OCCULTISM

Necromancy occupies a very weird place, culturally. It’s usually assumed to be pure evil. Evil sorcerers/esses or liches with armies of undead are a pretty obvious villainous archetype. Dark Lords are especially likely to be necromancers — Voldemort has a secret army of Inferi in his cave, and Sauron himself is called “the Necromancer” in The Hobbit. Necromancers are also likely to be hubristic, to view themselves as having absolute power over death itself, and might seek immortality (as Voldemort does). More tragic necromancers might be desperate to bring back a lost loved one, which is usually futile. Some necromancers reanimate corpses, while others control the very souls of their undead slaves. Necromancers aren’t automatically evil in all media — “Necromancer” is a character class in D&D, and some MMO’s like Wizard101 and Elder Scrolls Online offer “necromancer” as a character class — but explicitly good necromancers are very rare. The “why” is pretty straightforward. Death is scary, so scary characters are associated with death. The other main reason is that necromancers are guilty of desecration — they use dead bodies, who were presumably once someone’s loved ones, for their own purposes. They may even be grave robbers á la Frankenstein. They necessarily disrespect the sanctity of death, which is bound to make the death gods angry. Necromancy is forbidden because it’s a reversal of the fundamental laws of nature, and that never goes well. But I want to explore this in a little more depth, because necromancy actually has a very long and complicated real-life history. First of all, necromancy refers specifically to divination involving the dead. Traditional necromancy involves summoning the soul of the dead, usually by calling it back into its corpse, in order to ask it questions about the future and suchlike. This is the type of necromancy practiced by the Witch of Endor in the Bible. Mediumship is a modern version of this — that’s right, mediums are quite literally necromancers. A seance is a necromantic ritual. I know the most about necromancy in the context of Ancient Greece, and that’s what most of my resources concern, so that’s what I’ll be focusing on. The Bible takes a very dim view of necromancy, but necromantic divination had a more ambivalent reputation in Ancient Greece and Rome. On the one hand, you are supposed to leave the dead alone. On the other hand, sometimes you really need to talk to them. One famous example of nekyia is in The Odyssey, in which Odysseus goes to Hades to summon the shade of Tiresias and ask him questions. He ends up speaking with many other shades, including that of his mother and that of Achilles. This is a heroic example of nekyia. On the other hand, the necromancy practiced by Erictho in Roman literature is much more horrifying, because she actually reanimates corpses and utilizes dead body parts in her spells: Then she opened up the chest [of the corpse] with further wounds and filled it with seething blood. She rinsed the innards of corrupt matter and unstintingly administered moon-juice. In this was mixed whatever creature nature had produced under ill omen. Nothing was missing: not the foam of the water-fearing rabid dog, not the guts of the lynx, not the hump of the dreadful hyena, not the bone marrow of a deer pastured on snakes, not the ship-stopper, which detains a hull in the middle of the sea, while the east wind strains her cables, not the eyes of snakes, not the stones that murmur when incubated under a mother eagle, not the Arabian flying snake, nor the viper born beside the Red Sea, guardian of the precious pearl oyster, not the slough of the still-living Libyan horned stanke, not the ashes of the phoenix that settles itself upon an Eastern altar. After putting these common-or-garden and namable blights into her mixture, she added branches drenched in unspeakable spells, herbs on which her dread mouth had spat at the moment of their birth, and all the poisons she herself had contributed to the world. Then her voice, mightier than all the herbs in the bewitching of the gods of Lethe, poured out, first, mutterings that were discordant and not all of which sounded like the products of a human tongue. The voice contained the barking of dogs and the howling of wolves, the complaining cries of a scared owl and the night’s screech owl, the screeching and bellowing of wild animals, and the hissing of the snake. It expressed also the dashing of waves on rocks, the sound of the woods, and the thunder of a burst cloud. So many things did the single voice comprise. Then she pronounced more clearly a second set of utterances, in a Thessalian spell, and penetrated Tartarus with her tongue: “Furies; Crimes of the Styx; Punishments of the guilty; Khaos, you who long to confound unnumbered worlds; Hades, Ruler of the earth, for whom the death of gods, deferred across long ages, is agonizing; Styx; Elysium, the reward of no Thessalian woman; Persephone, you who detest heaven and your mother; Hecate, the lowest manifestation of my goddess, by whose grace the ghosts and I hold converse, with silent tongue; Doorkeeper of the broad house, you who throw human guts to the cruel dog; sister-Fates, destined to take up the threads of life again and continue spinning; ferryman of the flaming wave, reduced to a wornout old man by all the ghosts returning for me: hear my prayers. If I invoke you with a mouth sufficiently criminal and corrupt, if I never sing these incantations without first sating myself on human meat, if I had repeatedly opened up breasts, with the souls still in them, and rinsed them in warm brains, if any baby had been destined to live before it placed its head and entrails on your dishes, obey my prayer. I do not ask for a soul lying hidden in the cave of Tartarus long accustomed to the dark, but one that is only just now abandoning the light and coming down. He still hesitates at the edge of the abyss of colorless Orcus, and, even if he does give heed to these spells, he will still only join the other ghosts once. Let this Pompeian ghost, until recently our soldier, prophesy everything to Pompey’s son, if you are properly honored by civil war.” This she said, and lifted her head and foaming mouth. She saw the shade of the cast-out body standing beside her, in dread of the lifeless limbs and the hated bonds of its former prison. It was terrified to enter the opened breast and the guts and the organs smashed by the fatal wound. A pitiful man, from whom death’s final gift of immortality was unfairly snatched away. Erictho was taken aback that such delays had been permitted by the fates. Furious with death, she beat the motionless body with a live snake, and she barked through the open clifts she had driven into the earth by her incantation and ruptured the silence of the kingdom. “Tisiphone and Megaera, you who scorn my calling, do you not drive this hapless soul through the emptiness of Erebus with your cruel whips? Any moment now I shall call you up by your true names and make you stand as Stygian hounds in the light of the upper world. I shall pursue you through tombs, through burials, ever hanging on your heels, I shall drive you from barrows and keep you from all urns. You, Hecate, decaying and colorless in appearance as you are, are in the habit of showing yourself to the gods above only after first making up your face. I will show you to them and forbid you to alter your hell-face. I shall blurt out, Persephone of Henna, the meal that traps you beneath the vast weight of the earth, the agreement by which you love the somber king of the night and the corruption you experienced that induced your mother to refuse to call you back. Upon you, Hades, worst of the world’s rulers, I shall send Titan, the Sun, bursting your caverns open, and you will be blasted by the instantaneous light of day. Do you obey? Or will I have to invoke him — him, whose invocation always shakes the earth and sets it quaking, the one who looks upon the uncovered head of the Gorgon, the one who beats the trembling Fury with her own whips, the one who occupies a tartarus even you cannot look down to, the one to whom you are the gods above, the one who forswears himself by the waters of the Styx?” At once the congealed gore warmed up, soothed the black wounds and ran into the veins and the extremities of the limbs. As the blood struck them the organs beneath the chill breast quivered, and life, creeping anew into the innards that had forgotten it, mingled itself with the death. Then all the dead man’s limbs shook, and his sinews flexed. The corpse did not raise itself from the ground gradually, one limb at a time. Rather, it shot up from the earth and was upright in an instant. The eyes were laid bare, the mouth an open grimace. His appearance was of one not yet fully alive, but of a man still in the phase of dying. He was pallid and stiff, and in consternation at being brought back into the world. But his tightened mouth made no mutter. Voice and tongue were granted him only for replying." —Lucan, Pharsalia. (Translation from Magic, Witchcraft, and Ghosts in the Greek and Roman Worlds by Daniel Ogden.) Erichtho is the archetypal evil witch. She mixes all kinds of gruesome ingredients in the open chest of the corpse. She declares herself evil in her invocation to the chthonic gods, pledging that she has killed babies and committed cannibalism and other atrocities. She has absolutely no respect for the poor soul that she drags back, forcing him back into his mutilated body. Worst of all, she threatens the gods when they don’t give her what she wants fast enough — it’s fairly common in magic spells to threaten the gods and spirits you evoke to compel them to do what you want, but this is absolutely vicious and oddly personal. She threatens the Furies with enslavement, Hecate with being displayed before the other gods without makeup, Persephone with blackmail, Hades with having his domain exposed to daylight. She also threatens to send the Greco-Roman equivalent of flippin’ Cthulhu after them. I think it’s safe to assume that her earlier prayer of devotion to them was a bit insincere. I suppose, then, that whether necromancy is evil or not has less to do with what you’re doing and more to do with how you’re doing it. Necromancy is fine if you do a very normal sacrifice to the chthonic gods in order to speak with a ghost, like Odysseus, but not fine if you do all that weird and disturbing stuff that Erichtho does. (There were several necromantic oracles in which one could consult the dead in a more official capacity, such as the one in Thesprotia.) Assuming you don’t do anything Erichtho does, the only remaining ethical problem with necromancy is dragging back a poor soul that only wants to continue on to its peaceful afterlife. This is necessary, because necromancy works best on the recently dead. It’s easiest to call back a soul that hasn’t quite made it all the way to the afterlife yet, instead of one that has been there for so long that it’s gone mad. There’s also a final complication with necromancy that I haven’t touched on — reincarnation. The dead don’t always stay dead. The reason you can’t summon the ghost of Shakespeare or Cleopatra or Confucius is because they’ve been dead for so long, they’ve almost certainly reincarnated by now — perhaps multiple times. You can’t call them up because there’s no one to call. The Greek Magical Papyri don’t include many examples of divinatory necromancy, but a lot of them do call upon the souls of the dead, usually to torment whoever the caster wants (with either a curse or with erotic obsession). That wouldn’t fall under the ancient definition of necromancy, but it does fall under the modern definition of calling up the dead to do the caster’s bidding. Here’s an example: PGM IV. 1390–1495 Leave a little of the bread which you eat; break it up and form it into seven bite-sized pieces. And go to where heroes and gladiators and those who have died a violent death were slain. / Say the spell to the pieces of bread and throw them. And pick up some polluted dirt from the place where you perform the ritual and throw it inside the house of the woman whom you desire, go on home and go to sleep. The spell which is said upon the pieces of bread is this: “To Moirai, Destinies, / Malignities, To Famine, Jealousy, to those who died Untimely deaths and those dead violently, I’m sending food: Three-headed Goddess, Lady Of Night, who feed on filth, O Virgin, thou Key-holding Persephassa, Kore out Of Tartaros, grim-eyed, dreadful, child girt / With fiery serpents, he, [Your Name], has mixed With tears and bitter groans leftovers from His own food, so that you, O luckless heroes Who are confined there in the [name of graveyard] May bring success to him who is beset With torments. You who’ve left the light, O you Unfortunate ones, / bring success to him, [Your Name], who is distressed at heart because Of her, [Your Crush’s Name], ungodly and unholy. So bring her wracked with torment — and it haste! EIOUT ABAOTH PSAKERBA ARBATHIAO LALAOITH / IOSACHOTOU ALLALETHO You too as well, Lady, who feed on filth. SYNATRAKABI BAUBARABAS ENPHNOUN MORKA ERESCHIGAL NEBOUTOSOUALETH, and send the Erinyes ORGOGORGONIOTRIAN, Who rouses up with fire souls of the dead, / Unlucky heroes, luckless heroines, Who in this palce, who on this day, who in This hour, who in coffins of myrtlewood, Give heed to me and rouse / her, [Your Crush’s Name], on This night and from her eyes remove sweet sleep, And cause her wretched care and fearful pain, Cause her to follow after my footsteps, And / for my will give her a willingness Until she does what I command of her. O mistress Hekate PHORBA PHORBOBAR BARO PHORPHOR PHORBAI O lady of the Crossroads, O Black Bitch. When you have done / these things for three days and accomplish nothing, then use this forceful spell: just go to the same place and again perform the ritual of the bread pieces. Then upon the ashes of flax offer up dung / from a black cow and say this and again pick up the polluted dirt and throw it as you have learned. The words spoken over the offering are these: Chthonic Hermes and chthonic Hekate and chthonic Acheron and chthonic / flesh-eaters and chthonic god and chthonic Amphiaraos and chthonic attendants and chthonic spirits and chthonic sins and chthonic dreams / and chthonic oaths and chthonic Ariste and chthonic Tartaros and chthonic witchery, chthonic Charon and chthonic escorts and the dead and the daimons and souls of all men: / come today, Moirai and Destiny; accomplish the purpose with the help of the love spell of attraction, that you may attract me to her, [Your Crush’s Name] whose mother is [Your Crush’s Mother’s Name], to me [Your Name], whose mother is [Your Mother’s Name] (add the usual), because I am calling O primal Chaos, / Erebos, and you O awful water of the Styx, O streams O Lethe, Hades’ Acherousian pool, O Hekate and Pluto and Kore, And chthonic Hermes, Moirai, Punishments Both Acheron and Aiakos, / gatekeeper Of the eternal bars, now open quickly, O thou Key-holder, guardian, Anubis. Send up to me the phantoms of the dead Forthwith for service at this very hour. / So that they may go and attract to me, [Your Name], her, [Your Crush’s Name], whose mother is [Your Crush’s Mother’s Name] (add the usual). —From The Greek Magical Papyri in Translation by Hans Dieter Betz This is a love spell, but it is performed in a graveyard, where people who died violently are buried. It involves giving a food offering to the dead and throwing graveyard dirt in the house of the caster’s crush. The Ancient Greeks considered lust to be a kind of affliction, so the caster entreats the ghosts to afflict the target with lust and obsession until she comes to the caster. This real incantation bears a lot of similarities to Erichtho’s. It evokes the chthonic gods, particularly Hecate, who is most closely associated with necromancy. It requests that they send a soul who has recently died a violent death to fulfill the caster’s will. But it does not involve a corpse, it mentions no confessions of evil deeds, and it also does not threaten the gods. If the spell does not work, the second incantation is further entreating the gods, not threatening them with Cthulhu. This spell is not unethical for anything having to do with necromancy, it’s unethical because it requests that ghosts torment a poor woman until she has sex with the caster. Most love spells are unethical in that sort of way, so Do Not Try This At Home. One thing that interested me about the PGM is that it’s very similar to later magic — medieval and Renaissance magic follows many of the same formats, but in a Christian context. You’ll find similar necromantic spells from grimoires of that era. Here’s one from The Grande Grimoire, a sixteenth-century grimoire: The Magick Secret; or The Art of Speaking with the Dead For this operation it is necessary to attend midnight mass at Christmas and at midnight precisely to have a conversation with the inhabitants of the other world and at the moment that the Priest lifts the Host, bow down and with a frank and severe voice say “Esurgent mortuit et ac me veniut.” As soon as. you have pronounced these six words it is necessary to go to the cemetery and at the first tomb that meets your eye offer this prayer: “Infernal powers, you who bring the turbid in the universe, abandon your obscure dwelling and retire to the other side of the River Styx.” Then remain there for a moment of silence. “If you have your power, he or she that interests me, I supplicate you in the name of the King of Kings to make him appear before me at the hour and moment that I will indicate to you.” After this ceremony, which is indispensable to carry out, take a fistful of earth and spread it as one sows grain in a field, saying in a low voice: “He who is in dust awake from his tomb and leave his ashes and answer the questions that I pose him in the name of the Father of all men.” Then bend a knee to the ground, turning your eyes to the East and when you see that the doors of the Sun are going to open, arm yourself with the two bones of the dead man that you will put in a cross of Saint Andrew. Then throw them at the first temple or church that offers itself to your eyes. Having well-executed the aforesaid, set out in a western direction and when you have taken 5,900 steps, lay yourself down to sleep on the ground in an elongated position, holding the palms of your hand against your thighs, and your eyes to the sky towards the Moon and in this position, call he or she whom you wish to see, when you see the specter appear, solicit their presence with the following words: “Ego sum te peto, et videre queo.” After these words, your eyes will be satisfied to see the object that dearest to you and give you the most pleasurable delight. When you have obtained from the shadow which you have Invoked, that which you believe to be to your satisfaction, send it away in this manner: “Return to the kingdom of the elect, I am content with you and your presence.” Then picking yourself up, return to the same tomb where you made the first prayer above which you need to make a cross with the end of your blade which you will be holding in your left hand. The reader should not neglect any of the prescribed ceremonies otherwise he could incur some risk. As you can see, it’s very similar. It involves the scattering of graveyard dirt, and even an invocation to the chthonic gods! But, as in most grimoires, the magician is acting in the name of God. Other spells from Renaissance grimoires are more like the PGM spell, in that they don’t call the dead to answer questions, but instead utilize the dead for other purposes. Here’s a spell from the Grimorium Verum, an eighteenth-century grimoire: To Make oneself Invisible. "Collect seven black beans. Start the rite on a Wednesday, before sunrise. Then take the head of a dead man, and put one of the black beans in his mouth, two in his eyes and two in his ears. Then make upon his head the character of Morail. When you have done this, bury the head, with the face upwards, and for nine days, before sunrise, water it each morning with excellent brandy. On the eighth day you will find the spirit mentioned, who will say to you: "What wilt thou?" You will reply: "I am watering my plant." Then the spirit will say: "Give me the bottle, I desire to water it myself." In answer, refuse him this, even though he will ask you again. Then he will reach out with his hand, and will display to you that same figure which you have drawn upon the head. Now you can be sure that it is the right spirit, the spirit of the head. There is a danger that another one might try to trick you, which would have evil consequences—and in that case your operation would not succeed. Then you may give him the bottle, and he will water the head and leave. On the next day-- which is the ninth--when you return, you will find the beans that are germinating. Take them and put them in your mouth, and look at yourself in the mirror. If you can see nothing, it is well. Test the others in the same way, either in your own mouth, or in that of a child. Those which do not confer invisibility are to be reburied with the head." Yeah, that’s old-school magic for you. It’s weird as hell, not the least bit practical, and usually not ethical either. So what does ethical necromancy look like? Well, any use of corpses is inadvisable. If you were writing about a fictional necromancer who summons corpses to fight for them, then have them reanimate corpses with their own magic instead of dragging back their souls. These corpses would have to be the bodies of the long-dead whose souls have long since moved on; ones from mass graves or battlefields, not from the local graveyard where people still come to remember their loved ones. Summoning ghosts to fight for you would be unethical if it drags the spirit back from a happy place, but not if the ghost is stuck on earth. Ghosts of warriors or ghosts that really need to vent the negative emotions keeping them tied down might have no problem fighting for you, especially if you did something for them in return. A heroic example of this type of necromancy is Aragorn calling upon the Oathbreakers to fight for him, and allowing them to pass on to the afterlife as recompense. Another important aspect of ethical necromancy is, in my opinion, ghost therapy. A person who frequently summons ghosts to help with their magic can give back to them by helping them work through whatever issues were keeping them stuck on Earth. A lot of ghosts are sad people who cannot let go of their lives, so instead of letting themselves move on to a peaceful (if not happy!) afterlife, they continue to suffer on Earth. They can’t actually return to life, so they can’t solve whatever problem they have, and they just watch the rest of the world move on without them. They stagnate until they can resolve their psychological issues enough to move on. That’s where the necromancer comes in, acting like Cole in The Sixth Sense. For divinatory necromancy, or just having chats with dead loved ones, I think that time and place matters. Certain times of year, like Samhain for example, might allow the dead to freely cross between worlds. At those times, they can more easily stroll over to your side of reality to have a chat with you, without it being too much of an inconvenience for them. The soul of a particular loved one may also be more willing to keep in contact with you. I firmly believe that necromancy can be ethical. Part of necromancy’s bad reputation comes from the simple fact that death makes people squeamish. Magic involving death has always been part of magic’s history, and working closely with death does not make a magician evil, especially if they do so conscientiously. The key is simply to remember that the souls of the dead are people — they’re human beings who have personalities and desires and families, and their own path to follow that they are temporarily stepping away from for your benefit. Respect them. That same rule applies in the context of most magic, and life in general: Treat people like people.