Aspectos éticos

All of these forms of invocation are very helpful, and it's up to you to find the ones that are right for you. To some, the idea of invocation might sound quite fearful, akin to possession.

Invocation is not the same thing as possession, though many Westerners confuse the two.

The idea of a spirit taking possession of an unwilling body is actually much rarer than Hollywood would have you believe. The results are also far less dramatic than what is depicted in movies. Such soul sicknesses and their remedies will be discussed in detail in chapter 15.

The main differences between invocation and possession for the practitioner are free will and trust. A mystic performing an invocation is willingly participating-in fact, asking-for the experience. The ritual is a boundary, calling upon a specific spirit with whom the mystic has a relationship on some level. The ritual has a beginning, middle, and end, and at the end, the invocation is ended and the connection is stopped. In a specific tradition, all participants, physical and material, have agreed upon this structure.

Not all shamanic practitioners perform invocations. Though it is a highly enlightening and personally moving experience for many of us, you should not feel forced to do anything you don't wish to do. Respect your own limits and boundaries. One school of thought says that if an entity does not currently have a body, you should not give it access to yours. I understand the sentiment, and in some cases I agree, but the varying degrees of invocation can be amazingly enlightening experiences.

As you develop more confidence in yourself and your magickal abilities, you can always return to this technique if you desire. I suggest that as you develop your relationship with your primary spirit allies and totems, ask them if this experience is correct for you at this time.

EXER C I S E 19

Invo cat io n

There is no one correct way to perform an invocation, from the traditional team of High Priest and High Priestess of Wicca to the spontaneous mergings of modern mystics. But here is a general framework that I find useful.

1. Decide on what entity you wish you invoke and why. The best entities are spirits with whom you already have a relationship. I prefer patron deities and spirit guides who help me teach and heal. Then decide why are you doing this. Are you seeking answers to specific questions? Do you plan on doing a banishment of an unwanted spirit? Do you want the entity to do healing work through you? Are you open to the entity's will in this world? Are you simply doing it for the experience? Be clear in your intent before you start.

2. Create a sacred space through your Shamanic Smudging Ritual and/or the magick circle, depending on the circumstances (see chapter 3). Some prefer to do this in a group so they have psychic support from others and don't have to worry about such things as circle casting. They can focus on invocation while the group casts the circle. The ritual can involve items that correspond with the entity's sphere of influence. If you are calling upon a war deity, you might use red candles, dragon's blood incense, iron nails, hematite or bloodstone, spicy fire herbs, and a ritual sword. If you are not sure of working correspondences in magick, review chapters 12 and 13 of The Outer Temple of Witchcraft. I highly recommend performing your first invocation in a magick circle, perhaps as part of a modified Great Rite, using ritual poetry to help the invocation process.

3. Enter an altered state. You can do this through Exercise 1: Entering a Meditative State, or other techniques. Many prefer a physical exhibitory technique for invocation, and have drumming, music, or dance as the focus.

4. Contact the entity you wish to invoke. You can do this silently in your mind, speaking in your silent magickal voice, or out loud, through a ritual invocation. Tailor the invocation to the individual entity. Call upon names, titles, and qualities associated with the spirit. As part of your invocation, state whatever work you wish to do with this entity. I suggest something like this as an outline, altered for your specific needs:

I, [state your name], call upon [state the name of the entity/spirit/deity]. Spirit/God of (list the entity's qualities, titles, and description), I ask that you come in Perfect Love and Perfect Trust to this sacred space. I seek your blessings. I seek your wisdom. I seek your ways. Come be with me. I seek to partner with you, to have your will worked through me, for the highest good, harming none. I invoke you. So mote it be.

5. Most witches focus on the crown chakra, at the top of the head, and perceive the entity descending down from the skies through the crown and into the body. Other times, particularly with Lower World beings, the entity rises from the ground and comes up through the feet, legs, and root chakra. If it is a part of a Drawing Down the Moon ritual, you can draw the light of the moon down with your athame and into the crown, or drink the energy of the Goddess in through your chalice water once you have symbolically performed the Great Rite.

6. Notice how your body, perceptions, thoughts, and energy change. Most practitioners will remain conscious, and blended with the entity, at least initially. Sometimes the entity feels too "big," and it's as if the entity is both inside and outside of you, surrounding you entirely.

7. Do the work you planned on for this partnership.

8. At the conclusion of your work, release the spirit. Close the ritual with a "deinvocation,"

or devocation. Simply thank and release the entity, much like you would a quarter when releasing a magick circle. Feel the entity leave you as it came. Those who do not do such releases are subject to mystical delusions, since they start to personally identify with the energies they harness, losing their own sense of self and reality. The boundaries of the ritual, the beginning and the end, prevent this from happening, so make sure you release.

Say:

I, [state your name], thank and release [state the entity's name] from this invocation. I completely release you from my body, mind, heart, and soul, for the highest good, harming none. So mote it be. Blessed be.

9. Release your circle if you have cast one. Make sure to ground yourself.

My own experiences with invocation have leaned toward overshadowing and incorporation rather than truly losing awareness. In this sense, you learn to partner with the spirit ally on a more fully conscious level. It can be powerful in ritual work and healing.

Some amazing healing sessions in which I have been honored to take part have been when my master spirit guide asked to be invoked. In one particular session, for a man close to death but facing a painful surgery to remove an intestinal obstruction, I found myself invoking my master teacher spirit, the wizard deity Gwydion, of Welsh myth. I found myself doing rituals of which I had no previous knowledge. The family who attended had a very magickal experience, as the hospital played a Christian psalm at the same time I was deep into the ritual, though I didn't notice it. Although he was still very sickly with a variety of other illnesses, the intestinal block vanished, leaving the doctors perplexed yet very respectful of his "healing" minister, to the point of asking my intuitive opinion on future treatment. Such a dramatic healing had never occurred before in my practice, and although I have little memory of the actual situation, I know it was the power of the God working through me, through the invocation.

When feeling in psychic danger in a spiritually disturbed environment, I have invoked dark goddesses and banished spirits of the restless dead back to the Underworld. I didn't actually banish them. The Goddess did, through me, protecting me in the process. In these cases, the deity prodded me to do the invocation. I didn't necessarily seek it out. The deity guided me to do so.

Every year my partner and I do two ritual invocations of the Waxing God and Waning God, known as the Oak King and Holly King, at the two solstices. Through us, they perform their battle to determine who will rule the next half of the year. The younger king, the Oak King, rules from Yule to Midsummer, while the god of death and horn, the Holly King, rules the other half of the year. In such rituals we find ourselves saying and doing things so spontaneously they are said and done through us, by the gods, rather than originating in our own minds. We are simply the instruments. Our covenmates think we have rehearsed the poetry and actions because they were so smooth, but they were truly inspired by our divine invoked partnership.

When I was teaching a class on how to assume the godform, one student said, "I can't believe something that beautiful was in me!" Acknowledgment of our own divine beauty is one of the reasons we do invocation. We embody the divine, and the divine embodies us.

tNCESTORS

Ancestor reverence is a pivotal part of both traditional shamanic practices and witchcraft. Both traditions honor the wisdom of the past and respect our elders. The witch's highest holy day, Samhain, is a ritual day for honoring the ancestors. When you look to the lore of Samhain, it's obvious to see the shamanic roots of witchcraft.

The Druids, a caste of Celtic priests and priestesses that modern witches look to as spiritual forebearers, had a strong belief in the power of the ancestors and reincarnation. The children are our ancestors reborn, as the Druids believed a reincarnating spirit to flow along a tribal, or now genetic, line.

As physical features are passed along the blood, so are spiritual talents and gifts. The affinity for magick or prophecy is passed from parent to child. Celtic traditions associate specific physical traits, such as green eyes and red hair, to be a mark of one with the powers of the witch but such traits and abilities are not dependent on specific physical characteristics or a genetic lineage. We don't need a great witch in our family tree to claim the traditions of witchcraft. Many of our ancestors are spiritual in nature, not connected to us by genetics or even location, but through tradition, action and spirit. Many of our past heroes are like spiritual ancestors. Taught in a Celtic tradition, but not being of true Celtic blood, I still look to the heroes of Celtic myth as my spiritual ancestors. Specific cultures and traditions call to us because of our own past life experiences, making such cultures and people just as valid to venerate as genetic ancestors.