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  • The necromancers of our favorite fantasy games and stories were based on a very real practice

  • that tried to cross the boundaries between living and dead. This is the crazy history

  • of necromancy explained. "Sorry, what is a necromancer?"

  • "A necromancer is someone who plucks the dead from the cold earth and breathes new life

  • into them." Necromancy, it turns out, wasn't originally

  • about raising the dead at all. It would appear that the general term "necromancy" refers

  • to any and all divination practices that involve the spirits of people who have passed on.

  • The precise details of just what that includes has changed a lot over the course of centuries,

  • but necromancy got its start when we began forming complex ideas about the afterlife.

  • Once we believed spirits went somewhere, it wasn't that far-fetched to believe that if

  • we just knew how to dial the celestial telephone, we could reach them.

  • The idea goes back a long way. Shamanism, which predates Greek antiquity, involved practices

  • where a shaman would enter a trance. Once in that state, the shaman would guide souls

  • to the underworld, rescue the souls of the infirm, deliver messages to the dead, or ask

  • them questions. It has long been believed that spirits have access to knowledge that

  • the living don't. Ancient shamans could tap into the dead’s wisdom to gain insight into

  • what the spirits knew. It's also argued that necromancy's origins

  • go back further still, to the Stone Age practice of ancestor worship. Religious beliefs that

  • venerate the dead are among the oldest in the world. Rituals involving the remains of

  • those who have passed on go back to the Neanderthals and to Jericho, with sites dated to between

  • 7220 and 5850 BCE. Necromancers even get a mention in the Old

  • Testament. Specifically: 1 Samuel, chapter 28, verses 3-25.

  • A medium is the focus of the story. She's called the Witch of Endor, and she's consulted

  • by Saul, the first king of Israel. Even though Saul outlawed necromancy and communication

  • with the dead, he asked her to use her talisman to summon the spirit of the prophet Samuel.

  • He wanted to know the outcome of an upcoming battle against the Philistines, and it wasn't

  • good news for Saul. The spirit told him that he and his sons would all die in battle, and

  • Israel would fall. It’s interesting to look at how this story

  • evolved over the centuries. Originally, it was Saul at the center of the story, and the

  • woman was referred to as either a necromancer, a sorceress, a pythonissa, a diviner, or a

  • medium. It wasn't until the 15th century that images started to show her front and center,

  • summoning the spirit of Samuel. And it was only in the 16th century that she was given

  • the title "witch." The narrative shifted, from being about a king who wanted to know

  • the future, to the woman who could summon the dead to tell it to him.

  • Necromancy was common throughout Greek myth, and it was dark stuff. Take the tale of Orpheus.

  • Not only did he descend into the underworld to rescue his beloved Eurydice, but after

  • his death, his decapitated head did some serious prophesying.

  • The women of Thrace were responsible for the removal of his head, but even after the untimely

  • separation, Orpheus’s noggin continued to sing and speak. Eventually, his noggin ended

  • up on the island of Lesbos. There, it was discovered by the Muses and put into a cave.

  • So many people came to consult Orpheus’s head that Apollo got jealous and demanded

  • that he stop. That's what's called skull necromancy. It’s

  • the practice of consulting the decapitated head of a person for some inside knowledge.

  • Orpheus wasn't the only head that spent part of his afterlife giving prophecies as part

  • of skull necromancy. Stockholm University says that Sparta's king Cleomenes was said

  • to have kept the head of his friend Archonides in a jar, preserved in honey, brought out

  • to be consulted on important matters.

  • "Well first the good news. We're getting a couple of offers on the house you showed yesterday."

  • "That's great!" "Fantastic!"

  • Magical texts from ancient Greece specify some of the ways the skulls were to be prepared

  • in order to open up communication between the living and the dead.

  • Pausanias of Sparta was credited with leading Greece to victory over Persia, but after the

  • battle that kicked off the Classical Age of Greece, he descended into tyrannical madness

  • and a bit of treason. He headed to Byzantium, where he fell in love with a girl named Cleonice.

  • One night, she was brought to his chambers. The room was in darkness, and unfortunately

  • for her, Cleonice tripped and knocked over a lamp. This woke Pausanias from a tormented

  • slumber, and he leapt up and killed her on the spot.

  • But Cleonice didn’t leave. Her spirit continued to harass Pausanias. Desperate to rid himself

  • from the haunting, Pausanias consulted with an oracle. It was revealed that Cleonice’s

  • spirit would be at peace if only Pausanias returned to Sparta. Eager to be rid of the

  • ghost, he went back. Unfortunately, Sparta was waiting to bring him up on treason charges,

  • which they did. And in punishment, they bricked him up inside the wall of a temple.

  • Greek oracles were consulted on matters of extreme importance, and one of the most famous

  • was Apollo's Oracle at Delphi. It was at Delphi where priestess Pythia gained access to Apollo's

  • prophecies, but she wasn't the only oracle doing business.

  • There was another oracle who dwelled at the top of a hill where three of the five rivers

  • of Hades converged. Cocytus, the river of wailing, Acheron, the river of woe, and Pyriphlegetho,

  • the river of fire met at a blighted land. And beneath the surface in a ruined structure

  • with walls eleven feet thick sat the home of the Oracle of the Dead. It’s a place

  • spoken of in some detail in Herodotus’s Histories.

  • And then there's the Necromanteion of Ephyra, who was active around the fourth century BCE.

  • Visitors who wanted to consult with the dead would descend into the subterranean chambers

  • and perform rituals in order to open lines of communication. Just how legit the oracle

  • was is up for debate. Archaeologists have uncovered mechanical devices believed to have

  • been used to create the illusion that the rituals were working. Still, ancient texts

  • suggest the oracle was incredibly popular. It was even the place where Odysseus was said

  • to have summoned Teiresias to learn what the future had in store for him.

  • Some ancient Greek sources say their necromantic knowledge came from the Middle East, and here's

  • where things get extra surprising. Some figures, like Moses, warned against communing with

  • the dead. However, those who were actually doing it really didn't see anything weird,

  • creepy, or evil about it. The magi held major sway in Egypt, the Middle

  • East, and into India. They were widely respected and often consulted by rulers who wanted to

  • know what the future held. And it makes sense. The souls of the dead were said to be closer

  • to god, and therefore had access to a wealth of information about the past, present, and

  • future. The idea that the living could ask them about such things was perfectly normal.

  • In Egypt, necromancers were associated with the cult of Osiris, and this is where it gets

  • interesting. Today, we might think of necromancers as raising the dead, but in ancient Egypt,

  • they were behind the rituals and incantations that prevented malevolent spirits from possessing

  • a body and reanimating it. Meanwhile, the magicians of the Sabians were said to get

  • their powers from their influence over the stars, and they turned that power into prophecy,

  • conjuration, and necromancy. Necromancy underwent a major change in the

  • Middle Ages, and starting in around the 13th century, it became much darker. A practice

  • that had largely been written off as superstition started getting the attention of scholars

  • across Western Europe who had begun to categorize magic. First, there was "natural magic," described

  • as "active endeavors" where power was drawn from the world around the magician. Think

  • of it as magical chemistry. While natural magic could coexist quite happily

  • with Christianity, the other kind of magic couldn't. That was necromancy, which had grown

  • from its original meaning to include black magic and anything that tried to control dark

  • realms regular people weren't meant to know about. Basically, it came down to natural

  • vs. supernatural, and dabbling in the supernatural was something the Church was vocally opposed

  • to. The more Christian writers wrote on the subject

  • of necromancy and other types of sorcery, the further from its original definition it

  • got. Necromancers were suddenly almost unrecognizable from what they had been before.

  • "Tremble, then, in the presence of The Necromancer! HAHA!"

  • "Who?"

  • It became a fusion of practices of different origins, including things like animal sacrifice,

  • spells, exorcism, and astral magic. Along the way, the spirits that necromancers had

  • been conjuring for generations took on a whole new aspect. They were confused and merged

  • with demons, and suddenly, necromancy was the darkest of dark arts.

  • While Christian writers like Isidore and Thomas Aquinas were talking about how necromancers

  • were busy summoning demons, actual necromantic texts were telling a completely different

  • story. There isn’t a single surviving necromantic text that says anything about making a pact

  • with Satan, mocking God, or ridiculing Christianity. In fact, the opposite is true.

  • At the core of a necromancer's power was the ability to command spirits to obey and answer

  • them. That power, it was believed, came directly from God. The 14th-century Catalan magician

  • Berenguer Ganell wrote: "Magic is the art that teaches one to exercise

  • coercive control over good and evil spirits through the name of God."

  • Necromancers tended to hold a deeply profound belief in God and prepared for their rituals

  • with fasting, prayer, and washing with holy water. Texts suggest that the general thought

  • among necromancers was that they were something outside of good and evil. They were capable

  • of achieving a "holy state" that spirits of all kinds had no choice but to obey. So, it

  • shouldn't be entirely surprising that monks and clerics were among the foremost practitioners

  • of necromancy, with alchemists, astrologers, and medical professionals close behind.

  • Necromancers summon and speak to the spirits of the dead, but here's a question: Why? Richard

  • Kieckhefer, a professor of Religion Studies and History at Northwestern University, believes

  • that there are three main reasons for a necromancer to reach out to the great unknown.

  • First, it could be to gain forbidden knowledge. Spirits, it was believed, could grant a summoner

  • knowledge about the past, present, or future that they would otherwise never learn. That

  • covers a wide range of things, from the outcome of a battle, to uncovering the identity of a murderer.

  • "How do you know my name?"

  • "I know absolutely everything, Frank. You see...I'm the ghost."

  • Second, there was a belief that spirits could aid in the manipulation of others.

  • For example, in the Cantigas de Santa Maria, there's a song that tells the story of a priest who

  • dabbled in necromancy in order to compel demons to force a young girl to fall in love with

  • him. The demons complied, and the young girl succumbed to their power, but the Virgin Mary

  • stepped in to save her and condemned the priest to hell.

  • And third, there are the illusions. Necromancers were believed to have the ability to compel

  • spirits to create illusions on a grand scale. Their powers allowed them to manifest everything

  • from grand banquets, to hordes of troops sweeping across battlefields. Some of the illusions

  • were a bit more than just images, as there are more than a few stories of necromancers

  • summoning mysterious black horses that could take them anywhere in the world.

  • The necromantic rituals that are preserved in historical texts suggest there were actually

  • two parts to the act. Not only were rituals designed to summon the spirits of the dead

  • or demons, but there were other practices, like the drawing of circles, that were solely

  • to protect the necromancer from whatever they might end up summoning.

  • Sometimes, specifics got pretty dark. It wasn't unheard of to have a component of an animal

  • sacrifice, but sacrifices were more along the lines of offerings like honey, milk, salt,

  • or ash. Circles, which have long been believed to have protective powers, were common, along

  • with the inscription of astrological characters and the use of magic items like candles and

  • swords. Spells were often recited, and strangely, these sometimes called out the names of Christian

  • figures like Christ or involved reciting prayers or psalms.

  • At least one form of ritual required an assistant, and that was prediction. Prediction was usually

  • done with mirrors, glass, or liquids in a receptacle that formed a reflective surface.

  • The images that would form on the surface could only be seen by a young virgin boy.

  • Necromancy began to fade from history post-Renaissance, but it didn't so much disappear as it just

  • sort of gotrebranded. As history moved on from the Enlightenment

  • to the Victorian era, people started to think differently about what happened to the dead

  • and how they should be honored. That's also about the time the Fox sisters decided to

  • make bank. Their house was haunted, it was said, and

  • when mysterious noises started happening, that's when sisters Kate and Maggie Fox started

  • claiming they'd been in contact with the spirit making the sounds. They called him "Mr Splitfoot,"

  • and it wasn't long before neighbors started asking them what was going on. The first time

  • they demonstrated their "abilities" in public was on November 14, 1849. From there, it escalated

  • into national tours and the development of spiritualism, which essentially involved holding a

  • ance to summon spirits. Even though the whole thing was repeatedly

  • debunked, the movement continued on well past what the Fox sisters had started. It's understandable,

  • after all. The desire to speak to a loved one, one last time, is a powerful thing.

  • While things like the Ouija Board and spiritualism have their roots in necromancy, there's also

  • one entire religion that is based around the idea. That's Quimbanda.

  • Quimbanda, which is practiced mostly in Brazil has its roots in Africa. At the center of

  • the religion are spirits called Exus, Pomba-Giras, and Ogum, which practitioners call upon during

  • rituals known as trabalhos. The Exus are a group of male spirits, and

  • they're typically consulted by practitioners hoping to get otherworldly intervention in

  • material matters. For instance, bringing someone to justice or signing business contracts.

  • The female spirits are the collective known as the Pomba-Giras, and they're typically

  • called on to settle relationship issues. Often, theyre asked to bring some good old-fashioned

  • bad luck on a rival. The final spirit, the Ogum, is associated with mediation and crossroads.

  • Quimbanda rituals have similarities with medieval necromancy in that they typically involve

  • an offering, particularly rum for the Exus and beer for Ogum, along with food, flowers,

  • and candles. The spirits are then asked for help according to specific rituals, which

  • only the initiated are allowed to conduct.

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The necromancers of our favorite fantasy games and stories were based on a very real practice

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