Necromancy is a form of divination in which a practitioner (called necromancer summon the spirits of the dead in order to gain knowledge of future events.
Origins
- It is not clear if necromancy has a relation to shamanism, which calls upon spirits such as the ghosts of ancestors.
- Historian Stabo refers to necromancy as the principal form of divination amongst the people of the Persian Empire.
- In the Odyssey, Odysseus goes to Hades, the Underworld, and raises the spirits of the dead using spells which he learnt from Circe (Ruickbie, 2004:24).
- Many references to necromancy are in the Bible.
The Book of Deuteronomy warns the Israelites against the Canaanite practice of divination from the dead. Nevertheless, King Saul asked the Witch of Endor to invoke the shade of Samuel.
- Norse mythology contains examples of necromancy, as well;
- Robert Fludd describes Goetic necromancy as consisting of diabolical commerce with unclean spirits, in rites of criminal curiosity, in illicit songs and invocations and in the evocation of the souls of the dead.
- Modern channeling and Spiritualism verge on necromancy when the invoked spirits or Ghosts are asked to reveal future events.
- Necromancy is extensively practised in voodoo.
Etymology
The word Necromancy comes from the Latin necromantia and the Greek language nekromantía. These spirits are called Operative Spirits and Spirits of Divination. The word derives from the Greek nekrós, meaning "dead", manteía, that stands for divination.
It has a subsidiary meaning reflected in an alternative and archaic form of the word, nigromancy, which uses the Latin term niger, black, in which the divination is achieved by scrying in black water.
History
In the middle ages the literate members of society were either the Nobility or Christian clergy. Either of these groups may have been responsible for the propagation and ongoing practice of necromancy, even though it is forbidden in Christianity. It is apparent that necromancy was not a method of witchcraft. It may have been only available to the scholarly of Europe, because of the accessibility, language, knowledge and methods it employs. There are a few confessions of Nobles or Clergy members professing a history of experience with necromancy, although these may well have been obtained under duress.
Some suggest that Necromancy could have became a way for idle literate Europeans to integrate Hebrew language and Arabic legend and language into forbidden manuals of sorcery.
The possibility exists that literate Europeans were the main forces simultaneously practicing and condemning necromancy. The language, execution and format of the are similar to Christian rites. Necromantic spells were mainly illusory or utility spells. Modern scholarship suggests that most were written with hopes that their utility would prove to be useful in acquiring a feast, horse, cloak of invisibility or perhaps just notoriety among others in the necromancy practicing clergy. The nature of these spells lend themselves to being understood as underground clergy members deviantly indulging in unlawful pleasures.
The rare confessions of those accused of Necromancy suggest that there was a range of spell casting and the related magical experimentation. It is difficult to determine if these details were due to their practices, as opposed to the whims of their interrogators. John of Salisbury is one of the first examples related by Kieckhefer, but as a Parisian ecclesiastical court record of 1323 shows, a group who were plotting to invoke the demon Berich from inside a circle made from strips of cat skin were obviously participating in the church’s definition of necromancy (Kieckhefer, 191)
Within the Richard Rawlinson necromantic manuscript, a fable is presented as a warning to those that would perform necromancy, although the story ends with a note of physical trial, but without mention of the ramifications in the afterlife.
In the wake of these inconsistencies of judgment, necromancer, sorcerer and witches were able to use spells with holy names with impunity, as biblical references in such rituals could be construed as prayers as opposed to spells. As a result, the necromancy discussed in the Munich Manua is an evolution of these understandings. It has even been suggested that the authors of the Munich Manual knowingly designed this book to be in discord with understood ecclesiastical law.
It is possible to trace Christian ritual and prayer and its subsequent mutant forms of utility and healing prayer/spells to full-blown necromancy. The main recipe employed throughout the manual in the necromancy sorcery uses the same vocabulary and structure utilizing the same languages, sections, names of power alongside demonic names. The understanding of the names of God from apocryphal texts and the Hebrew torah demand that the author of such rites have at least a casual familiarity of these texts. The structure of the spells themselves also requires that the author have experience with Christian rites that are not pedestrian, again suggesting either the Nobility or Christian scholars as possible suspects.
Most forms of Satanic Necromancy today include prayers to such demons, namely Nebiros, Azrael, and Beelzebub.
As the source material for these manuals is apparently derived from scholarly magical and religious texts from a variety of sources in many languages, it is easy to conclude that the scholars that studied these texts manufactured their own aggregate sourcebook and manual with which to work spells or magic.
For most people necromancy is separated by a thin line from demonology and conjuration.
Necromancy is communing with the spirits of the dead, rather than the evil spirits of conjuration and demonology.
See also
necromancer Magic Magick Shamanism Voodoo zombies
References
- Ogden, Daniel, Greek and Roman Necromancy 2004. ISBN 0691119686
- Ruickbie, Leo, Witchcraft Out of the Shadows. Robert Hale, 2004. ISBN 0709075677
- Spence, Lewis. (1920). An Encyclopedia of Occultism. Hyde Park, NY : University Books.
- Kieckhefer, Richard. (1997). Forbidden Rites. Sutton Publishing.
- ’’Magic in the Middle Ages. Cambridge : Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0521785766
- Kors & Peters (2001). Witchcraft in Europe 400-1700. Philadelphia : University of Pennsylvania Press. ISBN 0812217519
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