Advice on Necromancy.

 Dear Reader,

If you work with the spirits of the dead, take what they say with a grain of salt. Especially advice on major life events. After all, they're dead for a reason. Yes, it is possible it was natural causes and they are truly as wise as they seem. It is equally possible that they died from misadventure and doing foolish things. Remember the dead are as wide ranging in personalities and motivations as we, the living.

Transmission received.

Dear Reader,

As I have said, I am a necromancer. That means that I talk to and work with the spirits of the dead. One of the dead had a message for me to share. It is getting posted here because I am sure it will get more readership. (If you know me and my family, you'll probably know who this is from.)

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What is a woman?

A woman is not her ovaries.
A woman is not her vulva or vagina.
A woman is not her breasts.

Women may have these organs. Women may not.

Where do we find a woman?

In her mind for it is from her mind that she comes forward.
Don't concern yourself with appearances.
Once we all had tails, but that didn't stop us from becoming who we are.

Heads, butts, tails, vagina, penis, these are all parts and not defining of the being possessing them.

Where do we find personhood?

In the mind, because we're just a little body hair away from being classed as great apes.

Necromancy vs. Mediumship.

Dear Reader,

Necromancy is the art of divination that involves communication with the dead. It is an art that is often conflated with the creation of zombies, necrophilia, and playing with corpses in film and fiction. Mediumship is the art of divination that involves communication with spirits. Not all mediums are necromancers. Not all spirits out there are the dead. The universe is populated with far more strange and diverse spirits than what you can find in the category of the dead. Ultimately, the dead is a relatively small subset of spirits, it gets even smaller when you start discussing the human dead.

It has fallen out of fashion to refer to oneself as a necromancer because the term is fairly loaded with a lot of Hollywood baggage and a pretty wide range of cultural taboos. I use the term necromancer because it is the most accurate description of what I do when I am dealing with spirits. Most of the spirits I deal with are the dead. I have items that I have kept which are attached to spirits of the dead who owned or were in ... intimate contact with them.

My familiar spirit, for example is the spirit of a deceased cat that I owned when I was younger. I also have a spirit ally in a deer whose vertebrae are in a jar on my bookshelf and another deer whose tooth is in a bag on my altar. Among the spirits of the location where I am living, is that of a blue jay whose skull I found perfectly intact while I was walking in the woods near the property one spring afternoon. Some declare this to be morbid. Others question if it is taboo for me to be engaged in this as I am a Filyani and a godspouse to Freyr, who is ostensibly is a god of life.

I would argue that my work as a necromancer, which generally serves to act as a guide to point the recently deceased in the direction of their next life, is a life affirming work. When I facilitate communication between the living and the dead, this is also life affirming most of the time. The messages from the dead to the living concern how to live a better, more enriched, and more prosperous life. They are passing on lessons from their own lives and from what they can see in their new perspective as the dead.

And the dead can see this world in ways that we can not. Their messages generally are for us to cherish life as we have it and not to fear death because death is a part of life. I've wandered a bit afield from where I started. As I said earlier, not all mediums are necromancers. But most of the modern necromancers you see in the public eye are mediums. They use their skills to facilitate messages from the dead to the living.

Thoughts on Necromancy for the Intermediate Witch

Dear Reader,

I'm taking a break from my manuscript to type up this post. (Partly because I'm about to go cross eyed from going over my notes and partly because the notebook I was writing in has spontaneously begun to come apart for no apparent reason. Thus, I have started the process of typing that monster up.)

If you are wondering, I'm a necromancer. That doesn't mean that I play around with dead bodies. That's a necrophiliac. I suppose in polite company, one would call me a medium that specializes in contact with the deceased. I prefer to call a spade a spade and own the term necromancer. Spirit contact is a skill pretty much anyone can pick up with some time and patience. The thing with necromancy is you have a few basic guidelines you need to remember.

Point the first: they are dead for a reason. Perhaps that reason is that they passed peacefully in their sleep at a nice age of 98 and a half years old, surrounded by loving family. More likely, they passed by way of some manner of misadventure. Most misadventures happen because somebody did something stupid and dangerous. The deceased may have been a hapless bystander to the lethal misadventure consequences or they may have been the one who did the deadly dumb thing. Either way, remember that they're dead for a reason and they may not be entirely upfront about that reason.

Point the second: they are not always going to be 'nice' or 'good'. When you die, you die. You don't change into another person immediately and your root characteristics are going to stick around for a while on your soul until you're ready to move on to your next life. That means the person who was an unsavory, smarmy character in life is quite likely to be the same scumbag in death. There are some who realize the errors of their ways during incarnation and make a complete 180 in their behavior. They are the exception, not the rule.

Point the third: there are going to be dead people with agendas out there and are going to try to get you involved in them (with or without your consent). The dead who interact with the living usually have something they want to get done. They are as inclined to manipulate information and what they present about themselves as they are motivated to get the thing done. Some may do it by way of trying to scare you into doing what they want. Some are going to do it by trying to charm or guilt you into it. Either way, they have an agenda. Especially when they come looking for you to pass on a message of some sort. Remember, you don't have to go along with their agenda. As an embodied being, you are actually pretty well off in this case if you decide to tell the dead to go bug somebody else. There's a reason why they can't just reach through the veil and pick you up by the scruff of the neck. They don't have a body to do it.

It's almost Samhain/Halloween/Tamala. A lot of people want to try necromancy around this time of year because the cultural attitude in the western world says that this is the time of year for it. Just be careful if you are going to try it out. Remember, there are as many good people as there are bad people in this world, living or dead. And always, always use magical protection when you are trying out necromancy. Because the dead are not the only spirits out there and the other spirits are just as, if not more, manipulative when it comes to their agendas. No matter how big and spooky the spirit appears, you are in control of the situation. You can order them to run back off to the left corner of Hel just as easily as you can summon them from it.

Intermediate Witchcraft: Psychic Safety Lessons

Here is a link to the posts on psychic safety. I will be posting on psychic safety in the future something like a series of lectures on how the mechanics of some of this stuff works. Because if you know how your equipment works, it is easier to service and use it properly. I'll be getting into some weird topics like egregores eventually. I'm going to start out with the nuts and bolts level of basic magical 'machines'.

If we were talking about actual machines, this would be my showing you how hammers, saws, and levers work. The previous posts are simple exercises using those proverbial hammers, saws, and levers. Egregores^* and related topics would be the simple computers of magical construction. Now, just as tools can be used for various purposes beyond what they were originally intended and in the hands of a creative and properly motivated person anything can be a weapon, I know that these lessons can be taken in directions beyond what I am promoting.

Anything you do with this information is on you. Caveat emptor. I am the writer who produces the spell book. You are the one who decides if it is a coffee table book or a tool. And what you do with said tool is your karmic and moral responsibility.

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* Somewhere, I know, there is a ceremonial magician ready to pull their hair out right now. Homonculi, egregores, and tulpa are on one level more complicated than computers and at the same time, they're very simple. So, I apologize to the ceremonial magicians who are probably just this side of a meltdown over this eventually coming up. You're not the only keepers of this knowledge and I assure you that my path to it is different from yours.

Basic Necromancy - Evocation Rules.

As I have mentioned elsewhere on this blog, I am a necromancer. This generally means I conduct divination by way of dealing with the dead. I have a few specific ways I do it. There are, however, some rules that I follow that make what ever method I use safe and effective.

• Never summon what you can't put down
• Control the space and conversation
• Control the spirit's range of effect (summoning circles)
• Have clear beginning and ending of session
• Cleanse the location of session before and after session to establish neutral energy levels

Some of these things are lessons that have been handed down since antiquity in the lore surrounding dealing with spirits and the dead. Summoning someone (or something) that is more than you can handle leads to problems. Poltergeist problems, to be specific. If you don't want random ghostly activity because the spirit was bored and decided to get your attention by flicking that box of popsicles you picked up at the store on to the floor before you got it in the freezer, make a point of laying them to rest at the end of your session. Otherwise you may have an unintended house guest for a while who randomly pranks you for their amusement.

Controlling the conversation and where the conversation happens is important when dealing with anyone you are not intimately familiar with. You don't know if they will be hostile towards you or not. You may have little to no idea what they are seeking out of the exchange. Treat the situation as a negotiation of a business arrangement. Controlling the space is equally important. Having clearly established boundaries and rules of conduct ensures that all parties involved in the discussions know what is expected and what is going to be tolerated. Leaving things open ended can make for a very unpleasant necromancy session.

Summoning circles are a traditional tool for controlling the space that the spirit can influence. Most of the folklore about summoning circles is pretty accurate. Summoning circles serve both as a containment system for potentially hostile spirits and a doorway for the spirit to travel into our plane for manifestation. When I use a summoning circle, I use a double set this way if one fails there is a second in place to maintain security. This provides for the safety of all parties because spirits that are manifested on the physical plane are vulnerable. The barrier of the summoning circle helps protect the spirit as much as it protects the people.

As with all magical rituals, a clear beginning and ending of the ritual is an absolute must. This helps us orient to and from magical work. It also allows us to stabilize the magical systems we'ere working with so that things to go too haywire when we're finished. A concrete beginning and end of a ritual provides structure to help the ritual function properly.

Cleansing the location before and after a ritual helps ensure that the location is magically neutral. This is good because it limits external influence upon your ritual and limits the unintended effects of your ritual upon the area. It is also just practical and responsible.

Divination: Reading Tarot Example.

I realized in my process of presenting information about tarot reading, I didn't give any examples. So, here is an example of a three card spread that I did for myself.

I realized in my process of presenting information about tarot reading, I didn't give any examples. So, here is an example of a three card spread that I did for myself. This is a spread that is like my usual three card with the card at the extreme left as the past card, the center card as the present, and the card at the extreme right as the future. There is one small difference here, however, which is this spread is being used as a form of spirit communication with the deceased. As I shuffled the cards, I asked the spirit of Stargazer what she felt I needed to know right now.

This was her answer. (A side note, this is the same style of deck that she had and I had admired it greatly. After she passed on, I missed her greatly. Then Beloved was moved to buy this precise deck, unaware that this was the precise deck that Stargazer traded so many readings with me. It was an unexpected touchstone from two individuals that I love deeply.)

Deck: Deviant Moon Tarot by Patrick Valenza

The first card is the Magician. It isn't that clear in this picture, but he has multiple arms. This is something I haven't seen in any other deck. He is literally doing ALL THE THINGS. This is a card that speaks of not merely having ability but mastery and skill. In this reading, the card tells me that I have the abilities that I have been doubting in myself.

The second card is Judgment. It is usually a card indicating a matter of justice or something karmic. Here is the deal, though, with myself and this card. It always indicates something is going on that involves my true self. Here, I'm being reminded to trust in myself and who/what I am.

The third card is the World. This is a card of great success. It is a message that all things shall be well and I can achieve what I am trying to do. There's other layers to this meaning, but they're much more personal.

But, here's an example of a three card tarot reading for you. :)

Remember the Dead

Today is Memorial day here in the US of A. There was a parade down the main street here in town. The kids were thrilled to see the fire trucks and the marching band. They were befuddled by the ceremony held at the memorial plaque out in front of the fires station. I did my best to convey to them that it was important to remember the dead. They understood, to some extent, that the wreaths placed there were gifts to the dead to honor them. They're familiar with the concept of giving offerings to the gods, so an offering to the dead was a logical extension that was easy for them to grasp.

At one point, my youngest looked up at me and asked why it was important to remember the dead. My answer was that they gave a lot to provide for the living and remembering them is a way to honor them and thank them. I looked around at the people in my community and I found myself feeling mixed emotions. On one hand, they were all quite happy to watch the parade and fell respectfully silent when the ritual obligations of speaking solemn words and laying wreaths were performed. At the same time, there was a prevailing opinion that today's observances were about venerating the people who died for our 'freedom' and a great deal of political quarterbacking was going on.

I may offend some folks with this, but not everyone who died in the military died for our freedom. It has been a very long time since that happened. Their deaths served diverse things, often political games of the day. The nationalist blabber that I heard to either side of me as I stood on the side of the parade route made me feel a heavy sense of sorrow. The song being sold by the politicians right now is not the truth and it sullies the sacrifices made by these people. Each member of the military died for reasons given by the government, yes, and much of that is propaganda. But more of them died for the sake of brotherhood.

Talk with any person who served in combat and they'll tell you more about death for the sake of keeping your team mates alive than they'll tell you about death for the sake of some lofty ideal. Oh yes, there is this ideal that moves men to march to war and press through the grist mill of combat. The ideal changes of each war but the rank and file are not concerned about the ideal that brought about the conflict once they are in the heat of battle. No, they are on the killing fields doing their best to complete the task given to them and keep themselves alive as they do so.

Remember the dead. The military dead were sent into war for reasons that even today may be questioned. This does not diminish their sacrifice. The dead of the Union and Confederate armies lie with equal honor in the Earth. They died, as all who go into battle have, doing their best to keep their honor and their company hale. They are not unique. All of the military deaths have provided the rivers of blood that tempered the mettle of the nation into what it is today. Let us remember them and honor their sacrifice. We, their descendants, would be wise to do so.

Let us remember the sacrifices that were made to forge the world we live in today. And let us remember them as we make our own sacrifices to shape the future and learn from the wisdom of the past.

Video Post - Two for One day!

I encourage everyone to be safe and smart with their magical workings this time of year. The waning moon throws a lot more energy into 'dark' workings than usual because of its proximity to Samhain/Tamala/Halloween. The psychic tides are still fairly high because of the recent full moon. If you are going to be doing magic over the next several days, make sure that your personal protections are firmly in place and you are following your procedures closely.

Remember, every action produces a chain of effects. Somewhere along the line, some of those effects are going to include you.What ever magical working you do over the next little while, make sure that you are prepared to handle those consequences. Also, all of the safety measures you take with dealing with invoking the dead should be taken in dealing with spiritual beings. More about this in the next video below.

This is the time of year that many people will try out evocation for the first time. Generally, the first attempt at evocation is necromancy because they're trying to summon the dead. Evocation is not as hard as some people would describe it. The truly challenging part is discerning if the being answering the call is whom you summoned. This is one of the reasons why necromancers prefer to use something that had a connection with the dead. It can be anything from a lock of hair to a gift they had given the client or a prayer card. The item works as a beacon and strengthens the call to that specific spirit.

Be advised, there is a change that what answers the call is not necessarily who you intended to summon. Most of the time, the imposters are there to play some sort of a joke or other wise present something false but relatively harmless. There are times, however, that a truly malevolent entity will seek to cause distress and harm to the unwary practitioners. This is why it is vitally important that you keep your personal safety protections in place and keeping your ritual space well protected as well. This is the reason why so many occult practitioners use a magic circle. It acts as a sphere of protection for all who are within it.

There are three rules to evocation.

1. Don't call up what you can not lay to rest.
2. Be precise in your summoning. The more detailed and specific your evocation, the better.
3. Don't jump to do whatever the one you summoned tells you to do. Use your critical reasoning skills. Think before you act.

Spirits, spirits everywhere. And not enough to drink.

My home has been referred to by my psychic friends as the spectral airport or the psychic UN. To say that there is a lot of paranormal activity is a little bit of an understatement. I know part of this is due to the fact that the building we live in is haunted. The ghost that haunts the building seems to favor our apartment. He (because I think it is a masculine spirit) generally just hangs around. He doesn't talk much or make himself visible to me. But he makes his presence known by moving stuff around or casting a shadow where there is no one standing there.

I know that he has a sense of humor, though. He pranked my husband. The ghost stood in the doorway to our bedroom. Beloved woke up from his nap and saw a shadowy male figure standing in the doorway. He jumped out of bed as the figure moved away. I was out with the kids grocery shopping when this happened. When I got home and was unlocking the door, Beloved whipped the door open, hoping to surprise the interloper. I was startled and then confused why he was skulking around the apartment with a knife in hand.

And he's pranked me as well. I was in the middle of cooking dinner and heard the front door close. I didn't look up from what I was doing, but I asked Beloved to hand me something that was sitting on the counter behind me. When nothing happened, I looked over and saw that no one was standing there. I asked my kids (who were watching a video at the time) if they had opened and shut the door. They looked at me as though I had lost my mind. It was about a half hour later that Beloved got home from work.

This sort of sets the tone for the dead around me. They're generally easy going and have a sense of humor. When I forget my offerings, they sometimes prank me to remind me that I forgot them. It is usually something along the lines of a small item vanishing from where it was supposed to be to somewhere else rather strange but obvious. Like when my car keys disappeared from their hook and ended up on the top shelf of the bookcase, which the kids can't reach.

Sometimes they're helpful too. Like the time when I found money on at their shrine when no one had put any there. Or when a previously empty container of coffee creamer is magically half full when I go to make coffee for everyone. Because my dead, Loki, Beloved, and myself are all powered by coffee. It is little things, but those little things are what helps make life interesting around my house.

And the dead here is not just my dead. I have had many just passing through on their way somewhere else but stopping to ask me to pass on a message. Or stopping because they heard good things about my house. Some days, to me, the house is full of noise and activity. Someone else looks about and the place is pretty quiet. But on that psychic level, I have a full house with friends greeting friends and ancestors popping in to check on their descendants.

I do my best to enforce frith in my home between all that would be here. It makes me happy that my dead, the housewights (because there is more than one here), and the landwights help me keep it. There have been times where my guests start getting snippy towards each other or get close to a fight. They are always asked to be more civil in their disagreement and escorted out when they can't do it. I think it is part of the reason why I get so many visitors. Because it is a place of neutral ground that pretty much anyone is welcome as long as they abide by my rules.

But some days, it is noisy and very active. Those days, I make my cup of coffee and I have no less than four beings asking for some of it. And when I start cooking, I will get a laundry list of tips and commentary on how I'm doing it. On those days, I sometimes wish I could just turn off my psychic gifts. Because it is hard to concentrate with a whole chorus of people talking.

Witchy Life - The dead of the Great Lakes, remember them.

I thought about it last week, and I realized that I really should start telling you about what it is like in my life. More specifically, I should let you know about some of the weird, wonderful, and witchy things that happen around here on a daily basis. I don't know how my experiences will compare with someone else's but that will be shown eventually, I suppose.

As I may have mentioned earlier, I am a necromancer. Some people get alarmed when I say that. They assume that I am playing around in graveyards, desecrating the resting places of the dead, and generally doing gruesome things. That isn't exactly what happens. Have I done magic involving death? Yes. I have even performed a ritual wherein something was killed for the purpose of the spell. (It was a mosquito, by the way. When I need to do some sort of spell where death is involved, I opt for lifeforms that are generally pests. Most often, it is some insect, like the mosquito. And, no, I don't do those rituals often.)

Have I done magic in a graveyard? Yes. It was an evocation of a dead man's spirit for the sake of getting information. Offerings were given and he was paid for his time. (Payment being the cleaning up of his grave site and encouraging others to tend the graveyard.) Most of my time, I am involved with evocation on a case by case basis. Usually, the dead come to me with out much coaxing. I think it is because they get lonely and yearn for contact with the living. If you can hear them, then they'll show up and talk your ear off, unless you set some boundaries.

I think the most memorable example of an evocation was one that happened on the shores of lake Ontario a little over ten years back. I had gone to the lake with some friends around the time of Samhain. While they were busy marveling at the waves coming up from the brisk breeze, I decided that I was going to call out to the dead who were beneath the waters. I silently asked for one of them to come and tell me what might be done to honor them where they lay.

Honoring the dead is a big thing for me. I have an ancestor shrine where I interact with my ancestors every day. I give them offerings, talk to them about what is going on in life, and generally treat them as members of my family, because they are. This will play into my story, trust me. I had wandered off away from the group a little bit after my call to the dead.

I found myself standing at a spot where there was dead fish, seaweed, and a dead gull. It smelled appropriately awful. I was about to go back to the group when I heard him. He was an older man. His manner of dress put him somewhere in the 19th century as a laborer of some sort. I think he worked on one of the ships that crossed the lake back then. He was dressed for the weather with a heavy sweater and a knitted cap, both dark blue. His pants were a tan color and he was wearing boots. He had grey eyes and a full, bushy black beard.

As he stepped out from behind the outcropping of rock I was near, I was a little surprised. I honestly didn't expect anything to come from my call. But, as I was making ready to go back to the group I was with, I heard him say, "Wait a minute." Then he stepped out from behind the rocks and stood in the one clear spot in the middle of all the dead things. "You wanted to see me?" he said, sounding mildly surprised.

I asked him if his rest was peaceful. He shrugged and responded, "Peaceful as it can be. The waters are never still. Old bones lie deep but they get disturbed." I then asked him what I could do to make his repose and that of his fellows in the lake better, more comforting. I asked him what the living could do to make sure that the dead got their due. He looked genuinely surprised and touched by my question.

He said something about how he had been there for a hundred years (this was in the late 90s) and no one ever spoke to them. He insisted that there was nothing that they needed, that they were as well as they would be. I pressed the issue and after a sigh, he said, very simply, "Remember us. No one remembers us anymore. Lake Erie, they remember the Edmund Fitzgerald, but no one else." I was going to ask him how he wanted to be remembered but I got distracted by my friends calling to me. When I looked back, he was gone.

Every year in October, I remember him and all the dead of the Great Lakes. I want to do something more for them, but life always gets complicated and I can't find the time to get up to the lake. Or I run out of candles. Or something else goes sideways and I just don't have the means to do more than remember them. I think he is the reason why that happens.

He was a very quiet, humble man who died just doing his job. All he really wanted to do was to do his job and live a quiet life. I think the idea of my giving offerings or doing more than simply remembering them strikes him as too frivolous. But, when the autumn storms start to roll across the lakes, I remember them. One of these days, I will get up there again. And I will pour out a bottle of beer for them. Because I'm stubborn and I think he may be willing to share a drink for another conversation.

Necromancy: How to lay spirits to rest

At some point, just about any witch or magic worker encounters a situation where the spirit of a deceased being must be 'laid to rest' and encouraged to move along their journey through the otherworld. One may wonder, why the deceased don't automatically go to their next destination (be it reincarnation, a place of repose, or something else). Sometimes, the dead get 'stuck' on their transition. If the death is particularly traumatic, the deceased may hang on to what they can of life because of anxiety about the transition they have experienced. This is also true if the deceased has an exceptional focus upon elements of their life that they refuse to surrender. These two things are the most common reasons for hauntings.¹

Laying a spirit to rest is not exactly the same as an exorcisim. An exorcism is a forcible ejection of a spirit from a location usually accompanied with a binding and counter magic to keep the spirit from returning. Laying a spirit to rest has a vaguely similar goal to exorcisim, which is moving a spirit out of a location where they're not supposed to be. That, however, is where the similarity between the two rites end. In the case of laying a spirit to rest, the main thrust of the ritual is to help the spirit resolve what ever business they have keeping them tied to the physical plane and assist them in continuing on their journey.

The first step in most rituals involving spirits after the general format of establishing ritual space is to invoke the practitioner's spiritual allies. This can be anything from praying to their patron deities, asking the wights of the location to aid them, calling on their ancestors for help, or appealing to other spiritual beings that are friendly towards the practitioner and willing to assist them in the process. It is important to have help from friendly spirits because it helps to establish your control over the situation. While the force of your will does have a mighty impact upon the situation, the aid of spiritual allies acts as a safety net to help you keep control over the situation. They also provide the service of letting the other spirit know that things are not completely out of control because there are others who have more experience there to show them the proverbial ropes.²

Once the location is prepped and all spiritual allies are in place, the practitioner summons the spirit. Summoning spirits is not something I am keen on but this is one instance where summoning is vital to success. Formal summonings can include offerings to the deceased alongside invocations. All the bells and whistles that you can think of for a ceremonial summoning of a spirit can be used here. Or, you can go with the most basic and just do a direct invocation of the deceased.

After you have the spirit present, it is good to have a conversation with them. Talk to them and learn why they are lingering. Learn what they need to continue on their journey. Learn what troubles them about said journey. If they have desires or requests that must be met before they can move forward, make sure that they are reasonable and can be met. If they can not, negotiate an acceptable alternative. Remember that the goal is to get the spirit to a point where they are willing and able to transition to their next step in their journey after death.

In your discussion, present the needs, desires, and requests of the living who are impacted by the spirit's presence. Inform the spirit what they can do to rectify problems from their end of the situation. It may be that the spirit has no desire to move out and wishes to remain in the location as a wight associated with it. Part of the goal of the practitioner is to facilitate a smooth working relationship between the living and the dead. To be successful at this, one must keep the non-negotiable elements of the situation in mind and make clear to the spirit that these are points that one will not bend on. Like the living, there are spirits who will take advantage of any perceived loopholes and weaknesses in the agreement to get what they want out of the situation for the least amount of effort.

Now, if the discussion reveals that the spirit needs certain objectives completed before they can depart, establish a plan for having those objectives completed. When presenting the completion of those objectives as part of the agreement for the spirit's departure, make certain that you make those objectives dependent upon the spirit's departure. If you present the situation as 'when you leave, XYZ will be taken care of' rather than 'XYZ will be done and you can leave' it shows the spirit that in order to have their needs and desires met, they must comply with the directive to exit.

Some spirits will depart immediately after this arrangement is established. Others will need some guidance to do so. There are many different meditations that can be used to assist them in the process (spirits meditate too!) but all of them have the spirit moving along some sort of path to a destination. Trust the spirits and allies that you have with you to help the spirit that is being laid to rest along their journey to their destination. Your job is simply to get them on the path. The others will take care of the rest.

With the close of the ritual, thank your allies. Cleanse the area and make a point of restoring it to an energetically 'neutral' state. This makes the place less inviting for the spirit to return and take up residence again. It would be like having all of your stuff moved out of your apartment after you left. Living there again would take work to make it comfortable and functional for you. Some also choose to do protection magic to maintain the location as a spiritual neutral ground and keeping unwanted entities out. This would be the equivalent of locking the door to said apartment and arming the security system.

And that is how you lay a spirit to rest, in a very general format. If you need direction for specific cases, message me. I will try to make some posts for the most common situations that come up in the messages. I will also message you back with some suggestions for your situation. Please be patient, however, because there will be some delay in replies right now.

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1. I will be giving a more complete discussion of hauntings at a later date. It may be after September, depending on if I have the opportunity to get the work done on the post. This particular post has been in various stages of development since mid-April. If you have any questions regarding hauntings, post them in the comments or send them to me. In any email, note Veiled Witch as part of your subject line, this way it doesn't get dropped into the spam folder.

2. Not all spirits will be psychopomps but they'll help the spirit in question to get a hold of one 95% of the time. That other 5% of the time, they do something but I can't tell you what exactly it is. I ask my guides and they just say that they 'take care of it' and nothing more.

Honoring the Ancestors.

In my home, I have a small shrine to my ancestors and beloved dead. It is nothing fancy but it serves an important function. My shrine (which now includes a prayer card for my recently deceased paternal grandmother) is a place where I interact with the dead who are close to my heart and who have come before me. It is a place where I may honor them and give them gifts. It is, I hope, going to be a place where my sons will come to cherish as they learn the value of honoring their ancestors.

Some people would argue that it is foolish to keep a shrine to the dead. These are often the same people who get uncomfortable when you mention anything that is not Anglo-Saxon Protestant Christianity. It is important, however, to know your roots and where you come from. It is important to honor those who came before you and laid the groundwork for your very existence. As one random person on the internet said, "You are the result of the love of thousands."

Sometimes the ancestors who are close to you in time are not people you wish to interact with. That's ok. Because for every ancestor who was a rotten person, there is another who was a very good one. You may not know those ancestors' names. Don't let that stop you from expressing your appreciation for them. Don't let it stop you from seeking out their assistance and wisdom. Just as the gods communicate with us by way of signs, so too does the dead. Some people are lucky enough to psychically see the ones who wish to communicate with them or to 'hear' their voice. Most people, however, get their messages by way of synchronicity and random happenstances that only make sense in the context of their perspective.

Honoring your ancestors brings them comfort of knowing that they are not forgotten in this world. Giving them gifts and offerings (such as flowers, food, and drink) makes the spirit world easier for them and a happier place. It also opens the bridge between you wider because it makes you more receptive to their efforts to communicate. Your ancestors want to interact with you. They want to know that they are remembered in this world and they want to help you achieve the greatest good you can in your life. They want to see you successful and happy, because that strengthens the line and leads to greater success in future descendents.

A Necromancy Ritual

This is a ritual that I have used in the past when I felt the need to contact a departed soul. It is quite a bit like most invocations. It is important to maintain a 'containment' space for what you summon. This is because things masquerading as the person whose spirit you are attempting to contact will arrive sometimes. Not all of these false spirits are benevolent towards those who performed the invocation. In fact, there's a good likelihood that the spirit is not kindly towards people who perform summonings. This is where the stories of haunted Ouija boards start.

As much as I abhor the concept of 'cook book witchcraft' I find that laying out the steps and process of doing a spell like a recipe works out really well. I ask that you forgive my brief foray into the Martha Stewart of occult world for the sake of easier to read format.

Items Needed:
1 candle
Salt
Item with strong association with the soul you wish to contact
Method to light candle
Divination tool of choice (I like tarot cards for this purpose.)

Working:
1. Make a circle with your salt. As you do so, envision a sphere of power being built with the level you are on being the center. You may wish to invoke guardian spirits to make the circle of power such that anything summoned can not exit it with out your command.

2. Rub the candle with the item you associate with the soul you wish to contact. As you do so, envision some of that person's essence being imparted into the candle.

3. Place the candle in the center of the circle.

4. Intone the following: [person's name] I summon you from eternal repose. Come forth, come forth, come forth.

5. While chanting the above, light the candle.

6. Inform the soul you summoned that you wish to speak with them. Hold up your divination tool. Inform them that this is the method they can use to reply to you.

7. Ask 3 simple yes/no questions that has a decided answer which you know. Check your divination tool to establish what is a positive and a negative response.

8. Method of communication established and clarified, proceed to your questions, comments, or concerns that you wish to discuss.

9. When finished with your discussion, intone the following: [person's name] I return you to eternal repose. Go back, go back, go back.

10. Extinguish the candle. Sweep up your salt and throw it away. Return your divination tool to a 'neutral' state and ground yourself.

Elementary Necromancy (Or how to talk to the dead)

Say the word necromancy and the Hollywood stereotypes pop up. Visions of hooded robes, blood sacrifice, and grave robbing will undoubtedly come up at some point early in the discussion. Necromancy, however, is something different from what the entertainment industry portrays it as. The term necromancy is defined by the Mirram-Webster dictionary as: 

1.) conjuration of the spirits of the dead for purposes of magically revealing the future or influencing the course of events 

2.) magic, sorcery

Necromancy is often considered to be an 'evil' art. Lurid tales of necromancers engaged in nefarious activities have abounded since the rise of Christendom during the late Roman Empire and the ban upon magical studies that was imposed during this period. Necromancy, however, has been practiced for as long as humanity has existed and is even still present in modern society. Many people seek the services of a necromancer with out realizing it, and in many cases the necromancer in question not realizing said term applies to them.

Many of the psychics who speak with the spirits of the dead are, by definition, necromancers. Because the term is loaded with many negative connotations, these psychics shy away from it and use the more neutral term 'medium' in its place. If you use the term necromancer or medium, the basic elements of the practices are virtually unchanged from antiquity. There are two different general categories of necromancy. One is organic and the other is ritual.

Organic necromancy comes as a result of the necromancer having an innate talent for sensing and communicating with the deceased. The person who receives psychic visions of the dead or may hear them with out any ritual to assist them is an organic necromancer. While modern psychics make organic necromancy seem to be common place, it is a less common psychic skill then what the media portrays it. Incidents of empathy (in the psychic sense) and precognition are far more common, though less discussed in the general public because they are not as popular in the media.

Ritual necromancy requires the necromancer in question to use a ritual to establish connection and communication with the dead. Ritual necromancy is by far the version that is portrayed most often in the media. Rituals vary from the extremely simple to the elaborately complex. All rituals can be examined from the most basic and common components.

1.  Statement of intent & establishment of working space. While this step is not practiced in all cases of ritual necromancy, it is among one of the oldest used. The use of a ritual space to 'contain' the spirits summoned is frequently said to be a holdover from ceremonial magicians of the Enlightenment era and late medieval period, but there are signs that this practice is rooted in antiquity. From what I have been able to establish in my research on ancient necromancy rituals, there is a distinct practice of establishing a space where the spirits of the dead are housed. This comes out of the acknowledgement that not all spirits of the dead are kindly inclined towards humanity and can potentially prove dangerous to the summoner.
2. Entering into a receptive trance state. This can be accomplished by any number of means. Modern necromancers in the U.S.A. tend to rely heavily upon self-hypnosis. There is, however, an established tradition of using consciousness altering substances. Several of the herbs traditionally associated with European witchcraft, such as mugwort, have mild to significant psychoactive properties that will alter the user's perception of the world upon ingestion or other methods of consumption.
3. Establishing contact with the dead. The establishment of contact in ritual necromancy is often a summoning of the deceased's spirit. Some rituals use something that has an energetic tie to the dead. This can range from an item that the dead carried on their person on a regular basis to fingernail clippings to soil from their grave site. The use of the item with the energetic tie is to strengthen the focus of the summoning and give the ritual greater 'pull' in drawing the spirit to the practitioner. Other rituals the summoning does not use anything that has had physical contact with the deceased. 
4. Communication. This is, quite simply, your conversation with the dead. This can happen via many different mediums. A popular one used since the early 19th century is the famous Ouija board (known then as the talking board or the spirit board). Pendulums can be used for simple yes/no questions. Tarot decks and other divination tools can also be used for more complex questions.
5. Dismissal of the dead. This is the point where the persons enacting the ritual have completed their business with the spirit of the dead and dismisses them. It is important to use this step because hauntings have resulted from persons not properly breaking contact with the spirits they have summoned.
6. Reestablishment of 'normal' consciousness. Equally important is the return to 'normal' consciousness after any sort of magical endeavor. It is not only good practice but it makes it easier for the necromancer to not be bothered by other spirits as they go about their day. Sometimes, the dead can be quite chatty and they'll make a point of trying to get the attention of someone they can tell has any sort of ability to perceive them.

If one wishes to undertake a simple foray into necromancy, it is better to seek out the assistance of someone who has skill in this area. When done improperly, necromancy can become problematic. The dead are not always kindly towards the living. Sometimes, they will cause problems for them for reasons that we can not fathom. These problems might manifest as small items going missing (such as your keys disappearing from where you put them EVERY day) to technology going haywire or items being manipulated (your radio keeps turning itself on but it's mechanically sound, for example). In the event of such a situation, one should seek the assistance of a person who can perform an exorcism or otherwise lay said spirit to rest. 

A Shrine for the Beloved Dead.

There are many reasons a person would set up a shrine for their beloved dead. One common reason is to honor the deceased and the relationship that you had with them in this life. Many people believe that the dead have the capacity to influence the world and to petition on the behalf of the living with the deities. Some shrines are elaborate affairs and maintained by the community. This would include things such as memorial garden established in the community, a memorial monument, such as the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, or a graveyard. Other shrines are very private and simple. This could be a collection of photos of the dead, the regular placement of flowers, and the burning of incense or candles.

Most commonly, people will honor their ancestors and departed friends. There is, however, an established habit of roadside shrines being hastily constructed by the community for persons who died of violence or from a particularly egregious car accident. One does not need to only focus on the dead whom they are related to or have had some sort of personal connection to during their lifetime. It is also possible to honor deceased persons who have been highly influential in one's life by way of their works or otherwise have made an impressionable impact on their life. There is also a sub-practice of establishing a memorial shrine that includes deceased pets.

The simplest ancestor shrine is the placement of a memento or an item that symbolizes the dead. More complex shrines can be made into free standing structures or special cases that hold mementos of the dead and offerings to the dead. My personal ancestors shrine consists of a shelf. On that shelf is an assortment of items that I associate with my familial dead and deceased friends. There is a small vase which I will put an offering of flowers in on a regular basis. I also have an electric candle that I keep lit all the time for them as well. (The lit candle, in my usage, is a beacon that helps the bring the kindly dead to me and show my beloved dead that they are welcome in my home.) I also have a little box that I will put physical offerings in.


As you may have intuited, one may leave offerings for the dead. There are a variety of ways to do this. One can lay flowers at the deceased's grave site. This is a very common offering for the dead. Another thing that can be done is to light candles or burn incense for the dead. The candles are found quite frequently in Christian Catholic influenced settings and faith systems (such as Santeria or Voudon). The practice of burning incense for the dead has been done as long as there has been recording of people burning incense. There are some people who will give food offerings to the dead. (In urban America, there is a semi-regular practice of pouring out a bottle of alcohol in memory of the dead.)

In addition to leaving offerings for the dead, a person can pray to and commune with the dead. This is actually a very common practice. Within Christian belief systems, one will find frequent reference to praying to persons who have deceased and believed to have joined the company of their deity in the paradise referred to as Heaven. The Catholic community refers to these deceased persons as saints. (Saint is a generic term for the deceased who are in good standing within the faith. Saint as a title refers to deceased persons who are especially blessed and believed to have considerable intercessory powers and capable of performing miracles for those who petition them.) Praying to the dead and giving them offerings is a practice that helps strengthen familial ties and bolster one's sense of filial duty, when the veneration focuses specifically upon family.

Maintaining a shrine for the dead can be quite complicated. At it's core, maintaining a shrine requires the regular cleansing of the shrine and ensuring it is in good condition. It also includes the disposal of the remains of offerings in a fashion that is in proper accordance with the beliefs of the persons who are maintaining the shrine.