Thank you for your kind email and response.

I believe that the ultimate Divine Source (the Ain Sof Aur as it is called in Kabbalah) has many emanations, of which YHWH is one. The less personality “He” has, the closer to the ultimate source – so the personal God worshipped by many Christians is not the same as the ultimate source, in my humble opinion. So if you were trying to invoke the ultimate divine source, you couldn’t fit it all in, but if it was a local and finite manifestation of it, you might have more success, if you see what I mean.

I am interested in the real Jesus – that’s one of the reasons why I am a Unitarian as well as a Wiccan (but of course my definition of what “the real Jesus” might mean varies quite wildly from Christian definitions!)

Yes, I like Carl’s writings, very interesting. I came here via Steve Hayes’ blog, by the way.

When I refer to God, I do mean YHWH, but in meaning that I refer to the ultimate God, who’s nature I believe is revealed in Jesus, and who is the culmination of my search (and, about whom I agree that any pronoun is acceptable, and none are sufficient). That being said, I do believe that in many ways Wicca led me for a season in my search, and have no regrets for that.

And certainly, Pagans of all types are (generally, though like any faith there are exceptions) on a sincere search just like I was and am, and I honor that and wish them the best, and a continued faithfulness to honest search. My desire that they look into the real Jesus, not the Jesus of Christendom, can never negate the fact that I can and should learn from them as well.

Grace to you, Yvonne. Feel free to continue to dialog. Are you familiar with Carl McColman? His is a wonderful website devoted to Christian mysticism and Celtic spirituality, and is a great place for dialog on these matters as well.

This is a very interesting post. I think it depends what you mean by God as to whether you could invoke (insert pronoun of choice). If you mean the Ultimate Divine Source, it’s probably too big. If you mean Yahweh as a specific local tribal god, it’s probably possible.

I also want to respond to Jared White above. People who are “in the occult” are experiencing the Divine in their own way and on their own path. They’re not in bondage to evil spirits, or whatever. So your God didn’t rescue Jonathan from the occult; Jonathan found that Christianity was his chosen personal path to the Divine. And I wish him well on that path.

As for your question about how to “invoke” God, it was a way for my friend to explain encountering God in a way that I would understand and be open to, similar in some ways to Paul explaining the “unknown God” to the Athenians.

It’s possible to see a deeper issue, I suppose, in wondering why God would respond to my use of this to seek after him. I think God works like this, in that he wants to meet people where they are if they are seeking him, and is willing to enter their own cultures and their own ways of perceiving the world in order to do so. Certainly he desires to change things about our worldviews, as no worldview is perfect, but he is willing to start where we are. It’s a beautiful thing, and the significance of God’s willingness to meet me like that didn’t become clear to me until a few years after it happened.

Does this help at all? I appreciate the question, and the comment.

I identify with what you said here:

“One of the things that has always been a part of me for better and for worse is a desire for things to be supernatural, but authentic and life-changing at the same time. I grew up in the church, and did not find it to be any of those things.”

I have always felt the same way and it fueled my desire to search for more.

By the way, I’m curious to know how you “invoke” God? Please explain if you can.