Necromancy, the summoning of spirits of the dead or of demons, was and is a widely condemned form of magic by Christian authorities. While necromancy is relatively easy to define, the ways in which it was used (or said to be used) are more difficult to pin down. The most famous example of necromancy is in the Bible, in which the Witch of Endor summons the spirit of Samuel in hopes that he can divine the outcome of an important battle (Bailey, 102). Thus divination is one end to the use of necromancy, as is commanding demons to bend the will of one person to another (Bailey, 101).
Bailey notes that while necromancy was the general term in use for all types of demonic invocation, it did not inherently include all types of magic suspected of involving demons or demonic power in one form or another (Bailey, 102). However, necromancy could be combined with other forms of magic to do nearly anything, including conjuring items and animals (called "illusions" due to the stipulation that none of the things actually appeared, one would just seem to be riding a horse, for example, which was actually a demon in disguise), divination, harming others, inducing mental states in oneself or others, even healing (Bailey, 104-106).
All cases of necromancy, whether the ends were harmful or beneficial, were condemned by the Church. Why do you think this is?
Fun title! Thanks for bringing up the Witch of Endor in relationship to necromancy to see influences and contexts for ideas. Some necromancy was practiced by those in the church though . . . why?
ReplyDeleteIt's interesting that you point out the many uses. Coming into the class I had a preconceived idea that necromancy was simply bringing the dead back to life and nothing more. I would say the reason that it was condemned was that all magic was some way or another linked to the devil. Whether it was for the use of good you still had to deal with some sort of evil or nefarious figure to attain those means.
ReplyDeleteIn Bailey's section on the Rise of Demonic Magic(101-106) the author contends that, "in Christian conceptions of the afterlife, souls of the dead were to rest securely in either heaven or hell, or by the later medieval period, in purgatory, from which they could not be released or recalled by any human means," (102). Thus Bailey concluded that anyone that would be brought back through necromancy would in fact be demons, rather than the souls of the dead. This leads one to see the reasoning behind why the church did not approve of any form of necromancy. It would not be the goal of the church to bring demons upon the earth, and according to Bailey that is exactly what divination in the form of necromancy was. Thanks for the post!
ReplyDeleteWhen I think of necromancy, first thing that comes to my mind is all the scary movies now that usually have some element of calling the dead. Necromancy isn't just something of the past and it is in our culture to call upon spirits; to either talk to loved one who have passed or to be in an abandoned house and call the dead to see if something supernatural has happened.
ReplyDeleteI think Ash and gang from Evil Dead might contest your conjecture of the most famous example of necromancy. Generally speaking, it doesn't seem that we've changed much over the centuries in our thought process of how we view messing around with the dead...bad juju no matter the intentions (good or bad). The only apparent evolution is that have a cooler way to visualize it for the masses now. Ole' Ash may serve as a general example of how the church views messing around with the perceived uncontrollable nature of necromancy. The Necronomicon (Book of the Dead) brought nothing but terror, grief, one less hand, and terrible (but memorable) one liners. This isn't to say that this prevented clergy and the like from practicing in secret.
ReplyDeleteYes, because all was linked to the world of the divine--and God controls in its original conception. This is the notion of the "clerical underworld" that seems to have been most impressed with necromancy. Also we need to distinguish between what was disavowed by prescriptive authority ("don't sneak out of the house after 10 p.m.") and people's natural desires to use power and resources to their advantage ("must do this to see friends").
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