Magic That Looks The Same, May Not BE The Same
Every now and then a student reads my Pillars and Spheres exercise in The Sorcerer’s Secrets and notes that in it I ask that you invoke a pillar or power that runs through the crown of the head and down through the body. I then ask that you focus on specific elements at five different spheres located along this pillar at the crown of the head, throat, heart, navel, and perineum. If the reader or student has a background in Golden Dawm style magic (aka, they read Modern Magick) they invariably tell me something like “I already do the middle pillar ritual, so since this is the same thing, I am going to just do that. Ok?”
No. Not OK.
It’s not OK because other than having spheres running along a central vertical axis in the body, they have nothing to do with one another. The Middle Pillar seeks to map the Tree of Life onto the body and is a ritual designed by Israel Regardie (not the GD, though I welcome correction if I am wrong on that) to essentially fill the needs of people that demanded work with the Chakras, which were very prevalent in most 20th century Occultism. In the 80’s I am pretty sure there must have been some kind of tax break for mentioning them, because they were covered in almost every occult book of the decade, no matter what it was about.
My Pillar and Spheres ritual is my own, but based off a Padmasambhava meditation taught to me by Ven Lobsang Samten which is a preliminary for Inner Heat Practice. The five elements, in that order, create an alchemical reaction between them that yields a specific effect. Replace them with Sephira (with one at the feet, which is just weird to me) and you are doing something completely different. Replace them with the elements, but in a different order, and you will also be doing somethingf completely different. Just because it looks the same from the outside, a bunch of spheres in the body, doesn’t mean it’s the same.
This is not just true for body practices either. 
A hot topic among those studying the Grimoires is whether all these constraints and demands are really necessary. Can we not lay out offerings and get the spirits to manifest by asking politely? The answer, in my opinion, is yes we can – but at that point it is no longer an evocation.
You may have the whole Goetic Floor circle laid out, you may have the seals from the book engraved in the proper metal, you may have the triangle out or crystal or monstrace – all by the book. The whole damn room can look like Frater Ashen’s wet dream, but unless you are constraining the spirit – its an offering ceremony not an evocation.*
That’s fine by the way. I work with spirits through invitation and offering all the time. For many needs, I think that’s the way to go. But the ability to work that way does not make it evocation, nor does it replace the need for evocation. Some spirits ONLY come and work well under those conditions.
So remember, especially when working in multiple systems, details matter. The devil is them, or so I hear.
*For more on this distinction, see my Tactical Thaumatury class on spirits.
