Necromancy, a misunderstooded ancient art?

hi mates,
I am a great fan of all that can be related to necromancy. i love to read all what is possible about it, and i want to learn more from you all if possible.
My personal opinion about necromancy is that it was misunderstooded almoust all the time and in several ages,due to what i call as the "bad way of using it"
The Necromancy is in fact something so simple as a "Dark" technique to see the future events! everybody knows the Tarot, the Sea Shell games, The pendulum, or the cristal ball techniques. well Necromancy have they'r especific ways to read the future also, but due to it's natural dark aspect,and it's direct relation with Death, it uses a weird group of options to to that.
we can practice Necromancy with a set of bones (whatever animal we want)(My set is made of rat and bunny bones), we can kill a goat, chiken, sheep, etc, and observe how the internal organs spread in the ground while the blood is warm, we can do some cuts on the skin and see how the blood flows, etc, there are tons of ways to a Necromancer to read the future.
Another more fantastic way to learn about Necromancy, fuses a lot with some well known fantastic worlds, like the Dungeon & Dragons one.
in many old cultures it was writen that it is possible to a necromancer to raise the dead, to create powerfull curses, to evoke a "Shadow" creature from a inferior plane, or to be transformed in a undead creature in order to achieve imortality(Like a Lich)!
Tons and tons of documents from many diferent human coltures can be found related to this subject, especialy books.
One of the moust interesting theory about the Necromantic curses i ever red, tell us that in the ancient egipt the Necromancy was fully respected and practioned by a special kind of Seth Priests. and the well known "Pharoe's tomb curses" had be maded using old necromantic knoledge.
I will try to explain one of the methods used:
After the constrution of the tomb, a huge group of people is ordered to enter the tomb and stay there starving untill they die,they all are ordered to think in the same "thing"( The negative practical objective of the curse, let's say...a sudden death) and be at the process of starving untill they die, always with that in they'r mind!, well,,,we can ask,,,,but what kind of guys will have the force of will to do that?, we must try to understend that for them it was a true honor to die like that.and was not understended as a horrid thing at all. they usualy "caged them" in the tombs for 2 or 3 mouths, after that or they will remain there or they will be removed to a mass grave. in what situations they to this or not i don't have a clue.
but the books say that after this the necromantic curse created from they'r life force will be there for ever or untill the tomb is opened.

well this was just a small exemple of how interesting Necromancy can be if we want to learn the moust dark aspects of it or research about it . if it is real that the ancient egiptians do that at the time, i don't know, but i think this aspect is very interesting.

About the possibility of raise/animate a dead corpse for some time, to use for some obscure objective, i think it's hard to belive this can be done. i personaly think that at some time in human history, this kind of knoledge must be forgotten or lost. but i belive that in the real ancient times this could be a reality.
I have been several times in a kind of "necromancy conclave", where many people do a lot of necromancti experiences, and try to animate several types of corpses, using old necromantic rhymes and rituals, from several old famous necromantic books, and i just seen once this working:

when we do this necro conclaves, we go to a wood, we prepare the place acording to some necromantic laws, and we bring to there several animal corpses, like cats, dogs, birds, insects, etc( please note that we do not kill the animals for this). the only time i see this working was with a bee!, after the incantations to be made the dead bee suddenly start to move slowly and flys away. sure, the bee could not be dead and be at some kind of paralisis...well we all can especulate about it. every animal is always checked to see if it is dead or not, but i agree it's very dificult to be sure if a insect is dead or not. in the case this bee was grabed from the floor, and it was atacked by ants, in fact it just have 2 legs at the time. but after the ritual, it just flew away!

Necromancy have also other possible dark aspect:, the Invokation arts.
it seems that it is possible under certain places, at especific nights, under certain rituals to be possible to invoke a dark entity, please do not melt/fuse this with demonology. it is something diferent. the Necromancy aparently can evoke dark shadow creatures(not demons) from the realm of the shadows, there are hundreds of shadow creatures related along the history in necromantic books. some of the moust well known are: The wraiths, the Banshees, the Vampire lords, The damned souls( a type of ghost), the shadow succubus, etc.

One of the biggest problems with the necromancy along the times is that it had be used by twisted minds many times in order to practice evil or bad things. but that do not make necromancy it self a bad thing. there are good people and bad ones, and i think the bad ones ended to give to necromancy a very bad defenition.

Sure if some one wants to learn and study necromantic knoldge, it must be prepared to deal with death, corpses, bad smells all the time, etc, but that's the only problem i can see. some guys could not have the stomach for that.

now i will give some nice links about some necromantic aspects, i hope you enjoy them.

meaning of the word:

Necromancy "Wiki"

Thes study of Death:

Necromancy as a way to read future:

another defenition for it:

Something from "The Book of shadows", a important tome for Necromancy

A exelent necromancy analisis:


A brief history about necromancy methods:

I hope all of you enjoy this info about this dark art.
please post your comments about necromancy, or any good serious link about it. or fell free to debate what ever you want about the topic

all your inputs about this will be very welcome

my apologises for my horrific english, it is not my natural language, forgive me for my many many errors

at last some links about one of the moust famous necromantic book:

EXELENT explanation for it:

The Necronomicum and all the hoaxes and trues about it, by Wikki:

i hope again this can be usefull for all of you, stay well dear mates

[edit on 5-10-2006 by Umbra Sideralis]

So, it looks nobody here likes to talk about necromancy, it's a pitty.
cya

I find this topic interesting, but I guess like many other people here, there is really not much for us to say before knowing more about it.

My bad didn't see the post till today
I have an interest in it.
maybe of topic but often wondered why many rpgs, mmorpgs portrayed them
as the weakest non weapon/magic users in the games

Originally posted by Unplugged
I find this topic interesting, but I guess like many other people here, there is really not much for us to say before knowing more about it.

Agree, then let's try to debate it in a general or especific way,in order to know and learn more about it. it is in fact a rich theme to be explored, in a real serious way or about it's fictional aspect as well.




[edit on 7-10-2006 by Umbra Sideralis]

Originally posted by EvilBat
My bad didn't see the post till today
I have an interest in it.
maybe of topic but often wondered why many rpgs, mmorpgs portrayed them
as the weakest non weapon/magic users in the games

The interest of the topic is to debate all about it, real or fictional aspects of it. in fact i do a reference about how some times the reality can be fused with fiction, as in the Dangeons & Dragons world.,so it's not off topic at all, but, if we just and only talk about it's fictional aspect, that will be BS and the topic will be moved. but...we can debate about the fictional aspect to be inspired in some reality, and what can be real or not.
about what say in the quote:
Many people normaly says that about necromancy/necromancers in many games, but the real problem there it's any necromancy users starts in a very low experience lvl, so yes they are weak. but many know also that a high lvl necromancer is a very serious kind of enemy to defeat( especialy a Lich). what i think about this it's that people normaly don't have the pacience to build a necromancer untill the right lvls to be efficient and deadly(it's a very hard work to build a good one).

What i think interesting is how the major things we see in games related to necromancy, can have a real relation with the reality about it.
exemples:

-The classical raise/animate dead spell/habilitie, is a classical necromancy mith.

-The relation with necromancy and Pestilence/poison spells, are kind of logical also, because a true necromancer user normaly deals with decomposing/dead organic parts, what can be very "pestilence and poisonous" indeed to others but not to the one used to deal with that, because it can have created resistences to moust of the bacteria or virus on that parts due to the long time making experiences with that kind of materials.

- The game representations that always ends up in leading the necro users to live in dark dungeons, graveyards, or any type of very dark place. are also logic due to the necro needing of getting dead parts to use in a clarvoyance ritual for exemple, also the necromancy "life force" came's from the shadows and Death not from the light, so it's logical to putt them always far from the Sun's light influence.

well much can be sayed aboit this, it is in fact very cool to compare the fiction with the reality, and how can some game designers can use or be influenced by the reality in they'r creations.

Originally posted by EvilBat
My bad didn't see the post till today
I have an interest in it.
maybe of topic but often wondered why many rpgs, mmorpgs portrayed them
as the weakest non weapon/magic users in the games

Dont know about games, but I believe in the similarion (L.O.T.R) that Sauron (the great eyeball) was a Necromancer. (Supposedly thats who he went to do battle with in the hobit in the forest, Sauron was trying to retake shape)

And as we all know, Sauron is the most powerful out of all the characters in L.O.T.R.
(Way above Saraman, gandalf, etc...it was sheer freak accident practically that they could destroy him.)

Anyway...interesting too, he took elves and turned them into creatures of the night (orcs that didnt like sunlight, admittedly the Uric Hi (?) the modified beast could go in sunlight, but remember who was Saramans master...Sauron.

Now Sauron got his abilities through a "God/angel" (Forgot his name)
The only one higher was the "light" (Forgot his name) But interestingly enough, the higher begins never got involved when someone was torturing a lesser being...only when they fought against an equal. (i.e. the "angels" fought against Saurons old boss and kicked him out...they did not fight against Sauron the lesser...

This kind of carries over from Christianity...you never see angels or anything coming to beat up the demons who bother the human race (or in ufology, never see the "good" aliens stopping the "bad" aliens from their human experiments.)

So gives a whole level of new understanding to the concept of good...obvioulsy those above dont give much credence to those below them. We are a freakn ant farm.

Interesting none the less, chaos magick, etc.

Peace

Dalen

dAlen, wow, exelent what you have sayed about this. i never had red Silmarilion, but i will now. it is interesting in fact that kind of Angelic or Divine Ethics to now fight directly "lesser" evil forms. that have amazed me, and open in fact a new light on this matter. yes a new prism of "evil/good" must be presented in order we can evenctualy understend where exactly are the real Division line between a evil actitude or a good one. you are right it is not commun at all to read something about a Divinity from the "light" side fighting just to save a "mortal soul", It look that the high ranks of any side only meet in confrotation with they'r oposing high ranks as weel. all the rest is like ants or a kind of cannon fodder.

From all the fictional worlds, i think the ones from Tolkien and Dangeon & Dragons are the moust interesting ones, especialy in the especific theme of Necromancy.

In the real necromantic myths, a necromancer with tons of life experience in the dark arts, can dare to try to achieve the final step in the necromantic evolution path...to became a "lich"!, Well, a Lich in real necromancy is not nothing of that we see in games, but something much more complex even to understend.

I say above, "dare", because in the process he can die permanently, and in fact he must die first if he want's to try this.

just resuming, but acording to several myths (not from games), a necro must be isolated from the world and isolated from any living being, 10 years, then he must provoke is death ingesting a lot of poisouning and realy weird material., after some time after his death, he will reanimate and extract his liver and his heart and put them in a ...lets say a vase to not complicated too much. and if all was done in the right way after a week he will be transformed is something very hard to understend:
a imortal creature made of light and darkness, with no body, no true form, but yet with the habilitie to deal with material things on this world. When at deep night they can show up to mortal ones as bright beautifull creatures sorrounded by a strong white light , or as a dark big shadow sorrounded by a dark kind of aura that can freeze in a cold terror any mortal.
this final part looks very similar to what Tolkien writes about Sauron and is "true" higher form!
Fascinating in deed the coiscidence