[quote=“TransHumanist, post:1, topic:1446”]Greetings everyone,
One big thing I noticed right away was his lack of use of an altar.
I often times have felt drawn to work with no altar for workings outside, but was always advised against it.
Does anyone here not use an altar for evocations?
E.A - Why did you decide to go sans altar, and do you notice a difference between not using it?
I love your minimalist style, using only the base necessities of what is most needed and not using anything extraneous.[/quote]
You know, using an altar in evocation never really made sense to me. I’ll use an altar in vodoun, of course, and I’ll use one when I’m doing sympathetic magick… but more than anything, it acts like a small workbench, allowing me to place my items and combine physical elements together.
When I started learning evocation, I didn’t know that I was supposed to have an altar, a blasting rod, robes of the art, fire wands and air daggers, enochian tablets, etc. I actually didn’t learn about all of these until after I had actually successfully evoked dozens of spirits with the absolute minimum devices. Then, I started reading Regardie and Fortune and others, and thought, “Damn, I must have been doing it wrong all this time… it’s funny that the spirits still showed up, though.”
So, I added these implements, and I found that my evocations were actually weaker. It took longer for me to get into the rapture state. It was more strenuous to make a real substantial contact with the spirit, because I was worrying about whether my altar was indeed symmetrical, if my tablets were inscribed correctly, if the painted characters on the air dagger were “flashing” the way they were supposed to… not to mention that trying to move around in floor length robes was a disaster!
Now, as was pointed out in another thread here, some of these things can definitely act as a preparatory immersion. Sure, putting on the robes and setting up the altar gets you into a state where you’re excited about the ritual, and you find yourself being drawn into the theta state just doing that. But, when it came to the actual ritual itself, these things got in the way more than anything.
So, what I’ve learned to do, if I want to produce a full materialization of the spirit, is I’ll walk for a half an hour or so into the wilderness, and while I’m walking I’ll recite the name of the spirit over and over in my head. This pushes out of my mind the last song that was on the radio, the honey-do list that I have to get done, the parent-teacher conference that night, the deadlines, and all of the other things that distract me, and then by the time I light the incense, the spirit is right there.
The journey towards the ritual area is magickal in itself, and is symbolic of the spiritual and psychological journey. So, for me this has taken the place of setting up elaborate rituals, as I’m instead setting up a complex attitude preparation.
The same can be done by meditating before the ritual, or just shutting of the tv and radio and closing the computer for a half an hour or so before the ritual, and pushing yourself into it!
