...
. In this instance the being is literally called up from within oneself (as an archetype
Archetype
An archetype is a universally understood symbol or term or pattern of behavior, a prototype upon which others are copied, patterned, or emulated...
) or into oneself (as an external force), depending on the personal belief system of the invoker. The main difference between this type of invocation and the possessive category described above is that the former may appear more controlled, with self-identification and deity-identification mixed together. In practice, invocations may blend many or all of these categories. See for example this Hymn to Astarte from the Songs of Bilitis, first attributed to a contemporary of Sappho (but actually written by Pierre Louys in the 1890s):
Mother inexhaustible and incorruptible, creatures, born the first, engendered by thyself and by thyself conceived, issue of thyself alone and seeking joy within thyself, Astarte!
Oh! Perpetually fertilized, virgin and nurse of all that is, chaste and lascivious, pure and revelling, ineffable, nocturnal, sweet, breather of fire, foam of the sea!
Thou who accordest grace in secret, thou who unitest, thou who lovest, thou who seizest with furious desire the multiplied races of savage beasts and couplest the sexes in the wood.
Oh, irresistible Astarte! hear me, take me, possess me, oh, Moon! and thirteen times each year draw from my womb the sweet libation of my blood!