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 got…rebranded. 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
séance 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, they’re 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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