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Magics and the Art of Summoning

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A spell, charm, or incantation is a set of words, spoken or unspoken. Spellcasting is considered by its user to invoke some magical effect. Pharmakeia is often the vehicle for binding someone with a spell with and without uttered words. Often binding someone with a spell by the use of spoken word formulas involves the use of evocation.
Not all speech is considered magical, however. Only certain words and phrases or words spoken in a specific context are considered to have magical power. Magical language is distinct from scientific language because it is emotive and it converts words into symbols for emotions; whereas in scientific language words are tied to specific meanings and refer to an objective external reality. Magical language is therefore particularly adept at constructing metaphors that establish symbols and link magical rituals to the world.
One such method involving the use of such would be evocation or summoning magics.
Evocation is the act of calling or summoning a spirit, demon, god or other supernatural agent, in the Western mystery tradition. This is often done for the sole purpose of doing the bidding of the magician or provide information.
The Latin word evocatio was the "calling forth" or "summoning away". The calling forth of spirits was a relatively common practice in Neoplatonism, theurgy and other esoteric systems of antiquity. In contemporary western esotericism, the magic of the grimoires is frequently seen as the classical example of this idea. Manuals provided instructions that combined intense devotion to the divine with the summoning of a personal cadre of spiritual advisers and familiars. The grimoires provided a variety of methods of evocation. The magician used wands, staves, incense and fire, daggers and complex diagrams drawn on parchment or upon the ground. In Enochian magic, spirits are evoked into a crystal ball or mirror, in which a human volunteer also known as a seer is expected to be able to see the spirit and hear its voice, passing the words on to the evoker. Sometimes such a seer might be an actual medium, speaking as the spirit, not just for it. In other cases the spirit might be 'housed' in a symbolic image, or conjuring into a diagram from which it cannot escape without the magician's permission.
While much later, corrupt and commercialized grimoires include elements of 'diabolism' even offering a method for making a pact with the devil, in general the art of evocation of spirits is said to be done entirely under the power of the divine. The magician is thought to gain authority among the spirits only by purity, worship and personal devotion and study.
In more recent usage, evocation refers to the calling out of lesser spirits sometimes conceived of as arising from the self. This sort of evocation is contrasted with invocation, in which spiritual powers are called into the self from a divine source.
Conjuration in traditional and most contemporary usage refers to a magical act of invoking spirits or using incantations or charms to cast magical spells. In the context of legerdemain, it may also refer to the performance of illusion or magic tricks for show. This article discusses mainly the original and primary usage, describing acts of a supernatural or paranormal nature. The text of the charms to be recited to conjure the spirit varies considerably from simple sentences to complex paragraphs with plenty of magic words. The language usually is that of the conjurer's, but since the Middle Ages in Western tradition, Latin was the most common.
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Florianen's avatar
Awwwww, awesome illustration! *W*