Summoning Spirits : The Art of Magical Evocation
Konstantinos

Llewellyn Publications 1995, ISBN 1-56718-381-6

"Summoning Spirits" is a rather recent addition to the occult book market, and a quite peculiar one. In it, the author Kostantinos attempts to give a complete guide to the evocation of entities, directed at absolute beginners. Since evocation magic is normally reserved to advanced magicians for a reason, and the concept described in the book is part of notoriously complicated Golden Dawn magic, the author has a lot of ground to cover before he can explain the actual procedure. He does so using an exceptionally extreme specialisation. What is absolutely necessary for the evocation technique he introduces is explained competently and in an almost foolproof way, but everything else is left out.
For example, his desciption of the Lesser Rituals of the Pentagram and Hexagram is very precise in matters of the ritual procedure, which helps lessen insecurities of beginning ritual magicians, but their spiritual background is as lacking as any hint of alternative methods of banishment. Of enochian magic, those symbols important for the final evocation ritual are named, but the diversity and complexity of this magical system is not tangible. Konstantinos does manage this radical limitation towards his goal very well and teaches a lesson to those who deem evocation without years of preliminary training impossible.
But if editorial work is his strength, creative ritualism is not. Practically nothing contained in this book has not been said in one or another work published before it - most especially "The Golden Dawn", "The Practice of Magical Evocation" and "Magick". "Summoning Spirits" is a theoretical book, the carefully-crafted work of an editor, collecting many important facts on evocation in the Golden Dawn paradigm, adding a small dose of practical experience and thus not creating anything new but making a lot more accessible what was already there.
It may be asked whether evocation magic is of any use to someone who has not even mastered the most basic of techniques such as divination and paradigm shift. This question, however, can only be left up to the reader.
And this reader will have made no mistake in buying "Summoning Spirits". It allows for a deep, but not confusing look into the capabilities of magic that those familiar with other literature aimed at beginners will value as pleasantly clear and pointed. Advanced practicioners, however, may find in it an outline of the rarely written-about subject of evocation magic, but will usually be better off with "The Practice of Magical Evocation".