| • Science | • People | • Locations | • Timeline |
As a supplication or prayer it implies to call upon (a god or goddess, a person, etc.). When a person calls upon a god or goddess to ask for something (protection, a favour, his/her spiritual presence in a ceremony, etc.) or simply for worship, this can be done in a pre-established form or with the invoker's own words. An example of a pre-established text for an invocation is the Lord's Prayer.
There are many texts, still preserved, written in cuneiform characters on clay tablets, addressed to Shamash, Ishtar, and other deities. But not only the Akkadian pantheon has some texts kept in museums. Shamanic societies have oral transmitted invocations to their deities and protective spirits too. All religions in general have invocations, like the mantras in Hinduism and Buddhism. The Egyptian Book of Breathings (aka Book of the DeadThere is also a Tibetan Book of the Dead, the Bardo Thodol. The Book of the Dead is the common name for the ancient Egyptian funerary text The Book of Coming [or Going] Forth By Day''. The name was invented by the German Egyptologist Richard Lepsius, who) has also plenty of invocations.
Sometimes an invocation mixes a supplication with a commandment in an attempt to obtain a favour from some spirit by commanding that entity to do something under a threatening of some bond placed unto him/her in case the asked favour is not obtained.
The following is a curious example of an invocation found engraved in cuneiform characters on a statue of PazuzuIn Sumerian and Akkadian mythology, Pazuzu was the king of the demons of wind, and son of the god Hanbi. For the Sumerians he also represented the southwestern wind, the bearer of storms. Original Pazuzu mythology Pazuzu is often depicted with the body of, used as an amuletAn amulet from the Black Pullet grimoire An amulet (from Latin amuletum meaning A means of protection) consists of any object intended to bring good luck and/or protection to its owner. Potential amulets include: gems or simple stones, statues, coins, dra to protect people from this demonSatan In folklore, mythology, and in many religions, a demon is a supernatural entity, generally (but not in all traditions) an evil or malicious spirit. The Greek word daemon ω, appears in the works of Plato and many other ancient authors, without. Although it seems to be a self-affirmation of the demon's personality, it was believed it could act as a commandment to avoid him hurting people and their goods.