I've mentioned a few times now that I'm re-reading one of the formative books of Red: The Fluffy Years, Edain McCoy's Celtic Myth and Magick. Well, "re-reading" is being rather generous. It's more like I read a page or two, until she says something that pisses me off so hard I have to throw the book down and not look at it for six weeks.
In this post I talked about my experience using one of McCoy's invocation techniques, and why it's a bad fucking idea to do things her way. Below the cut, we're gonna play Invocation 2: Electric Boogaloo.
Disclaimer: My tone in this post may be more bitchy than I mean for it to be. I apologize; Edain McCoy just really pisses me off and I spend a lot of time when I'm reading this book just raging.
Alright, so in this book McCoy presents two methods of invocation. Version 1 involves visualizing the deity standing before you, and then you "step into" Their body. Version 2 is accomplished by directing a deity's energy into a tool (a wand, a chalice, etc) and then funneling that energy into yourself.
Let's go through Version 2 step by step. So first McCoy tells you to sit in a Circle. Which, incidentally, is a Wiccan thing and not Celtic, but I'm not getting into that argument right now. So you're sitting in your Circle, and then as in Version 1 you visualize yourself standing in the vast darkness of the universe, and you call out the deity's name three times, after which you address Them with a supplication.
In Version 1, you imagine the deity coming to to stand before you. In Version 2, instead you feel the deity's energy surround you and fill the Circle.
Then McCoy says some pretty shitty things about "don't worry if you can't feel energy, maybe you're just not ready yet." But if I start talking about all the shitty things Edain McCoy says in this book, we will never be done with this post.
Once you feel (or don't) the deity's energy in the Circle, you direct the deity's energy into an appropriate tool (yes, McCoy like many other Pagan 101 books unnecessarily genders her tools. I don't get it.). Then you hold the tool to an appropriate energy center (I do give her credit for not calling them chakras) and drawing that energy into yourself, like you're charging a battery.
So far, this method is actually pretty useful, and there hasn't been much to rage against. I was mildly impressed; this method is gentler than Version 1, and easier to maintain control during.
And then this happened.
Don't worry that you have invoked a power overload. This is probably just a sign that you are not ready either physically, mentally, or emotionally for this particular invocation. In fact, there was a belief among the Druids that in no magickal operation would any practitioner ever be given more of a challenge than they were capable of handling at any stage of their spiritual development. So do not worry about being overloaded with a power you cannot happen. This simply will not happen.
Celtic Myth & Magick, p. 59
Goddamnit, McCoy. And we were doing so well...
This is another example of one of my biggest problems with this book, and with McCoy in general. She has framed this entire book around the premise that the Celtic gods are archetypes; that They never existed outside of Their myths and that They have no agency of their own. And I'm sorry, but that has never been my experience with any deity I have ever worked with. They can affect events on our plane. They can make decisions. And yes, They can fuck with people.
McCoy seems to have this idea that nothing one does in any magickal working will ever have any effect other than the intended one. There will never be any blowback or cost to any magickal working one does, and if there is then oops! You just weren't ready to do that spell or invocation or whatever. And if that's been true for her, then great. But that has not been my experience, or the experience of other practitioners that I've read in books or online.
My gods are not stagnant. They do not exist solely within their mythology. They are living beings with agency and the power of choice and the ability to affect things.
My gods are not magickal slot machines. They don't just give me what I want simply because I want it. They are not masks to be used and discarded.
And yes, sometimes They do go overboard. We can get into discussions about whether They truly don't give us more than we can handle, or if They just give us whatever They feel like and then leave us to deal with it. But in my opinion, They often give us what They want us to have in order to further Their own plans, and whether or not that becomes overload is dependent upon us.
Am I a hypocrite for blasting this book while I'm in the midst of a power boost from Arianrhod that I obtained by following an exercise from the self-same book? Yeah, maybe. But my point still stands; if you consider the gods to be individual people and not archetypes, then you kind of have to accept that power overloads can happen, and that there is a risk in working with these energies and beings.
As I've been (very very slowly) re-reading the books in my library, one of the things I've been doing is working through the exercises the authors suggest, usually exactly as presented (sidenote: if you want instant proof of how far you've come along your path, try a beginner's exercise as presented in a beginner's book, with none of your usual modifications or customization).
Edain McCoy has two techniques to practice deity invocation in Celtic Myth & Magick. She's been leading up to this point all through the book, and these exercises are a stepping stone to her ultimate goal: walking you through immrama where you invoke figures from Irish mythology.
So, because I'm an idiot who really should know better after eight years of experience in these matters, I went ahead and tried one of her invocation exercises exactly as presented. What happened next... was pretty much exactly what I deserved. I'm writing this up at Lleu's behest, partially as my punishment for being reckless and partially as a cautionary tale for everybody else.
(Before we get started, insert the usual disclaimer that everything that follows is filtered through my beliefs, experiences, abilities, and biases. YMMV, and all that.)
I think I've mentioned before that Edain McCoy was one of the first pagan authors I ever read as a newbie. Celtic Myth & Magick was the book that set me on the path I'm now walking. Reading back through it now, it's surprising and a little worrisome how many of my own practices were adapted from or grew out of this book.
In particular, my invocation techniques were apparently birthed in direct response to one of McCoy's invocation exercises.
I'm currently at work and don't have CM&M in front of me, so I can't pull quotes directly from the source at present. But basically, the exercise is to imagine yourself standing in the void, and a bright white light (representing the deity you've chosen to invoke) approaches you. After asking permission (I will give McCoy credit for including that), you merge with the deity's energy by "stepping into" Their body.
One thing McCoy makes no mention of whatsoever? Anchoring.
A lot of articles and books about astral and energetic work (admittedly of varying degrees of credible) will mention techniques to alleviate the fear of being permanently separated from your physical body. The technique may be to hold a stone or crystal with grounding properties, to imagine a golden cord connecting you to your body, or finding some other way to maintain a sense of yourself when you're traveling or working with invocation. Whether the techniques are more of a psychological tool to alleviate lizard-brain fears, or a shortcut to help orient physical and astral bodies, the point is that most authors at least mention an anchoring technique as part of the process of astral work and/or invocation.
McCoy? Nope! Not a word. (This probably has to do with her position that the gods are archetypes, and thus working with them poses no real threat to a magickal practitioner. This is an argument for a later time.)
Now, when I performed this invocation exercise, I chose to work with Lleu, because He's my patron, I know Him, and I trust Him to take care of (and with) me. Given that I have a fair amount of experience with invocation and horsing (both consensual and not so much), I figured it was better to work with a deity I know and deeply trust, and whose energy I immediately recognize no matter how out of it I may be.
And thank... well... Lleu that I did ask to work with Him. Because as it turns out? McCoy's method of invocation fucking sucks.
I mean, it's effective. The "stepping into Lleu's body" thing did give me a direct, powerful link to Him. It's been a fairly long while since I performed a full invocation, and housing even a little divine energy in my body? I'd forgotten how good that can feel. Simply merging with Lleu's energy felt like an act of devotion and worship, and yes, it was beautiful.
And then my big issue with this exercise reared its head. Namely, the lack of anchoring.
Really, shame on me. I know better than to perform an invocation without having a good, strong anchor in place. Even though I was insistent on performing this exercise exactly as presented, I really should have known better, and I should have taken the precautions that I know from experience are necessary for me to perform invocations safely.
In the spirit of disclosure, back in college when I was part of the Coven of Crazy, I was invoking and horsing entities fairly regularly - my own gods, some of the Coven's familiar spirits and guardians, entities who lived on campus that we knew and trusted. I got kind of addicted to it, to feeling so much power coursing through me at once. There was a time or two when I merged so completely with W/whoever was horsing me that I lost all sense of myself. The Coven's fearless Leader had to push W/whoever out of me and talk me back into conscious control of my body. After one particularly bad night, one of my long-term companions helped me to forge a bond between my energetic and physical bodies, so that if I got lost during an invocation again I could use the bond to find my way back into control (he also keyed himself into it so that if things got really bad again, he could call me back, but that's a different story).
So yeah, as I performed this invocation with Lleu, I got lost in Him. For... however long He was driving, there was no me. And again, thank all the gods that Lleu was the one I'd chosen to work with. He had no compunctions about activating my bond and guiding me back into control, and while He quickly vacated my body He stayed with me to keep me steady until I had recovered somewhat. (And yes, He and my companion did give me a right proper reaming for attempting an invocation without having adequate precautions in place. Book be damned.)
Ladies, Gents, Nonbinaries, and Others, please don't ever attempt an invocation without having some method in place to help you maintain a sense of your individual self. If an author writes out an invocation technique and doesn't include at least a mention of anchoring, don't perform the invocation until you and W/whoever you'll be invoking agree on a method of anchoring. In this case, I was very very lucky that I was working with my patron and not some random-ass entity who might have decided to push me out and keep my body possessed. Don't be dumb about this sort of thing.
