Reading Materials:

Lesson Overview: Magick I: This lesson begins with the understanding that, as a Coven of the Far Flung Net member, if you have been interested in Magick, you would've been studying it as well as Wicca.

Because Magick requires a more personal touch, and can't, in my opinion, be learned from books, but only from a teacher OR by inspiration (given by the gods, introspection, or both) I have not focused on Magick.

This lesson serves as an advanced primer in the concepts that Magick is comprised of, lesson eleven is also on this topic.

I think that if you are not interested in Magick, or that if it is not a part of your Wicca, this section will still help you with the concepts you may come across from other Pagans.
Remember that UEW does not expect you to have a "magickal" life, only a Willful one, where you recognize and accept responsibility for what you are and what you do. (OF course, the astute reader of Crowley will pick up that leading a Willful life, responsible to yourself, is the most magickal act of all.)

Part One: 

Margaret Murray made the distinction between ritual witchcraft and operative witchcraft. This distinction between the magickal arts that are used in a ritual/celebratory form (which is, in part, what the Wiccan Circle is,) and those that have a pure function is often the distinction that Wiccans try to make when describing religious practice and trying to divorce it from the fluttery wings of spell craft that people want to stick on it like glitter on a kindergarten art project. It often helps to realize that magick is often religious, and religion is sometimes magickal.

Religion is a defining concept. If you sit down, and write "I am....." at the top of a paper and start listing all the one and two word phrases that define you, you will be hard pressed to not list your religion in the top ten. (For me, it came in fourth.. I am a woman, a mother, a lover, a Wiccan...). Sadly, right now you are 'primed' to include your faith in your top ten, but try writing "I am..." at the top of a blank piece of paper and doing it when you haven't been spending the last several minutes dwelling on your faith... you'll see I'm right. 
Anyways, because religion is still a defining concept (even more, for some of us, than child of so-and-so) it fits in nicely into our magick.

Take, for example, this Invocation to the goddess Tasmitu, from ancient Babylon:

I, son of______, whose god is _______, whose goddess is ________
In the evil of an eclipse of the moon, which in ______month and _____day has taken place,
In the evil of the powers, of the portents, evil and not good, which are in my palace and my land,
Have turned toward thee. I have established thee.
Listen to the incantation! Before Nabu thy spouse, the lord, the prince, the first-born son of Isagila, intercede for me!
May he harken to my cry at the word of thy mouth!
May he remove my sighing, may he learn my supplication!
At his mighty word may god and goddess deal graciously with me!
May the sickness of my body be torn away! May the groaning of my flesh be consumed!
May the consumption of my muscles be removed!
may the poisons that are upon me be loosened!
May the ban be torn away!

The above invocation is a really good thing to start with because an invocation ALWAYS has a religious element. As we cover certain other parts of magickal theory, we'll see the things used in this incantation appear again and again, so, let's break it down.

This first Part, in teal, is the "signatory announcement" (SA) remember that this is like a signature on the invocation that says who is doing it. Many spoken magickal practices have a signatory announcement, and a signatory closing, but we'll get to it later.

This SA is a really GOOD one to use as a model if you intend to write invocations of your own. It makes it very clear to the "Powers that be" who you are and who you ally yourself with.

You can see by looking at it where religious identity comes in, and it is very hard to determine if this is a "spell" or a "prayer"... because it has elements of both. One of the "spells" in an old book of shadows of mine read "harken to me, Name, daughter of name, Dedicant of Patron and Matron, one of the Wicca," so you can imagine it gets as specific as you wish.

Some people insist all magickal acts begin this way. In general, folks that make such insistences aren't worth listening to.

The Second Part, in green, is the "reason" for the invocation. If this were a celebratory rite, it might read "Blessed Goddess, we are here to pay tribute to your bounty."

The Third Part, in black, is the "divine involvement" of the invocation. In this one, the incantor is claiming that the ill effects he has received are reflecting upon the god. Sometimes, this involvement message is nothing more than a reminder of one's relationship with the god. In the most famous of Christian prayers, the involvement of the Christian god is stated at its simplest, "Our father, who art in heaven" this does not just merely make sure that the God of Abraham knows the message is addressed to him, it says, in two words why he should care... he is, they claim, their father.

The fourth part, in purple, is telling the god what form the invocation is taking. This invocation is an intercession invocation (try saying that fast five times). To return to the example of Christian prayer, in Catholicism, the Hail Mary is exactly that, "excuse me, um, Mary, I know your son is busy, but I was wondering if you could ask him to forgive me? I hear you're in tight with him and his old man, so put in a word for me, okay?"

Were this a demon in this invocation, or someone that the invoker thought he could push around, he might say something like this, taken from a medieval Judeo-Christian spell book, toward a demon:" I invoke and command thee, O Spirit, by all the resplendent and potent names of the Great and unparalleled Jehovah Saboath, our lord to come here to this place instantly!"

It is assumed, of course, that one does not tell one's gods what to do. In invocation, position is held in high esteem, and is of great importance. It is supposed to show that you "Know thyself". In invocation, a man is beneath a god, but above a demon, spirit, etc....

The last part, in sea green, is what some would say sets an invocation apart from a prayer. We'll call it the "list of demands"

Although not present here, often such an invocation has a culturally determined ending phrase, such as Amen or So mote it be. This phrase provides a pause between "speaking with god" and "speaking with everyone else". When I was a small child, one of my aunts told me that after a Christian said "Amen" God stopped paying attention to them. Although I tried it a few times, I discovered saying amen before doing something bad didn't turn my mother's attention away from me, regardless of what it did to god. 

To study invocation, and try to tell where invocation ends and prayer begins, if there is such a place, do a little research and answer these questions.

1.  Find a prayer that is generally considered non-magickal in nature. Is it similar to this incantation? What parts do they have in common? Is there a signatory announcement or closing? A cultural end phrase? A list of demands? 
2. What do you think is the dividing line between religion and magick, or does no such line exist? 

"Hear my cry O, God, Listen to my prayer.  
From the ends of the Earth I cry to You! 
I cry as my heart grows faint!  
Lead me to the rock that's higher than I."

This is from one of the Psalms from the Bible (I don't remember which Psalm, I actually remembered this from a song we sang when I was a child growing up in the Church.)  It's not very similar to the incantation above, but it does have some of the elements involved with it.  It includes the plea to God for God to hear the person's request, and then gives the demand.  Pretty simple, yet effective.

So the question now is, where and what is the dividing line between religion and magick?  I honestly don't know if there is one.  It's a sticky thing to explain.  Christian's don't believe in magick, yet they belong to a religion (duh).  So there must be a line that divides one from the other.  I could say that magick is a science, and religion is more of a series of beliefs and practices, and that could be the end of the subject.

Truth of the matter, I don't have an answer.  It's something I'd really have to think about, something I really need to contemplate.  I was told by a witch that I respect a great deal once told me for all the fact that Catholics are against the practice of Witchcraft and Wicca, those priests sure are some highly trained magicians.  It was an interesting comment, and I thought about it for a long time, and realized that she was right.

Nearly all religions have some form of "magic" involved in them.  Whether it be faith healing, or simply turning the wine into the "Blood of Christ" and the bread into the "Body of Christ", it involves a little bit of magic, however thinly disguised it may be. Hmm.  Interesting things to think about.

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Part Two:

An invocation is a prayer that fulfills a need, in general, beyond merely speaking to God. To me, a prayer is merely an informal chat with one's god, and an invocation is a more formal one. It should be noted that for metaphysical purposes, any "prayer" in which one merely repeats a phrase, regardless of it's meaning, is generally considered an incantation, not an invocation or prayer. The similarity between the words expresses the similarity between the two things.

The second form of Magick we'll go over, quite common in Wicca, is the EVOCATION. An invocation can be thought of, in Wiccan Terms, as bringing the gods INTO your circle, and an evocation is bringing the god-self out of your being.

The following evocation is a mostly harmless Clan Morgan one...

I call upon thee, oh blood of the ancestors that burns in my veins, bring forth the knowledge that resides in my heart, in my being, in the essence of what I am.

Source of the similarities between me and my mothers, font of the knowledge, the shared blood from the womb. From the hidden spring inside, erupt!, From the lurking storm shoot forth, from the core of stone, arise.... 

An evocation takes one of two forms, evoking a power (such as a shared ancestry) from within, or "channeling" a god-form or spirit.

This type of channeling/drawing down should no be confused with things like the Seth movement and mediums who affect a funny accent and claim to be Atlantians. Evocation can reference a power, but it also can fulfill the part of "acting in the stead of" a power, which is highly important in celebratory ritual.

The Call of the Goddess is one such evocation.

Rather than focus on evocations, which I think are fairly straightforward, and not difficult to grasp, we're going to move straight back into the religious aspect of this.

Religious Magick (although Good enough would claim the statement redundant.) in general, has something, somewhere, to do with your gods.

Even the charms and incantations we'll cover in lesson 11, while completely secular, have an added Wiccan element in them when done by a Wiccan, because in all magick, identity matters, and, as we discussed ad nauseum your religion is a key factor in your identity.

There is a debate(!) in Wicca as to what happens during Drawing Down the Moon and any other evocation (indeed, a debate as to whether DDTM is an evocation or invocation). In ecstatic Wicca, the Goddess (or God) is said to enter the body of the person doing the evocation, whereas in non-ecstatic Wicca, the person is acting as the god for the purpose of celebration. 

1. If you feel comfortable doing it, I suggest that you write and attempt an evocation. Use the information above on INVOCATION, as well as Drawing Down the Moon or Sun, the Charge of The Goddess and/or God, and similar publicly accessible documents to determine what you feel belongs in an evocation, done properly. After you perform your evocation, express the feelings it evokes in you (couldn't resist).
2. Use the evocation to further cement your beliefs regarding the whole ball of wax up to this point. Do you find you are more of an ecstatic or do you seem more of a rationalist? Evocation opens up your life to the forces you evoke, at the minimum on an internal scale. Done right, an evocation should help you feel out where you are on the path.

It's funny, but the neatest part about this lesson is I can say "You'll know when you've finished it."

To tell the truth, I don't know if I have ever done an evocation before.  I say this because I've done a lot of things in my youth, and I have from time to time called on the Goddess to lend me strength, wisdom and various other virtues that I've lacked in those times.  Usually something spontaneous, words that have poured out of my heart in times of great need.  I wonder if that is something to consider an evocation?  I really don't have anyone to ask anymore, since CFFN has changed since I was there.

I have witnessed evocations during ritual, and it was really neat to watch.  It was at Beltaine this past year, and the acting Priest and Priestess did evocations for Pan and Aphrodite.  After some nice little words, both seemed to take on aspects of those deities, and the ritual was much more interesting than any other I've seen before.  I wonder if they had decided to just invoke Them, rather than do evocations, if the effect would've been the same.  I suppose I shall discover this as time goes by.  I believe I'll do an evocation soon - at the next esbat, and then I'll write down my experiences here.