Goetic Liturgy

First published in The Equinox: British Journal of Thelema, Volume VII 9-11 as ‘Liturgical Approaches to Invocation & Evocation’, Goetic Liturgy concerns the art of invoking gods in order to conjure spirits by “the Egyptian formula”.

Both the formula itself, and example invocations and conjurations are given. By a quirk of fate, the framework of the rites derives from early and neglected aspects of Aleister Crowley’s work along Golden Dawn lines; yet they bear little relation to our ideas about either. While potentially useful to magicians in those traditions, the operator may equally be unattached to them.

This is also a manual of ritual composition; for working within a defined liturgical frame, providing structure rather than setting finite limits. The deities involved in these rituals are – or equate with – Greco-Egyptian deities from the period of the ancient syncretism. These are underworld deities, as appropriate to goetic tradition. Thus these rituals are equally applicable frameworks for working with the magical papyri & ‘neo-archaic’ approaches to the spirit catalogues of the grimoires.