The Witches' Book of the Dead (19 page)

Ritual: Graveyard Necromancy

Since it is simply unwieldy in this day and age to traipse into a graveyard with all of the implements of necromancy, I recommend not bringing any tools, though you might want to wear a pentacle pendant or other symbol of protection. For this simple necromantic ritual, you are going to visit the grave of someone you love and lie upon it to receive the answers you seek. As mentioned previously, the spirit you choose should be someone who would understand the particular question you want answered.

The only thing you should bring with you is an offering of food, drink, or other gift that the person you are calling on enjoyed. Short of that, an offering of money always works. Usually, the poor will later pick up the money and so you'll be helping someone in the process. And when all else fails, leave flowers, as they have been more than acceptable offerings to the dead for millennia. Before entering a graveyard, always knock at the gate three times and ask that the spirits of the dead open the way to the other realms.

Place your offering on the grave with respect, reverence, and love and say,
I give you, [name here], this offering to honor your contribution to my life. May your energy continue to shine down on all those who knew and loved you. Please, come forth and provide the answers I seek! Blessings of gratitude!

Now, lie down upon the grave, head closest to the tombstone or grave marker, close your eyes, and relax into a visionary state. Feel the Death Current flowing up from the ground and into your body. Sense the spirits throughout the graveyard and know that you
are in their world now. After a time, you will begin to see visions, hear voices, smell scents, and experience other sensations. Listen closely. The answer you seek may come as a mere whisper on the wind, but it will come!

When you are ready, offer a last word of thanks and leave the graveyard. Remember to always exit a graveyard backwards. This helps you to keep any unwanted spirits from following you home!

• • •

10
Necromantic Magic

I had my first real foray into working with the dead in 2003 in a class on necromancy taught by Shawn Poirier. We cohosted our first Festival of the Dead that year. After many years of practicing much softer forms of Witchcraft, I cautiously decided to experiment with something bolder.

Up to that point, I had tended to play in the shallower end of the magical pool. I've always been a bit of a skeptic; plus, living in an occult magnet like Salem for over twenty years has exposed me to all manner of frauds and freaks. When Shawn suggested this necromantic event, I was both cynical and perhaps just a little bit nervous about the issues it might raise for me.

I participated in the ceremony with a raised eyebrow. Shawn created a circle of spirit powder on the floor in the middle of the function room of one of Salem's swankiest restaurants, surrounding an altar set with necromantic tools, including two human leg bones and, of course, Robert the skull. Only in Salem could you have a human leg bone in one hand and a piece of chicken satay in the other—but then this was a restaurant after all.

Each participant was asked to go up to the skull on the altar, place his right hand on it, and project a magical wish into the world. The spirits, according to Shawn, would then act to make those wishes happen. I was skeptical. If it were that easy, I asked, wouldn't they be selling skulls at Walmart? Still, I put my skepticism aside and, in my turn, knelt before the altar. I made an offering to the spirits and placed my hand upon Robert the skull, … to discover it was vibrating. I lifted it up. No joy buzzer was present. Yes, it was vibrating to a very pulsing hum. Upon projecting my manifestation, the vibrating stopped. It was an intense milestone in my personal development. The spell itself soon came to fruition and I became a convert to the ancient ways of the necromancer.

Employing the Dead in Magic

In the previous chapter, you learned to work with the powers of oracular necromancy—divination with the dead, which is what the word “necromancy” means at its core. However, over the centuries, necromancy came to refer to the general practice of magic with the dead—which is no mystery, given the propensity of Witches to call on the spirits for both divination and magic. Necromancy was also confused with black magic, and thus the word began to refer to all manner of magical practice whether the dead were involved or not. In my own practice, I use the word “necromancy” to refer to both the oracular and magical kind; I do not use the word to refer to any form of magic that does not involve the dead.

If the Witch did it, the powers that be either found a way to make it illegal or severely limited its practices to narrow, official boundaries. As I mentioned in
chapter 7
, necromantic sorcery has usually been so feared by authorities that they tried to dissuade people from pursuing this form of magic by legislating against it and portraying Witches as agents of evil. We have to strip away the hyperbole and libelous attacks to get to the core of what Witches really did and why it made the authorities fear it so deeply. The most obvious reason is that taking power into one's own hands denies the
supremacy of the God king, the Pope, the divinely ordained leader. To walk the path of the Witch is to reclaim your inner power!

If the practice of necromancy seems antiquated and odd, know that it is still going on today, largely kept alive by Catholics and other, more orthodox religious traditions. All but a handful of the Catholic saints are the spirits of the dead said to intercede on behalf of the living by virtue of offerings and prayers. If this isn't necromancy, I don't know what is. Mary Magdalene, Saint Francis, and other Catholic notables are often shown holding a skull, which in these cases symbolizes hidden knowledge. While many of the Catholic traditions are based on older, pre-Christian magical practices, we owe them a great debt of gratitude for keeping these beliefs alive, especially considering that many modern pagans and Witches have shirked the dead in favor of mythological deities.

Heart, Will, Intention, and Action

Before beginning any magical working, be sure that your heart is in it. Without true heart—and by this I don't just mean the physical muscle but rather the central core of spiritual being that radiates from within you—magic doesn't work. The Egyptians took the connection between the physical and spiritual heart very seriously, which is why the heart was the only organ they left in the body at the time of embalming. They believed that the heart contained the soul. Without the heart, magic will not flow through you. You must radiate the joy and love of the universe for others—including deities and spirits—so that they want to lend their strength to your cause.

Bring your will into the act, for it is your strength of determination— your iron will—that will make the magic happen! Your will is that pure focus that empowers you and connects you with the reservoirs of energy weaving throughout the universe. Without that focus, your magic is nothing but dust particles blown this way and that upon the wind.

And you also must figure out what it is you want to accomplish. Too many aspiring sorcerers attempt to practice Witchcraft without any sense of
what they want to get out of it, whether spiritually or materially. Intention is a huge part of the battle. Do you want that new car? Well, project for it! See yourself driving it! Manifest that car into reality. If it's a lover you want, whether it be a specific lover (see below for a note on ethics), or just the best person out there for you, then make sure you get specific about the person or traits you want. Don't be wishy-washy!

Yes, you may be reading between the lines at this point. Watered-down versions of Witchcraft are heavily practiced and promoted today in the mainstream. Even Oprah does it. It's called “The Secret.”

Well, the real secret is that to do magic, you've got to not only put your heart, will, and intention into it; you've got to take action in the real world as well. As I often tell my clients looking to do love magic without leaving the house, “the pizza delivery man is probably not going to propose, so get the hell out of the house and put yourself out there!” With real action, magic is allowed to do its work! My father always referred to this most powerful form of magic as the “magic of
do
.”

A Note on Magical Ethics

As we're talking about using magic, the question may arise: What should we use magic
for?
Some say that one should never use magic to do anything manipulative, such as forcing someone to love you. However,
all
magic is manipulative by its very nature. The guidelines are not so cut and dry. Still, you might not want to turn the object of your affection into a walking zombie—especially since you may never get rid of him, which you may want to do when you get tired of things. It is okay to ask the spirits to give a little nudge to a person so that he notices you more, thinks to give you a call, or perhaps makes a date with you. I call this “psychic perfume.” It's okay to make yourself more alluring to a person or send a message in dreams as long as you recognize that it's not a good idea to force people to conform to your will. Love cannot be manufactured, so at best you'd only end up with someone who has an unhealthy obsession for you, and at worst you could
end up being pursued by someone with serious psychological problems who is now fixated entirely on keeping you in his life. As they say, be careful what you wish for.

This brings us to the idea of hexing and cursing. Contrary to most modern books on Witchcraft, Witches have always hexed and cursed, but the vast majority of them have done so ethically—
in the name of justice!
In times when justice was often available only to the wealthy, ordinary people would seek the Witches out to help them take action against those transgressors who had raped and murdered, stolen property, or hurt the community in some way. The Witch would absolutely curse such people to be brought to justice, but she would typically do a reading of some kind to see whether a person was guilty. In most cases, finding this out didn't matter, since the Witch did not need to know exactly who the perpetrator was in order to bring him to justice. She merely had to know that there was one. If all you're doing is hexing and cursing people, you may want to seek therapy, since such pursuits denote an unhappy life.

And finally, as we discussed in the previous chapter, magicians can overestimate their own power to subdue and control spirits, often at their own peril. Spirits can often become dangerous when approached with threats and abuse. If you approach the spirits from a place of respect, make them appropriate offerings, and treat them well, they will
want
to help you.

Using the Skull in Magic

You've learned to use the skull as a communication tool in oracular necromancy. Now you're going to use it, and the other tools introduced in
chapter 4
, to conjure the spirits to aid you in your manifesting your needs and desires. Necromantic magic is much simpler than you might imagine, requiring a basic assortment of tools and, if you can obtain one, a human skull. Again, a skull made of bronze, resin, or quartz crystal can be an effective substitute. The skull will be your focal point in rituals with the dead, for it is your doorway to spirit. You will direct all your heart, will, and intention
through the skull, creating waves of energy through the spirit world by which the dead shall manifest your desires.

The skull you employ for magical purposes does not have to have a jaw in the way that a divinatory skull does. In this case, since you're using it to call on the dead that you may send them out to perform tasks, it is not necessary for the skull itself to be able to communicate.

As in the previous chapter, you will also need to charge up your skull with your necromantic tools and with a sacrifice of your own blood. Again, just a few drops will do, and they should always be drawn with a sterile medical lancet, found at any drug store.

Ritual: Necromantic Magic with the Skull