Become a Necromancer

By Edwin

Necromancy has a reputation for graveyards, corpses, and dramatic attempts to command the dead.

That is only one version of the story.

For a modern practitioner, working with the dead can begin somewhere much simpler: your relationship with your ancestors and the people who came before you.

A small shrine, regular offerings, conversation, and careful attention can form the foundation of an ancestral practice without digging up remains or attempting to force contact with the dead.

One useful modern approach is described in Martin Coleman’s Communing With The Spirits, which focuses heavily on developing a relationship with one’s ancestors. The practical value of this approach is its simplicity: create a dedicated place, make regular offerings, and establish a consistent habit of communication.

That is a much better starting point than trying to imitate historical necromantic rites you do not yet understand.

What does necromancy actually mean?

The word necromancy is generally associated with communication with or magical work involving the dead.

Historically, the practice has not been one single technique. Different cultures developed different ways of approaching the dead, including divination, ancestor veneration, funerary practices, spirit communication, and attempts to obtain information from the deceased.

Modern occultists often use the word more broadly.

At Black Witch Coven, it is useful to make a distinction:

Ancestor work is not automatically necromancy.

Honoring your grandmother, lighting a candle for a deceased relative, or leaving water at an ancestral shrine can be ancestor veneration without being a formal necromantic operation.

That distinction matters because you do not need to begin with the most complicated or dangerous version of the practice.

Why begin with the dead you already know?

If you want to develop a relationship with spirits, your own ancestral line can provide a natural starting point.

You may already know their names, stories, personalities, photographs, belongings, or family history.

You may also have memories of people who personally knew you while they were alive.

That creates a very different relationship from calling an unknown spirit simply because you found its name in an occult book.

You are beginning with relationship rather than curiosity.

That is important.

Setting up an ancestor shrine

An ancestor shrine does not need to be elaborate.

Choose a clean, stable location where you can spend a few quiet minutes without being disturbed.

You might place:

• photographs of deceased relatives

• their names written on paper

• an inherited object

• a family document

• a candle

• a glass of clean water

• a small food offering

The purpose of the shrine is not to create a supernatural object.

It gives your practice a physical location.

When you return to the same place regularly, the shrine becomes associated with your conversations, offerings, memories, and magical work.

1. Choose who you are honoring

Start with people you know are dead.

You can begin with grandparents, parents, siblings, other relatives, or family members whose stories have been passed down to you.

If you do not know much about your biological family, that does not prevent ancestral practice.

You can work with deceased people who genuinely helped shape your life, provided that doing so fits your own spiritual framework.

You do not have to call every dead person in your family.

Be selective.

2. Clean and prepare the space

Before placing anything on the shrine, clean the area.

This sounds mundane, but it establishes a useful boundary between ordinary household clutter and deliberate spiritual practice.

Place your chosen photograph, name, or family object in the center.

Add a candle and a glass of fresh water if those offerings are appropriate to your practice.

3. Make a simple offering

Food and drink are common forms of offering in many traditions of ancestor veneration.

You can offer something your deceased relative enjoyed while alive, or keep things simple with water and a candle.

You don’t need an expensive collection of ritual supplies.

Consistency is more important than spectacle.

Replace water regularly and remove food before it spoils.

Never leave candles burning unattended.

4. Speak to the dead

You do not need an elaborate invocation.

Use the person’s name.

Tell them why you have come.

Talk about what is happening in your life.

Thank them for what they gave you.

If you are asking for guidance, ask clearly.

Then stop talking.

Give yourself time to listen.

“Listening” does not necessarily mean hearing a literal voice. It may take the form of a memory, dream, sudden association, intuitive impression, or simply a clearer understanding of something you were already considering.

Do not automatically treat every thought as a message from the dead.

Discernment is part of the practice.

5. Keep a record

Write down what happens after your sessions.

Record dreams, unusual coincidences, impressions, memories, and anything that seems significant.

Do this before deciding what everything means.

A journal gives you something extremely valuable in spirit work: a record that can be examined later.

Over time, you may begin to recognize patterns.

You may also discover that some experiences seemed meaningful in the moment but became less convincing when you looked at them again.

That is useful information too.

6. Develop the relationship before asking for favors

Do not make every visit to your shrine a request for something.

If your first contact with a deceased relative consists entirely of asking for money, protection, romantic success, or magical results, you are treating the relationship as a transaction.

Spend time remembering them.

Tell their stories.

Learn what you can about their lives.

Maintain the shrine.

Give offerings without immediately demanding something in return.

The relationship itself is the foundation.

Why that order?

The order is deliberate.

Relationship comes before operation.

You establish the person you are working with, create a dedicated place, make consistent offerings, communicate, and keep records before attempting more complicated spirit work.

This gives you a foundation for discernment.

If something unusual happens later, you have an established practice against which to evaluate it.

Jumping directly into elaborate necromantic operations without learning how to maintain a basic ancestral relationship is putting complexity before competence.

What about spirits who are not your ancestors?

This is where necromancy becomes considerably more complicated.

Some magical traditions work with the spirits of people who were not related to the practitioner. Others work with named spirits, deities associated with the dead, psychopomps, or particular spiritual authorities.

That work should be approached according to the tradition it actually belongs to.

Do not take one tradition’s ritual technology and treat it as a universal necromancy kit.

Palo and related traditions

The original article discusses Palo Monte and Palo Mayombe and describes the nganga or prenda as something a practitioner can assemble to house spiritual power.

That material needs much more context than the original article provided.

Palo is a living Afro-Cuban religious tradition with its own initiatory structures, cosmology, ritual practices, and knowledgeable practitioners. A nganga is not simply a “necromancer’s pot” that an outsider can assemble from a shopping list.

For that reason, this article does not provide instructions for constructing one.

If Palo is the tradition you are actually being called toward, learn from practitioners within that tradition rather than attempting to reconstruct its ritual technology from an occult book.

The same principle applies to other living traditions.

What about blood offerings?

Blood has a long history in religious and magical traditions, but that does not make it necessary for beginner necromancy.

There is no reason to introduce blood into an ancestral practice simply because an occult author says that it creates a stronger connection.

Start with water, food, candles, flowers, prayers, memories, and regular attention.

If a specific tradition requires other offerings, learn that practice from an appropriate source rather than improvising.

Spirits of the dead and spirits of the gods are not interchangeable

The original article argues that the dead can sometimes be easier to contact than gods, angels, demons, or other spirits.

That may be true within some practitioners’ experiences, but it should not be presented as a universal law of spirit work.

Different traditions have different cosmologies.

A deceased relative is not automatically equivalent to an angel, demon, deity, or spirit guide.

Treat each relationship according to the tradition and experience surrounding it.

Working with powerful figures associated with the dead

Many traditions have spiritual figures associated with death, cemeteries, ancestors, or the passage between life and death.

Examples include Hades, Ereshkigal, Santa Muerte, Baron Samedi, Maman Brigitte, and other figures from distinct religious traditions.

They should not be thrown into one category simply because they have a connection with death.

Their histories, religions, symbols, and ritual relationships are different.

If you want to work with one of these figures, learn that figure’s actual tradition before creating a ritual around a name you found online.

What should you expect?

Do not expect a corpse to appear in your bedroom.

Do not expect every dream to contain a message.

Do not assume every strange coincidence is supernatural.

And don’t measure success by how dramatic the experience becomes.

A productive ancestral practice may be remarkably ordinary.

You may simply become more familiar with your family history.

You may dream about a relative.

You may remember a story you had forgotten.

You may feel more connected to the people who came before you.

Or you may eventually develop a personal system of divination and spirit communication that becomes much more sophisticated.

Start with what you can actually observe.

A simple beginning

If you want to begin working with the dead, you do not need a graveyard ritual.

Start with one deceased person.

Set up a small shrine.

Place a glass of clean water there.

Light a candle while you are present.

Speak their name.

Remember them.

Ask one question.

Then sit quietly.

Write down what you experienced afterward.

Repeat the practice regularly.

That may not look like the dramatic necromancy found in fiction, but it gives you something far more important: a relationship on which more advanced work can eventually be built.

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Other books on Necromancy to help you with your studies:

• #1 Recommended Book – Communing With The Spirits by Martin Coleman

• Necromancy: Conjuring the Spirits of the Dead
  Neres Wane
• The Witches’ Book of the Dead
  Christian Day
• Blood Sorcery Bible Volume 1: Rituals in Necromancy
  Sorceress Cagliastro
• Necromantic Sacraments: A Book of Ritual for Daemonolatry Necromancy, Necrosophy & Invocation
  S. Connolly
• How to Meet and Work with Spirit Guides
  Ted Andrews