Necromancy, from the Greek nekromantía, meaning, “dead divination,” is a form of fortune telling where a person seeks to summon the spirit of a deceased person. The earliest record of such practices was fictionalized in one of the earliest novels, the Mesopotamian Epic of Gilgamesh. The 15 Sumerian tablets outline the adventures of the fifth Sumerian king, Gilgamesh, ruling circa 2650 BC. The tablets tell that the king traveled to summon his deceased friend, Enkidu, spirit to ask him what it was like in the afterlife.
The Greek historian and philosopher Strabo recorded that the belief was widespread through Persia, Chaldea, Etruria, and Babylonia. But, the practice was also widespread in ancient Greece. Homer recorded such legends in his epic poem the Odyssey when Odysseus traveled to the underworld to summon the soul of Tiresias to ask questions about his future. Tiresias, however, was a common title given to any fortuneteller in those times. This legend was retold in 1 Samuel 28: 4–25, in which King Saul of Israel has the Witch of Endor to call up the spirit of the recently deceased prophet Samuel for advice, even though the Book of Deuteronomy strictly wars against using the Canaanite practice of summoning the dead. Another example of kings using necromancy appears in Norse mythology in the epic poem the Prophecy of the Seeress; the father-god Odin summons the spirit of a deceased seeress to foretell the future.
It seems during medieval times that the literate and elite were the ones simultaneously practicing and condemning necromancy. Evidence that Christian officials were involved in these “dark arts” is apparent in grimoires, or medieval textbooks on magic full of prayers to God for protection from demonic entities the practitioner was trying to summon from the book. The Grand Grimoire, for example was originally written in Italian in the 13th century and gives instructions on conjuring the spirit of a deceased person.
The French occultist Eliphas Lévi (born Alphonse Louis Constant) designated a whole section in his book Transcendental Magic, its Doctrine and Ritual, published in 1854, to necromancy. He relates his experiences when a mysterious, wealthy woman asked him to summon up the spirit of the great ancient magician Apollonius of Tyana. Though she was not able to attend the rite perfumed with deadly, hallucinogenic herbs, Eliphas Lévi is successful, but is left with a numb arm for days after when the spirit touched him.
