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In ritual magic, invocations (from the Latin verb invocare "to call on, invoke, to give") are a field involving communicating or interacting with certain incorporeal, supernatural spirits. Invocation may take the form of:^{[citation needed]}

• Supplication, prayer or spell.
• A form of possession.
• Command or conjuration.
• Self-identification with certain spirits.

These forms are described below, but are not mutually exclusive. See also Theurgy.

As a supplication or prayer, an invocation implies calling upon God, a god, goddess, or person. When a person calls upon God, a god, or goddess to ask for something (protection, a favour, or their spiritual presence in a ceremony) or simply for worship, this can be done in a pre-established form or with the invoker's own words or actions. An example of a pre-established text for an invocation is the Lord's Prayer.^[1]

In general, all religions use invoking prayers, liturgies, or hymns; see for example the mantras in Hinduism and Buddhism, the Egyptian Coming Out by Day (aka Book of the Dead), the Orphic Hymns and the many texts, still preserved, written in cuneiform characters on clay tablets, addressed to Shamash, Ishtar, and other deities.

In Islam, invocation (duʿāʾ) is a prayer of supplication or request.^[2][3] Muslims regard this as a profound act of worship. One of the earliest treaties on invocations, attributed to a scholar named Khālid ibn Yazīd, has survived on a papyrus booklet dated 880-881.^[4]

An invocation can also be a secular alternative to a prayer. On August 30, 2012, Dan Nerren, a member of the Humanist Association of Tulsa, delivered a secular invocation to open a meeting of the City Council of Tulsa.^[5] Nerren was invited to perform the invocation as a compromise following a long-running dispute with the City Council over prayers opening meetings. The invocation was written by Andrew Lovley, a member of the Southern Maine Association of Secular Humanists who had previously used the invocation in 2009 to invoke an inauguration ceremony for new city officials in South Portland, Maine.^[6]

In this usage, it is comparable to an affirmation as an alternative for those who conscientiously object to taking oaths of any kind, be it for reasons of belief or non-belief.^{[citation needed]}

The word "possession" is used here in its neutral form to mean "a state (sometimes psychological) in which an individual's normal personality is replaced by another".^{[citation needed]} This is also sometimes known as 'aspecting'.^{[citation needed]} This can be done as a means of communicating with or getting closer to a deity or spirit.^{[citation needed]}

In some religious traditions including Paganism, Shamanism and Wicca, "invocation" means to draw a spirit or Spirit force into one's own body and is differentiated from "evocation", which involves asking a spirit or force to become present at a given location. Aleister Crowley states that

To "invoke" is to "call in", just as to "evoke" is to "call forth". This is the essential difference between the two branches of Magick. In invocation, the macrocosm floods the consciousness. In evocation, the magician, having become the macrocosm, creates a microcosm.^[7]

Possessive invocation may be attempted singly or, as is often the case in Wicca, in pairs - with one person doing the invocation (reciting the liturgy or prayers and acting as anchor), and the other person being invoked (allowing themselves to become a vessel for the spirit or deity). The person successfully invoked may be moved to speak or act in non-characteristic ways, acting as the deity or spirit; and they may lose all or some self-awareness while doing so. A communication might also be given via imagery (a religious vision). They may also be led to recite a text in the manner of that deity, in which case the invocation is more akin to ritual drama. The Wiccan Charge of the Goddess is an example of such a pre-established recitation.^{[citation needed]}

The ecstatic, possessory form of invocation may be compared to loa possession in the Vodou tradition where devotees are described as being "ridden" or "mounted" by the deity or spirit. In 1995 National Geographic journalist Carol Beckwith described events she had witnessed during Vodoun possessions:

A woman splashed sand into her eyes, a man cut his belly with shards of glass but did not bleed, another swallowed fire. Nearby a believer, perhaps a yam farmer or fisherman, heated hand-wrought knives in crackling flames. Then another man brought one of the knives to his tongue. We cringed at the sight and were dumbfounded when, after several repetitions, his tongue had not even reddened.^[8]

Possessive invocation has also been described in certain Norse rites where Odin is invoked to "ride" workers of seidr (Norse shamanism), much like the god rides his eight-legged horse Sleipnir. Indeed, forms of possessive invocation appear throughout the world in most mystical or ecstatic traditions, wherever devotees seek to touch upon the essence of a deity or spirit.^[9]

• Drawing down the moon

• Crowley, Aleister (1997). Magick: Liber ABA, Book 4, Parts I-IV (2nd rev. ed.). Boston: Weiser. ISBN 0-87728-919-0.
• Gallusz, L. (2017). The Seven Prayers of Jesus. IVP. ISBN 978-1-78359-568-6.
• Wallis, Robert J. (2003). Shamans/Neo-Shamans: Ecstasies, Alternative Archaeologies and Contemporary Pagans. Routledge. ISBN 0-415-30202-1.

The dictionary definition of invocation at Wiktionary