Sometimes some people recognize the future from the ghosts of dead people who are called into our world. One of the ways to summon these spirits is necromancy. This is a very ancient method based on the belief that the spirits of the dead possess knowledge of the past, present and future.
Probably one of the oldest accounts of necromancy is found in the Bible in I Kings. Its essence is as follows.
The first Israelite king Saul, surrounded by enemies, decides to find out his fate from the lips of a clairvoyant. To do this, he invited a sorceress to him and asked her to summon the spirit of the prophet Samuel. Applying the actions known to her, the sorceress saw "like a god emerging from the earth." The king demanded to describe it. Then the sorceress said that she "sees an elderly husband dressed in long clothes." Saul believed that the spirit of Samuel was before him and bowed down to him. The spirit uttered a terrible prophecy that Israel would lose the battle to the Philistines, and Saul himself with his three sons would perish the next day. And as it turned out later, the prediction of the ghost of Samuel completely came true.
However, not only the ancient Israelites knew about this method of invoking the spirits of the dead. It also existed in the Babylonian-Sumerian culture that preceded Israel. So, the use of necromancy is told in the twelfth canto of the poem about Gilgamesh, in which the hero appeals to the god of the dead, Nersal, to summon the spirit of Eabani, the deceased comrade of Gilgamesh. "Break open the grave crypt," he asks, "and open the ground so that the spirit of Eabani can rise like the wind." God heard Gilgamesh's request and sent him the spirit of Eabani, who told about the plight of the dead in the kingdom of darkness.
Necromancy was also widespread in ancient China. This is evidenced by many works of ancient and medieval Chinese literature, in which scenes of summoning the spirits of the dead from the underworld are quite widely represented.
Since in China the custom of worshiping ancestors is a very important component of the religious worldview, for this reason necromancy was widespread. Moreover, this mystical rite has been preserved even in modern China.
The rituals of necromancy were very popular among the ancient Greeks. To summon the spirits of the dead, they had strictly defined places, which were believed to be connected with the underworld by passages and cracks in the ground. Through them, after the appropriate rituals, the spirits allegedly appeared on the surface. These places were called the oracles of the dead …
In general, the rituals of necromancy for the most part are based on the return to life of the body of the deceased or the instillation of the spirit into his flesh. And therefore, most often these rituals are performed in cemeteries and in burial vaults.
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It should be noted that this method of communicating with the spirits of the dead requires careful preparation. And therefore, preparations for the corresponding rituals can take more than one day. During this time, the one who dared to conduct a session of necromancy indulges in constant contemplation of death. In addition, during this period he dresses in clothes taken from the corpse and eats in a special way. So, he uses products that are associated with death: for example, dog meat, which for many peoples is in close connection with the kingdom of the dead, as well as unleavened black bread and fresh grape juice. In medieval tales, it was said that necromancers even eat the flesh of the corpses themselves.
If the necromancer used the body of a recently deceased person in his rituals, then he tried to bring his soul back into the body so that it would become alive again and could talk. If the corpse of a person who died a long time ago was used in rituals, the necromancer tried to summon the ghost of the deceased.
When the ritual was completed, so as not to endanger the disturbed deceased, the corpse was burned or buried in quicklime.
It should be said that necromancy among most nations and peoples has always been considered a sinful deed, since it disturbed the peace of the soul.
For the same reason, the modern church also prohibits necromancy, since in its rituals fortunetellers turn to "evil spirits." And in England, this attitude towards necromancy was officially declared in the so-called "Act of Witchcraft" of 1604.
Bernatsky Anatoly