 In this presentation we'll be talking about evocation, what it is and how it differs from invocation, which is another popular magical technique. Both methods are often used in the work of the temple of ascending flame, and they are also encountered in my books and the temple's anthologies. Usually evocation is defined as the practice of summoning spirits and interacting with them externally. What does it mean? In traditional systems of magic presented for example in old grimoires like Grand Grimoire, a magician summoned a chosen spirit into a circle and communicated with it through a special medium. This medium could be a real person, the magician's assistant, someone with the ability to gaze into the other side and convey the messages to the summoner. A medium however was also the magician himself, and the spirit was called into a crystal, a special vessel or a magic mirror, which served as a gateway to the other side. In old grimoires we'll find a lot of complicated procedures for evoking a spirit, and in modern times we can either follow them or summon a spirit in a simple way, by speaking to it and calling it from the other side. Because in most cases it is as simple as that and the complicated procedures are just a relic of the past. Spirits are usually eager to interact with magicians, and all we need is an open mind and willingness to work with them. A common misconception among magicians who attempt evocation in modern times is to expect the spirit to appear and speak to them like they would speak to another person. That is rarely the case. Spirits and deities are not exactly evoked to a physical form. These entities belong to different planes and dimensions, and they don't have a physical form on this plane. But we can interact with them through a medium, like a mirror for instance. This practice is known as crying, and it means that we peer into the spirit's dwelling realm and communicate with it through our inner mind. We may then hear their transmissions as spoken by a voice or voices, but most likely the response to our calling is delivered to us in the form of internal messages. So if you fail to adjust your psychic senses to their frequency, you will not see or hear anything, and you'll think that the ritual failed, even if the spirit is actually there, just unseen to you. That's why evocation is thought to be a difficult practice. In fact, it's not, but it needs a certain skill. Some people also think if they witness a ritual performed by a more experienced magician, manifestation of the spirit will be more tangible, and they will see what they can accomplish through their own practice. That is another misunderstanding. In both cases, communication occurs through your psychic senses, and if your skills are not developed enough to process the manifestation of the spirit, you will not experience anything no matter who performs the ritual. I've worked with the rights of evocation in groups, many times, and I witnessed amazing manifestations with powerful visions shared by all participants. But I was also in rituals in which some participants managed to grasp the vision of the spirit, and the others didn't. Here all it depends on you. And if you want to be successful in evoking spirits, you need to start from working on skills such as clairvoyance, clairaudience, and other psychic abilities. What is also important, the true manifestation of the spirit is not what happens during but after the ritual. I have seen many practitioners who didn't experience anything spectacular or even special during an evocation itself, but the intent of the ritual manifested just fine soon after. What you should pay attention to is what happens in the days and weeks following the ritual. If you ask for knowledge, you will receive it through your dreams or spontaneous insights, or books you suddenly come across, or even messages delivered to you by other people. If you ask for help in manifesting an intent, you will even receive the result of your work or you will be faced with opportunities that will help you achieve what you want. So even when the ritual is over, you need to keep an open mind, because the results are still to manifest one way or another. While evocation is usually defined as an interaction with a spirit manifesting externally. In a circle, triangle, or scrying mirror, in rites of invocation, communication with spirits and deities is internal. They are summoned into our consciousness so that we can absorb their essence, let it transform us, and use it for self-empowerment. Our mundane consciousness and our human senses are then overridden by the summoned force, and what remains is the consciousness of the deity whose knowledge and power we seek in the process of initiation. It's a form of possession, in which we retain a certain degree of our normal awareness, so that we can learn about the nature and powers of the summoned force, and we are able to control this force by the power of our will. In this state we can see through their eyes, hear through their ears, taste, smell, and feel things with older senses. In other words, for a particular moment we become them. Our consciousness is merged with their consciousness, and we get to see what it's like to be a god. If we open ourselves to this experience and let it transform us from inside, we will successfully absorb the powers of the invoked deities and make them our own. Each time we invoke a divine consciousness, we open way to new levels of self-transformation, understanding, and knowledge. And that's why we can say that each invocation is a sort of initiation in itself. What does it mean in practice? Let's say we want to invoke Nama, the lady of the first cliff on the dark tree. At first we should find out as much as we can about her. After all, we are going to absorb her powers and qualities, and we have to be sure that we really want them to be a part of our conscious mind. So what do we know about her from the source literature? Actually, not much. We know that she is related to Lilith, possibly as her sister or daughter, and like Lilith she is thought to be a succubus. Nama is also believed to be the mother of divination and the sister of Tubal Cain, the maker of sharp weapons, who is the ruling force of Arab Zarak. In the Bible she is mentioned as one of the descendants of Cain himself, and in the Kabbalah she is an angel of prostitution and one of Samah's consorts. According to the apothecary fa, Nama and Lilith visited Adam when he and Eve separated for 130 years after Cain's murder of Abel. Demonic offspring born from this union are called the Plagues of Mankind. Also according to the Hebrew lore, it was Nama who first subdued the Watchers, angels that descended from heaven to fornicate with the daughters of men, while she herself became the mother of countless demons and evil spirits. Why would we want to work with such a being? First of all, as the Lady of the First Cliffa, Nama opens the gate to unconscious layers of the self, exposing us to the forces of the personal shadow, which are normally inaccessible to our mundane consciousness. From the esoteric point of view, these forces are our dreams, desires, fantasies, fears, obsessions and other primal impulses that work from beneath the surface, driving our actions and shaping our lives. In religious terms, these are demons and monsters that lurk in the shadow, waiting to lead us away from salvation. But the path of Nama, the way of the cliff-off is the way of self-servation, and these forces are not viewed as something to be afraid of, but something desired. As the adepts of the left-hand path, we don't strive to return to the Garden of Eden, but we seek to create our own paradise and become the rulers of our own universe. And here is where Nama's role starts. She opens the gate to our personal underworld, awakens sleeping demons, and projects them on the black canvas of the void, where they grow and morph into desires and aspirations that drive us on the path. This driving force is often experienced in sexual form, as lust or urge, because sex is the most natural expression of the human desire of transcendence. It contains all polarities of our existence, movement and withdrawal, power and weakness, control and submission, just like the bright and the dark sides of the tree itself. Hence the image of Nama is succubus and the goddess of passions. When we confront Nama, we also face our passions and urges, the very source of our motivation, the driving forces behind all our actions. At the same time, in the course of the process, we realize why we actually act the way we do and what really drives us in our lives. And this way we are able to set ourselves on the right track to become free from what binds and weakens us. Nama offers a lot to a practitioner working with the cliff-off. She is a guide to the other side who opens the gate and lead us into the tunnels of the dark tree. She prompts us to resolve our personal issues, especially those related to passions and desires. She can make us feel young and full of life. And she can also bestow the gift of sight and awaken the serpent force in the practitioner's subtle body. But there are also many other ways in which we can profit from working with this clip-off lady. Nama is a manifestation of the dark goddess, a force carrying a lot of female power. That's why female practitioners invoking her, apart from using her as a guide to the other side, can also absorb her female strength. Like Lilith, she can make a woman strong, confident, aware of her female powers, especially in the sexual sense, assertive, independent and able to take what she wants and when she wants it. Male practitioners invoking Nama can be guided through lessons involving encounters of strong and powerful women, learning how to approach and handle this primordial feminine force, and how to transform the negative image of a vicious succubus, draining man's life force and sexual powers into a picture of a powerful initiatrix, into female magic and female mysteries. Nama's consciousness is therefore especially helpful to women who need to work on their confidence and self-awareness, and to men who feel uneasy in the presence of strong women, shy or aggressive, helping them overcome these issues in the process of self-energiation. Of course, these are only examples of possible reasons to work with spirits and deities like Nama. I'm sure you will find your own when you start getting to know her and the other lords and ladies of the left hand path. In the temple of Ascending Flame, these entities are worked with a lot and on a regular basis. We include both evocation and invocation in our work, and we have projects centered on many other methods of working with spirits and deities for the sake of self-empowerment. To find out more about our work, check out our anthologies, or available on Amazon, and visit our website, which is ascendingflame.com. To follow my work, check out my Facebook page or my personal website, which is asnavmason.com.