As Howard Philips Lovecraft once wrote--that which is not dead can eternal lie, and with
strange aeons--even death may die.
You see, in this capacity, the incomprehensible scope of cosmic horror was once immortalised
by the many comings and goings and wants and needs of the Old Gods--a concept which never
could be fully grasped by the human mind.
But it was a passage written in a book that harkens back to the ultimate adversary of
all human life.
Death.
The Necronomicon.
The Book *OF* The Dead--and one which played on a symbolic device that has been scrawled
on the pages of literature since time immemorial.
That of the Necromancer--the human host that blurs the boundaries between the spirit world
and ours.
So, in that case--let’s see what they’re all about.
Hello horror fans, what’s going on, and once again welcome back to the scariest channel
on YouTube--Top 5 Scary Videos.
As per usual, I’ll be your horror host Jack Finch--as today, we once more return to the
Lore Explored--and take a curious look, at The Necromancer.
Roll the clip.
For the curious amongst you, that clip--of course, was from The Hobbit: The Desolation
of Smaug--and in my eyes, anything--book, movie, game--whatever--that is set in Middle
Earth.
Can do no wrong.
Fact.
But hey--it also depicted an incredibly unique concept, that of Sauron as the Necromancer--a
fledgling essense of the shadow before his whole campaign of hate and torment--one that
wasn’t exactly laid down in the Lord of the Rings Series, but instead only hinted
at by J.R.R Tolkein a hundred years prior.
Put a pin in that--because Sauron is an incredibly important figure in the fictional lore of
the Necromancer--but again--it was an even older archetypal image--one that has appeared
time and time again in mythology, folklore, religion--literature--tabletop board games.
The Necromancer is as old as storytelling itself--and before we dive into the bulk of
their lore--it’s probably best that we find out where they first began.
So first and foremost, what’s in a word?
Because while it may seem slightly obvious--the etymology behind the Necromancer is the first
and most important stop in deciphering the origin of those that speak with the dead.
The word necromancy is adapted from the Late Latin--necromantia, which in itself is borrowed
from the post-Classical Greek Nekromanteia--a compound of the Ancient Greek Nekros, which
means dead body--and manteia, which loosely translates to divination by means of.
A diviner of those that are dead.
Now, whilst the first ever use of this word occurred in a treaties known as Origen of
Alexandria in the 3rd Century AD--the actual origin of the classical Greek Term--nekyia--was
even older still.
It appeared in perhaps one of the most famous texts of the ancient world, The Odyssey--written
by Homer and completed some time around the 8th Century BC--denoting an ancient Greek
cult ceremonial practice known as Nekyia--a rite by which ghosts were called upon and
questioned about the future.
And whilst this certainly seems to be the most important starting point for our journey
through Necromancy In Literature--still, the form and function of this practice is older
than even that.
Because--you see--the role of the Necromancer--walks hand in hand with another archetypal role.
That of the Shaman.
And don’t worry, because we certainly can’t cover the whole extent of the Shaman as merely
a footnote in a video, and we’ll be taking a much deeper look at them in their own Lore
Explored in good time.
The point is--it is important to note that the Necromancer is certainly an offshoot of
the Shaman--and it harkens back to an ancient cultural practice that, seemingly, has made
up an integral part of all human beings--and in turn, all life on earth.
Veneration of the dead--as well as the physical, metaphysical or spiritual communion with those
that have passed over--is perhaps one of the oldest core beliefs of human existence.
It would make sense, then, that evidence of this Necromancy was prevalent throughout the
ancient world--particularly in Ancient Egypt, Babylonia, Greece and Rome.
Several allusions are made in ancient records of classical necromancers addressing the dead
in a mixture of high-pitched squeaking and low droning noises--comparable to the trance-like
mutterings of Shamanism--which suggests further that the origins of Necromancy are indeed
one and the same with Shamanism, or at least comprised of similar rites.
In his encyclopedic work, Geographica, written by the Greek Academic and Philosopher Strabo
around 7 BC--he refers to the Nekromantia--or diviners of the dead--as the foremost leading
practitioners of divination amongst the people of Perisa.
In short, necromancy was at the forefront of religion in much of the ancient world--and
it is believed to have also been widespread amongst the people of Chaldea--Etruria--and
most importantly, Babylonia--where Babylonian necromancers were denoted as Manzazuu--or
Sha’etemmu--and the spirits that they raised were called etemmu.
Once again, evidence of an ancient practice.
Communication with the dead.
And here we can bring it back to Homer's Odyssey--where these themes come to the forefront of ancient
literature.
In the Odyssey, under the direction of the powerful sorceress Circe, the hero Odysseus
travels to the bowels of the Earth, to the Underworld--in order to gain an insight into
his impending voyage home.
Most importantly, he seeks a lost knowledge, one that could not be revealed without the
wisdom of the dead.
That’s an important theme.
By using the practice of spells that Circe taught him, Odysseus wishes to invoke and
question the shade of Tiresias--the blind prophet of Thebes--but is unable to summon
the seer’s spirit without the aid of others.
Even more astoundingly, eventually Odysseus commits fully to the necromantic ritual--where
he then performs the rites of the dead around a pit and fire--sacrifices the blood of animals--and
recites prayers and incantations to the ghosts and gods of the underworld.
As clear as it could ever be.
Communion with the spirit world.
Odysseus as the Necromancer.
Most importantly, this rite and practice of Nekyia would later form the psychological
and philosophical incarnation of the Necromancer that we now know--particularly in horror and
fantasy literature.
This image was perhaps best elaborated on by the psychoanalytic works of Carl Jung--who
equated Nekyia and Necromancy as the allegorical Night Sea Journey--a metaphorical descent
into the lower world with the ultimate prize being a new, darker knowledge of the self.
In many ways, the classical hero's journey was superseded by the night sea journey--an
ultimate descent into the dark depths of the human consciousness--one where, compared to
the cathartic process of the hero--here, there is no coming back.
You see, the basic practice of Necromancy in Ancient Greece and the wider Ancient World
was more of a solicitation of the dead, rather than any form of exploitation.
The general rite of the classical communication of the spirit world--as laid out by Odysseus--was
for a figure to dig a pit, make a fire in it--offer honey, milk, wine--and then to lay
out the sacrifice of an animal, along with prayers to the Chthonic Gods--such as Hecate.
Throughout pretty much all of the ancient world--this practice appears time and time
again in some form or another--and is one that literally became the cornerstone for
a myriad of belief systems.
Old Norse, Gnosticism, Paganism--many necromantic rites were sacramount to them, and over hundreds
of years, this dead-speaking function shifted and changed with the times.
So then, you may be scratching your head and thinking--where does the evil image of the
Necromancer first occur?
I was expecting flowing black robes--bone-white hair--and an army of skeletal archers.
And the answer to that question was forged in perhaps one of the most tumultuous times
in European History.
The Middle Ages--and the role that the Catholic Church played in shifting the tide in the
continued cultural development of necromancy.
You see, not surprisingly--the Abrahamic Religions took a pretty dismal view of the practice--and
condemnation of necromantic rites is explicitly referred to on many occasions in their religious
texts.
In the Bible, it is very clearly denoted as a dark art--but strangely enough, it wasn’t
ever a practice that was completely eradicated by the Church.
In fact, throughout the Middle Ages--despite the Church being the principal advocates for
its condemnation--it was the clergy who inadvertently sustained it’s practice, albeit by driving
it underground--and in turn, augmenting it’s cultural evolution.
You see, the Church didn’t outright destroy necromancy--but instead refused to believe
that anyone but the Abrahamic god had the power to resurrect a body or even intentionally
contact a spirit.
And because of that--the Church concluded that these ancient necromancers weren’t
actually communicating with the dead--but instead--with demons--a host of nefarious
forces who had deceived the magicians into believing that they were the souls of the
dead.
And now, perhaps--the image of the Necromancer as a Corrupted Scholar or Warlock owes itself
as the far more nefarious archetype in contemporary literature.
This is where we get the far more contemptuous conventions of the Necromancer.
Blood sacrifices--poppets, voodoo dolls--protective circles, letters and sigils.
The image of the Necromancer almost as a warrior, rather than a Shaman--bending the will of
the metaphorical demon of the dead to do their bidding, rather than to gain a lost knowledge
like Odysseus did in the Underworld.
Throughout the 1300s--reports of necromancy as a practice fell on either side of the moral
and cultural line.
Rare confessions of necromancy by those that were accused seemed to suggest that there
was a range of what was and wasn’t acceptable in relation to communing with the dead.
John of Salisbury--is perhaps one of the most famous historical examples of this, a philosopher
accused of Necromancy after a royal scandal.
So was the case of Richard Kieckhefer in 1323--who was accused of Necromancy after being connected
to a group who were plotting to invoke the demon Berich from inside a circle made from
strips of cat skin.
It seemed that the ancient message may have been lost in translation.
You see, the Middle Ages truly were a gray area as to what was and what wasn’t acceptable
in terms of *ceremonial magic* and many of these gray areas are what have laid the basis
for esoteric knowledge in modern culture and literature.
You see, it didn’t end there though--and it was with the rise of Spiritualism throughout
the 1800s where the image of the Necromancer once again shifted--this time back toward
a kinder, more gentler form of communing with the dead.
This is where the seance came to the forefront of popular practice--and instead of dead bodies
as laid out by the Necromancy of the Middle Ages--this time it was live mediums that acted
as conduits for the dead.
Now, whilst this was a historical period that was certainly rife with Charlatans and Grifters
who would seek to exploit the shared reverence for the dead that has seemingly been ingrained
in our cultural psyche since the dawn of time--it is also part of the Gothic connotations of
Necromancy that are so common today.
Skulls.
Candles.
Shadow Ceremonies.
Tapping the Bones.
Throughout the turn of the 19th century and later still--Necromancy literally got a face
lift, and part of that facelift is the archetypal Necromancer that we understand in today’s
popular culture--but deep beneath the bones--the form and function remains the same.
And this is where it is difficult to pinpoint, because when we look at modern literature--video
games, tabletop and television included--the Necromancer is, at times, all of these very
same archetypes laid out throughout history.
Whether it is the playable character class in the Diablo Series--an orchestrator of the
dead who harnesses the corpses of the deceased to do their bidding--the unwitting Ash in
Sam Raimi’s Army of Darkness--or in Briam Lumley’s Necroscope series--where the Necromancer
is instead augmented back to its original form as an individual who can communicate
with the dead as equals, rather than adversaries--all of them remain the same.
Reverence of the Dead is a tale as old as time--but deep beneath that core belief system,
is a far more important cultural reminder.
Those that forget our history are doomed to repeat it--and the dead--keep it.
Well, there we have it folks--our most recent destination in this whistle-stop tour of the
Lore Explored.
Obviously, there is much, much more to Necromancy--but hey, feel free to dig deeper for yourself.
Before we depart from today’s video, let’s first take a quick look at some of your more
creative comments from the last Lore Explored Video--The King In Yellow.
Rodney Kelly says--
Why do I keep finding the Yellow Sign in the snow?
-- Well.
I think you know the answer to that question Rodney.
You’re a funny man--and please don’t eat it.
Saige Pilgrim says--
I adore this series, and this character.
-- Well, that it incredibly kind of you Saige--and I adore the fact that you’re enjoying this
series--because I am too!
And finally, Christopher Smith says--
Your king has heard you mortal.
-- Oh….
no.
Not again.
Well, on that note--unfortunately that’s all we’ve got time for in today’s video,
cheers for sticking around all the way until the end.