The Witches' Book of the Dead (14 page)

Mediumship grew even more popular in the wake of World War I, as the grieving sought to find their loved ones in the afterlife. By the mid-twentieth century, however, public interest dropped considerably, and mediumship fell back into the dark séance parlors, occult classes, and psychic readings where it had thrived before. It remained a focus of Spiritualism, but that religion, too, waned in popularity.

Its popularity may wax and wane, but mediumship will never disappear. As we have seen in our tour of Witches in history, those who can talk to the dead are always in demand.

Spirit Medium Helen Duncan Frees the Witches

Helen Duncan, born in Scotland in 1898, was a popular physical medium in Britain in the mid-twentieth century. She was arrested, charged, tried, and convicted under old anti-witchcraft laws that were still on the books in Scotland.

Duncan worked as a medium and gave readings involving messages from the dead. During World War II, Duncan was sought out by the grieving, and she traveled all over Britain to conduct séances. In 1941, an innocent reading landed her in legal trouble. She made contact with a dead sailor and identified his ship by name: the HMS
Barham
. This was a blow to the family, for they did not know that the ship had been sunk—the government had kept the news silent in a misguided effort to keep public morale high.

Duncan's news leaked out, and the embarrassed Admiralty was finally forced to admit that the ship had been lost. As a result, Duncan was monitored by the government for the next two years. During the secret planning of the Allies' D-Day invasion at Normandy, France, the British authorities decided to rein her in—just in case she blew the whistle at another séance. She was arrested and charged under the Vagrancy Act of 1824, which outlawed fortune telling, astrology, and Spiritualism. Convictions usually carried only fines. Seeking more severe measures, the government also charged Duncan under the Witchcraft Act of 1735, which carried the potential of a prison sentence.

Duncan and her three assistants were accused of faking the conjuration of the dead, and of fraudulently taking money for doing so. Duncan went to trial at the Old Bailey in London in 1944. Despite forty witnesses who testified on her behalf, she was convicted and sentenced to nine months in prison. Led away to her cell, she could only mumble about the piles of lies that had been told about her by the authorities.

The media attention on her case captured the interest of Prime Minister Winston Churchill, who demanded to know why the Witchcraft Act of 1735 was still on the books, and why the government was wasting money on “such tomfoolery.” The law was repealed, but not until 1951. Duncan was the last person in Britain to be prosecuted under it. The repeal paved the way for Witches to come out into the open, and the modern religion of Wicca was born.

Duncan may not have called herself a Witch, but she has a unique role in the evolution of modern Witchcraft due to the laws used against her. The
intersections between Spiritualists and Witches are common. I often hire Spiritualists for my annual psychic fair here in Salem for one reason: they are among the best psychics! Like Duncan, many spirit mediums have been persecuted and punished under this law or that, and always by authorities who are afraid of the vast power of seers and sorcerers.

Basic Mediumship

You've already learned the most important piece of mediumship in
chapter 2
: the visionary state. When you can alter your brainwaves to reach into deeper states of consciousness, you are essentially tuning yourself into the spiritual currents that exist just outside of our own—including the Death Current where the spirits dwell. It can be such an incredible experience to tap into the realms of the dead. By doing so, we can feel the joy of knowing that the soul goes on and that death is but a doorway through which we all pass. The technique of mediumship that Shawn taught me was quite simple, so it's something you should be able to use whenever you need to contact the dead.

Before you begin performing any kind of mediumship, you must understand the principles of banishing and exorcism explained in
chapter 5
. This is no joke! Mediumship opens doorways that must be respected; without that respect, the only doorway you'll be opening is one that leads to trouble.

Exercise: Meditation for Mental or Trance Mediumship

Find a comfortable chair and light a white candle that has been dressed with your anointing oil (see
appendix A
). Keep your spine aligned as upright as you can; this creates a flow of energy that runs from deep within the Earth up into the universe itself. Good posture is important for psychic work.

Close your eyes and relax into a deep visionary state. Breathe deeply. Feel the Death Current moving through your body. Become one with the vibrational energies of the dead.

If you are conducting mental mediumship, speak aloud or to yourself,
I prepare myself for mental mediumship. I am a beacon to the spirits of the dead. Let them trust me and speak to me and share their wisdom
.

If you are conducting trance mediumship, speak aloud or to yourself,
I prepare myself for trance mediumship. I am a vessel for the spirits of the dead. Let them speak through me and share their wisdom
.

If you have someone you wish to reach, say aloud or to yourself,
Spirit of [name of spirit], come forth and share your wisdom with [me / us] here
.

Be patient and continue to remain in your visionary state until the spirit comes. This process simply must be
experienced
, for mediumship begins by passively waiting for the spirits to come to you and through you. You may not get results on the first occurrence, but you must not give up. Keep trying over a number of nights, perhaps each Monday night—it is the night of the moon and perfect for psychic work.

Write everything down that you hear, see, or sense. Sometimes, the spirits will show you symbols, visions of things to come, words played across the mental screen of your mind; you may smell unusual scents, hear actual speech, and even feel the sensation of breath or touch. Mediumship can manifest through all of the senses as it is truly the sixth sense.

• • •

8
Necromancy: The World's Most Forbidden Practice

Even more than the word “Witchcraft,” the word “necromancy” conjures all sorts of imagery, much of it terrible—from commanding spirits to digging up corpses, conjuring demons to burrowing through rotting cadavers in search of secrets. The word has evolved over the centuries to include everything from speaking with the dead to summoning the ambassadors of hell. However, the root meaning of necromancy is not so terrible. It comes from the Greek words for death (
necro
) and divination (
mancy
) and most properly refers to prophecies and predictions by means of the dead. But even this definition is as murky as the waters of the river Styx—that fearsome boundary between our world and the realms of the dead. Some describe necromancy as divination via the splaying open of actual corpses. I know many people who hold to this repugnant definition today, and it is certainly not without mythological precedent, as you shall see below. Others point to ancient stories that show necromancy as a form of communication
with the shades—or spectral forms—of the dead, where no corpses are involved. In medieval times, the word “necromancy” became conflated with the word “nigromancy,” or black magic, and so came to represent all manner of the dark arts.

Like the words “Witch” and “Warlock,” necromancy has so many negative connotations that one has to wonder why anyone would use it. I use it for the same reason that I use both Witch and Warlock: It's ballsy. It pushes buttons. It implies something that we have to muster up some courage to use. Besides, I tend to interchange words like “Witchcraft,” “sorcery,” “necromancy,” and even “wizardry.” Each word has unique etymologies that differentiate one from the other, but they all, ultimately, point to one thing: magic-makers. People can call me a Warlock, a Witch, a magician, a wizard, a necromancer, an enchanter, or a sorcerer. It matters little to me what label they give me since they're all calling for the same thing—the power of magic to aid them in their lives. For, ultimately, all of these titles can be traced back to the earliest magical people who were spiritual guides, drawing on the wisdom of the dead to help light the way for their tribes.

Necromancy in Greece

Necromancy, like other magical arts, was practiced widely throughout the ancient world. Since the word has been traced to ancient Greece, it seems wisest to begin by focusing our attentions there, for that land's beliefs about the dead and its necromantic rituals profoundly shaped the practices of Western magic and occultism.

The early Greeks had varying beliefs about death, the dead, and the afterlife, just as modern people do today. We are probably most familiar with the Grecian view of the afterlife as a dreary and dismal place because of descriptions in literary works such as Homer's
Odyssey
, said to be first written as early as the seventh century BCE.

The Greek realm of the dead was the gloomy underworld of Hades. Originally, Hades was not literally beneath the Earth, but across the ocean,
beyond the Western horizon as realms of the dead so often are; in the
Odyssey
, Odysseus sails his ship west to the edges of Hades in order to perform a necromantic ritual to consult the dead at the very edges of the underworld. He never entered, but rather conducted his rituals where the rivers Acheron and Cocytus met. By the sixth century BCE, however, Hades was usually thought to be a subterranean realm. There were also different divisions of the underworld; distinctive places such as Elysium for honored heroes and other blessed souls; and Tartarus, a hellish place where the wicked were punished for their sins against the gods and mankind.

Hades was bounded by five rivers. The best known is the river Styx (“Hate”). The others are the Acheron (“Woe”), the Cocytus (“Wailing”), the Phlegethon (“Flaming”), and the Lethe (“Oblivion” or “Forgetfulness”). From the names, this underworld doesn't sound like a vacation resort. The dead were shepherded to Hades across one of these rivers by Charon, the dreaded ferryman, for a price; hence the custom of burying the dead with a coin under the tongue. They had to pass by the most terrifying guard dog ever known, the mighty Cerberus. Usually said to have three heads, it was Cerberus's job to make sure that only the dead came in, and none of the dead went out. Exceptions were made for heroic journeys, special petitions to chthonic deities, and for the practice of necromancy. When summoned by Witches and other necromancers, the shades of the dead were like prisoners on leave: at the end of their duties, they had to return.

The Greek underworld was named for its master—the god of the dead, Hades. He ruled with his melancholy wife Persephone, daughter of the fertility goddess Demeter, whom he very likely stole at Acheron in Thesprotia. There were other chthonic, or underworld, deities as well, including Thanatos, spirit of death; his twin, Hypnos, the spirit of sleep; and Oneiros, the spirit of dreams. Hermes, who escorted souls to the underworld much like the Egyptian Anubis, had chthonic aspects as well. Hecate, goddess of magic and queen of all witcheries, became known as a chthonic deity in her darker guise. Among the most fearsome of all the denizens of the underworld were the Erinyes, or Furies, named Tisiphone, Megaera, and Alecto, who were
born of the blood spilled from the castrations of Uranus, and who relentlessly pursued and punished the souls of the wicked.

Some of the early Greeks believed that the departed acquired special knowledge in death, especially regarding future events, and could be summoned forth by dark ceremonies that they might impart this knowledge to the living. Necromancy was practiced, but with neither universal acceptance nor approval. In fact, necromancy remains the most forbidden of all magical arts.

Necromancy usually was accomplished with the help of an intermediary, such as an oracle, a priest or priestess, or a Witch. These experts of the unknown often resided in remote locations where openings to the underworld were known to exist. The more well-known oracles acted as mediums and channels for the gods, but the dead were the source of information for some. All oracles of the dead were ruled by the chthonic gods, and prayers and sacrifices were always made to them. Consulting an oracle was a widely respected practice in the classical world—and it was also considered to be serious business. Matters of state were always presented to oracles, as were preparations for battles and wars. Great leaders usually sent emissaries to the oracles, but sometimes they went themselves, especially if the need was grave. The dead were sometimes consulted through oracles for advice in life's decisions, to solve murders and crimes, and to provide guidance about what was to come in the afterlife. Generally, the Greeks believed that the dead were compelled to tell the truth, though accounts of false information exist. When dealing with the dead, or any spiritual being, discernment is a must.