Invocation

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We are now working through the conclusion of “King, Warrior, Magician, Lover.” The book closes with four practices for integrating archetypal work into our lives. In May we focused on Active Imagination Dialogue, on our June call we will focus on the practice of Invocation.

The four practices are:

• Active Imagination Dialogue

• Invocation

• Admiring Men

• Acting as If

Invocation is a practice that is very close to my heart. It is part of the religious tradition in which I was brought up, and remains part of the spiritual traditions I have adopted.

Today, I start each of my coaching sessions with a grounding practice and an invocation.

This week, before we gather on Monday, June 3, I am inviting you to play with the practice invocation in order to “access the masculine archetypes in their fullness as positive energy forms” (see page 151.)

Practice at least once, but ideally you can make the time to practice a few times. Check in with yourself to determine whether you want to focus on one archetype, or check in with different archetypes on different practice days. The important thing is that you show up to our call with a sense of what it feels like to invoke an archetypal form. 

Here is how to approach the practice:

• Find a quiet place and time, clear your mind as best you can and relax—again, as best you can. (We don’t recommend long relaxation exercises as a necessary part of this process, although they can be helpful.) 

• Focus on an image that has both mental pictures and spoken words (spoken in your head, at least). It is often useful to spend some time looking for images of the King, the Warrior, the Magician, the Lover. Use those images in your invocations. 

• Let’s say you’ve found an image of a Roman emperor on his throne—a still from a movie, perhaps, or a painting. During this exercise, set that image in front of you. 

• As you relax, talk to the image. Call up the King inside yourself. Seek to merge your deep unconscious with him. Realize that you (as an Ego) are different from him. 

• In your imagination, make your Ego his servant. Feel his calm and his strength, his balanced benevolence toward you, his watching over you. Imagine yourself before his throne, having an audience with him. 

• In effect, “pray” to him. Tell him that you need him, that you need his help—his power, his favor, his orderliness, his manliness. Count on his generosity and his kind disposition.

This may sound quite foreign to many of you. But don’t forget that Western Materialism is an ideology, it is a paradigm, an often helpful way of seeing and experiencing the world. But definitely not the only way. We want to be careful with the ways in which dominant paradigms blind us to other possibilities.

Invocation is a universal and ancient practice. It precedes the materialist worldview by millenia. And as such, it must have wisdom and potency in it. Find out for yourself.

Let’s try it. 

I’m looking forward to us talking about it.

See you next week!