Invocation

Invocation is the deliberate calling-in of a divine or spiritual presence within Crowley’s account of magick. It may take the form of prayer, a ceremony assembled from correspondences, imaginative identification, or a dramatic enactment. Its defining concern is the relation established between practitioner and invoked power, rather than the mere recitation of a particular set of words.¹⁾

Crowley gives the subject two complementary treatments in Magick in Theory and Practice. Chapter I places invocation within the purpose of ritual and distinguishes several methods. Chapter XV, “Of the Invocation”, emphasises the concentration and intensity that should animate them. Liber O supplies parts of the technical vocabulary, including divine names, the assumption of god-forms and preliminary ceremonial work.

Crowley distinguishes invoking, calling in, from evoking, calling forth. In his characteristic ceremonial example, the magician invokes a god into the circle and evokes a spirit into a triangle. The distinction concerns the practitioner’s relation to the presence: identification or inward reception in one case, an encounter framed as external in the other.

This is a useful distinction within the system, but it is not a universal dictionary for every historical religion or magical tradition. Nor does using either word establish that a disembodied being has objectively appeared. Liber O begins by suspending such claims and warns against making unwarranted conclusions from the phenomena produced by the exercises.²⁾

“The Principles of Ritual” describes the general object of ritual as the union of the microcosm with the macrocosm. Its account of the supreme invocation centres on the Knowledge and Conversation of the Holy Guardian Angel. Invocations of particular deities have a place within that larger aim.

Crowley argues that a partial invocation should address what the practitioner needs, rather than merely reinforce a favourite quality. A person drawn only to powers resembling their established temperament may intensify an imbalance. The choice of an invocation is therefore part of an assessment of the whole work. In his terms, the operation should help organise the practitioner’s nature in relation to the Great Work.

This also prevents the word “invocation” from becoming a synonym for attainment of the Angel. A ceremony addressing a particular deity, a general preliminary invocation and an extended operation directed towards the Angel are related practices with different declared purposes.

These approaches can overlap. Devotion can animate a formal ceremony, and dramatic identification can give meaning to ritual gestures. Crowley’s common concern is the concentration of the practitioner’s faculties on the intended relation. He does not reduce successful invocation to possession of a complete set of costly equipment.³⁾

In the ceremonial method, a chosen set of correspondences gives the operation coherence. Liber O illustrates this with a Mercurial arrangement drawn from 777: a related number, names, colours and objects are gathered around the same intention. Each detail contributes to an organised symbolic environment.

The method requires interpretation. A table entry does not explain itself, and assembling objects without understanding their relationship can turn the ceremony into a collection of unexplained details. Crowley’s own discussion expects the practitioner to know why an element is present and how it serves the invocation.⁴⁾

The magical weapons express faculties such as will, understanding and analysis. Their use in invocation consequently has both material and inward dimensions. A spoken name, a gesture and an implement may express the same intention through different senses, helping to bring attention into a single course.

The later Appendix V of Magick in Theory and Practice gives a concrete example of the table structure used in ceremonial planning. On p. 306, Mercury occurs at key 8 as a sphere and again at key 12 in the path sequence. On p. 315, those two rows have different entries in the magical-weapons column: names, versicles and apron at 8; wand or caduceus at 12. Shared planetary language does not make the rows identical.⁵⁾

Use the key number to follow one row through the columns before combining correspondences. The second page below completes the stones-and-weapons pair; it also shows how broadly “weapons” is being used, extending beyond handheld instruments to discipline, an obligation and features of the working place. The tables organise possible symbolic relationships; they do not themselves supply a complete invocation.

Magick in Theory and Practice, first edition (1929–1930), Appendix V, p. 315: precious stones and magical weapons, key numbers 0–18. Source facsimile: Keep Silence. Public domain: original published by 1930. Click the image to enlarge.

Appendix V, p. 316: the same columns continued through 19–32, 32 bis and 31 bis. Both pages are needed to read the complete pair of columns. Source facsimile: Keep Silence. Public domain: original published by 1930. Click the image to enlarge.

Liber O treats the vibration of divine names and the assumption of god-forms as distinct but related exercises. The latter involves studying a representation of a deity and imaginatively identifying with its form. The source’s reference to museum images makes clear that the visual vocabulary is to be learned, not casually invented and then attributed to antiquity.

These exercises are part of Crowley’s ceremonial adaptation of religious imagery. A modern performance using an Egyptian god-form is not, merely by virtue of the name or pose, a reconstruction of an ancient Egyptian rite. See Egyptian gods and their Thelemic adaptations for that distinction.

“Of the Invocation” describes the required fervour through familiar examples of absorption:

Just as the poet, the lover, the artist, is carried out of himself in a creative frenzy, so must it be for the Magician.

— Aleister Crowley, Magick in Theory and Practice.⁶⁾

The comparison concerns an intensity that exceeds mechanically correct performance. The details of preparation are intended to culminate in a unified act. Crowley’s examples explain why a ceremony might be outwardly accurate while failing to produce the inward engagement he considers essential.

Chapter XV gives a second grouping of three methods, distinct from the broad devotional, ceremonial and dramatic approaches in “The Principles of Ritual.” These are mental aids: an exercise with the astral body related to the chosen deity, a suitable mantra, and assumption of the god’s form. The chapter refers back to Liber O for the astral exercise; that manual also discusses god-forms. The role of repeated speech can be compared with the discussion of mantra in Book 4, Part I.⁷⁾

The three examples do not exhaust the possibilities:

There are many other devices to aid invocation, so many that it is impossible to enumerate them; and the Magician will be wise to busy himself in inventing new ones.

— Aleister Crowley, Magick in Theory and Practice.⁸⁾

Invention is allowed within a defined purpose. A device is to assist the invocation and sustain its chosen direction; novelty is not presented as a sufficient achievement by itself. This helps connect the freedom to compose a ceremony with the disciplined use of correspondences described earlier.

Invocation frequently follows purification and banishing. Crowley explains purification as singleness of purpose and describes the removal of incompatible influences before the chosen force is invoked. Yet the distinction is not absolute: a banishing ceremony can itself invoke guardians. The pentagram ritual is his explicit example of this combination.⁹⁾

Specific texts retain their own structures. The Star Ruby is a pentagram banishing rite with important differences between its published versions. Liber Resh gives four solar adorations. Liber Reguli has its own sequence and aeonic symbolism. Their names and gestures should not be mixed together and presented as one inherited invocation.

The Goetia’s Preliminary Invocation moves from addressing a divine power towards declarations of divine identity. Liber O recommends a general invocation of this kind before a more specific operation. Liber Samekh later develops related material into an operation directed towards the Holy Guardian Angel, with an extensive interpretative framework.

The relationship is one of adaptation, not simple identity. The printed words, division into sections, explanations and stated purpose must be checked in the particular source being discussed. This is especially important where a modern account calls every version “the Bornless Ritual”.

The magical record connects intention with observation. It can distinguish the planned purpose, the actual performance, interruptions and subsequent impressions. The experience of intensity or identification is then described without being treated as automatic proof of the practitioner’s preferred explanation.

For Crowley, invocation and meditation converge in their concern with unity of consciousness. Studying them together makes the ceremonial forms intelligible as methods of attention and religious identification within his wider system.

David Shoemaker discusses Liber Samekh and invocation of the Holy Guardian Angel in this Living Thelema segment from programme 17 of Speech in the Silence. It provides a focused example of the kind of extended invocation discussed above. Compare its practical interpretation with the article's distinctions between the object of an operation, its ceremonial means and the record of experience.

Living Thelema - Liber Samekh and the Invocation of the Holy Guardian Angel — Speech in the Silence Podcast; 28:46. Watch on YouTube.