SUMMONING SPIRITS Now That We Have a Working Definition of What Magical Evocation Is, We Should Be Able to Illustrate What It Is Not Rather Simply
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Evocation can be defined as the calling forth of an entity from another plane of existence to an external manifestation in either the astral or physical plane. INTRODUCTION magician felt a surge of excitement run through him as he icked up the leather-bound book. He carefully opened the old diary to the section marked "Conjuration," and began to read by the red light of the filtered lamp on the altar. When the oration was completed, the magician glanced at the painted wooden triangle he had positioned outside the magic circle. Toward the cen- ter of the equilateral triangle, smoke rose from a brass censer in a steady stream, filling the entire room with the scent of peppermint. Scattered about this glowing bowl were pieces of iron, garnet, and red jasper; to the right of the censer stood a metal figurine of a scorpion that cast moving shadows on the floor as the glow of the coals illuminated it. Slowly, the magician's gaze fixed upon the small object at the base of the triangle. The red light in the room, combined with the faint glow of the censer, clearly showed the symbol drawn on the round piece of paper. It was this sigil that the magician began to focus on as he closed his eyes. In a few moments, the magician held up his wand and slowly started opening his eyes. The name "Phalegh," which he had been repeating mentally, escaped his lips as a whisper, and he continued calling the Mars spirit out loud. With each repetition of the name, the magician opened his eyes a little more, and his voice grew in volume and resonance. Hovering in the smoke before him, a tall, muscular man with glowing orange eyes was staring at the magician. He was dressed in red and held a long brilliant sword in his right hand. A low rumbling sound began to fill the room, and continued to grow louder as the figure standing in the triangle became clearer. The magician pointed his wand at the spirit and greeted him. The evocation was a success, and the magician could now communicate with the spirit freely. Magical evocation is one of the most fascinating yet misunderstood prac- tices in the occult world. The idea of calling forth a spirit from another plane to visible appearance, and of consequently commanding it to perform some deed, has fascinated occultists since at least the beginning of written history, and most likely before. But why the fascination? Ask anyone who has read a grimoire such as the Goetia or the Necronomicon and they'll tell you why. These books promise great power and wealth to the would-be evoker. Most of the spirits presented within their pages are described as being able to grant the magician a num- ber of remarkable things, including the locations of hidden treasures, the admiration of others, supernatural abilities (such as teleportation, enormous strength, and even flight), and all forms of knowledge from languages to sci- ences, making it pretty clear why the practice of evocation has maintained its hold on the minds of magicians all over the world. What could .be more excit- ing than rea9.ing a few lines from a book and having some supernatural being grant you anything your heart desires? All you have to do is make sure the words are pronounced correctly, right? Wrong. The grimoires of ancient times weren't meant to teach someone how to do evocations. They were more like notebooks or magical diaries. A magician would only write in them the things he or she experimented with, or didn't have time to memorize. Because of this, these tomes of mystical knowledge are terribly incomplete and utterly useless to the uninitiated magician. The wordy conjurations found in them are only part of a system- atic, magical process. Of course, when I was younger I didn't know this. Like many others before me, I bought my copy of the Goetia (one of the books of the Lesser Key of Solomon) and decided to practice conjurations. Using a piece of chalk, I drew a rough facsimile on the floor of the magic circle shown in the book (boy, did that INTRODUCTION take hours), and got together some crude tools that I felt would do the job. Armed with all these implements, I took my book and began to conjure. After three repetitions of five different conjurations, which took about an hour to get through, I was rewarded with little more than an intense headache from trying to read by the light of two candles. My dream of becoming a powerful magician was shattered at the age of fourteen, and it was almost a whole year before I began looking into the occult again. The works of Franz Bardon, the brilliant occultist, rekindled my interest in magical evocation. Bardon had a few theories on how evocations work that made a lot of sense. I took what I learned from him and began a five-year search for other theories and techniques in hopes of coming up with a method of evocation that worked. Sure enough, with a little bit of research, a lot of experimentation, and an enormous amount of initial failures, I found two distinct types of magical evocation that work remarkably well. But before identifying these two forms of evocation, it is important to establish a work- ing definition of what evocation really is. Evocation can be defined as the calling forth of an entity from another plane of existence to an external manifestation in either the astral or physical plane. Evoked beings are brought closer to the magician, but never within himself or herself. This is what separates evocations from invocations. In an invocation, the magician brings some foreign intelligence within himself or herself, and allows the entity to speak through his or her body. Channeling is a well-known form of invocation. In an evocation, however, the magician brings the entity to a plane where the magician can view it and communicate with it. Evocation is therefore an external manifestation of an entity, as it occurs outside of the magician's body. This manifestation can take place in either the astral or physical plane, depending upon the type of evocation performed. Evocation to the astral plane is when an entity is brought to the nearby astral plane, where a trained magician or clairvoyant can view it and estab- lish contact. An excellent tool for "seeing" into the astral plane is the magic mirror, and it is usually employed in this type of evocation. This type of mag- ical evocation is the subject of Chapter 7. Evocation to the physical plane is the more difficult of the two to master. When evoking an entity in this manner, the magician must facilitate the full materialization of the being on the physical plane. For this to be possible, the room has to be made to agree with the entity's "nature." Once this prepara- tion is made, the magician could then bring the spirit through the planes to this one. The secrets behind this potent technique are revealed in Chapter 8. SUMMONING SPIRITS Now that we have a working definition of what magical evocation is, we should be able to illustrate what it is not rather simply. This next statement may seem a little odd, but trust me, I'll explain it: Magical evocation is not as easy or hard as the grimoires make it seem. The process of evocation entails more than just reci!ing some lines from a book. There is a systematic process to the art that the authors of the ancient grimoires knew, but didn't feel like sharing. In fact, not only did they not give the reader enough information to make the rituals work, they actually fabricated bizarre practices and "rituals" to throw the uninitiated off the track. While some of them were simply meant to be a waste of time, most of them were created to deter someone from ever trying an evocation in the first place. For example, The Grimoire of Honorius would have you prepare for an evocation with almost a month's worth of meaningless rituals, including two animal sacrifices, the preparation of a lambskin covered with dozens of incoherent symbols, and traveling to fields and "secret" places to bury various parts of the animals' corpses. Even though all of these so-called "preparations of the operator" were absolute nonsense, they were worded in a way that made people believe in their potency, and I'm sure quite a few people did try the rituals, with no results. The truth is, magical evocation requires no animal or human sacri- fice, no blood, no bathing in rivers, no burying of rooster feathers at a cross- road, and absolutely no pacts with demons. There is nothing evil or sadistic about this magical art at all. Magical evocation is a positive and beneficial experience. This book is your guide to the art of magical evocation. It is the only book you'll ever need to learn this ancient practice, and it is unique in that it cov- ers every aspect of magical training necessary to obtain results. Even if you've never practiced magic before, you can still safely perform evocations by first practicing the magical training exercises in the following chapters. The names and seals of many useful spirits are found in ancient gri- moires. Some of the spirits are so vaguely described, however, that a magi- cian summoning them for the first time has little idea of what to expect.