by LISA LEE HARP WAUGH

Necromancy has come to be associated more broadly with black magic and demon-summoning in general, sometimes losing its earlier, more specialized meaning. By popular etymology, nekromantia became nigromancy “black arts”, and Johannes Hartlieb (1456) lists demonology in general under the heading. Eliphas Levi, in his book Dogma et Ritual, states that necromancy is the evoking of aerial bodies (aeromancy).

Evocation is the magic of dark spirit summoning from the planes beyond human existence. You can summon spirits into the physical plane, order them to do your bidding. Sorcery is one of the greatest powers so well left to us from the Age of Alchemy.

Early necromancy is likely related to the roots of shamanism, which calls upon spirits such as the ghosts of ancestors. Classical necromancers addressed the dead in “a mixture of high-pitch squeaking and low droning”, comparable to the trance-state mutterings of shamans. This I have practiced at times but calling up ghost to appear as a full body apparition is something that I am honing in on in every ritual I now perform. Many people believe when they or I ‘raise’ the dead, that they can tell one’s future because spirits are not bounded by the same laws of time and space as we are.

The historian Strabo refers to necromancy as the principal form of divination amongst the people of Persia (Strabo, xvi. 2, 39,), and it is believed to also have been widespread amongst the peoples of Chaldea (particularly amongst the Sabians or star-worshipers), Etruria, and Babylonia. The Babylonian necromancers were called Manzazuu or Sha’etemmu, and the spirits they raised were called Etemmu.

Necromancy was widespread in ancient Greece from prehistoric times. In the Odyssey (XI, Nekyia), Odysseus makes a voyage to Hades, the Underworld, and raises the spirits of the dead using spells which he had learnt from Circe (Ruickbie, 2004:24). His intention is to invoke and ask questions of the shade of Tiresias, but he is unable to summon it without the assistance of others.

Necromantic practice is neither the ‘right’ nor the ‘left’ path. It is simply an acute attunement to what many refer to as “death energy”, an affiliation and natural affinity some people have for the current of transition. It is a fact that some people beside myself tha feel more at ease or comfortable among the dead rather than being with the living. Although some cultures may have considered the knowledge of the dead to be unlimited, to the ancient Greeks and Romans, there is an indication that individual shades knew only certain things. The apparent value of their counsel may have been a result of things they had known in life, or of knowledge they acquired after death: Ovid writes of a marketplace in the underworld, where the dead could exchange news and gossip (Metamorphoses 4.444; Tristia 4.10.87–88)

There are also many references to necromancers, called “bone-conjurers”, in the Bible. The Book of Deuteronomy (XVIII 9–12) explicitly warns the Israelites against the Canaanite practice of divination from the dead. This warning was not always heeded: King Saul has the Witch of Endor invoke the shade of Samuel using a magical amulet, for example. Later Christian writers rejected the idea that humans could bring back the spirits of the dead, and interpreted such shades as disguised demons, thus conflating necromancy with demon-summoning.

Proof for the common knowledge of necromancy and belief in its power is also evident in the New Testament. Others in the court believed Jesus to be Elijah, another deceased prophet. This account is written in Christian Canonical Scriptures, mainly the book of Mark, chapter 6:14-16. “King Herod heard about this, for Jesus’ name had become well known. Some were saying, ‘John the Baptist has been raised from the dead, and that is why miraculous powers are at work in him.’ Others said, ‘He is Elijah.’ And still others claimed, ‘He is a prophet, like one of the prophets of long ago.’ But when Herod heard this, he said, ‘John, the man I beheaded, has been raised from the dead!”

Lisa Lee Harp Waugh: Photographed with what many say is real ghost energy collecting around her right before a ritual to contact a spirit for a local Lone Star Texas ghost hunter to investigate and document. Lisa says, ” I think in my own life time so far, I have communicted with more ghosts and Spirits then I have living human beings.”

I have had many actual real “Phone Calls From the Dead”. From close to long lost friends and relatives to people I never ever knew. Some people have to me been reporting experiencing paranormal phenomena over the telephone over the years. And it makes me wonder… how long will it be before the first spooky encounters via internet or text messaging or emailing from beyond the grave?

Also I have had this happen within moments of a persons death, or within 24 hours from time of death. Some real ghosts that have talked and carried on long indepth conversations with me, only to find out later that the person had passed away. I have even used a dead battery - less cell phone in a ritual on several occasions iin recent months and had it ring . In answering it, the spirit on the other end oftens is long winded. Glad I’m not paying that Cell Phone bill. And calls sometimes very short, and the low voice of the caller or just sounding to losy or distant, often it rings then the line wil just l cut off. I think some spirits come and observe for weeks to learn to be able to communicate so they are always around me.

Caesarius of Arles (Kors and Peters, 48) entreats his audience to put no stock in any demons, or “Gods” other than the Christian God, even if the working of spells appears to provide benefit. He states that demons only act with divine permission, and permitted by God to test Christian people. Caesarius does not condemn man here; he only states that the art of necromancy exists, although it is prohibited by the bible.

In modern time necromancy is used as a more general term to describe the art (or manipulation) of death, and generally implies a magical connotation. Modern séances, channeling and Spiritualism verge on necromancy when the invoked spirits are asked to reveal future events. Necromancy may also be dressed up as sciomancy, a branch of theurgic magic.

Necromancy is extensively practiced in Quimbanda and is sometimes seen in other African traditions such as voodoo and in santeria, though once a person is possessed by a spirit in the yoruba tradition he cannot rise to a higher spiritual position such as that of a babalawo, but this should not be regarded as a modern tradition, in fact it predates most necromantic practices.

The Enochian script was said to have been revealed to John Dee by the angels who were conjured by Kelley. John Dee became obsessed with the occult and spent most of his later life in search of its secrets. Dee, who numbers Astrology among his many talents, does some work for Princess Elizabeth by casting her horoscope and those of the Queen and her husband. Dee’s enemies use this as an excuse to lay false charges of Treason and conjuring evil spirits. Dee successfully defends himself before the Star Chamber and subsequent interrogation by the Bishop of London. Dee is eventually released 3 months after being arrested, but the slur of being a conjurer of spirits will haunt him for the rest of his life .

According to Charlotte Fell Smith, this actual portrait was painted when Dee was 67. It belonged to his grandson Rowland Dee and later to Elias Ashmole, who left it to Oxford University.

John Aubrey gives the following description of Dee: “He was tall and slender. He wore a gown like an artist’s gown, with hanging sleeves, and a slit…. A very fair, clear sanguine complexion… a long beard as white as milk. A very handsome man.”

Dee straddled the worlds of science and magic just as they were becoming distinguishable. One of the most learned men of his time, he had lectured at the University of Paris when still in his early twenties. John was an ardent promoter of mathematics, a respected astronomer and a leading expert in navigation, having trained many of those who would conduct England’s voyages of discovery (he coined the term “British Empire”).

At the same time, he immersed himself in magic and Hermetic philosophy, devoting the last third of his life almost exclusively to these pursuits.

In 1564, Dee wrote the Hermetic work Monas Hieroglyphica (”The Hieroglyphic Monad”), an exhaustive Cabalistic interpretation of a glyph of his own design, meant to express the mystical unity of all creation. This work was highly valued by many of Dee’s contemporaries, but the loss of the secret oral tradition of Dee’s milieu makes the work difficult to interpret today.

By the early 1580s, Dee was growing dissatisfied with his progress in learning the secrets of nature and with his own lack of influence and recognition. He began to turn towards the supernatural as a means to acquire knowledge. Specifically, he sought to contact angels through the use of a “scryer” or crystal-gazer, who would act as an intermediary between Dee and the angels.

Dee’s first attempts were not satisfactory, but, in 1582, he met Edward Kelley (then going under the name of Edward Talbot), who impressed him greatly with his abilities. Dee took Kelley into his service and began to devote all his energies to his supernatural pursuits. These “spiritual conferences” or “actions” were conducted with an air of intense Christian piety, always after periods of purification, prayer and fasting. Dee was convinced of the benefits they could bring to mankind. (The character of Kelley is harder to assess: some have concluded that he acted with complete cynicism, but delusion or self-deception are not out of the question. Kelley’s “output” is remarkable for its sheer mass, its intricacy and its vividness.) Dee maintained that the angels laboriously dictated several books to him this way, some in a special angelic or Enochian language.

In 1583, Dee met the visiting Polish nobleman Albert Laski, who invited Dee to accompany him on his return to Poland. With some prompting by the angels, Dee was persuaded to go. Dee, Kelley, and their families left for the Continent in September 1583, but Laski proved to be bankrupt and out of favour in his own country Dee and Kelley began a nomadic life in Central Europe, but they continued their spiritual conferences, which Dee recorded meticulously. He had audiences with Emperor Rudolf II and King Stephen of Poland in which he chided them for their ungodliness and attempted to convince them of the importance of his angelic communications. He was not taken up by either monarch.

During a spiritual conference in Bohemia, in 1587, Kelley told Dee that the angel Uriel had ordered that the two men should share their wives. Kelley, who by that time was becoming a prominent alchemist and was much more sought-after than Dee, may have wished to use this as a way to end the spiritual conferences. The order caused Dee great anguish, but he did not doubt its genuineness and apparently allowed it to go forward, but broke off the conferences immediately afterwards and did not see Kelley again. Dee returned to England in 1589.

The British Museum holds several items once owned by Dee and associated with the spiritual conferences:

Dee’s Speculum or Mirror (an obsidian Aztec cult object in the shape of a hand-mirror, brought to Europe in the late 1520s), which was once owned by Horace Walpole.

The small wax seals used to support the legs of Dee’s “table of practice” (the table at which the scrying was performed). The large, elaborately-decorated wax “Seal of God”, used to support the “shew-stone”, the crystal ball used for scrying.

A gold amulet engraved with a representation of one of Kelley’s visions.
A crystal globe, six centimeters in diameter. This item remained unnoticed for many years in the mineral collection; possibly the one owned by Dee, but the provenance of this object is less certain than that of the others.
In December 2004, both a shew stone (a stone used for scrying) formerly belonging to Dee and a mid-1600s explanation of its use written by Nicholas Culpeper were stolen from the Science Museum in London; they were recovered shortly afterwards.

Necromancy - Rituals to contact the Spirits

Often I personally enjoy a simple method conjuring the Spirit of somone dead to question into a Crystal Ball or a cellphone with no battery in it, that is placed in the middle of the magical Triangle or using a Black Mirror in the middle of the conjuoring Triangle. With this method you do Conjures the Spirits, but one must be able to Skry or see onto the Astral Plane where then Spirit is. The Mirror or Crystal Ball only acts as a focal point. And sometimes during the ritual to call the dead the cellphone will ring.

I set up the Triangle circle on a small round table that was given to me by the high witch queen Onieda Toups from New Orleans before she died. Then I place a Crystal Ball a very old one from victorian times, or my hand held 200 year old mirror that was said to have belonged to Marie Laveau the Voodoo Queen of New Orleans. Once in the middle of the magic Triangle, or circle. I Gaze into the Black mirror or ball reflection. Or focus on the cellphone ringing.

I often would during my time in Galveston, Texas be standing outdoors from my shop as the Ghostman Dash Beardsley would past with his haunted Galveston Ghost Tour. Often many would photograph me and the building and always their was some type of spirit phenomena going on in the photo. I know the building where my Candle shop was was very haunted for the full story you’d have to question Dash. THE OFFICIAL GHOST TOURS OF GALVESTON ISLAND HOME PAGE

Now a days I do much of my Spirit invoking for Ghost hunters also. I do use magical circles and triangles for protection, candles, swords, chalices, magic staff, wand, pentacle and atheme and fumigations and wear my long white robes. All this is part of the invoking process. I do enjoy being the part of someone investigations into the otherworldly aspects. It pushes me to go further and to be more objective to what happens during these many documented rituals. Solely I am a Necromancer not a witch.

When I lived in Galveston Ghosts followed me everywhere I was never sure unless I turned around if it was a living or dead person speaking to me. I don’t consider my self to be a real clairaudient just a fortunate person who can sometimes hear the dead speak to me.

Spirits and ghost have related to me describes being able to see thier temporary earthbound condition then help other lost sould in transition to the etheric sphere. They also tell me of some answers to practical questions such as the spiritual body and clothes. And the need of the world to understand the reality ofa souls survival. Or even asking me questions like how find a medium to communicate through. Or nobody notices us even though I bang on the walls or hit and bite or scratch them.

Below are pictures taken throughout the life of the fascinating and often controversial Aleister Crowley, from boyhood until his late life.

He will forever be known as the wickedest man in the world who died penniless and alone but Aleister Crowley’s legend has made him one of the worlds most well known and emulated occultists, his life’s work seems to have had more effect on society than it ever did in the days when he was alive. None the less his life story and works are makes for one of the mosts interesting reads I have come across and so here we shall look at the controversial, dark and often sickening life of the man who will forever be known as the BEAST 666.

Edward Alexander Crowley was born in Leamington, Warwickshire, England, between 11:00pm and 12 midnight on 12 October 1875.

His father, Edward Crowley, once maintained a lucrative family brewery business and was retired at the time of Aleister’s birth. His mother, Emily Bertha Bishop, drew roots from a Devon and Somerset family.

Aleister grew up in a staunch Plymouth Brethren household. His father, after retiring from his daily duties as a brewer, took up the practice of preaching at a fanatical pace. Daily Bible studies and private tutoring were mainstays in young Aleister’s childhood; however, his parents’ efforts at indoctrinating their son in the Christian faith only served to provoke Aleister’s skepticism. As a child, young Aleister’s constant rebellious behavior displeased his devout mother to such an extent she would chastize him by calling him “The Beast” (from the Book of Revelation), an epithet that Crowley would later happily adopt for himself. He objected to the labeling of what he saw as life’s most worthwhile and enjoyable activities as “sinful.”

As Crowley grew older he became interested in the occult. He also found he became excited by stories of blood and torture. He often fantisized about humiliation and bondage and discipline.

He enrolled at trinity college in Cambridge where he wrote poetry and pursued his studies in the occult. He also was a mountain climber and attempted climbing some of the peaks in the Himilayas. In 1898 he published his first book, Aceldema, A Place To Bury Strangers In.

Crowley was lead to magic after reading Arthur Edward Waites - The Book of Black Magic and of Pacts. Crowley wrote to Waite and was referred to The Cloud Upon the Sanctuary. On November 18, 1898, Crowley joined the London chapter of the HERMATIC ORDER OF THE GOLDEN DAWN. He found he was a natural at magic and quickly rose through the ranks. He left Trinity College, named himself Count Vladimir and pursued his occult studies.

Crowley went on to create his own philosophical system, Occult Sciences — a synthesis of various Eastern mystical systems (including Hinduism, Buddhism, Tantra, the predecessor to Western sex magick, Zoroastrianism and the many systems of Yoga) fused with the Western occult sciences of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn and the many reformed rituals of Freemasonry( although the regularity of his initiations within the United Grand Lodge of England have been disputed ). He later reformulated within the Ordo Templi Orientis (O.T.O). This system is founded in scientific skepticism. His undergraduate studies in chemistry at Trinity College, Cambridge helped forge the scientific skepticism that later culminated in the many volumed and unparalleled occult publication, The Equinox.

In October of 1901, after practising Raja Yoga for some time, he said he had reached a state he called dhyana — one of many states of unification in thoughts that are described succinctly and vividly in MAGICK Book IV (See Crowley on egolessness).

1902 saw him writing the essay Berashith (the first word of Genesis), in which he gave meditation (or restraint of the mind to a single object) as the means of attaining his goal. The essay describes ceremonial magic as a means of training the will, and of constantly directing one’s thoughts to a given object through ritual. In his 1903 essay, Science and Buddhism, Crowley urged an empirical approach to Buddhist teachings.

He said that a mystical experience in 1904 while on vacation in Cairo, Egypt, led to his founding of the religious philosophy known as Thelema. Aleister’s wife Rose started to behave in an odd way, and this led him to think that some entity had made contact with her. At her instructions, he performed an invocation of the Egyptian god Horus on March 20 with (he wrote) “great success”. According to Crowley, the god told him that a new magical Aeon had begun, and that A.C. would serve as its prophet. Rose continued to give information, telling Crowley in detailed terms to await a further revelation. On 8 April and for the following two days at exactly noon he heard a voice, dictating the words of the text, Liber AL vel Legis, or The Book of the Law, which Crowley transcribed. The voice claimed to be that of Aiwass (or Aiwaz “the minister of Hoor-paar-kraat,” or Horus, the god of force and fire, child of Isis and Osiris) and self-appointed conquering lord of the New Aeon, announced through his chosen scribe “the prince-priest the Beast.”

Portions of the book are in numerical cipher, which Crowley claimed the inability to decode. Thelemic dogma (to the extent that Thelema has dogma) explains this by pointing to a warning within the Book of the Law — the speaker supposedly warned that the scribe, Ankh-af-na-khonsu (Aleister Crowley), was never to attempt to decode the ciphers, for to do so would end only in folly. The later-written The Law is For All sees Crowley warning everyone not to discuss the writing amongst fellow critics, for fear that a dogmatic position would arise. While he declared a “new Equinox of the Gods” in early 1904, supposedly passing on the revelation of March 20 to the occult community, it took years for Crowley to fully accept the writing of the Book of the Law and follow its doctrine. Only after countless attempts to test its writings did he come to embrace them as the official doctrine of the New Aeon of Horus. The remainder of his professional and personal careers were spent expanding the new frontiers of scientific illuminism.

Crowley was notorious in his lifetime, a frequent target of attacks in the tabloid press, which labeled him “The Wickedest Man in the World” to his evident amusement. With his wife Leah Hirsig, Crowley established a sort of commune, the organization of which was based on his personal philosophies, the Abbey of Thelema, at Cefalu, Sicily. Plagued by drug and sex addictions Crowely regularly performed sickening sexual rituals which included animals, although there seems to be much speculations over the truth of these accounts Crowley never confirmed nor denied them. Crowley had planned to transform the small house into a global center of magical devotion and perhaps to gain tuition fees paid by acolytes seeking training in the Magical Arts, these fees would further assist him in his efforts to promulgate Thelema and publish his manuscripts. In 1923, a 23-year old Oxford undergraduate by the name of Raoul Loveday (or Frederick Charles Loveday) died at the abbey. His wife, Betty May, originally blamed this on his participation in one of Crowley’s rituals. Later, however, she accepted the doctor’s diagnosis of acute enteric fever contracted by drinking from a mountain spring. (Crowley had warned the couple against drinking the water. Lawrence Sutin reports all this in his biography of AC.) When May returned to London, she gave an interview to a tabloid paper. The Sunday Express included her story in its ongoing attacks on Crowley. With these and similar rumors about activities at Thelema in mind, Mussolini’s government demanded that Crowley leave the country in 1923. After Crowley’s departure, the Abbey of Thelema was eventually abandoned and local residents whitewashed over Crowley’s murals.

Aleister Crowley died of a respiratory infection in a Hastings boarding house on December 1, 1947, at the age of 72. According to some accounts he died on December 5, 1947. He was penniless and addicted to heroin, which had been prescribed for his asthma and bronchitis, at the time.

His last words have been reported as, “I am perplexed.”, though he did not die alone and the only other person with him, Patricia MacAlpine, the mother of his son, denied this. According to MacAlpine, Crowley remained bedridden for the last few days of his life, but was in light spirits and conversational. She claims he died in silence next to an open window. Readings at the cremation service in nearby Brighton included one of his own works, Hymn to Pan, and newspapers referred to the service as a black mass. Brighton council subsequently resolved to take all necessary steps to prevent such an incident occurring again.

To watch the full documentary of Aleister Crowley click here