God Forms Options

when assuming a god form does one actually take the god/deities power?
If so, can one enter the higher planes of those of the deity?





sasha (IMG:style_emoticons/default/happydance.gif)

I gotta say that Bym offers excellent advice that I am personally inclined to agree with, but since I love to play devil's advocate I will offer an alternative point of view!

A good friend of mine (yes, I mention him a lot on these boards, but he is a huge influence on me) takes the view that magicians shouldn't invoke.

Why?

Well, his argument is that invocation is the practice of the religious person. The religious person seeks to unite themselves with their God/dess by subjugating their will to that of the entity and inviting them into their body/mind. The magician is not interested in subjugating his will to anyone or anything, and therefore evokes the God/dess to his presence to the end that he might then negotiate a means of making what he wants to happen come about through the agency of that particular god/dess...essentially he is hiring in a contractor. Obviously there is one great exception to this rule that blurs the distinctions somewhat, and in that case I think it is probably right to go with Uncle Al and his "No man knoweth another's God, nor the right that invoketh him" - or something like that!

By way of interest, my own experiences of evocation are limited to one occasion. This is largely because although I agree with Bym, I accept that the argument I have presented above represents a sound and consistent praxis for a Thelemic magician. Nevertheless, in the one instance I did experience what I believe is known as an "overshadowing", i.e. a partial possession, some interesting stuff occurred. After the rather lengthy and elaborate ritual had concluded I spent some time during the rest of the evening having a "tete-a-tete" with the young lady who had taken the role of the divine sister/spouse to the god form that I myself had "played". The thing is that I had absolutely no memory of this at all and only found out about it a month later when my friend told me that he had walked in on us in the kitchen! I can't help but be of the opinion that we were both still partially in the control of the entities from the ritual who were using our bodies to do their thing!

I think it is fair to say that invocation has the potential to get you into a whole lot of trouble!