Evocation through smoke

Smoke evocations are probably the most used ones in ceremonial magick. The setup is simple, has a lot of variations and can be done with any level of experience.

Idea behind the smoke
Many Magicians believe that to have a visible contact with an entity, one needs a physical vessel to operate upon. For that purpose sensitive mediums were used to get possessed by the entity and hadle the message. Unfortunately this method makes the whole ritual fraud accessible. Is the medium a real deal? Can we really identify a genuine medium. In the second grade I gave you few tips about how to recognize suggestible Somnambulic subjects, but it can happen that some fraud will know Mesmerism or will be lucky enough to pass the test, so naturally we had to come up with something to get rid of our human oracle.

Naturally, the next step were inanimate objects (animals are not very good mediators). But what object is light enough and easy to manipulate, after all we usually do not possess the power to craft clay golems... smoke was the answer.

Smoke is light, naturally moves in swirls, curls (thanks to the air currents) and is easy to shape, even a small blow can change its shape. So if we force an entity to manifest its presence through a smoke, we can have a nice little proof that the ritual works. Plus smoke's natural movement is very mesmerizing and adds to the atmosphere of the ritual and the mind state of the practitioner, multiplying the chances of success.

Actually we can also use incenses in the burnt material to enhance the atmosphere even more. We can pick a specific incense for a specific entity based on its planetary correspondence, we can color the light of the flame with shaders to attain even bigger planetary influence, smoke is actually a very versatile ritual tool.

For the smoke we can use pre-fabriced incense sticks to be compact, we can burn coal on incense plates with a few drops of water for a very thick smoke (using hot or cold water actually lightens or darkens the smoke), we can also make our own incense sticks, just put a bunch of plants together, tie really hard and let dry.

Spirit's manifestation via smoke
There are various ways about how the spirit will manifest via a smoke. The least noticeable (and most often in the beginning), is that the smoke will split into two straight lines with a lot of curls at the eye level. Sometimes it also "freezes" in the air. The positions of the smoke is so stable it looks like it was a solid object.

After some experience, you will start seeing faces, hands, even parts of events in the smoke, rarely the smoke will take a full body shape of an evoked entity (to be frank I never saw that one), but parts of the body are quite usual.

The source of the smoke can be put on the chair, on summoning triangle or simply be carried in your hands at the arms' length away from your body during the ritual or some combination of these. I personally like to sit during evocations, so I usually place a summoning triangle on the table in the front of me and put an incense stick in the holder on the triangle. It's compact, quick and easy to set up.

Dream invocation

What is a dream invocation
We have already learned about invocation, so let's talk about one specific branch of this practice, the dream invocation.

Dream invocation is a bit misleading term because this practice is more similar to evocations than invocations, except the evoked entity is commanded to appear in your dream, it is invoked into the dream but there appears external to your "dream body".

Basic usage
Some entities are supposed to give us some information or knowledge. This means we are somehow expected to actually communicate with entities, to exchange information with them. This can be done either through higher senses (clairvoyance, clairaudience, etc) or through tools (mirror, pendulum, ouija board, tarot...).

Tools like tarot are too general for the exchange of specific information, pendulum is a bit one-sided and ouija is not suitable for longer communication (plus most of us need at least one another person for ouija to work).

Black mirror is not a bad tool, it helps greatly during evocations and evoked entities can also partially communicate with us using images with symbology, but that's still not sufficient enough to replace actual talk. So, unless you have greatly developed higher senses, you will have to work with visions and dreams.

How to
During evocation you command the summoned spirit to appear in your dream in a human form able of speech, you also should demand that you will remember the dream afterwards, you can actually use pendulum or other tool to communicate conditions of the dream. This way you can e.g. find out that the entity will appear in your dream, but you won't remember it (which sadly is sometimes the spirit's condition to appear during your sleep).

People usually think that forgetting the conversation renders the ritual useless, but the subconsciousness is a strong tool. Even if you don't remember the actual event, you can still feel assurance and relief (or opposites) based on the information you gained. That's especially useful in desperate situations.

Dangers of dream invocation
People also often ask me about security issues. Dream invocation has the same dangers as astral projection, if you allow something to happen, it will happen, so if you are seriously worried about your life, rather avoid this procedure. It's not like the worry about instant death can cause instant death, that would be a very rare case. Most of the times when a dream invocation goes wrong you will just wake up tired in the morning with a very shady recollection of what happened.

Spirit possession is about the same risk as the death, very very rare and only if you allow it. Generally a strong will with no doubts is a very important tool of Magick, this whole curriculum is based around it. If you got this far (and didn't cheat), dream invocation should be no danger to you. Your dream is yours only and nothing in your dream can go against your Will.

Basic invocation

What is an invocation
Invocation is a process od summoning entities "inside" ourselves. Evocation calls the entity so we can make our demand. Invocation calls the entity within so we can temporarily or permanently gain new abilities or boost older ones.

Sometimes during the invocation it happens the Magician becomes temporarily possessed by invoked entity and starts talking without conscious control. This memory is usually lost after the consciousness is regained, actually dreams and possessions are related so based on how well you remember your dreams, you will also remember your possessions. You can also use a recording device during your invocations to check later.

Simple form of invocation
A simple way how to attune yourself to the entity and slowly gain its abilities is using its name as a mantra, repeating it again and again through the day. Most usual names for this use are names of deities, e.g. YHWH, IAO, Eheieh Asher Eheieh, AGLA. Sometimes the mantra can also contain an action or intent, e.g. Om namah Shivayah.
My "Spirits, beings of The Light and of The Darkness, don't forget me, stand by my side and do my Will" is also an invocation mantra.

Ritualistic form of invocation
There is also a way of temporarily boost your abilities in a ritualistic approach.
You close your eyes and repeats entity's characteristics while trying to picture the entity in your mind, say as much as you can and the whole incantation repeat 3 times.

Then visualize the entity looking at you and repeat the whole incantation 3 times as if you were talking to him. So if e.g. your previous incantation started with "He is Posmiol, the spirit of Venus..." then now it will be "You are Posmiol, the spirit of Venus...". Your visualization can start changing on its own, don't panic, it means it started working.

For the last step imagine you are the entity, looking from its eyes at you. Once again repeat the incantation 3 times, replacing "you" with "I", so it will look like "I am Posmiol, the spirit of...". Picture yourself as best as you can, you mean literally feel like you are really the invoked entity. During this process the possession usually begins.

Downside of the ritualistic approach
For the ritualistic approach you should have at least a decent visualization skills and you also should have something to visualize. Many deities are formless, spaceless, timeless and therefore incompatible with this method.

How to recognize a spirit's presence

To detect the presence of spirits at your home or ritual space is crucial ability. It is crucial for the success of the operation, it is crucial for your health, your sanity, and it can be crucial for saving your life, as well.

Strange occurences
When things fall from the table, television switches on and off no matter what or your wardrobe sings, it certainly means there is some spirit present (or it can also mean you should stop doing drugs). The thing is that this usually doesn't happen, spirits do not usually levitate tables, pets, mother-in-laws... they do not break vases, windows, they do not turn on and off TVs and they certainly won't pay for your cable to watch adult movies. It can happen (and sometimes this happens during the rituals), but most of the time symptoms of having a spirit companion are more subtle.

Feelings
The flow of a wind in closed room, feeling like someone's watching you from behind, tapping your shoulder, touching your back, sometimes there are also marks from scratching, but these are somehow attracted just to sensitive individuals. All these can have alternative reasons. E.g. the window lacks the isolation which explains the breeze, feeling of being watched from behind is intuitive process that happens during the night, scratches can be from your own hands when you were scratching your own back, tapping can be a little mischief of your neural network. During the spirit's presence there is usually more than just one symptome.

Sleep
During spirit's presence there are more indicators, one of them is a changed quality of sleep. You usually have to sleep more, you always feel tired and even shortly after you woke up, you are out of energy. Lack of energy PLUS wild sex oriented dreams can mean the presence of a succubus or incubus, simply sexual demons.  These demons use sexually oriented images, visions and dreams to rob you of your sexual energy, your vitality and even your sexual desires.

External verification method
It is a good idea to have some external verification, as well. Something that isn't based on our feelings and ideas. Do you feel tired after waking up? Well, maybe you just didn't sleep well enough. To verify if there really is some spirit that haunts your environment, put a glass of water on the table next to your bed, you can put a lid on it, it doesn't really matter. If there is a spirit in your house, the water will be full of small bubbles during the morning. I know this can sound stupid, but it really works. If you find bubbles in the water, do the banishing ritual and try once more. Next day use new water and check it in the morning. The result will be different.

You can also try this test for your rituals. Someone explained to me that presented spirits like "refreshments" during rituals and bubbles will appear in no time if your evocation goes smoothly. Sometimes it happened to me that bubbles appeared in a matter of minutes when I was just talking about spirituality with my apprentice, sometimes bubbles didn't appear during the whole ritual and the result was usually a failure then.