Charlie
09-07-2004, 12:29 AM
I thought this would be some loopy article (yes, loopy) about demons and angels, but it’s actually quite practical, common-sense information.
I’ve never been to Burning Man, only read about it and seen photos. (I’m hoping those who did this year will extrapolate on this forum a bit). The concept of evocation as expressed in this article seems to define the spirit, or “point” of Burning Man.
Cheers.
http://www.disinfo.com/site/displayarticle5561.htm
Occult author Taylor Ellwood offers his own take on evocation:
'Evocation is traditionally thought of as a pursuit that involves elaborate rituals, chalk diagrams and entities summoned from another plane of existence that can harm if you the appropriate safeguards aren&'t taken. Evocation also involves the outward manifestation of the entity, as opposed to invocation which involves bring the entity into you. Kraig defines evocation as: 'Its purpose [he's referring to evocation] is to allow you to communicate with other intelligences, powers, or entities which do not exist on our physical plane' (1997, p. 376). This is the traditional paradigm when it comes to evocation. My work with creating entities can also fit into this kind of evocation, as what you are doing is actually providing a vessel of some form or another through which the entity can manifest and then do its task for you.'
'Another approach to evocation takes more of a psycho-linguistic approach: 'The act of writing is a magickal act of evocation. Evocation is the art and science of summoning spirits; in this case the spirits are and science of summoning spirits; in this case the spirits are elements arising from the author's subconscious mind' (Packwood 2004, p. 48). This definition is somewhat closer toward what I will discuss today. The writer, or artist utilizes the medium of writing, paint, or whatever form of expression is available to manifest the entity or desired manifestation into existence. But here comes the question: Do we really need entities, gods, etc., for evocation to work?
'My answer to that is no. Gods, demons, and entities are useful if you really need to distance yourself from the situation, but at the same time, I would argue that what you or I really seek to work with are the raw concepts from which a desired manifestation is formed. The entities and the like are just convenient forms we use to flesh these concepts into something more concrete than just the abstract we desire to manifest into reality. We don't even really need these entities or gods, for they are ultimately crutches and at best should serve as tools we can use to help ourselves develop and evolve our understanding of how to shape reality to our will. Learning, for instance, to distance ourselves from a situation so that we can take care of the situation in the best way possible is ultimately more beneficial than utilizing an entity time and time again. Or to put it another way, the entity can serve as a guide toward what we seek to do, but it should not replace us, and more specifically the capacity to deal with a situation, or manifest a desire into reality.
'Even writing, painting, and other art forms are tools that we use to represent the desire we seek to manifest into reality. The key word to remember is re-present. We re-present the desire in a concrete form so that we can give the energy we are evoking a conduit through which to manifest into reality. That energy is not necessarily subconscious as Packwood argues. Were it to be wholly subconscious then we'd be working within a solipsistic model of magick, where everything originates from the magickian. While it is true that the magickian plays a key role in manifesting a desired reality, s/he tends to interact with that reality and is shaped by it, even as s/he shapes it. That shaping from reality may affect the subconscious. A good example of this would be a person watching TV and after seeing several commercials about food, deciding s/he is hungry. The commercial has evoked a feeling of hunger and consequently that feeling will likely get the person to go to a fast food restaurant where s/he will spend money and get food. One desired result for the restaurant is accomplished and at the same time the person has also accomplished his desired reality by eating the food. The evocation is the desire to eat. The payoff is the money exchanged as energy for the manifestation of food. Usually what has really happened is that the subconscious has been infected by a meme.
'A meme is a message that transmits a specific concept to a person, and also seeks to replicate itself as much as possible. Commercials are the most obvious forms of memes. The commercial is a meme that re-presents a company as well as the services of the company, really re-presents the concept of the company in a concrete form. When I do memetic evocations I like to use word and image collages, cutting up the other memes, breaking their power, and reforming it into my own message, with that message being paid attention by people who see the collage. These people, by paying attention to the collage, are donating energy to the probability the meme evokes into reality. The meme infects them with its message and any thought they give to that message lends itself to the possibility evoked into reality.
'But while memes are an effective way of doing evocations there are more effective ways of evoking probability into reality. The problem with the meme is that the technique relies far too much on other people to sustain its existence. The meme is only meaningful to those people if they can understand it and understand on some level the evocation of the response on their part, which gives the energy within the meme a means of manifesting into reality. For what is evocation really? Is it the manifestation of entity, or is it the manifestation of probability, of concepts into reality? When I do evocation I'm not calling an entity into reality. I'm calling a probability into reality. Now sometimes I like to use paints on my body or on canvas. These paintings are not memes, because they usually aren't shared with people and the purpose of the painting isn't to evoke a response from the person who sees it (though if it does, all the more energy to the probability created), so much as to create a conduit between myself, the painting and the probability I seek to manifest into reality. I paint on my body and the symbols on my body call forth the energy I wish to work with. My body and the paints are the conduits of that energy, the medium by which it expresses itself into reality through the fusion of concept with concrete form. That evocation provokes, for me, one of the most essential ingredients of evocation: Response. Response is key for successful evocation because when you evoke you are calling forth and the response to that calling forth is the link by which the energy manifests into reality. Without that link there is no evocation. Evocation needs the response of the participants, the understanding that probability is manifested not merely by desire, but also by the response to the desire, the response which gives the evocation form though which it can manifest probability into reality. And there is always one sure way of insuring a successful evocation. Use yourself as the trigger for the response.
'This makes sense if we consider that while we are interacting with reality, shaping it into existence, we are also being shaped by it. But that kind of shaping works best with people who understand they are being shaped by reality. If you understand this you can control how you are shaped by how you respond. For instance if I want you to eat at my restaurant I'd best have a good idea of what kind of images of food will appeal to you so as to evoke a response from you. If I don't know that then my restaurant will have few, if any visitors. The response is the establishment of the link between yourself and the probability, or entity, or whatever else you want to call it. Once the response has occurred the link is in place and the manifestation of reality can begin. I use myself when doing evocations because I can control my response. I cannot control another person's response completely and as such this lack of control can throw off the effectiveness of the evocation. It is better then to use yourself and shape how you are shaped by controlling how you react to what is being evoked. When you control the response, you control the manifestation of reality. For myself, body paints an effective way of controlling the build up of the connecting energy and the response on my part. I can re-present the concept in a manner that gives me some control over how it manifests. Also I'm ultimately not concerned with how other people react to what I'm evoking. My only concern is my own reaction and how I'll use it to benefit the evocation.
'I paint on canvas and the probability onto the canvas is evoked by the act of painting, by the act of visualization that flows into my hand through the brush and onto the surface of the canvas to put forth the visualization in a form that anyone can see, but not experience. The experience of the probability is my alone to savor as it manifests into reality, though other people in my life may feel its effects. It is experienced through the act of painting and the release of energy when the painting is complete. The evocation occurs with the release of the energy. I paint and in the act of painting I build up the energy of the evocation until when the final brushstroke is done, I lay down my brush, look at the painting, and experience the evocation of desired probability as it begins to manifest into reality. Evocation, sometimes then, is about letting go of the energy. With my paintings the energy is let go of, evoked by the act of release. Sex magick employs similar techniques with ejaculation and the orgasm. For that matter this process also applies to writing.
'How often have you written something, maybe journaled, and when you've finished you've felt a great release as if something that needed to be expressed was expressed and then let go of? Don't be surprised if what you write about turns into actual reality. You have after all, evoked what you've written about into existence by first putting energy into the writing, then reacting to the writing by having that feeling of the release of energy. But the energy needs to go somewhere and whether you paint, ejaculate, fuck, or write, once the energy is released, once it is evoked it will need to manifest into reality. Consequently you find yourself in some interesting situations and look back at your writing or painting or visualization during sex and you realize you have evoked that reality through the medium you chose to express yourself. I've found this to be true within my writing and I have also noted that many writers either seemingly 'predict' (evoke) events through their writing or at the least shape their own reality through the writing they do. A good example of this would be Kafka, for those interested in determining if my hypothesis is correct, but look into other writers as well.
'We could leave this experimentation with evocation at this point, but I want to extend evocation as a technique even further. Lets throw out all the tools and examine the concept of using evocation in a very raw form. One of the cornerstones of magickal practice seems to be visualization. A person's ability to visualize is a person's way of accessing the wave of probabilities. And I have found that evocation can work through visualization. Why is this the case? Visualization requires that you create in your mind's eye as concrete a reality of a concept as possibility and what should be included is not merely the new reality, but how you react to it. Now the key here is to mentally superimpose this probable reality onto the reality that you live in. How you do this is quite simple. You live the evocation out, projecting the probable onto reality. Of course this may sound like a recipe for insanity, but what this technique really is about is understanding the nature of probability to reality.
'We exist not in a singular, determined reality. Rather we exist in a reality that shifts and changes as probabilities come and go. The problem is that many people do not cultivate the awareness that is necessary to find the opportunities. Visualization is one way of cultivating that awareness. Take any situation and attempt to visualize as many possibilities about that situation as possible. Also visualize all the outcomes good or bad. Another way to cultivate this awareness is to simply pay attention to what is occurring around you. So many people zone out and accordingly miss out on opportunity. If you cultivate this awareness the evocation will be easy to accomplish. What will happen is that you will not only evoke the probability you want by merely visualizing it, but you'll also know what to look for by being aware of probabilities and you can accordingly direct your evocation to those signs that point in the direction of your probability manifesting into reality. A real life example of this is that recently I began doing an evocational working toward my ideal concept of a female companion that I could spend time with. I chose to visualize my evocation through my dreams and I chose to use the concept of the triple goddess for my evocation target. Shortly after this evocation was finished a very striking and exotic person came into my life. The first couple times we didn't even speak, but we noticed each other. But every time I saw her, I evoked the probability that would we speak to each other. The third time I saw we ended up speaking and found similar interests. My evocation relied on my response to what I considered to be my ideal companion. The triple goddess was a convenient form or expression of that concept.
'What evocation boils down to is an understanding of response in the act of evocation as well as an awareness of how evocation interacts with reality. An awareness of how probabilities manifest into reality doesn't hurt either. Regardless of how you choose to use evocation remember as well that the technique is a tool. Entities, gods, and demons are convenient as are other mediums of expression. The power these tools have is the power you give them and you can limit that power by choosing how you react to them. Really evocation is more about evoking probability into reality and less about evoking an entity into existence. The entity just represents the probability, so skip over the entity part and evoke the probability, or use the entity. Evocation as a technique can evolve as we evolve our practice with it and that is the challenge for any magickian who would call him/herself an experimenter.'
Works Cited
Kraig, Donald Michael. (1997). Modern magick: Eleven lessons in the high magickal arts. St. Paul: Llewellyn Publications.
Packwood, Kirk R. (2004). Memetic magic: Manipulation of the root social matrix and the fabric of reality. Seattle: Jaguar Temple Press.
I’ve never been to Burning Man, only read about it and seen photos. (I’m hoping those who did this year will extrapolate on this forum a bit). The concept of evocation as expressed in this article seems to define the spirit, or “point” of Burning Man.
Cheers.
http://www.disinfo.com/site/displayarticle5561.htm
Occult author Taylor Ellwood offers his own take on evocation:
'Evocation is traditionally thought of as a pursuit that involves elaborate rituals, chalk diagrams and entities summoned from another plane of existence that can harm if you the appropriate safeguards aren&'t taken. Evocation also involves the outward manifestation of the entity, as opposed to invocation which involves bring the entity into you. Kraig defines evocation as: 'Its purpose [he's referring to evocation] is to allow you to communicate with other intelligences, powers, or entities which do not exist on our physical plane' (1997, p. 376). This is the traditional paradigm when it comes to evocation. My work with creating entities can also fit into this kind of evocation, as what you are doing is actually providing a vessel of some form or another through which the entity can manifest and then do its task for you.'
'Another approach to evocation takes more of a psycho-linguistic approach: 'The act of writing is a magickal act of evocation. Evocation is the art and science of summoning spirits; in this case the spirits are and science of summoning spirits; in this case the spirits are elements arising from the author's subconscious mind' (Packwood 2004, p. 48). This definition is somewhat closer toward what I will discuss today. The writer, or artist utilizes the medium of writing, paint, or whatever form of expression is available to manifest the entity or desired manifestation into existence. But here comes the question: Do we really need entities, gods, etc., for evocation to work?
'My answer to that is no. Gods, demons, and entities are useful if you really need to distance yourself from the situation, but at the same time, I would argue that what you or I really seek to work with are the raw concepts from which a desired manifestation is formed. The entities and the like are just convenient forms we use to flesh these concepts into something more concrete than just the abstract we desire to manifest into reality. We don't even really need these entities or gods, for they are ultimately crutches and at best should serve as tools we can use to help ourselves develop and evolve our understanding of how to shape reality to our will. Learning, for instance, to distance ourselves from a situation so that we can take care of the situation in the best way possible is ultimately more beneficial than utilizing an entity time and time again. Or to put it another way, the entity can serve as a guide toward what we seek to do, but it should not replace us, and more specifically the capacity to deal with a situation, or manifest a desire into reality.
'Even writing, painting, and other art forms are tools that we use to represent the desire we seek to manifest into reality. The key word to remember is re-present. We re-present the desire in a concrete form so that we can give the energy we are evoking a conduit through which to manifest into reality. That energy is not necessarily subconscious as Packwood argues. Were it to be wholly subconscious then we'd be working within a solipsistic model of magick, where everything originates from the magickian. While it is true that the magickian plays a key role in manifesting a desired reality, s/he tends to interact with that reality and is shaped by it, even as s/he shapes it. That shaping from reality may affect the subconscious. A good example of this would be a person watching TV and after seeing several commercials about food, deciding s/he is hungry. The commercial has evoked a feeling of hunger and consequently that feeling will likely get the person to go to a fast food restaurant where s/he will spend money and get food. One desired result for the restaurant is accomplished and at the same time the person has also accomplished his desired reality by eating the food. The evocation is the desire to eat. The payoff is the money exchanged as energy for the manifestation of food. Usually what has really happened is that the subconscious has been infected by a meme.
'A meme is a message that transmits a specific concept to a person, and also seeks to replicate itself as much as possible. Commercials are the most obvious forms of memes. The commercial is a meme that re-presents a company as well as the services of the company, really re-presents the concept of the company in a concrete form. When I do memetic evocations I like to use word and image collages, cutting up the other memes, breaking their power, and reforming it into my own message, with that message being paid attention by people who see the collage. These people, by paying attention to the collage, are donating energy to the probability the meme evokes into reality. The meme infects them with its message and any thought they give to that message lends itself to the possibility evoked into reality.
'But while memes are an effective way of doing evocations there are more effective ways of evoking probability into reality. The problem with the meme is that the technique relies far too much on other people to sustain its existence. The meme is only meaningful to those people if they can understand it and understand on some level the evocation of the response on their part, which gives the energy within the meme a means of manifesting into reality. For what is evocation really? Is it the manifestation of entity, or is it the manifestation of probability, of concepts into reality? When I do evocation I'm not calling an entity into reality. I'm calling a probability into reality. Now sometimes I like to use paints on my body or on canvas. These paintings are not memes, because they usually aren't shared with people and the purpose of the painting isn't to evoke a response from the person who sees it (though if it does, all the more energy to the probability created), so much as to create a conduit between myself, the painting and the probability I seek to manifest into reality. I paint on my body and the symbols on my body call forth the energy I wish to work with. My body and the paints are the conduits of that energy, the medium by which it expresses itself into reality through the fusion of concept with concrete form. That evocation provokes, for me, one of the most essential ingredients of evocation: Response. Response is key for successful evocation because when you evoke you are calling forth and the response to that calling forth is the link by which the energy manifests into reality. Without that link there is no evocation. Evocation needs the response of the participants, the understanding that probability is manifested not merely by desire, but also by the response to the desire, the response which gives the evocation form though which it can manifest probability into reality. And there is always one sure way of insuring a successful evocation. Use yourself as the trigger for the response.
'This makes sense if we consider that while we are interacting with reality, shaping it into existence, we are also being shaped by it. But that kind of shaping works best with people who understand they are being shaped by reality. If you understand this you can control how you are shaped by how you respond. For instance if I want you to eat at my restaurant I'd best have a good idea of what kind of images of food will appeal to you so as to evoke a response from you. If I don't know that then my restaurant will have few, if any visitors. The response is the establishment of the link between yourself and the probability, or entity, or whatever else you want to call it. Once the response has occurred the link is in place and the manifestation of reality can begin. I use myself when doing evocations because I can control my response. I cannot control another person's response completely and as such this lack of control can throw off the effectiveness of the evocation. It is better then to use yourself and shape how you are shaped by controlling how you react to what is being evoked. When you control the response, you control the manifestation of reality. For myself, body paints an effective way of controlling the build up of the connecting energy and the response on my part. I can re-present the concept in a manner that gives me some control over how it manifests. Also I'm ultimately not concerned with how other people react to what I'm evoking. My only concern is my own reaction and how I'll use it to benefit the evocation.
'I paint on canvas and the probability onto the canvas is evoked by the act of painting, by the act of visualization that flows into my hand through the brush and onto the surface of the canvas to put forth the visualization in a form that anyone can see, but not experience. The experience of the probability is my alone to savor as it manifests into reality, though other people in my life may feel its effects. It is experienced through the act of painting and the release of energy when the painting is complete. The evocation occurs with the release of the energy. I paint and in the act of painting I build up the energy of the evocation until when the final brushstroke is done, I lay down my brush, look at the painting, and experience the evocation of desired probability as it begins to manifest into reality. Evocation, sometimes then, is about letting go of the energy. With my paintings the energy is let go of, evoked by the act of release. Sex magick employs similar techniques with ejaculation and the orgasm. For that matter this process also applies to writing.
'How often have you written something, maybe journaled, and when you've finished you've felt a great release as if something that needed to be expressed was expressed and then let go of? Don't be surprised if what you write about turns into actual reality. You have after all, evoked what you've written about into existence by first putting energy into the writing, then reacting to the writing by having that feeling of the release of energy. But the energy needs to go somewhere and whether you paint, ejaculate, fuck, or write, once the energy is released, once it is evoked it will need to manifest into reality. Consequently you find yourself in some interesting situations and look back at your writing or painting or visualization during sex and you realize you have evoked that reality through the medium you chose to express yourself. I've found this to be true within my writing and I have also noted that many writers either seemingly 'predict' (evoke) events through their writing or at the least shape their own reality through the writing they do. A good example of this would be Kafka, for those interested in determining if my hypothesis is correct, but look into other writers as well.
'We could leave this experimentation with evocation at this point, but I want to extend evocation as a technique even further. Lets throw out all the tools and examine the concept of using evocation in a very raw form. One of the cornerstones of magickal practice seems to be visualization. A person's ability to visualize is a person's way of accessing the wave of probabilities. And I have found that evocation can work through visualization. Why is this the case? Visualization requires that you create in your mind's eye as concrete a reality of a concept as possibility and what should be included is not merely the new reality, but how you react to it. Now the key here is to mentally superimpose this probable reality onto the reality that you live in. How you do this is quite simple. You live the evocation out, projecting the probable onto reality. Of course this may sound like a recipe for insanity, but what this technique really is about is understanding the nature of probability to reality.
'We exist not in a singular, determined reality. Rather we exist in a reality that shifts and changes as probabilities come and go. The problem is that many people do not cultivate the awareness that is necessary to find the opportunities. Visualization is one way of cultivating that awareness. Take any situation and attempt to visualize as many possibilities about that situation as possible. Also visualize all the outcomes good or bad. Another way to cultivate this awareness is to simply pay attention to what is occurring around you. So many people zone out and accordingly miss out on opportunity. If you cultivate this awareness the evocation will be easy to accomplish. What will happen is that you will not only evoke the probability you want by merely visualizing it, but you'll also know what to look for by being aware of probabilities and you can accordingly direct your evocation to those signs that point in the direction of your probability manifesting into reality. A real life example of this is that recently I began doing an evocational working toward my ideal concept of a female companion that I could spend time with. I chose to visualize my evocation through my dreams and I chose to use the concept of the triple goddess for my evocation target. Shortly after this evocation was finished a very striking and exotic person came into my life. The first couple times we didn't even speak, but we noticed each other. But every time I saw her, I evoked the probability that would we speak to each other. The third time I saw we ended up speaking and found similar interests. My evocation relied on my response to what I considered to be my ideal companion. The triple goddess was a convenient form or expression of that concept.
'What evocation boils down to is an understanding of response in the act of evocation as well as an awareness of how evocation interacts with reality. An awareness of how probabilities manifest into reality doesn't hurt either. Regardless of how you choose to use evocation remember as well that the technique is a tool. Entities, gods, and demons are convenient as are other mediums of expression. The power these tools have is the power you give them and you can limit that power by choosing how you react to them. Really evocation is more about evoking probability into reality and less about evoking an entity into existence. The entity just represents the probability, so skip over the entity part and evoke the probability, or use the entity. Evocation as a technique can evolve as we evolve our practice with it and that is the challenge for any magickian who would call him/herself an experimenter.'
Works Cited
Kraig, Donald Michael. (1997). Modern magick: Eleven lessons in the high magickal arts. St. Paul: Llewellyn Publications.
Packwood, Kirk R. (2004). Memetic magic: Manipulation of the root social matrix and the fabric of reality. Seattle: Jaguar Temple Press.