Invocation

This article is about religious and spiritual invocation. For the term meaning starting computer software, see Execution (computing). For other uses, see Invocation (disambiguation).

Invocation by Gustave Doré

Invocation is the act of calling upon a deity, spirit, or supernatural force, typically through prayer, ritual, or spoken formula, to seek guidance, assistance, or presence. It is a practice found in numerous religious, spiritual, and esoteric traditions, where it serves to establish a connection between the human and the divine or metaphysical realms. Invocation can be directed toward a singular deity, multiple deities, spirits, or abstract forces, and may involve formal liturgies, spontaneous prayers, chants, or symbolic actions. Unlike evocation, which is generally understood as calling a spirit to appear outside the practitioner, invocation often implies inviting the entity to be present within or to closely align with the practitioner.

The purpose of invocation varies across cultural and religious contexts. In many traditions, it is used to request divine intervention, protection, wisdom, or blessings in personal or communal matters. Invocation may also serve to consecrate a space, mark the beginning of a sacred ritual, or facilitate a deeper spiritual experience. In mystical or esoteric practices, invocation can be a means of aligning oneself with a higher spiritual principle or archetype, fostering personal transformation or enlightenment. In some cases, invocation may result in possession, where the invoked entity is believed to temporarily inhabit or influence the practitioner.

The scope of invocation is broad, encompassing a wide range of religious, magical, and philosophical practices. In formal religious contexts, such as Christianity, Hinduism, and Islam, invocation is often integrated into prayers, hymns, and rituals. For example, Christian liturgy frequently includes invocations of the Holy Trinity or saints, while Hindu pujas invoke various deities through mantras and offerings. In ceremonial magic and theurgy, invocation is used to summon divine powers for guidance or to achieve specific spiritual outcomes. Additionally, modern spiritual movements, such as Wicca and modern Paganism, employ invocation to call upon deities, elemental forces, or spirits of nature. Beyond religious practice, invocation has also been explored in psychological frameworks; Carl Jung's concept of active imagination involves engaging with archetypal figures from the unconscious, a process that parallels the symbolic aspects of invocation.

Supplication or prayer

As a supplication or prayer, an invocation implies calling upon God, a god, goddess, or person. When a person calls upon God, a god, or goddess to ask for something (protection, a favour, or their spiritual presence in a ceremony) 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.

In general, all religions use invoking prayers, liturgies, or hymns; see for example the mantras in Hinduism and Buddhism, the Egyptian 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 Islam, invocation (duʿāʾ) is a prayer of supplication or request. Muslims regard this as a profound act of worship. One of the earliest treaties on invocations, attributed to a scholar named Khālid ibn Yazīd, has survived on a papyrus booklet dated 880-881.

An invocation can also be a secular alternative to a prayer.

A form of possession

The word "possession" is used here in its neutral form to mean "a state (sometimes 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.

In some religious traditions including Paganism, Shamanism and Wicca, "invocation" means to draw a spirit or Spirit force into one's own body and is differentiated from "evocation", which involves asking a spirit or force to become present at a given location. Aleister 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 is an example of such a pre-established recitation.

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:

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 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.

See also

• Drawing down the moon

References

Works cited

• Crowley, Aleister (1997). Magick: Liber ABA, Book 4, Parts I-IV (2nd rev. ed.). Boston: Weiser. ISBN 0-87728-919-0.
• Eliade, Mircea (1959). The Sacred and the Profane: The Nature of Religion. Harcourt Brace Jovanovich.
• Gallusz, L. (2017). The Seven Prayers of Jesus. IVP. ISBN 978-1-78359-568-6.
• Hutton, Ronald (1999). The Triumph of the Moon: A History of Modern Pagan Witchcraft. Oxford University Press.
• Jung, Carl (1964). Man and His Symbols. Aldus Books.
• Laude, Robert, ed. (2006). "Introduction". Pray Without Ceasing: The Way of the Invocation in World Religions. World Wisdom. ISBN 978-1-933316-14-7.
• Luck, Georg (2006). Arcana Mundi: Magic and the Occult in the Greek and Roman Worlds. Johns Hopkins University Press. ISBN 978-0-8018-8346-0.
• Smart, Ninian (1998). The World’s Religions. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-63139-6.
• Turner, Victor (1969). The Ritual Process: Structure and Anti-Structure. Aldine Publishing Company.
• Wallis, Robert J. (2003). Shamans/Neo-Shamans: Ecstasies, Alternative Archaeologies and Contemporary Pagans. Routledge. ISBN 0-415-30202-1.

External links

The dictionary definition of invocation at Wiktionary