Lessons One: The History Behind the Magic

"Necromancy means spirit divination!"

There are two noted kinds of necromancy: the raising of the corpse itself, and the most common kind, the conjuring or summoning of the spirit of the corpse. Now, Necromancy has had a long and very disputed history between cultures, religions and generations. The very definition of the word seems to change in every way depending on whom you ask. However Necromancy comes from two Greek words. "Nekros" which means "corpse" and "manteia" which means "prophesy". Now, in Greece, Necromancy was practiced as the name might suggest: divination out of corpses. It developed, however, in many ways which would bring about the common myths and legends that we know now.

Of course, despite the large array of books and media available on Necromancy the initial idea has remained intact. Of course you get your natural Zombie stories out of it, but Authors such as Laurel K. Hamilton express the realism of Divination through the dead.

There are so many versions of Necromancy now however due to the different opinions on each society and era. Take the Egyptian Rights of the Dead, or the Voodoo Priests blood sacrifices. Necromancy in its normal form is merely the study of death and the dead, along with powers to manipulate the dead and death. Necromancers tend to have a fascination with death, and some eventually become obsessed with it. Normal Necromancers can in fact be normal members of society. But in other cultures they are powerful members of society, usually feared or respected.

Lesson Two: More to the Magic

Necromancy, more than any other magical system, is responsible for the reputation of muggle occult cults and sects holding graveyard rites and performing stupid rituals such as the "blood sacrifice". Be it human or animal, blood sacrifice was at one time considered an important part of many necromantic rites, however blood in not needed to use divination with spirits. Often there were sacrifices of the living to please the dead in necromantic rituals and other offerings. These offerings were either burned or simply left to rot, to please the necromantic gods. In some cases the necromancers would enter a coma or an "out of body experience" (OBE) turning into a harness for the demons of death. Interfacing with the realm of death and its spirits had been a long-standing tradition of infernal meddling that has earned the necromancer horrible but high positions in occult history. Please bear in mind that there are a lot of witches or wizards who use necromancy to mislead people to bring them disaster and pain. The muggles believe that the necromancers come in touch with the spirits of their loved ones who are dead, while in reality they communicate with instead the devil. In this case the devil takes the place of the dead, imitates their voices and speaks of events of their lives. A lot of people are deceived this way and did things that the "dead" asked and lost their mental health and a lot of times their money or fortune.