Every rite of the Craft calls on powers beyond the people present. There are two ways of doing it, which are often confused: to invite them into the circle, and to invite them into a human being.
The words invocation and evocation are used loosely in the Craft, and sometimes the wrong way round. The distinction they mark is a real one, though, and it is worth getting clear, because the second kind of calling is among the most serious things a witch ever does.
Two words
Both words come from the Latin for calling. To evoke is to call out or call forth. To invoke is to call in, or call upon.
In the ceremonial magic of earlier centuries, evocation meant summoning a spirit to appear visibly outside the magician's circle, usually into a triangle drawn on the floor for the purpose, where it could be questioned and commanded. Witches do not do that, and as the page on the circle explains, their circle is built on a different principle. In the Craft the word has softened, and generally means an invitation to be present.
Evocation: calling to the circle
Most of the calling done in a rite is of this first kind. The guardians of the four quarters are called to witness the rite and to guard the circle, as the page on the elements and the quarters describes. They are not asked into anybody. A witch at an altar who asks the Goddess to be present tonight and lights her candle is calling her into the circle, and that is a complete and sufficient act of worship. Most rites of most witches, on most nights, go no further.
When the elements are called, it is their qualities that are asked for and not the things themselves. Nobody calling the guardians of the south wants a fire in the middle of the carpet. What is asked for is the steadiness of earth, the clarity of air, the courage of fire or the depth of water, whichever the work needs.
Invocation: calling into a person
Invocation in the stronger sense is the calling of a god into a human being, so that for a time the one who speaks is understood to be the god. In Gardnerian Wicca its great example is Drawing Down the Moon, in which the High Priest invokes the Goddess into the High Priestess at the full moon, and which the page on esbats describes as far as we are free to. Many covens also keep the counterpart rite, in which the God is invoked into the High Priest, sometimes called Drawing Down the Sun.
The American writer Margot Adler took the name of the rite for the title of her survey of modern paganism in 1979, which tells something of how central it is.
Some covens also have members invoke the powers of the quarters into themselves, so that each speaks for an element during the rite. Ours does not, but it is an old practice and a respectable one.
Who may draw down the moon
In the Gardnerian tradition the Goddess is invoked into a priestess by a priest, and the God into a priest by a priestess. The reason is the principle of polarity that runs through the whole of our practice, in which power flows between the male and the female and each calls out the divine in the other. The page on the Goddess and the God says more about it.
Not everyone works that way, and we do not suppose that we are the only ones the gods listen to. Covens of women draw down the moon among themselves, and solitary witches of both sexes call the gods into themselves under the open sky and report that they come. Some writers say that the Gardnerian custom was devised to give men a place in a rite that should belong to women. We do not think so, and we would put it the other way about. But this is a matter on which honest witches differ, and every tradition is entitled to its own way.
The care it needs
Whoever does it, invocation is not an exercise for a beginner, and not something to try for the experience. A person who is to carry a god needs preparation, company and a sure way back.
- Preparation. Years of meditation and visualisation first. A mind that cannot hold steady for ten minutes is not ready to be stepped aside from.
- One at a time. Only one power is invoked into one person in a rite. Nobody calls the four quarters and the Goddess into themselves in the same evening.
- Company. Ideally someone else present who knows what is happening, can see when it has gone far enough, and can bring the person back.
- Ending it. The deity is thanked and asked to depart, and the one who carried them is grounded, with cakes and wine before the circle is closed. People who skip this feel drained for days.
- Humility. Not everything said in trance is the word of a god, and a good priestess knows it.
Names
In our tradition the Goddess and the God are called by names that are given at initiation and not spoken outside the circle, as the page on the Goddess and the God explains.
Many witches outside the initiatory traditions call on them by names drawn from the old pantheons, and two names in particular are found in a great many books. Cernunnos, the antlered god, is known by that name from a single carved stone of the first century, found under Notre-Dame in Paris; the antlered figure on the Gundestrup cauldron is usually taken to be the same god. Aradia comes from Aradia, or the Gospel of the Witches, published by the American folklorist Charles Godfrey Leland in 1899, in which she is the daughter of Diana sent to teach witchcraft to the poor. Neither name is ancient in quite the way the books sometimes suggest, but both have been called on by a great many witches, and not in vain.
A witch who calls on a god of a particular people should take the trouble to learn about that god first, and about the people. If in doubt, Lady and Lord are always enough.
For the solitary
If you work alone, begin with the first kind of calling and stay with it for a long time. At each full moon, ask the Goddess to be present, and attend to whatever comes. Try it with different names on different nights, if you are drawn to them, and write down in your diary what you notice. You will find that some calls are answered more readily than others.
The words matter less than the attention behind them. One chant much used in the Craft for raising power and calling the quarters is the Witches' Rune, written by Doreen Valiente in the 1950s and since printed many times. It belongs to her estate, so we do not quote it here, but it is easily found, and it is worth learning by heart, as every rite is, before it is used.