An Inquiry into Necromancy by Jim Baker

An Inquiry into Necromancy by Jim Baker

Today pre-orders open for a most astounding book, Jim Baker's An Inquiry into Necromancy: Spirit Conjuration in Western Culture, ‘…a comprehensive but accessible history of spirit communication over the last two millennia in the West.’


An Inquiry into Necromancy is the successor to The Cunning Man's Handbook: The Practice of English Folk Magic 1550-1900 (Avalonia, 2014). It expands upon the chapters on conjuration to offer a chronicle of intentional magical interaction with spirits of all sorts – ghosts, elementals, demons, angels, and god – from the Graeco-Egyptian rituals of Antiquity to the post-modern diversity of contemporary evocatory magic(k).


Through consideration of the expository magic and functional magic of Antiquity, the development of concepts of the soul and spirits in ancient Greece and early Christianity serve as an anchor for this temporal voyage of conjuration. Detailed study of the practices contained within numerous grimoires explore ‘the justification for the elaborate preparations, sanctified equipment and ritual actions was to harness the spiritual authority that enabled control of the conjured entities to compel them to appear, cooperate and safely leave’. Works covered in depth to demonstrate this process include classic grimoires like the Picatrix, Liber Lunae, Sepher Raziel, Ars Notoria, Sworn Book of Honorius, Summa Sacre Magice, the Hygromanteia, De Nigromancia, the Elucidation of Necromancy/Heptameron, Key of Solomon, the Abramelin, and Miscellanies (mixed collections) like the Book of Oberon, the Munich Necromancer’s Manual, the Cambridge Book of Magic, the Grimoire of Arthur Gauntlet, the Cunning-Man’s Grimoire and others. 


The influence of social, religious and cultural changes such as the Reformation, the Enlightenment, and printing are all considered throughout this comprehensive study, adding layers of context to the exploration of practices and the changes they underwent. The change brought by printing is explored through the French Bibliothèque Bleue catalogue, particularly the Grimoire of Pope Honorius, Grimorium Verum, and True Black Magic, as well as the German Faust-books and the Sixth and Seventh Books of Moses, and the books of St Cyprian. The development of spirit contact through the Romantic period is considered through works including The Magus, and the works of figures like Ebenezer Sibley, Robert Cross Smith, Frederick Hockley and Paschal Beverley Randolph. Expanding the scope of his work, the author also explores the influence of branches of Freemasonry, Rosicrucianism, Spiritualism (including that of Allan Kardec), Emmanuel Swedenborg and Franz Mesmer. The journey concludes with more recent magical movements and figures and their spirit work, including the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, Aleister Crowley, Austin Osman Spare, Gerald Gardner and modern Wiccans, and Chaos magic.


This definitive study is a must-have for anyone interested in the history of necromancy and the development of learned magic. 

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