Image magic is an invocation of your intended spirit/idea? Good question, and it can be a prelude practice, but actually falls more into the realm of conjuration. Because for the period that you are focusing on the image work, it is external to you. Invocation can lead to conjuration as you seek a spirits blessing on a home or ritual item and vice versa.
I do not know this image magic. What does that mean? Ah, voodoo dolls, sympathetic ritual, working by proxy. It is all image magic.
Isn’t what you described in sorcery of putting the spirit in an object, also more like conjuration then? It is, but in the case of sorcery there is no attunement with the spirit.
Mea pilikia nui! Need to be dang careful with proxies. They are potent potential. True. An example. Some spirits have a preference for a particular flower. If you would have it present but not have it touch you, there are calls that call it to what it favours, but keep it away from you. This is the basis behind magic mirror divination, actually.
I have found binding physical elements together in a mass, but with human tissue. Like a Native American spirit bundle. The ancient golems and things were a form of sorcery. Necromancy is tricky. What people mistakenly believe, though, is that it involves only dead things. The same principle that makes a Saints skull a sacred relic makes your skull a possible focus for power that is not your own. The same forces that profane living souls can profane the remains of the dead as well.
This is why we were also taught about hair and fingernail clippings. Even a tear. Is true. To the spirits, half a body is better than none sometimes.
To impart a suggestion of will unto a spirit, and send that malign spirit toward an intended target. As you mention, the process may sound complicated but it’s really rather simple. The same process, by which your spirit/mood can affect someone near you, can set the disposition of a spirit. As you make someone want to stick up for you even if you lied to them to do it, this can be done with spirits also.
However, I must state that “binding” works equally well with loving spirits. It does, yes. Dark practices and light mirror each other, but the mention of all these other practices isn’t directly about invocation. They are just related principles that give a context to invocation. There are actually two paths in invocation, and if you choose to practice it then you will likely run on both of them at turns.
I find now that it is far easier to initiate a co-operation with a spirit, rather than try to coerce or control it. It generally is easier, yes. You will find you don’t feel the same way toward every spirit, even if you only deal with generally loving spirits. You will find it’s sort of like your family. You love them all, but you resonate with some better than others. You may resonate with one more than any other, but one or a few doesn’t matter. Number of spirits isn’t relevant.
Your thoughts are welcome. Be well friends.
Travis Saunders
Dragon Intuitive
~science,mysticism,spirituality~