I often get questions from other occultists and people not acquainted with the invocation or evocation of spirits whether the phenomenon is actually real. Does the summoned spirit truly appear? Is it real or illusory? Does it cause strange paranormal phenomenon when it appears? I suppose for someone who has never experienced these occult phenomena first hand they would either doubt that they occur, or they would fantasize that they must produce striking events heralded by miracles and mind-bending paranormal occurrences.
When I respond by telling them that what transpires is amazing but also subjective, mostly internalized, and deeply felt from within, they seem disappointed. When I have accomplices working with me, they often experience the same kind of internalized phenomenon that I do; but the voices they hear and the things they see couldn’t be captured with a video camera. Sometimes, I have had individuals who worked magic with me vaguely sense something but really saw and heard nothing, while their compatriots (if there were others) experienced something very similar to what I experienced. This might be puzzling for some.
When two or more people experience something in a very nearly similar manner then we can assume that the experience has a certain objective reality. However, I am very certain that only those who are sensitive, open minded and empathic are able to fully function within a magical process. Some folks just don’t see or feel what I do when working magic, and that’s okay. I have spent most of my life working magic and so it is as real as anything else I can experience, but it is very different than having a mundane social encounter.
Magical phenomena are subtle, highly subjective, and they require a creative imagination to make them capable of being fully realized. That has more to do with how I perceive reality and my expectations than it has to do with the universality of the magical process. Magic is not for everyone, and not everyone can either sense it or engage it. I won’t say that practitioners of magic are born to perceive and engage with it, but it seems that those who are open, imaginative, sensitive, suggestive and empathetic are able to function as magicians. If you lack in any of these qualities, you can still learn to work magic; but lacking an imagination and an ability to be empathetic are obviously complete obstacles to functioning as a magician.
However, one of the cleverest questions I have ever been asked was when someone brought up the hypothetical issue when two or more magicians are summoning the same spirit. Does it matter who finishes the invocation first, and if one magician succeeds do the others get nothing, or perhaps some kind of busy signal with the message to try again later? Is there only one spirit out there to be summoned at any time? What if someone traps a spirit in a bottle, like what Solomon was reputed to have done? Is that spirit no longer available for summoning?
Those questions take some thought to answer. Is there only one version of a spirit out there in the spirit world? Why does one magician’s summoning experience, documented in, let’s say, a grimoire, different from another magician’s experience? This does happen, and it depends on the beliefs and ideals that the magician carries with them, how they see and value the spirit, and whether their attitude is to bind and dominate the spirit, or to engage in a cooperative quid-pro-quo relationship? I have heard of a situation where more than one magician performed a summoning against the same spirit at around the same time and both magicians had powerful and favorable experiences. Does performing a conjuration cause a spirit to become duplicated so they can exist in two or more places at once. What is the mechanism involved when a magician summons a spirit? What are they really getting and how does it actually work?
When we choose a spirit to invoke or evoke, we typically find it listed in a grimoire or some other list of spirits. There might be a textual character sketch of what that spirit looks like and what it can do for the operator. There could also be a sigil or a seal representing the spirit, and maybe a generalized invocation to summon that entity. There could be nothing more than a name in a list without any description, associated quality, or a sigil or seal to use in a conjuration. Whatever information there is, the magician will fill in the gaps using their art to build an image of that entity, the reason for summoning it (the task it is to do), and to derive a sigil for that spirit based on its name. All of this information describing a spirit, its function, and its symbolic signature, is a template or the abstract qualities associated with that spirit. When we seek to conjure a spirit; it is from the basis of a template of organized attributes that we perform this process.
After the invocation, and if the spirit appears in some form, then what we have realized is what I call an instantiation of that spirit. I use this word in a similar manner to what programmers refer to when they execute an instantiation in the code of a program. An instantiation is a real instance or a particular realization of an abstract quality or a template (defined attributes). This is the basis of object orientated programming, and it also works as a means to describing the phenomenon of spirit conjuring. When we summon a spirit, our symbolic template is used to generate an instantiation of that spirit, which appears real to us. If someone else performed the same invocation at the same then they would generate their own instantiation of that spirit. They might experience something completely different, but it would be founded on the qualities and attributes that they established when defining the template of the spirit. I believe that this process is also experienced when someone invokes or assumes a Godhead. What they achieve is an instantiation of that Deity, based on their beliefs, expectations, and perceptions.
When we summon a spirit and go through the process of binding, constraining and releasing, we have established a temporary instantiation with that spirit. What this means is that we are linked to that process, and while we could ask a spirit to help or favor someone else, we are the one who is connected to that magical process. As it is defined in magic, once connected then always connected. We can destroy that connection by burning or destroying the sigil or seal and by performing a banishing rite. Yet if we do not banish the spirit, and then later we die, that connection is forever gone. It cannot be transferred to another person without that individual performing their own conjuration. Even if there is a book of spirits that was passed on or somehow obtained by a second party, the sigils and seals in that book are dormant unless they are activated by the magic deployed by that second party. Past workings performed by magicians are part of their spiritual and magical persona and cannot be either taken away, given away or sold to another party. Because the core connection in a conjuration rite is the instantiation, it is something that is forever connected to a specific magic, and it must be replicated by another magician in order to be realized.
This brings me to discuss the Solomonic practice of summoning a spirit and then placing it into a bottle. A similar approach would be when a Voudoun bokor conjures a spirit and places it into their “prenda” or spirit pot. This instantiation functions as long as the magician keeps it relevant in their mind or if they should die. Once death occurs, then the magician’s tools, spirit bottles, personally activated book of spirits, and artifacts become dormant. Another magician could activate them, particularly if they knew the names of the spirits who were placed in a bottle, book or an object. However, non-practitioners would not be able to either wield these tools nor engage these artifacts because they would no longer be functional. The instantiation that made them fully realized would be gone, and so too, would the magical qualities of those objects.
Where this gets more complicated is when someone creates talismans. If a magician generates a talismanic field and conjures a spirit within it, then even if they were to die, the talisman would continue to function, and the spirit would be fully functional within that artifact. This is because when merging a spirit with a talisman, the talismanic field establishes and maintains the instantiation, thereby releasing the magician of the bond or connection to the spirit. Such a process is complicated and advanced, but if a magician were to do it, then depending on the spirit summoned, they could create something that would continue to keep the spirit fully activated, and such an entity could do good or harm, depending on the quality of the talismanic field.
The phases of the moon dictates whether a talisman is positive or negative regarding its output of intelligent energies. A waxing moon produces a positive talisman, and a waning moon produces one that is negative. If someone were perverse or vicious enough to set a negative talismanic field with a demonic spirit, then the artifact that would contain them would be a powerful form of a curse. A perpetual instantiation would make the realized demon quite powerful and very vengeful – it would be a pissed off demon seeking ultimate release from the talismanic artifact. This would be similar to a genie trapped in a bottle, except it is the talismanic field that holds the demon in a state of eternal evocation. I wouldn’t want to receive such an artifact as a gift, and that even destroying the talismanic field and releasing the demon could have severe repercussions.
Conjuring spirits creates a personal bond that is temporary, but a talismanic field joined with a conjured spirit makes a continuous instantiation of that spirit possible, causing it to reside practically forever. The only situation where this would be a positive outcome is if the magician invoked one of their Deities and drew it down into a statue or icon that was charged with a positive talismanic field. This is how I would propose to animate a statue or icon with the instantiated presence of a Deity. A God or Goddess being used in this fashion is a whole different equation when considering statue animation, and it is something that can be done without harming oneself or others, or angering the target entity.
A final consideration is that invocations and evocations are temporary, although the bond it creates is semi-permanent, subject to a deliberate disconnection or the death of the operator. A talismanic field merged with a conjuration is probably a poor choice for a magical working. This is because you can conjure a spirit to do something, or you can generate a talisman to do something else, but it might be really crazy to join them into a single artifact, because breaking the bond by destroying the talismanic artifact could have unwanted or very undesirable consequences.
Frater Barrabbas
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