Evocation is the magical art of calling forth spirits to do the bidding of the magician or provide information.

The first use of the term evocation was for the religious/magical practice of calling the protective deities of a city out of it so attackers could succeed in their conquest.

The calling forth of spirits is a vital element of most traditions of magic all over the world. In the Western esoteric tradition, the classical example of this idea is in the magic of the grimoires, and particularly the Goetia. Forceful evocation (e.g. against the will of the spirit), typical for the grimoires, is also referred to as conjuration.

Depending on the individual magical system, spirits are often evoked into some sort of medium, such as a pillar of smoke, a crystal ball, a fetish, or a human volunteer who is expected to become possessed by the spirit. In most magical systems (one exception being Enochian Magic), even spirits not evoked into a particular medium are expected to remain close to the place the magician evoked them to.

In modern occultism, evocation is often directly compared with invocation, or the calling of spirits into the magician him/herself. There is no universally agreed upon opinion on whether evoked spirits have an objective existence or are extensions of the magician's mind, but many occultists think that for practical purposes, this does not matter.

Important contributors to the concept of evocation include Agrippa von Nettesheim, Aleister Crowley, Franz Bardon, Israel Regardie, Kenneth Grant and Peter Carroll.