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Creating a Community pt. 2

© Taylor Ellwood

In my last article on community I promised some magical techniques that a person can use to work toward finding community. Briefly, I want to return to what a community is and then focus on those techniques. In Konton 2.2, Diotima points that what makes a community what is, is it's vitality (2005). She then goes to explain what she means: "The whole point of community...is to do something, to change something, to effect and affect something. Now that 'thing' may be the members themselves, or it may be some action being taken...Once the community begins to exist for the sake of the community rather than for the sake of the work to be done, it has become a group...It's a place of feel good, perhaps, but it's not a place to accomplish all that much" (2005, p. 23). In the end, a community is focused on doing more than just hanging out. A community, ideally is working toward a change, working toward some kind of goal. With that thought in mind, I now toward the magical techniques you can use to help you find a community that is focused on similar goals, as those you possess.

When most people think of evocation, they think of a summoning of spirits and sending those spirits to do a task. But I have a technique called passive evocation, which is not focused on evoking a spirit, but rather is focused on evoking an experience. The dynamics of this technique involve the realization that every time you meet a person, go to an event, etc, you are helping to evoke or externalize that person and/or event into reality. The energy that goes into that evocation can be duplicated and sent out to manifest a similar evocation for you.

As an example, last fall I was looking for communities in the local area I met in. When I met another pagan, I decided to use the energy of that experience, the thrill I felt of talking with her, to summon similar experiences. I projected the energy from that meaning creating a pattern of reality, basically I sent the energy into reality and said bring this kind of experience back to me. Over the course of a month I would end up meeting more and more pagans and finally the local community.

There are several ways you can do this evocation. One is to create a sigil. Write a sentence or a few words that fits what you're looking for in a community. As an example, I would use experiments, magic, and community. Get rid of the repeating letters and takes what left and make it into a symbol. Then charge it up with your desire to find a community and use meeting or hanging with a few fellow pagans as part of your charging process as that'll give the sigil specific energy to hone in on. Then do a ritual where you evoke the sigil, visualizing it as a symbol you send into reality. Then forget about it and wait for the experiences to start piling up.

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