Necromancy

The blackest of all the black arts is undoubtedly necromancy, the ancient method of communication with the dead.  The art of raising the dead and controlling their spirits takes its name from Greek words meaning “dead” and “divination”.

Necromancy  is a form of magic involving communication with the deceased – either by summoning their spirit as an apparition or raising them bodily – for the purpose of:

• divination,
• imparting the means to foretell future events
• discover hidden knowledge,
• to use the deceased as a weapon,
• witchcraft

At its simplest, it is the art of treating the dead as reachable and useful.

This is not the same as general spirit work. Demons, angels, ancestors who have already been elevated, and the ordinary dead are not identical.

Necromancy concerns the dead as dead: those who have died and whose presence is still accessible in some form.

Why the common modern picture is too soft

A great deal of contemporary writing makes necromancy sound almost casual. Light a candle in a graveyard, speak a name, and expect a clear conversation. From the perspective of Black Witch Coven, that picture needs to be challenged. Contact with the dead is possible. Clean, specific, information-bearing contact is not automatic. Atmosphere is not technique. Wanting contact is not the same as being able to produce it or control it.

The dead vary widely. Some are coherent and responsive. Many are fragmented, repetitive, or uninterested. Some will answer to almost any call if the operator is hungry enough. Other spirits are fully capable of impersonating the dead. Without the ability to test what has actually arrived, a large amount of what is called necromancy is simply uncritical experience.

Why this work is advanced

Necromancy belongs among advanced practices for practical reasons.

The dead carry emotional and psychological weight that many other spirits do not. Grief, longing, fear, and unfinished personal business can cloud the operator’s judgment. Residual presence after a working tends to stick more stubbornly than with many other forms of contact. Closing has to be thorough. Operators who cannot close cleanly often find that the sense of the dead follows them back into ordinary life.

There is also the problem of discernment. The ability to tell a genuine contact from projection, memory, or an opportunistic spirit is not optional in this work. Without it the practice becomes a mirror for whatever the operator already feels.

Traditional physical methods and modern remote methods

It is important to separate two broad technical approaches that are often mixed together.

Older and harder techniques treat the physical remains or the actual grave as central. In some historical and certain living traditions this has included working directly at the graveside, taking bone or dirt, or in extreme cases opening a grave. The link is physical. The dead are approached through what is left of the body and the place of burial. These methods carry obvious legal risk in the modern world and are not what most contemporary practitioners are doing.

Modern and remote techniques work at a distance. The operator uses a name, a photograph, handwriting, a personal object, a small amount of previously obtained graveyard dirt, or strong focused attention. The remains stay in the ground. The call is made from a private space. Most people who speak about practicing necromancy today are referring to this second approach, even when they still visit cemeteries for atmosphere or to collect dirt.

These are not the same method. One works through the body and the burial. The other works through linkage and attention. Both can be effective. They should not be confused.

What modern magicians are usually doing

When a contemporary magician performs a necromantic ritual, they are generally pursuing one of four goals.

1. First, calling a specific dead person for information. They have a clear question and a link to that person. Success is measured by whether the information later proves useful or accurate.
2. Second, working with the current of death itself rather than with an individual. The operator wants the weight, finality, or force associated with death and burial for use in other magic.
3. Third, building an ongoing relationship with one or more of the dead or with graveyard spirits for protection, information, or repeated assistance.
4. Fourth, attempting to bind or send the dead against a target or to keep a dead presence available for service. This is the harder end of modern practice and the closest to older operative forms.

A living tradition: Haitian work with the dead

One of the clearest modern examples of structured work with the dead exists in Haitian Vodou.

In that system the dead remain part of the spiritual community. The Gede, under the authority of figures such as Bawon Samdi, govern the cemetery and the dead. They are served in ceremony and they possess participants. Proper rites after death exist to separate and settle the different parts of the soul so the dead do not become a problem for the living.

There is also a harder, more operative side. A bòkò may capture part of a dead person’s soul or work with remains so that the dead can be contained and directed. Cemetery petitions are made with payment. In some cases a dead spirit is sent against a living target. The grave of someone who died young or by violence is sometimes preferred because that spirit is considered more restless and more usable.

This is not casual experimentation. It sits inside a complete system of authority, payment, and consequence. It shows what operative necromancy looks like when it is still alive rather than reconstructed from books.

Legal and practical reality of cemetery work

Anyone considering physical graveyard work has to face ordinary reality. Most cemeteries are private or municipal property. After-hours presence can be treated as trespassing. Being found with ritual materials, removing dirt, or appearing to disturb a grave can lead to criminal charges. Police and cemetery staff do not need to understand magical intent. They see a person on the grounds after closing with candles or tools, and that is often enough.

This is why many practitioners who still work with the dead either work remotely, keep any physical actions minimal, or accept that the legal risk is part of the cost of certain methods.

we could personally give examples here; however, we all know that what is written here online can be used against us should the law change at a later date.

Let’s just say that one has to be very careful messing around in cemeteries.

Core requirements for anyone serious about the work

The essential questions are simple and demanding.

1. Can you tell the difference between the dead person you intended and whatever else may have answered?
2. Can you close the contact so completely that nothing follows you?
3. Do you have something real to offer or pay with, or are you only taking?
4. Are you stable enough to work with the dead without beginning to prefer their company to the living?

Most people who say they want to explore necromancy have not answered these questions. They have only imagined the moment of calling.

Easier ways of getting information from the dead

Example of why someone would do a necromancy ritual

A woman inherits a house from an uncle who died suddenly. In the months before his death he had spoken about a metal box of papers and money he had put somewhere “safe,” but he never said where. After the funeral the family searches the house thoroughly and finds nothing. The uncle was private, trusted almost no one, and had a history of hiding things in unusual places.

Ordinary methods are exhausted. The woman is not interested in comfort or messages of love from the dead. She wants a specific piece of information that only he is likely to have: the location of the box.

She obtains a clear photograph of him, a sample of his handwriting, and a small personal object that belonged to him. She sets a contained working space at home, makes a direct call to him by name, states exactly what she wants, and offers something in return for the information. She treats the contact as a practical exchange rather than a reunion.

That is a classic, concrete reason for a necromantic operation. The dead person is believed to hold knowledge the living cannot obtain any other way, and the ritual is performed to extract that knowledge. Everything else (atmosphere, emotion, the sense of presence) is secondary to whether the information later proves accurate.

Sooooooooo……isn’t a psychic medium able to find out similar information?

Yes. There are other routes, and going to a psychic medium is one of the most common.

A medium is essentially acting as a specialist intermediary. Instead of the person performing their own necromantic operation, they pay or request someone who claims the ability to make contact with the dead and relay information. In the example of the hidden box, the woman could take the photograph and the question to a medium and ask them to obtain the location from the uncle.

This is different from doing the ritual yourself in several ways:

• You are not the one making the call or controlling the conditions.
• You are relying on someone else’s perception, honesty, and ability to filter what comes through.
• The medium’s work is usually framed as communication rather than as an operative magical act of calling and directing the dead.
• You have less direct control over how the contact is opened, tested, and closed.

Other non-necromantic or borderline approaches people use include:

• Divination aimed at the question itself (cards, pendulum, scrying) without deliberately calling the dead person.
• Dream incubation, where a person sleeps with a link to the deceased and asks for the information to appear in dream.
• Working with a different class of spirit (a demon, ancestor who is already elevated, or psychopomp figure) and asking that being to obtain or reveal what the dead person knows.

All of these can be attempts to solve the same practical problem. Only some of them involve the operator directly calling the dead. Using a medium outsources the contact. Pure divination may bypass the dead entirely and still produce an answer. Asking another spirit to retrieve the information shifts the work into a different category of spirit operation.

So yes, a psychic medium is one recognised alternative. It is simply a different method of trying to get the same kind of result, with different strengths, weaknesses, and levels of personal control.

Final Thoughts on Learning Necromancy

If this page has done its job, it should leave you with a clearer picture rather than a more romantic one. Necromancy is not one single technique. The traditional image most people carry is of the cemetery at night and the physical handling of the dead or their graves. That image is not invented. In some places and lineages it is exactly how the work has been taught. Savannah’s own early training in traditional necromancy took place in another country where working with graves was a normal part of the instruction and was not treated as illegal. That form of the art is real, demanding, and carries both practical and legal consequences that many modern readers are not prepared to accept.

At the same time, not every effective approach to the dead requires a shovel or a midnight visit to a burial ground. Remote methods that use a strong personal link, careful calling, and clean closing can also produce results, and for many people they are the more realistic path. The existence of living traditions, such as certain forms of Haitian work with the dead, shows that structured, disciplined contact with the dead continues in the present day without needing to be reconstructed from old European books alone.

If you came to this page wanting to learn necromancy, the useful question is no longer “How do I do it?” but “Which form of the work am I actually prepared to take on, and can I meet the real requirements of discernment, payment, and closing?” The page has tried to break the subject down so that the differences between techniques, goals, and levels of risk are visible. Whether that makes the path clearer or simply more serious is for each reader to decide. The work itself does not become easier because the explanations are more honest.