Questioning the Dead

Necromancy, in the strict sense, is divination by the spirits of the dead, rites aimed at summoning, contacting or drawing knowledge, especially of the future, from those who have died. The practice is attested across the ancient world: the Hebrew Bible's account of the medium of Endor raising Samuel for King Saul, the consultation of the dead in Homer's Odyssey, and the elaborate summonings preserved in the Greek Magical Papyri of late antiquity. It was widely condemned, by biblical law, and later by the medieval Church, which folded it into the broader category of forbidden magic, even as clerical necromancers copied and used its handbooks. Historically the word also broadened to mean dark or demonic magic generally. Scholars distinguish the specific ancient art of consulting the dead, which fits within widespread beliefs about the accessibility of the underworld, from the looser later use of necromancy as a term of condemnation for illicit ritual.