New Lemegeton

Despite their variety, magical approaches fall into two fundamentally different streams: Invocatory Magic and Evocatory Magic. The distinction is no accident. As so often happens, any system presents itself as a pair of polarities—a binary.

Invocatory Magic operates with forces whose vectors are not collinear with the vector of the operator’s will. The operator understands that the outcome will be a vector sum of their will and the will of the force they engage. This current does not carry the same compulsory drive toward realization as Evocatory Magic; yet the results achieved through invocatory work tend to be more fundamental and less prone to side effects.

Evocatory Magic is a set of methods for realizing one’s will by enlisting forces whose vectors are collinear and comparable in magnitude to the vector of the desire itself. Realization is achieved by forcibly coupling the desire’s vector to the vector of the force employed. In other words, an external power is compelled to carry out the operator’s intent. This current is marked by high efficiency of realizations, but also by their narrow scope and a rigid dependence on the precise performance of the operation (the ritual).

Goetia, as a technology, belongs to Evocatory Magic: its methods aim to objectify the forces being engaged and to work with them as “external,” regardless of what one believes about their origin.

Evocation is the approach by which an alien force is compelled to manifest under specially prepared conditions. Most goetic rites are, of course, evocations. All methods of evocation are designed, on the one hand, to create conditions for the spirit’s manifestation and, on the other, to make that manifestation as safe as possible for the operator. In effect, an evocation establishes a controlled contact between two entirely different universes: the Magus’s universe—symbolized by the Circle—and the spirit’s universe—symbolized by the Triangle of Art. It is crucial that these universes do not interpenetrate, and that the “bridge” between them remain fully under the evoker’s control. Evocation is not “communication,” for there is nothing in common between a Magus and a Demon. The Magus does not collaborate with a Demon, nor do they “fight” it; they oppose it.

Invocation likewise imposes an interaction between the operator and an alien force, but the contact is facilitated by providing that force with a substrate, a field of manifestation. That field may be a medium—or even the Magus’s own mind. Put simply: if evocation compels a spirit to come, invocation invites it to enter. This method is commonly used to contact angels, though some Magi invoke goetic spirits, and spiritists work with Elementers in a similar way. Naturally, the risk of possession—Ibbur—is greatest here, even as the probability and “density” of contact are highest.

In describing evocations and their outcomes, I by no means wish to breed a casual attitude toward goetic operations or to downplay their danger—which is far more serious than playing with fire or wild beasts. The force activated in such rites—the spirit evoked—can not only destroy the evoker’s body and soul; it can also wreak harm upon their family and environment. For anyone who is not two hundred percent certain that Magic is their Way, Goetia is not merely unhelpful—it is strictly discouraged. And even for those who have no doubt about their Way as Magi, long and demanding preparation is required—mastery over one’s desires and impulses of will—before any serious goetic work should be contemplated.

At the same time, to the question “Can one become a Magus without ever confronting Demons?” the answer is an unequivocal no.

As soon as a Magus begins to amplify their Power, they become visible to predators greater than those that feed on the energy of ordinary people—and not merely visible, but appetizing. In other words, even if the Magus has no interest in Demons, Demons will inevitably take an interest in them. That interest does not depend in the least on how seriously we take “demons,” or whether we acknowledge their reality at all. The internal logic of development is such that, as mind gathers power and matures, it activates not only its constructive aspects; it also awakens destructive tendencies of which we may have been wholly unaware.
Therefore, any Magus who wishes to continue along the Way beyond a certain stage will have to face—and even clash with—Demons, whatever they may think of them, and whatever they consider them to be: parts of their own psychocosm, fallen angels, or anything else.
The core component of any Magus’s life—regardless of the features of their individual Way—is resistance to Demons.

Whatever we take Demons to be—illusion, destructive partitions of mind, fallen angels, vortices, energetic structures, or anything else—the fact remains: something drives mind to act destructively, both toward itself and toward others. Even the Buddha, before attaining Enlightenment, opposed Mara; and on the Western Path such confrontations are of particular concern.

Victory over Demons is not won by fighting them, but by resisting them.
By rooting out every hook—everything that makes the mind akin to those forces—the Magus renders themselves inaccessible to them and thus overcomes the pull of duality’s poles.
Victory over Demons lies in refusing any common ground with them, without collapsing into the opposite pole. Very often, instead of resistance we see mere avoidance: mind, sensing a destructive influence, walls itself off from it—and thereby narrows its own possibilities for growth. The Magus’s battle is neither to rush a Demon with fists nor to hide from it. The battle is to keep to one’s Way—to walk in open daylight, under all winds—without letting darkness in and without allowing it to spread around.

The Magus’s practice is the purification and realization of their mind (and of the world around it), grounded in knowledge of the “ethnography” and “geography” of these realms—where applied Theurgy, as well as goetic methods, are basic skills.