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Lately I’ve been reading up on
evocation. Something I noticed in several books was the insistence by
the authors on using incense as a way of creating a substance the
entity could use to give itself form. The argument roughly went that
the entities could not survive in our plane of existence and needed
some substance associated with them that they could use to construct a
space that allowed them to exist and also interact with us safely
(Bardon 2001, Lisiewski 2004). Now although I’ve done a fair amount of
ceremonial magic, I’m not really a fan of getting lots of ingredients
together to do a ritual. I live in a small cramped house and there
isn’t a lot of room to put down a traditional circle, break out all the
tools, and light the incense. And while I’d love to do a ritual in my
backyard, well somehow I don’t think the neighbors would appreciate it. At the same time, as I read these
books, I was told by one author that any evocation I do that isn’t by
the book is inauthentic and not a real evocation (Lisiewski 2004). So
I’m left in a quandary. I want to evoke, but I don’t have the physical
space or materials and it’s not authentic if you don’t follow the
instructions. In fact evocation sounds more like a cook book recipe
than anything else. There’s no allowance for experimentation here, is
there? Well, not necessarily. As it turns out
there is room for experimentation and your evocations can be as
effective as going the traditional route. Afterall the symbol does not
make the reality, it just denotes it. If that’s the case, and from my
experiences it has been, then it’s possible that it’s not so much the
particular act in and of itself that works, as it is what the act is
supposed to do for all parties involved. If Evocation is about creating
a link and a space for an entity to use so that it can interact with
this reality safely, then incense and the rest of a ceremonial ritual
is only way to go about this. Another way to go about this is to use a
container that functions outside of conventional space/time such as
Brian Shaughnessy’s Tesseract device (and I’ve used it for that very
purpose quite successfully). Another process however, involves taking
another principle from Bardon’s work and applying it toward creating a
gateway that allows the practitioner to evoke the entity, while at the
same time keeping the entity safe so that it can interact with the
magician. Bardon uses an approach called
impregnation, where he puts into an object a specific meaning/energy
that can then be evoked from that object. In the case of working with
an entity, Bardon would carve or put the seal/sigil (i.e. the symbol)
of the entity on the object in question and use that symbol as a focus.
The focus on the symbol impregnated the meaning, and access to the
entity, into the talisman. Then Bardon would evoke the entity, show it
the talisman, and get it agree to using the talisman as a portal. After
that the magician could use the talisman to evoke the entity whenever
sie pleased. Another method that Bardon uses in his
evocation is the use of a magic mirror, where the mirror would be
painted with the symbol of the entity, and then impregnated with the
particular vibration or energy the entity identified with, calling it
forth through the mirror. Something which is important to note
about Bardon’s approach is his definition of entities, “The beings and
principals which he will perceive there are not personified beings.
Instead, they are powers and vibrations which are analogous to the
names and attributes. Should a magician…decide to materialize one of
these powers, or if he were to give this power a form that is
accessible to his receptivity, then his power would appear to him in
the form which corresponds to his symbolic abilities of perception”
(2001, p. 96). I tend to treat entities as real beings that exist in
their own right, but I agree with Bardon’s idea that the appearance of
them is likely only a symbolic embodiment created to represent the
particular power/vibration/concept being worked with. In other words,
the entities are real, but they know that to effectively work with
someone they need to interact with hir in a way that makes sense and
yet still accomplishes the goal at hand. On an interesting aside, I was
using Bardon’s principle of impregnation for years, before I actually
discovered or read his work, but upon reading his ideas realized that I
was using the same concept in my own evocations! Given that, I also will admit that I
use personalized symbols (based off of the principle Spare’s alphabet
of desire), based off my interactions with entities, to work with them
(Mace 1984). I find that a personalized system emphasizes a personal
relationship with the entity being evoked. This, in turn, grants me a
relationship that works because it’s based off my own parameters as
opposed to someone else’s parameters. I nonetheless have successful
full evocations like the ones described by Lisiewski, albeit less noisy
and with less mind games, because my parameters don’t involve forcing
an evoked entity to do a task. Instead I prefer mutual partnership and
cooperation and respect, which has caused the evocations that I’ve
worked to go rather well, with the desires manifested as I needed. My particular approach to evocation is
a synthesis of Bardon’s impregnation techniques and Spare’s artistic
work. I use water color paints to create a gateway/portal to the
particular entity I want to work with. The landscape of the painting
represents the native environment of the entity, and can represent as
well the particular vibration or energy the entity is associated with.
I input my symbol that represents that entity into the painting. I
usually I try to incorporate the symbol into a representation of the
body of the entity I’m working with. The symbol serves as a key to
activate the gateway. I usually touch the symbol and mentally call the
entity to me. I know the entity has arrived when the painting seems to
come to life. In other words, the landscape and representation of the
entity will seem to move, as I look at it. I then interact with the
entity and work out whatever it is we need to do together. This form of evocation can be used
with classical entities or pop culture entities or entities created by
yourself. I’ve even used this approach to work solely with planetary
energies, evoking their vibrations into my life and then making an
offering of those vibrations/energy to the Earth. Another innovative way to use this
approach is to actually evoke yourself. I’ve painted several different
versions of my internal landscape, complete with a symbol, and used it
to evoke my internal personality aspects in order to work with them
more closely, while dissolving energetic blockages. That approach has
greatly helped me in that internal work, while allowing me to get to
know parts of myself I might not consciously interact with otherwise. I’ve included below some paintings
with appropriate captions. Figure One: A recent painting
completed for the purpose of evoking my animal spirit guides Fox and
Bear for the protection of my new home. Painted in 2006.
Figure Two: Picture of Cerontis, an
entity I created for the specific purpose of monitoring space/time
probabilities and pinging my intuition to steer me toward favorable
ones. Painted in 2000.
Figure Three: Picture of Thee Womb
Dream of Shinma (tainted love). Basically an entity created for a
e-list I moderated…It represents the tainted love I feel toward the
occult community. People familiar with Coil will appreciate the
reference to the song title. Painted in 2001.
Figure Four: Self Evocation painting.
I painted this one in 2004, after a stormy period of my life had just
ended. It wasn’t until 2005 that it occurred to me that I could work
with the images in the painting and that they might represent issues.
Figure Five: Evocation of
Love/Aphrodite. I painted this one in 2003, as a way of evoking love
for myself as well as seeking the love of another person (part of my
six year year evocation of my mate in fact). The DNA spiral represents
the concept that love is genetic.
Figure Six: Evocation of the Phoenix,
a power being I identify with closely. Painted in 2005, right after I
left Grad School. Certainly the period after that did represent a cycle
of death and rebirth.
Figure Seven: Evocation of planetary
Energy/Alignment of Planets. Painted in May of 2000 for a planetary
alignment, with the purpose being to evoke the energy and then give it
to the Earth as a gift for a safe trip and also to inspire me toward
finding my true calling in my spirituality. Needless to say shortly
after that I did indeed find my true calling life as it was around this
time that I started helping with the co-written Creating Magickal
Entities
Figure Eight: Evocation of myself in a
relationship in 1999. The chose in the picture accurately embodies that
particular relationship.
Figure Nine: Evocation of the pop
culture Entity of Miss Cleo, painted in 2001, as a way of calling on
her divinatory powers to aid my own attempts with divination. This
painting was also part inspiration for a lot of the work that went into
Space/Time Magic.
End thoughts: I am not a
trained painter. In fact my paintings are done by going into a trance
and letting the entity in question take over and paint the picture.
This might be why the evocations have been successful. I allowed the
entity to express itself in the best possible way. Another thing to
note is you needn't limit your magical work to just
paintings. I've used collages for evoking entities and even
people into my life, and writing to evoke specific situations into my
life. Other artistic mediums such as sculpture, music, etc can
also be used. The only limit is your imagination and your talents
at using unconventional mediums to work effective magic. I suggest that evocation is not such a
strict discipline that creative innovations can’t be used. Lisiewski is
wrong when he argues that evocation must be done a specific way. Of
course his treatment of entities is a treatment of them as beings to be
feared and commanded (Lisiewski 2004). My approach is one of respect
and partnership. I have yet to suffer from his slingshot effect. Even
when my evocations haven’t worked, there have been none of the
disastrous effects he mentions in his work. I’d suggest that the
approach a person takes to the entity greatly effects the success of
the evocation and also the failure of it. Treating entities like
antagonists creates a dualistic us vs. them mindset with the
accompanying tension sure to disrupt the evocation. Working with them
as partners creates a lack of tension and a focus instead on meeting
the goals at hand.
Work Cited: Bardon, Franz.
(2001). The practice of magical evocation. Salt Lake City: Merkur
Publishing, Inc. Lisiewski, Joseph
C. (2004). Ceremonial Magic & the power of evocation. Tempe: New
Falcon Press. Mace, Stephen.
(1984). Stealing the Fire from Heaven. Milford: Self-published
