Invocation

Invocation is the practice of calling a divine being, deity, or spiritual intelligence into the ritual space or into the practitioner’s own consciousness, welcoming that force inward and aligning with its nature. It is the opposite movement from everyday consciousness, which tends to locate the sacred as something outside and separate. In invocation, the boundary between self and sacred is deliberately thinned or opened.

The word comes from the Latin invocare, to call upon, and it appears across the full range of religious and magical traditions, from Vedic hymns and Egyptian temple liturgy to the prayers of medieval Christians and the complex invocations of Hermetic ceremonial magick. Across all these contexts, the underlying act is the same: the practitioner reaches toward a power greater than their ordinary self and invites its presence.

History and origins

Formal invocation of deities and divine beings is documented in virtually every ancient tradition with surviving texts. The Egyptian Opening of the Mouth ritual, Homeric hymns to the Greek gods, Vedic mantras, Orphic hymns, and the Psalms all function as invocatory forms, each asking a particular divine power to be present and to act. The medieval grimoire tradition developed increasingly detailed formulas for invoking specific spirits and angels, often drawing on Hebrew and Greek divine names as catalysts.

The modern ceremonial tradition, particularly through the Golden Dawn and its successors, systematized invocation in ways that distinguished it clearly from evocation and provided specific techniques, postures, and voice qualities for different types of invocation. Aleister Crowley developed what he called “assuming the godform,” a systematic invocation practice in which the practitioner visualizes the deity’s form surrounding and eventually inhabiting their own body, speaking and acting as the deity for the duration of the ritual.

In Wicca, the most common form of invocation is the Drawing Down, in which deity is called into a willing practitioner, most commonly the Moon goddess into the High Priestess. This is understood as a genuine, if temporary, state of divine possession and is distinct from theatrical performance.

In practice

Effective invocation requires three things: knowledge of the being you are calling, genuine desire for their presence, and preparation of the self and the space to receive them. You cannot meaningfully invoke a being you know nothing about, and uninformed invocation of unfamiliar forces is unwise.

Preparation includes clearing and consecrating the space, grounding and centering, and entering a state that is simultaneously focused and relaxed, alert and open. The more of your ordinary mental chatter you can quiet before the invocation begins, the more clearly you will be able to perceive the response.

A method you can use

Know who you are calling. Research the deity or being extensively before invoking them. Understand their myths, their traditional epithets, their symbols and associated plants, animals, and colors. Build a relationship through devotional practice at the altar over days or weeks before the formal invocation.

Prepare the space. Cast the circle and call the quarters according to your practice. Set up the altar with symbols, offerings, and colors appropriate to the deity. Light incense they favor. If you have a physical image or statue, place it centrally.

Open yourself. Sit or stand before the altar. Ground deeply. Breathe slowly. Set aside your habitual self-consciousness and bring your full, undivided attention to the moment.

Speak the invocation. Address the deity directly by name, by their epithets, and by the qualities you know and love in them. Be specific. “I invoke you, Hecate, Lady of the Crossroads, Keeper of Keys, who walks between the worlds with your torches bright” is more effective than “I invoke a goddess.” Use prepared words or speak from the heart; both can work, and often the most effective invocations combine a prepared structure with genuine emotional openness.

Open to their presence. After speaking, be quiet. Do not immediately resume ordinary thinking. Stay in the opened state and notice what arises: imagery, emotional shifts, words, a felt sense of presence, physical sensations. What you perceive may be subtle at first. Do not demand drama; receive what comes.

Converse, ask, receive. Work within the presence. Ask what you came to ask. Make your offerings. Receive whatever insight or energy is offered.

Release respectfully. Thank the deity, release their presence with gratitude, and close the ritual in your usual way. Ground thoroughly afterward. Record everything in your magical diary before the details fade.

With consistent practice, invocation becomes less effortful and more natural. The relationship with specific deities deepens, and their presence becomes recognizable in the body as a distinct and reliable quality.

In myth and popular culture

The Homeric Hymns of ancient Greece are among the earliest surviving formal invocations, addressed to specific deities by their epithets and attributes and asking them to be present and propitious. The Hymn to Apollo, the Hymn to Demeter, and the Hymn to Hermes each demonstrate the classical invocatory form: naming the deity, recounting their birth and attributes, and asking for their favor. These hymns were performed at festivals and were understood as genuinely efficacious calls rather than purely literary compositions.

The Orphic Hymns, composed in late antiquity and attributed to the legendary musician Orpheus, are more mystically focused invocatory texts addressed to a wide range of deities, personified forces, and divine principles. They were rediscovered and studied during the Renaissance by figures including Marsilio Ficino, who held that singing or reciting them in appropriate musical modes could genuinely attract the influence of the corresponding divine principles. Ficino’s practice of singing Orphic Hymns as a form of astral magic represents one of the most philosophically developed accounts of invocatory theory in the Western tradition.

Aleister Crowley’s Hymn to Pan, composed in 1913 and frequently recited as an invocatory text in modern pagan and chaos magick circles, has become one of the most widely used invocatory poems in contemporary magical practice. The poem calls Pan with direct urgency, explicitly asking for possession and dissolution of the ordinary self, and it has been described by practitioners as one of the most effective written invocations available for those working within the Thelemic or broader Western magical tradition.

Myths and facts

Several persistent misconceptions about invocation affect how practitioners approach this work.

• A common assumption holds that invocation requires the exact words of a traditional or published text to be effective. The evidence from practitioners across traditions suggests that genuine emotional openness, knowledge of the deity, and a clear request matter more than any specific form of words; both prepared texts and spontaneous sincere speech can be effective.
• Invocation is sometimes confused with prayer in popular accounts that treat the two as equivalent. Prayer in most religious contexts addresses a deity as wholly other; invocation specifically aims to draw the deity’s presence into or through the practitioner. The directional orientation and the intended degree of contact are meaningfully different.
• Some practitioners believe that a deity who does not respond dramatically to invocation has not appeared at all. Responses to invocation are often subtle: a shift in the quality of presence in the space, an emotional change in the practitioner, the arising of unusual clarity or imagery. Demanding dramatic phenomena as the only indicator of success produces unnecessary doubt.
• Invocation is sometimes described as inherently safe for any practitioner to attempt with any deity. While most invocatory work is not dangerous, invoking very powerful beings or beings far outside one’s ordinary experience without adequate preparation, grounding, or experience can be destabilizing; the tradition’s consistent advice to build the relationship devotionally before attempting formal invocation reflects genuine caution.
• The distinction between invocation and evocation is sometimes presented as absolute: invocation is always inward, evocation always outward. In practice the line is more fluid, and different traditions draw it differently; what matters is the practitioner’s understanding of what they are doing and their relationship with the being they are working with.