invocations

Invocations are acts of calling upon a source of power, authority, or information, and the term is used across religious, magical, literary, and technical contexts.

In religious practice, an invocation is a prayer or chant addressing a deity, saint, or sacred presence to invite blessing, protection, or guidance, often at the start of a ceremony. In ceremonial or occult traditions, invocation refers to summoning a divine presence or spiritual force to assist the practitioner; in some traditions, it is paired with evocation, which seeks to compel a summoned entity to appear.

In literature, invocation denotes a formal appeal to a muse, spirit, or external source of inspiration, often opening a poem with praise or request for creative aid.

In computing and information technology, an invocation is the act of initiating a call to a subroutine, function, or service. It covers local function calls, object method invocations, and remote procedure calls, and includes parameters and handling of return values. The term is common in software design, debugging, and API use.

Across uses, invocations share a common pattern: directing attention or power toward an identified source to obtain support, influence, or functionality. The exact beliefs, rituals, or mechanics differ by tradition, but the core idea of calling forth an entity, resource, or operation remains central.