Evocation is not (pt 2)

Evocation has gotten a lot of slack from people.

Evoking the entities seems to almost be considered silly, a waste of time, or dickwaving. Why, oh why would anyone want to evoke an entity when you can just contact it using a means of divination or even astral hearing?

This is probably due to the fact that as a chunk of western magick was broken of it and then watered down into an unrecognizable weak mess, (kinda like budweiser compared to real beer) a ton of juveniles, or people who never got beyond that stage, wanted to evoke things as a proof.

Originally, the reason you evoked something was to make sure you actually got what you wanted to be there.

Some of my readers will be familiar with Afro-traditions. You will be aware that in Haitian Voudu the congregation dances together with the priests and thus anyone can become possessed, BUT because anyone could be possessed people are worried that someone might be faking it. Thus the Lwa, when they come down, not only say secret things and give signs, they also do things the person coulnd't do on their own. Sit on machetes, rub peppers on their genitals etc.

Now, from the point of view of the still living tradition that works with these entities, why would you want to evoke them?

Well, lets start by the fact that they are frickin' Demons. They are high up (or down) the specific chain. From the point of view of the tradition, you don't know for sure that you got that specific demon unless that demon shows itself. before that it can be a shade, an elemental or a lesser demon or anything else for that matter.

Just to put things into perspective: To simply communicate with a demon using a pendulum is to the Tradition the same insult as if you would have started to call upon Orisha during your LBRPs and about as effective for the original purpose. Or, lets say visualising yourself astrally as a Lwa and assuming their godforms instead of a full on possession.

Best of all? It can and often is, you.

Also, if I put it mildly, the purpose of evoking a demon somewhere is not to ask to get laid or for some luck gambling. If you get the demon to be somewhere for a reason you better know what to do with it.

Hint: some demons in Lemegeton are hoping to become angels again after a set time. ever wondered why?

Now, when we evoke something (unto visible appearance) one of the requirements is that others should be able to see it and the entity needs to be physically present for example to lift things. The thing is, even this can be explained away using mass-hysteria telepathy telekinesis...

Before you actually know WHY you ought to evoke demons, it might be useful being able to do it. The skill to cause mass-hysteria or the level of divine influx needed, or whatever you want to explain it as, is an indication to whether or not you can do what you need to do when Belsebub comes knocking on your door because some of his best generals suddenly grew wings again.

Evocation is not...

I find it interesting to see how many ways people manage to use items in ways they were not meant to be used.

Steak-knives as screwdrivers, ice-picks as murder-weapons, and high-heel shoes as hammers, you name it.

If you know what you are doing then it is all good and well. You know that a hammer is better them pumps to get those nails in. You know a rapier works better then an ice-pick. You are well aware that a screwdriver won't mess up your screws the way unscrewing them with a knife does.

There are a lot of people who have experimented using the seals of entities from various grimoires as means of empowering magick.

Now, from many perspectives this is extremely smart magick. Not good, per se, but smart.

The tradition the grimoires come from believes that symbols, seals and names and that which they represent or name is the same thing.

Thus

Bear the word

this photo

and a real bear, they are really all the same thing.

So if we are going to be careful to not perform cultural rape let us not forget that there is a western tradition that even 90% of those who claim to follow it aren't even initiated into.

From the point of view of the tradition that the grimoires belong to this is what happens with the example of the bear.

If you use the symbol to just communicate with the bear you are basically standing at the entrance of its cave shouting things and probably smelling it or seeing its eyes or shadow, but the bear remains in the cave.

If you use the seal to empower magick, say as a chaosmagician you use the seal, or maybe you want to use the seal so you burn it and add it to a bag of talismans. What are you actually doing from the point of view of the Tradition?

Well, let's say your goal is t get the bear to go to a clearing and scare away some pesky dogs hat are disturbing your picnic. (And you forget watching Yogi Bear and don't consider he will steal your pic-a-nic basket)

So, you can sit down with the sigil and communicate

::You shout roughly towards the cave:::

you evoke the bear

::You go to the cave, show it your Bear-paw authority card instruct it in what to do and walk back with it and then see it chase away the dogs, but maybe steal your basket as well::

you do what chaoists, hoodooists and members of the Tradition Grimoires belong to do with a seal

::You sneak into the cave, collect some of the bears hair and shit, maybe grab its paw and then you take all this into the clearing and use it to scare the dogs away with::

Ok, I realise my metaphor is a bit strained. Point is though, using the seals without involving the entity is smart.

1 you don't have to deal with the entity directly, unless it wakes up

2 often you simply just believe more in your own magick and the seal doesn't do squat

3 you get all the benefits from accessing the entity but,hopefully none of the downsides

Why its not really Good magick?

1

well, firstly, the "Bear" might wake up. He won't like that you shaved him to use his hair. Also, he might actually be friends with the dogs you chased away, and if he would have been woken up and asked nicely he would not have agreed. Guess what happens next time you try and sneak into his cave?

2

Maybe he really likes what you did and wants you to do more of what you did. Shaving is hard Guess what happens next time you sneak into the cave? Will there always be dogs waiting?

3

The tradition the grimoires come from has much better, efficient and powerful images that can be used instead of the demonic seals.

The images of the decans, the 28 mansions just to give an example

4

People often don't know how to properly use the symbols. Guys, in the same way as most of you would not feel comfortable walking into a Voudu peristyle in rural Haiti and then dumping a frozen chicken unto a veve in the middle of a fete, stealing some of the corn for use in rituals and then escaping (doubt you would live through this, but lets pretend, eh?) it might be smart knowing that certain signatures would never, ever have been used on their own.

So if you want to print the seal of varcas on a candle you are burning, if you are creating a talismanic bag with items in it relating to a force and you really think that dumping the sigil of a demonic entity in there is what is needed to enhance the spell, by all means do it.

But be aware that it might be considered rude by the entity.

Oh, and never, ever use the heptameron seals without their angelic supervisors. It is not a safety measure, the entity works in symbiosis. You will not get the result you want because you are trying to use a half of a whole.

I know you can get results but trust me, its better with the whole.

Or you could just print and eat every single one of the 72 goetic seals from lemegeton.

Oh, charge them with a mix of sperm and your blood first then eat them.

Yum.

Religion?

A being that finds enlightenment will try and share that enlightenment with others.

Depending on the mental makeup of that being, the mystery received through enlightenment can come through in 3 ways.

1 In the purest form. This is referred to as someone who has beheld the mystery and becomes a living link to the mystery.

A being who beholds and becomes a living link to the mystery is free from all cultural notions and can bring others to the realization of the mystery by whatever means that person needs it.

Christian Rozenkreutz and Martinez Pasqually for example both suggested that one should take up the dominant religion of the country wherein one resides. This is so that one may understand enough for the cultural symbols present in the mind of the locals so one may use those symbols and crutches in the guidance of these souls. It is measured work.

2 Strongly coloured by the social cultural, religious and psychological makeup of the individual. These people behold the mystery but are unable to see it in its entirety and interpret it from a point of view they are familiar with. This is naturally a degradation of the mystery as the nature of the mystery is that it is beyond cultural social and religious forms.

These beings sometimes become living links to the mystery and manage to fully understand it in time. Often they spend their life having created a new religion or a new form of an old one since that was the context through which they understood it and trying to help people to behold the mystery but only from the point of view from which they themselves saw it.

Ever wonder why Jesuits who have performed the spiritual exercises of Loyolla are so devoutly certain Catholicism is the way to go?

3 Beings that behold the mystery but have no bloody clue what they experienced. Sometimes they don't even have a cultural context to place it into.

People performing rituals or mystical practices without guidance, who do drugs and experience spiritual peak experiences all fall into this category.

They have seen the outer mystery, or one of the manifestations of the mystery.

These people often become enamoured by the technique or thing that got them there first.

A true spiritual master is a being from the 1th category who is guiding people there.

the 2nd category is most of your prophets and spiritual leaders

the 3rd category is your random practitioners, groupies, druggies and culties.

A fun way to talk about religion is to state that there is someone from the 1th group who sets out trying to teach someone else but for whatever reason the other person is a thick bastard, or the being dies.

So the person being taught thinks that just because the master was using jewish or hindu symbols to try and explain something, or a parable that the metaphor IS the message.

This way you have a traditional school formed where the true message is lost, where a religion, the set of rules, are followed but there is no enlivening spark.

Often the enlivening spark can be reinserted but unless done with enough fervor, the mystery will only come back slightly veiled and the people who behold it will interpret it through the symbols.

More dangerous is it when a being from the 2nd category who are already enmeshed in some socioploitic set of rules (religion) and then experience part of the mystery, don't quite get it and then assign universal validity to their specific interpretation of it.

Christians who through certain exercises become so convinced that Christ is god, not from a universal yeheshua, redeeming force point of view but a personal saviour evangelical point of view that they are happy to say, quote the pope who sent Crusaders against some cities and villages in europe "kill them all, god will know his own."

Crowley did the same when he received liber al. Congrats uncle Al, secret western orders have known for roughly 500 years, that we have historical evidence of, what you think is news in 1904, because you don't listen to one of the most important GD lessons> take everything gods, godesses and other astral crap say to you with a pinch of salt.

If Crowley wasn't in egypt and other astral forces were present and his mind would have been filled with different symbols, he would not haved received liber al the way he did. He would have channeled a tantric text, or a Christano Gnostic one, or maybe even an alchemical treatise, or if he was less full of himself he would have realised that he has a heavily veiled format of the mystery and that he should understand it in its pure form. But hey, not everyone can ttruly be enlightened. Karma and whatnot.

Example: Gnosticism is not Christianity. Gnosticism can be explained using the terms dreamed up around Constantins time. Yet in the middle ages we have neo gnosticism in the form of the Cathars.

When you experience something it needs to be a Universal experience. Your cultural interpretation is irrelevant.

This is why the true sages of old and now can talk to eachother and agree whereas the rabble are fighting over what type of pasta with which sauce the the prophet(ess) actually ordered the monks to eat and whether or not consumption of onions is Krishnaic or not