WEBVTT - From the Vault: The Necromantic Urge, Part 3 0:00:06.440 --> 0:00:08.000 Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. 0:00:08.200 --> 0:00:11.040 This is Robert Lamb and this is Joe McCormick, and 0:00:11.119 --> 0:00:13.680 it's Saturday. We're heading on down into the vault for 0:00:13.720 --> 0:00:16.200 an older episode of the show. This is part three 0:00:16.239 --> 0:00:20.520 of our series on necromancy called The Necromantic Urge, originally 0:00:20.520 --> 0:00:23.360 published on October fifth, twenty twenty three. 0:00:23.800 --> 0:00:28.520 Enjoy but Macmore and Sodosma were necromancers who came from 0:00:28.520 --> 0:00:32.680 the dark Isle of Nat to practice their baleful arts 0:00:32.960 --> 0:00:37.839 in Tinniath beyond the shrunken seas. But they did not 0:00:38.000 --> 0:00:41.800 prosper in Tinniath, for death was deemed a holy thing 0:00:41.920 --> 0:00:45.200 by the people of that gray country, and the nothingness 0:00:45.240 --> 0:00:49.040 of the tomb was not lightly to be desecrated, and 0:00:49.080 --> 0:00:53.080 the raising up of the dead by necromancy was held 0:00:53.479 --> 0:00:59.920 in abomination. Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, production 0:01:00.160 --> 0:01:08.840 of by Heart Radio. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow 0:01:08.880 --> 0:01:11.200 Your Mind. My name is Robert Lamb. 0:01:11.440 --> 0:01:14.119 And I am Joe McCormick, and we're back with part 0:01:14.200 --> 0:01:19.679 three in our series on necromancy. The ancient practice of 0:01:20.040 --> 0:01:23.080 consulting the dead or the spirits of the dead for 0:01:23.160 --> 0:01:26.679 the purpose of divination, of accessing hidden knowledge. 0:01:27.400 --> 0:01:30.320 Yes, despite the fact that a lot of our modern 0:01:30.440 --> 0:01:35.640 pop cultuy uses of necromancy tend to involve raising of 0:01:35.680 --> 0:01:38.480 the dead. And actually that quote that I read at 0:01:38.480 --> 0:01:40.800 the top of this episode is from the nineteen thirty 0:01:40.800 --> 0:01:44.039 two short story The Empire of the Necromancers by Clark 0:01:44.080 --> 0:01:47.680 Ashton Smith, and it is full of raising the dead 0:01:48.320 --> 0:01:51.360 via the necromantic arts. But as we've discussed in these 0:01:51.400 --> 0:01:56.120 episodes so far, necromancy, as we loosely categorize it, is 0:01:56.160 --> 0:01:59.280 more situated in the realm of divination. 0:02:00.000 --> 0:02:02.320 Well, in the previous episodes in the series, which if 0:02:02.360 --> 0:02:04.160 you haven't listened to yet, you should probably go check 0:02:04.200 --> 0:02:07.559 those out first. But in these previous episodes we talked 0:02:07.560 --> 0:02:13.640 about accounts of necromancy or pseudo necromantic legends from ancient China. 0:02:14.200 --> 0:02:17.480 We talked about accounts of how necromancy was practiced or 0:02:17.520 --> 0:02:21.200 may have been practiced in ancient Mesopotamia, including consulting these 0:02:21.639 --> 0:02:25.200 tablets that have descriptions of the incantations to use and 0:02:25.240 --> 0:02:27.760 the potions to prepare if you want to speak to 0:02:27.800 --> 0:02:31.480 the dead through a prepared skull in a special ritual. 0:02:32.120 --> 0:02:34.200 In part two, we talked about a lot of accounts 0:02:34.240 --> 0:02:37.480 of necromancy as practiced or at least as used as 0:02:37.520 --> 0:02:40.880 a plot device in stories from ancient Greece and Rome 0:02:41.440 --> 0:02:44.280 and today, we wanted to come back and finish out 0:02:44.280 --> 0:02:46.760 the discussion by talking about necromancy a little bit more. 0:02:47.320 --> 0:02:49.400 Yeah, We're going to jump around a little bit here 0:02:49.480 --> 0:02:51.040 later on in the episode. I think we're going to 0:02:51.080 --> 0:02:57.040 get into some medieval Christian ideas about necromancy, what it was, 0:02:57.160 --> 0:02:59.760 and whether you should do it or not. A spoiler 0:03:00.080 --> 0:03:02.440 in tended to say no, don't do it, but with 0:03:02.520 --> 0:03:04.079 some caveats, so I'll get into. 0:03:04.240 --> 0:03:07.040 I also want to interrogate the boundaries of necromancy a 0:03:07.080 --> 0:03:11.080 little bit and maybe pick apart the concept somewhat. But 0:03:11.160 --> 0:03:14.000 before we do that, there's a question that's been coming 0:03:14.080 --> 0:03:16.480 up because we've been looking at examples from the ancient 0:03:16.520 --> 0:03:19.240 world of how this may have been practiced, or at 0:03:19.320 --> 0:03:22.240 least was thought by some to be practiced in the 0:03:22.240 --> 0:03:25.520 ancient world. My question would be, well, how far back 0:03:26.000 --> 0:03:29.160 does it go? What's the earliest evidence we have of 0:03:29.200 --> 0:03:33.240 people trying to communicate or consult with the dead. 0:03:34.280 --> 0:03:36.320 Yeah, so let's get into that a little bit again, 0:03:36.520 --> 0:03:40.800 with the huge caveat that the term necromancy can be 0:03:40.880 --> 0:03:45.000 applied very broadly or very specifically, and is ultimately just 0:03:45.040 --> 0:03:48.840 a word. So with that in mind, I will refer 0:03:48.960 --> 0:03:52.480 back briefly to the paper The Origins of Necromancy or 0:03:52.480 --> 0:03:54.840 How We Learn to Speak to the Dead by Czech 0:03:54.880 --> 0:04:00.480 academic Andres Kabcar. He argues for a connection potentially between 0:04:00.520 --> 0:04:04.880 ancient shamanistic practices and what we might think of as necromancy, 0:04:05.480 --> 0:04:09.480 with individual human beings often serving as psychopomps. For example, 0:04:09.800 --> 0:04:13.920 you know, guardians guide there to guide one spirit from 0:04:13.920 --> 0:04:18.200 this world into the next. Other functions that would put 0:04:18.200 --> 0:04:21.839 a living mortal shaman in some form of communication with 0:04:21.880 --> 0:04:25.800 the deceased are also imaginable. This in addition to just 0:04:25.880 --> 0:04:31.200 general ancestor veneration, ancestor cults, and ancestor worshiped. So it's 0:04:31.240 --> 0:04:37.480 not it's not inconceivable to consider all of this potential 0:04:38.240 --> 0:04:41.640 hallmark of human spiritual and religious thought going back to 0:04:41.880 --> 0:04:45.200 very early human culture as a coping method for the 0:04:45.240 --> 0:04:49.040 emotionally and socially devastating reality of death. Right. 0:04:49.080 --> 0:04:51.760 We don't know, but it seems perfectly plausible that it 0:04:51.760 --> 0:04:55.120 could be something like first people, you know, just merely 0:04:55.200 --> 0:04:58.960 emotionally missed their dead loved ones and wanted to you know, 0:04:59.080 --> 0:05:01.919 continue thinking about them and talking about them and so forth, 0:05:01.960 --> 0:05:04.960 and maybe from this arose some kind of culture of 0:05:05.400 --> 0:05:09.200 keeping their memory alive, out of which arose some kind 0:05:09.240 --> 0:05:12.200 of idea that, well, maybe there are ways to still 0:05:12.279 --> 0:05:14.720 talk to them somehow, and maybe they have something to 0:05:14.720 --> 0:05:15.400 say to us. 0:05:16.080 --> 0:05:18.599 Yeah, because I mean, we undeniably have a desire to 0:05:18.720 --> 0:05:22.080 speak to them. I mean, that's that's proven out in 0:05:22.440 --> 0:05:26.720 so many countless examples, including our own individual experiences. I mean, 0:05:26.800 --> 0:05:29.239 I think a lot of us have visited the grave 0:05:29.480 --> 0:05:35.800 of a deceased loved one and spoken to them, you know, 0:05:36.040 --> 0:05:41.520 varying degrees of understanding or expectation of them hearing us well, 0:05:41.880 --> 0:05:44.880 and certainly of them speaking back to us. But to 0:05:45.040 --> 0:05:48.760 speak to the dead, I think is not necessarily this 0:05:49.200 --> 0:05:52.480 you know, this alien supernatural thing. I think it comes 0:05:52.520 --> 0:05:55.560 from a very natural place in the human psyche, and I 0:05:55.560 --> 0:05:57.560 mean probably gets back into this idea that, yeah, when 0:05:57.560 --> 0:06:01.000 someone dies is it is emotionally and soually devastating and 0:06:01.000 --> 0:06:02.520 we have to find ways to deal with it. 0:06:03.040 --> 0:06:05.440 On the other hand, while you can imagine that historical 0:06:05.800 --> 0:06:10.280 or prehistoric development and it certainly seems plausible. It's hard 0:06:10.279 --> 0:06:13.440 to have decisive evidence for things like that, or to 0:06:13.480 --> 0:06:17.640 have decisive evidence of practices of communicating with and getting 0:06:17.720 --> 0:06:21.320 knowledge from the dead from before times of say literary 0:06:21.360 --> 0:06:22.880 writings about such. 0:06:23.000 --> 0:06:25.680 Right, right, because the literature gives us more insight into 0:06:25.680 --> 0:06:27.640 what was done, why it was done, and what the 0:06:27.680 --> 0:06:31.920 expectation was. In many instances, sometimes you know there are 0:06:31.960 --> 0:06:36.200 still questions, certainly, but otherwise what are you left with? 0:06:36.240 --> 0:06:39.000 You're left with human remains, and you can sort of 0:06:39.040 --> 0:06:43.440 look at like two broad categories, situations where human remains 0:06:43.640 --> 0:06:47.920 have not been manipulated by human beings and situations where 0:06:47.920 --> 0:06:51.440 they have been manipulated by human beings and added caveat. 0:06:51.480 --> 0:06:53.840 As we've discussed in the show before, and we've recently 0:06:53.839 --> 0:06:55.680 had a guest in the show to discuss this, like 0:06:55.720 --> 0:06:58.679 sometimes that's up for dispute too, with one side saying, 0:06:59.080 --> 0:07:01.880 I don't think these bodies were manipulated by human beings. 0:07:01.920 --> 0:07:05.240 I think they were manipulated by predatory animals, and then 0:07:05.279 --> 0:07:08.239 the other side saying, no, this is evidence of humans 0:07:08.240 --> 0:07:12.960 manipulating their dead, and intentional manipulation of the dead has 0:07:13.000 --> 0:07:15.120 been going on for a very long time. At least 0:07:15.160 --> 0:07:18.480 since the time of the Neanderthals. We move bodies, and 0:07:18.520 --> 0:07:22.080 we've moved bodies for various purposes, and a rich global 0:07:22.120 --> 0:07:25.200 heritage of funerary practices have grown out of these traditions. 0:07:25.720 --> 0:07:29.280 But with the oldest burials, you look at them and yeah, 0:07:29.320 --> 0:07:31.040 we just have very little to go on when we're 0:07:31.040 --> 0:07:33.120 trying to decide, try and figure out what was the 0:07:33.120 --> 0:07:37.080 intent behind this practice? It was it a practice and 0:07:37.120 --> 0:07:38.680 what was the intent? Right? 0:07:38.800 --> 0:07:42.280 So, given those extreme caveats, what are some of these 0:07:42.320 --> 0:07:45.400 pieces of ambiguous evidence people might point to to think, 0:07:45.480 --> 0:07:49.200 I wonder if this was used for romantic purposes, for necromancy. 0:07:49.960 --> 0:07:55.040 Well, Kapcar highlights ancient archaeological sites linked to ancestor cults 0:07:55.040 --> 0:07:58.080 as being some of the main candidates for some form 0:07:58.080 --> 0:08:01.160 of ancient necromancy in the Middle East. And I should 0:08:01.200 --> 0:08:03.880 add that he's not arguing, like one hundred percent this 0:08:03.960 --> 0:08:06.640 is necromancy. He's just saying, like, Okay, beyond what we 0:08:06.680 --> 0:08:09.760 can be certain about, what evidence could we make an 0:08:09.880 --> 0:08:13.440 argument about. A specific mention is made of the plaster 0:08:13.560 --> 0:08:18.200 covered heads of cattle hook dating back to seventy five 0:08:18.360 --> 0:08:22.360 hundred to fifty seven hundred BCE. We've mentioned this place 0:08:22.400 --> 0:08:26.080 on the show before, specifically in our invention episodes on 0:08:26.320 --> 0:08:29.560 the coffin, the toilet, and the Mirror, as well as 0:08:29.560 --> 0:08:32.280 our stuff to Blow your Mind episodes on brain and 0:08:32.360 --> 0:08:35.760 head theft. Because there does seem to be some sort 0:08:35.760 --> 0:08:37.880 of ritual removal of the head here. 0:08:38.040 --> 0:08:42.000 Well, let's zero in on the example of plastered human 0:08:42.120 --> 0:08:45.640 skulls from the ancient Fertile Crescent to see what we 0:08:45.679 --> 0:08:47.880 can figure out from them. A rob, I've attached a 0:08:47.920 --> 0:08:50.280 picture for you to look at here. This is a 0:08:50.480 --> 0:08:54.640 famous plastered skull from I think dates given or sometimes 0:08:54.760 --> 0:08:58.319 nine thousand or nine thousand, five hundred years ago. This 0:08:58.400 --> 0:09:01.080 is sometimes known as the Jerre Coast skull. It is 0:09:01.160 --> 0:09:04.200 one of the skulls recovered from the tell or the 0:09:04.240 --> 0:09:07.800 mound of the ancient settlement of Jericho, and this is 0:09:07.840 --> 0:09:09.559 from the Neolithic period. 0:09:10.000 --> 0:09:14.360 Yeah, this is quite intriguing to look at because again 0:09:14.480 --> 0:09:17.440 you have a human skull, but it has been covered 0:09:17.440 --> 0:09:19.960 in plaster in a way to sort of it seems like, 0:09:20.120 --> 0:09:23.600 to recreate the flesh of the dead. And then we 0:09:23.679 --> 0:09:25.840 have what I believe these are shells that have been 0:09:25.880 --> 0:09:28.480 placed in where the eyes would be. 0:09:28.720 --> 0:09:32.559 Yeah, exactly. So there are multiple artifacts of this type 0:09:32.559 --> 0:09:35.560 from the ancient Levant and some from Turkey, from again 0:09:35.640 --> 0:09:40.120 the site of Chattelhuyuk and is essentially what these are, 0:09:40.400 --> 0:09:44.040 real human skulls, sometimes without the mandible, so without the 0:09:44.640 --> 0:09:49.559 lower jaw, filled in with earth or plaster, and then 0:09:49.840 --> 0:09:53.080 covered on the outside in plaster at least on the front, 0:09:53.240 --> 0:09:57.160 and decorated with individual facial features. So as you said, 0:09:57.240 --> 0:10:01.120 rob seashells for eyes, they might be clamshell or cowie shells, 0:10:01.120 --> 0:10:06.360 some kind of shells, marine shells to simulate eyeballs, and 0:10:06.400 --> 0:10:11.160 then plaster facial structure, so maybe even like eyelids, overlapping 0:10:11.200 --> 0:10:14.440 the seashells in a way, and of course painting on 0:10:14.480 --> 0:10:17.600 the outside, so hair and eyebrows, mustaches and so forth 0:10:17.600 --> 0:10:21.040 would be painted on the plaster. I was actually watching 0:10:21.040 --> 0:10:24.960 an interview with a curator at the British Museum, coincidentally 0:10:25.040 --> 0:10:28.520 another in the series Curator's Corner, which I mentioned in 0:10:28.960 --> 0:10:32.080 part one of this series for unrelated reasons. That was 0:10:32.120 --> 0:10:35.480 just an interview with an author named Irving Finkel who 0:10:35.559 --> 0:10:38.640 we were reading a paper from that was about ancient 0:10:38.679 --> 0:10:42.480 Mesopotamian exorcism practices. This is an interview with a curator 0:10:42.520 --> 0:10:46.600 from the British Museum named Alexandra Fletcher about the Jericho skull, 0:10:46.640 --> 0:10:49.920 and she opines that the Jericho skull, the one you're 0:10:49.960 --> 0:10:53.800 looking at here, rob is probably the oldest example of 0:10:54.160 --> 0:10:58.680 portraiture in the British Museum's collection because of the assumption 0:10:59.240 --> 0:11:02.640 that it was made to resemble a specific person, though 0:11:02.679 --> 0:11:05.320 we don't know that. We don't know for sure, but 0:11:05.880 --> 0:11:08.760 these skulls are usually assumed to have been made to 0:11:08.800 --> 0:11:12.560 resemble the person the skull belonged to in life. 0:11:12.440 --> 0:11:14.679 Which makes sense, right. I mean, if you're gonna do 0:11:14.720 --> 0:11:16.839 a plaster sculpture of someone and you have their skull 0:11:16.920 --> 0:11:20.040 on hand, like there you go, that's the perfect foundation 0:11:20.200 --> 0:11:22.120 upon which to create your art. 0:11:23.040 --> 0:11:26.160 And there's an interesting scientific and technological parallel to this 0:11:26.280 --> 0:11:28.960 that comes up in a second. So Fletcher goes into 0:11:29.000 --> 0:11:32.760 describing some work, like analysis work that has been done 0:11:32.760 --> 0:11:36.400 on the Jericho skull. She says, as background, he was 0:11:36.480 --> 0:11:38.880 part of a group of seven people who were buried 0:11:38.880 --> 0:11:42.840 together uncovered in the nineteen fifties, and she talks about 0:11:42.880 --> 0:11:46.200 research to try to analyze the human skull underneath without 0:11:46.320 --> 0:11:50.360 damaging the plaster surrounding it, at least at least surrounding 0:11:50.360 --> 0:11:52.600 the front of the skull. The back is more exposed, 0:11:53.360 --> 0:11:57.040 and she says that the researchers used CT scanning to 0:11:57.200 --> 0:12:00.000 create an image of the bone underneath without hurting the place, 0:12:01.360 --> 0:12:04.800 and that revealed some interesting stuff. For example, this man's 0:12:04.840 --> 0:12:07.760 nose was broken sometime in life, and it shows how 0:12:07.760 --> 0:12:11.559 it had been broken and healed. And as a child, 0:12:11.600 --> 0:12:17.280 this man had had his head bound to possibly to 0:12:17.360 --> 0:12:20.120 shape the skull. As the man grew up, so there 0:12:20.200 --> 0:12:22.760 was a sense in which the skull was sort of pinched, 0:12:22.760 --> 0:12:25.600 and you can see a ridge in the skull where 0:12:25.600 --> 0:12:28.680 it was pinched that way. And this as he developed, 0:12:28.840 --> 0:12:31.800 he had slightly elongated skull for this reason. 0:12:32.640 --> 0:12:36.679 Oh yes, yes, not an uncommon practice in certain parts 0:12:36.679 --> 0:12:37.600 of the ancient world. 0:12:38.000 --> 0:12:41.120 After death, the inside of the skull was stuffed with 0:12:41.400 --> 0:12:43.840 soil and clay, and there's a hole in the back 0:12:43.840 --> 0:12:46.760 of the skull where Fletcher says you can still see 0:12:46.760 --> 0:12:50.280 the indentations of the fingers of the person who packed 0:12:50.320 --> 0:12:52.400 the clay into the brain cavity. 0:12:53.040 --> 0:12:53.439 Wow. 0:12:53.960 --> 0:12:56.559 But the interesting parallel to the ancient plaster surrounding the 0:12:56.600 --> 0:13:00.760 skull is that by analyzing the bone structure, modern scientists 0:13:00.760 --> 0:13:03.640 were able to with a good degree of accuracy, they think, 0:13:03.760 --> 0:13:08.960 reconstruct this man's face. The process is considered not exact, 0:13:09.000 --> 0:13:12.760 but pretty accurate, to the extent that Fletcher claims that 0:13:12.840 --> 0:13:17.000 if people who knew this man in life walked into 0:13:17.200 --> 0:13:19.800 the room and saw the reconstruction, she says she thinks 0:13:19.800 --> 0:13:22.720 they would instantly recognize him. So, in a way, we 0:13:22.800 --> 0:13:28.040 have used modern technology to reconstruct this man's face around 0:13:28.080 --> 0:13:32.160 the basis of the skull, much like ancient people used 0:13:32.600 --> 0:13:34.800 I guess probably memory of what this man looked like 0:13:34.880 --> 0:13:37.840 to reconstruct his face in plaster around the skull. 0:13:38.960 --> 0:13:43.640 Yeah. Yeah, it's fascinating, though again we can't know one 0:13:43.840 --> 0:13:46.839 d you know why they did this, and certainly you 0:13:46.920 --> 0:13:53.160 can make arguments for the lifelike qualities being bestowed upon 0:13:53.240 --> 0:13:56.640 the skull in order to communicate with it. I mean, 0:13:56.640 --> 0:14:00.400 that's that's certainly the hard nechromatic angle to take on it, 0:14:00.800 --> 0:14:04.480 and others have found this interesting as well. These skulls 0:14:04.480 --> 0:14:06.840 are brought up by Julian James in his book The 0:14:06.840 --> 0:14:09.960 Origin of Consciousness and the Breakdown of the Biicameral Mind 0:14:10.520 --> 0:14:13.800 as being you know, one of the many different bits 0:14:13.840 --> 0:14:17.480 of evidence or alleged evidence from the ancient world that 0:14:17.559 --> 0:14:21.320 he uses to back up this this hypothesis of the 0:14:21.360 --> 0:14:22.280 biicameral mind. 0:14:22.520 --> 0:14:26.600 Yeah, he probably is leaning heavily on the interpretation that 0:14:27.000 --> 0:14:29.200 people talk to these skulls, which again I want to 0:14:29.240 --> 0:14:31.440 really emphasize, like, we don't know that. All we have 0:14:31.520 --> 0:14:35.040 are the artifacts. There are not there's not literature describing 0:14:35.080 --> 0:14:37.320 how these skulls were used in the ancient world, So 0:14:37.360 --> 0:14:38.160 we just don't know. 0:14:38.480 --> 0:14:40.440 Yeah, we don't know if they spoke to the skulls. 0:14:42.440 --> 0:14:44.280 For the most I mean, we don't know the skull 0:14:44.360 --> 0:14:47.360 We assume the skulls did not answer, though Jane's would 0:14:47.480 --> 0:14:51.440 argue that they possibly did. And yes, if Julian Jane's 0:14:51.480 --> 0:14:55.120 hypothesis was correct, that would impact everything we've been discussing 0:14:55.160 --> 0:14:58.040 about in terms of necromancy, because it would mean that, yes, 0:14:58.120 --> 0:15:01.880 there here is a neural logical way that the dead 0:15:02.480 --> 0:15:04.760 not only could speak to human beings, but spoke to 0:15:04.760 --> 0:15:06.960 them on a regular basis. Go back and listen to 0:15:07.040 --> 0:15:09.800 our old episodes on his hypothesis if you want to 0:15:09.840 --> 0:15:13.200 know more about that. But yeah, at the end of 0:15:13.240 --> 0:15:16.120 the day, like did they just simply recreate these faces 0:15:16.160 --> 0:15:19.560 in order to honor them, to remember them, and if 0:15:19.560 --> 0:15:22.440 they were speaking to them, like we can sort of 0:15:22.480 --> 0:15:28.640 imagine like a broad scale a spectrum of possible necromancy, 0:15:28.720 --> 0:15:32.320 you know, and there's you know, there are certainly versions 0:15:32.440 --> 0:15:34.960 of this interpretation in which they might have been speaking 0:15:34.960 --> 0:15:39.000 to these skulls, but we're not actually seeking knowledge from 0:15:39.040 --> 0:15:39.680 the dead. 0:15:39.880 --> 0:15:42.040 That's right. So I want to get deeper into that 0:15:42.080 --> 0:15:44.920 in a minute. But in a way, this connects to 0:15:45.200 --> 0:15:49.440 what I thought was an interesting little side comment that 0:15:49.800 --> 0:15:54.120 this British Museum researcher Alexander Fletcher makes in this interview 0:15:54.640 --> 0:15:56.440 where she just kind of says that, you know, the 0:15:56.480 --> 0:15:59.680 longer you work with work with these skulls, do research 0:15:59.720 --> 0:16:02.440 on them, especially maybe from the you know, the reconstruction 0:16:02.520 --> 0:16:04.640 of the face, the more you come to see the 0:16:04.640 --> 0:16:07.600 skulls not just as an artifact but as a person. 0:16:08.400 --> 0:16:10.760 And I was like, wow, maybe I am over interpreting, 0:16:10.760 --> 0:16:13.480 but that seems perhaps revealing about the effect they might 0:16:13.480 --> 0:16:26.480 have had on the people who originally made them as well. Yeah, 0:16:26.560 --> 0:16:28.360 I want to come back to the idea of adding 0:16:28.440 --> 0:16:34.040 some sort of complications to the idea of necromancy or 0:16:34.880 --> 0:16:39.040 divination through the dead as a coherent and discreet practice. 0:16:39.640 --> 0:16:42.200 So I was thinking about this, and I was thinking 0:16:42.200 --> 0:16:45.120 about how in a lot of these early settlements where 0:16:45.200 --> 0:16:47.960 these plaster skulls are found, you know, the settlements with 0:16:48.000 --> 0:16:52.040 permanent structures like chattlehou Yuk which you mentioned in Jericho, 0:16:53.000 --> 0:16:55.800 there are other interesting features about how the dead were 0:16:55.840 --> 0:16:58.840 dealt with as well, not just the creation of plaster skulls, 0:16:58.880 --> 0:17:03.000 But in these settlements, it seems sometimes the bodies of 0:17:03.200 --> 0:17:09.200 the dead were buried inside people's houses. So maybe your grandparents' 0:17:09.280 --> 0:17:13.240 bones might not be often a cemetery somewhere else that 0:17:13.280 --> 0:17:15.960 you go and visit from time to time, but right 0:17:16.040 --> 0:17:18.880 in the house with you, maybe buried under the floor 0:17:19.320 --> 0:17:22.280 or under your bed. Again, we don't know for sure 0:17:22.359 --> 0:17:26.280 why they did this. All kinds of speculation abounds. In 0:17:26.320 --> 0:17:28.480 some cases, it looks like the bodies might have been 0:17:28.640 --> 0:17:32.199 removed elsewhere for the flesh to rot off the bones 0:17:32.320 --> 0:17:35.080 or be picked off the bones. Maybe the bones were 0:17:35.119 --> 0:17:39.040 defleshed somewhere else and then maybe brought back inside the house, 0:17:39.119 --> 0:17:41.399 and then they would live under the floor, under your 0:17:41.440 --> 0:17:44.840 bed or something. But these are also places where we 0:17:44.960 --> 0:17:48.359 encounterplastered skulls. So it just seems it seems possible to 0:17:48.400 --> 0:17:53.040 me that if the skull had some kind of significance 0:17:53.119 --> 0:17:57.760 as a conduit for communication with the dead, I wonder 0:17:57.920 --> 0:18:04.359 if it wasn't a spec discrete, transactional event ritual like 0:18:04.400 --> 0:18:06.520 we've been talking about in some of these Greek stories, 0:18:06.560 --> 0:18:08.600 you know, where you like you go to the oracle 0:18:08.640 --> 0:18:10.840 and you know what I mean, like it being a 0:18:10.880 --> 0:18:14.040 special event. I wonder if it's more like just a 0:18:14.119 --> 0:18:17.720 kind of continuous belief that, yes, Grandma is still here 0:18:17.760 --> 0:18:19.920 with us, she's in the house, she lives with us. 0:18:20.240 --> 0:18:22.560 Yeah, I mean, I can easily imagine that that being 0:18:22.600 --> 0:18:25.200 the case. Again, it's not too far away from sort 0:18:25.200 --> 0:18:29.600 of the mild background supernatural ideas that many of us 0:18:29.680 --> 0:18:32.520 may may dabble in, you know, like to think about 0:18:32.920 --> 0:18:38.200 a deceased loved one being nearby, you know. I think 0:18:38.200 --> 0:18:39.760 it is something that a lot of us probably do 0:18:39.880 --> 0:18:42.239 to some degree without even being on the level of, 0:18:42.320 --> 0:18:44.280 like I believe in ghosts, you know. 0:18:44.920 --> 0:18:47.920 And so if the situation were something more like that, 0:18:48.480 --> 0:18:50.919 to the extent that you would seek advice from your 0:18:50.920 --> 0:18:54.240 grandparent in this context, I wonder if it would give 0:18:54.359 --> 0:18:58.240 kind of the wrong impression to call that necromancy, because 0:18:58.280 --> 0:19:00.720 again of the all the stories we have in which 0:19:01.280 --> 0:19:03.920 the necromancy is usually more a like I was saying, 0:19:03.960 --> 0:19:08.720 a discrete, transactional kind of event ritual versus something that 0:19:08.880 --> 0:19:12.639 is just intimate and continuous in part of life. 0:19:12.800 --> 0:19:16.160 Yeah, so many of these stories, ancient and modern, depict 0:19:16.240 --> 0:19:20.159 necromancy as kind of an extreme thing. You do, you know, 0:19:20.200 --> 0:19:25.439 when other attempts to remedy a situation have not worked, 0:19:25.840 --> 0:19:28.359 that's when you seek out the necromantic solution. 0:19:29.040 --> 0:19:31.119 But then again, just to emphasize how little we know 0:19:31.240 --> 0:19:33.760 for sure, there could be totally different explanations as well. 0:19:33.800 --> 0:19:36.879 I mean, maybe burying the bones in the house and 0:19:36.920 --> 0:19:40.439 putting a plaster face over your ancestor skull, maybe that 0:19:40.640 --> 0:19:44.280 was just merely a form of honoring and remembering people, 0:19:44.440 --> 0:19:46.920 just like you might I don't know, have a photo 0:19:47.080 --> 0:19:49.879 of a dead relative on the wall today or something 0:19:49.960 --> 0:19:53.000 buried with them. You know, we miss our ancestor who 0:19:53.040 --> 0:19:56.399 has passed on. So maybe we keep the bones or 0:19:56.560 --> 0:19:59.720 plaster the skull in a way under the house or 0:19:59.760 --> 0:20:01.760 in the house in a way of remembering them. 0:20:02.040 --> 0:20:04.240 Yeah, and so certainly these are not neutral skulls. These 0:20:04.240 --> 0:20:08.280 are skulls that are conceivably connected to loved ones, but 0:20:08.600 --> 0:20:12.320 still like even like human understanding and appreciation of skulls 0:20:12.440 --> 0:20:14.240 is kind of complex because they take on all these 0:20:14.280 --> 0:20:17.560 symbolic meanings, but then they're also there's also this sort 0:20:17.560 --> 0:20:20.920 of like coolness to the skull that has seem to 0:20:21.000 --> 0:20:24.520 exist for a long time, and you know, we get 0:20:24.520 --> 0:20:29.000 into this with other skull based traditions and artifacts as well. 0:20:29.160 --> 0:20:32.320 Is discussed in their recent either recently rerun or about 0:20:32.359 --> 0:20:35.280 to be rerun episode where I interviewed Brian Hoggart about 0:20:35.640 --> 0:20:40.080 anti witchcraft precautions, some of which involved putting skulls, particularly 0:20:40.080 --> 0:20:43.080 horse skulls, in the foundation of a building. Like a 0:20:43.119 --> 0:20:45.119 lot of it's just kind of like, well, horse skulls 0:20:45.160 --> 0:20:48.159 are really interesting looking. They don't look like horses, but 0:20:48.320 --> 0:20:52.639 yet they are horses, and horses have this important place 0:20:53.160 --> 0:20:56.080 in human lives. So yeah, there are a number of 0:20:56.119 --> 0:20:58.800 different ways you can go in and try and figure 0:20:58.800 --> 0:21:00.000 out like why was this important? 0:21:00.760 --> 0:21:03.320 Right, So there's just so much like we don't know 0:21:03.400 --> 0:21:07.399 anybody who has too confident or too certain a theory 0:21:07.440 --> 0:21:10.960 about what these remains meant and how they were used. 0:21:11.000 --> 0:21:13.600 I think you should be highly skeptical of that, but 0:21:13.960 --> 0:21:17.639 I do think one interesting piece of information that we 0:21:17.760 --> 0:21:21.359 can use is not from the ancient world itself, but 0:21:21.560 --> 0:21:27.200 just from looking at practices of ancestor veneration today by analogy, 0:21:27.240 --> 0:21:30.959 which is a totally common practice all over the world. 0:21:31.440 --> 0:21:34.159 That's right, we discussed We've discussed some of these already, 0:21:34.160 --> 0:21:37.880 at least in Passing, particularly the importance of ancestor veneration 0:21:38.040 --> 0:21:39.760 in Chinese culture, right. 0:21:39.800 --> 0:21:43.520 And so I was looking for some documentation of people 0:21:43.560 --> 0:21:46.800 today with religious practices that could be considered to include 0:21:46.840 --> 0:21:50.879 strong elements of ancestor veneration and also something that could 0:21:50.920 --> 0:21:55.960 be considered divination via deceased ancestors. And I think from 0:21:55.960 --> 0:21:58.480 what I can tell, this combination of beliefs is not 0:21:58.640 --> 0:22:01.480 especially unique or unusual. Lots of people around the world 0:22:01.880 --> 0:22:05.200 practice forms of ancestor veneration that might include some way 0:22:05.240 --> 0:22:08.439 of establishing contact with the dead or getting information or 0:22:08.440 --> 0:22:11.280 messages from them. But I wanted to find one clear 0:22:11.359 --> 0:22:14.720 example with documentation of specifics so we're not just dealing 0:22:14.760 --> 0:22:18.520 with generalities. And I came across an interesting paper looking 0:22:18.720 --> 0:22:22.639 at the Bupeti people. So this was by Maura kang 0:22:22.760 --> 0:22:26.879 E k Lebaka, who is a scholar at the University 0:22:26.880 --> 0:22:30.959 of South Africa specializing in African musical arts and ethnomusicology. 0:22:31.320 --> 0:22:34.399 The paper was called the Art of Establishing and Maintaining 0:22:34.480 --> 0:22:38.960 Contact with Ancestors, a study of Bapeti tradition published in 0:22:39.600 --> 0:22:43.520 the journal HTS Theological Studies in the year twenty eighteen. 0:22:43.800 --> 0:22:47.600 So the Buppetti people mostly live within northern South Africa, 0:22:47.640 --> 0:22:52.440 and Lebaca, synthesizing the work of some previous ethnographers, describes 0:22:52.560 --> 0:22:56.560 a common view of ancestors among the Bapeti people. Again, 0:22:57.040 --> 0:22:59.679 same caveat with all of the examples we've talked about. 0:23:00.320 --> 0:23:03.480 Beliefs are not usually universal within a culture. All you 0:23:03.520 --> 0:23:07.200 can do is describe commonly found beliefs. He says, first 0:23:07.200 --> 0:23:09.280 of all, in the words of a scholar named Mibiti, 0:23:09.440 --> 0:23:14.119 there is a widespread belief in many African traditional religions 0:23:14.240 --> 0:23:18.080 that quote, death does not annihilate life, and the departed 0:23:18.160 --> 0:23:21.719 continue to exist in the hereafter, so the dead are 0:23:21.760 --> 0:23:26.480 not gone, they remain spiritually alive in some sense. Also, 0:23:26.560 --> 0:23:31.639 Lebacca says that the character of ancestors is believed to 0:23:31.840 --> 0:23:36.880 remain fundamentally unchanged since they were alive dead ancestors go 0:23:36.960 --> 0:23:41.240 on existing. They remain themselves in good and bad ways, 0:23:41.280 --> 0:23:45.199 so they can protect and advise their descendants. But they 0:23:45.240 --> 0:23:50.200 are also not like perfect, perfected, ethereal beings. They're like us, 0:23:50.800 --> 0:23:53.200 and they are like they were in life, so also 0:23:53.280 --> 0:23:56.720 prone to jealousy and motivations of that sort. He says, 0:23:56.760 --> 0:24:00.040 the spirits of ancestors have the power to affect the 0:23:59.880 --> 0:24:02.560 fates of the living, and this can be for good 0:24:02.680 --> 0:24:06.160 or for ill. Their behavior toward the living depends largely 0:24:06.240 --> 0:24:10.280 on if they are properly honored and venerated, and Lebaca 0:24:10.400 --> 0:24:16.000 argues that veneration is different from worship. Veneration is more 0:24:16.080 --> 0:24:19.520 like the respect that the young are expected to give 0:24:19.560 --> 0:24:24.000 to their elders, except extended beyond the bound boundary of death, 0:24:24.040 --> 0:24:28.320 and does have special rituals involved. He says ancestral spirits 0:24:28.520 --> 0:24:33.520 guard and enforce morality within the family and prevent feuds 0:24:33.520 --> 0:24:37.399 and conflicts between living members of the family. This is 0:24:37.440 --> 0:24:39.639 mentioned later in the article, but it's worth noting that 0:24:39.720 --> 0:24:43.520 ancestors are believed to be powerful and can cause supernatural 0:24:43.560 --> 0:24:47.840 outcomes to affect people, but they're not omnipotent. They can't 0:24:47.880 --> 0:24:52.600 do anything Lebaca says that sometimes but petty ancestors need 0:24:52.680 --> 0:24:56.639 to be contacted, need to be communicated with, and he 0:24:56.680 --> 0:24:59.960 says there are a couple of main ways to establish contact. 0:25:00.160 --> 0:25:05.000 There are these communal music and dance ceremonies known as 0:25:05.080 --> 0:25:09.239 the Malopo ritual, and that appeases the ancestral spirits. But 0:25:09.359 --> 0:25:13.440 there is also a way of seeking help of traditional healers, 0:25:13.880 --> 0:25:18.400 especially with the use of divination bones. Now, I want 0:25:18.400 --> 0:25:20.000 to note that, as far as I could tell, these 0:25:20.000 --> 0:25:23.440 are not the bones of ancestors. The paper doesn't address 0:25:23.480 --> 0:25:25.720 this question directly, but it seemed to me, based on 0:25:25.760 --> 0:25:28.960 a photo included in the paper and the fact that 0:25:29.000 --> 0:25:31.359 it was not specified otherwise, that these would probably be 0:25:31.680 --> 0:25:34.040 normal kind of bones that would be used in practices 0:25:34.119 --> 0:25:35.040 of osteomancy. 0:25:35.520 --> 0:25:39.800 Yeah. I think in other instances of bones being used 0:25:39.840 --> 0:25:44.840 as essentially, you know, dies of some sort, they've always 0:25:44.840 --> 0:25:47.240 been animal bones. I don't remember off hand an example 0:25:47.280 --> 0:25:50.119 of them being human bones, but it may exist elsewhere. 0:25:50.200 --> 0:25:52.320 I only specified that because we were just talking about 0:25:52.359 --> 0:25:55.560 examples of bones being kept like within the houses of 0:25:55.600 --> 0:25:59.240 the living, So I think we're not talking about ancestors 0:25:59.280 --> 0:25:59.840 bones here. 0:26:00.280 --> 0:26:02.439 Yeah, I think you're right, they would assurely specified if 0:26:02.480 --> 0:26:03.080 that was the case. 0:26:03.520 --> 0:26:07.560 So Lebaca in this paper includes a number of interviews 0:26:07.600 --> 0:26:12.560 with traditional healers, one of whom describes that direct communication 0:26:12.680 --> 0:26:16.959 between healers and their own ancestors happens through music and 0:26:17.119 --> 0:26:20.359 through dreams, and that the purpose of the use of 0:26:20.480 --> 0:26:24.439 music and group singing in ritual contact with ancestors is 0:26:24.520 --> 0:26:29.000 quote to create harmony between the living and the ancestors. 0:26:29.640 --> 0:26:32.439 And I thought that was interesting because it reminds me 0:26:32.480 --> 0:26:34.880 of the way that, of course singing can be used 0:26:34.920 --> 0:26:37.639 to create a sense of togetherness among the living alone, 0:26:37.760 --> 0:26:40.119 you know, just like a people a group of people 0:26:40.160 --> 0:26:43.720 singing together. I think almost everybody will know what I'm 0:26:43.720 --> 0:26:45.520 talking about when I say the way that creates this 0:26:45.640 --> 0:26:48.960 weird sense of emergent harmony and sort of group identity. 0:26:49.359 --> 0:26:51.840 And so maybe by inviting the dead to be a 0:26:51.880 --> 0:26:55.440 part of that as well, you're sort of bringing them 0:26:55.440 --> 0:26:56.520 to the table in a way. 0:26:57.200 --> 0:26:58.399 Yeah, yeah, absolutely. 0:26:59.119 --> 0:27:03.840 But this paper a naturalistic approach of observing malopo rituals 0:27:03.920 --> 0:27:07.720 and interviewing traditional healers about the function of ancestor veneration 0:27:07.840 --> 0:27:11.480 in Bapetti society. And there's one story recounted in the 0:27:11.520 --> 0:27:14.400 paper Told by a Healer that that goes basically as follows. 0:27:14.520 --> 0:27:18.199 I'll do a shorter summary the healer. Before she was 0:27:18.480 --> 0:27:22.520 a traditional healer, she had been sick and had experienced 0:27:22.520 --> 0:27:25.399 trouble sleeping, and then she had a dream of a 0:27:25.440 --> 0:27:30.920 man who gave her a plastic bag full of divination bones, 0:27:31.560 --> 0:27:34.040 and so she went to her Christian church to find 0:27:34.040 --> 0:27:36.320 out what to do, and they gave her some instructions 0:27:36.400 --> 0:27:39.200 of things she could do, but she did not follow 0:27:39.240 --> 0:27:43.000 the instructions and started having encounters with snakes, like there 0:27:43.000 --> 0:27:45.640 was a snake in her pillowcase one night, and then 0:27:45.720 --> 0:27:49.080 the encounters got worse. She and her husband encountered a 0:27:49.160 --> 0:27:52.240 much bigger snake. So she and her husband went to 0:27:52.400 --> 0:27:56.119 visit a traditional healer and he used divination bones to 0:27:56.320 --> 0:28:01.000 discover that her grandfather had been a traditional healer himself, 0:28:01.400 --> 0:28:03.960 and he wanted her to become a healer as well, 0:28:04.480 --> 0:28:08.360 and the illness, the insomnia, and the snakes were signs 0:28:08.400 --> 0:28:11.399 to push her onto this path. So in her story, 0:28:11.440 --> 0:28:14.680 she accepted the call became a healer, and after her training, 0:28:15.000 --> 0:28:18.320 she came home and was welcomed back with a malopo ritual, 0:28:18.680 --> 0:28:21.320 and the snakes and the pain and the insomnia were gone. 0:28:21.800 --> 0:28:25.240 There are also other stories included here of ill health 0:28:25.280 --> 0:28:29.239 and frightening experiences brought on by ancestors to sort of 0:28:29.440 --> 0:28:34.040 pressure the living descendants to follow their advice and Lebaca 0:28:34.320 --> 0:28:36.280 this is not a point Lebacca raises in the paper, 0:28:36.320 --> 0:28:39.680 but I just happened to note that in the cases 0:28:39.720 --> 0:28:44.600 documented in this study, the communication with dead ancestors sought 0:28:44.640 --> 0:28:49.400 with the help of healers, does not provide information about 0:28:49.440 --> 0:28:52.840 like objective future outcomes, such as you know what will 0:28:52.840 --> 0:28:55.600 happen in the future, who's going to ascend to the throne, 0:28:55.640 --> 0:28:57.440 who's going to win the war, like we talked about 0:28:57.440 --> 0:28:59.880 in some of these ancient examples. Rather, it seems to 0:28:59.920 --> 0:29:04.680 be providing the ancestor's personal perspective. So in this case 0:29:04.720 --> 0:29:10.600 of divination, it has less of a prophetic quality than 0:29:10.800 --> 0:29:14.200 in some of the like, especially the fictional accounts, and 0:29:14.280 --> 0:29:16.520 seems more to me like it's focused on seeking the 0:29:16.560 --> 0:29:20.920 ancestors advice, like it allows the person to understand the 0:29:20.920 --> 0:29:24.400 ways that the ancestor is influencing their life for good 0:29:24.440 --> 0:29:27.520 or for ill, and kind of the same way a 0:29:27.680 --> 0:29:30.920 chat with a living elder might provide both personal advice 0:29:31.160 --> 0:29:33.720 of things that they think you should do with your life, 0:29:34.080 --> 0:29:37.600 but also explanations of why and how the elder is 0:29:37.680 --> 0:29:39.200 treating you the way they are. 0:29:39.640 --> 0:29:43.200 Yeah, and sort of serving to bring the current generation 0:29:43.400 --> 0:29:48.240 in line with past generations and the will and the 0:29:48.280 --> 0:29:53.320 expectations of ancestors. This reminds me of how, in certain 0:29:53.840 --> 0:29:59.280 analysis I've read of traditional Chinese ancestor generation, that you 0:29:59.320 --> 0:30:02.320 could think of it as a kind of structural completeness, 0:30:02.840 --> 0:30:06.920 that the family unit is not just a thing that exists, 0:30:08.240 --> 0:30:12.040 you know, with borders and a certain head count in 0:30:12.080 --> 0:30:15.400 the present, but it is a thing that exists in 0:30:15.440 --> 0:30:19.440 the present and stretching back through the past, and therefore, 0:30:19.960 --> 0:30:22.680 like being in line with the will of ancestors is 0:30:22.720 --> 0:30:27.000 about like keeping the structure sound and making sure that 0:30:27.040 --> 0:30:30.920 everything is lined up and has this structural completeness, which 0:30:31.080 --> 0:30:35.640 I think can be a slightly alien concept to many 0:30:35.680 --> 0:30:38.560 of us, especially if you tend to sort of view 0:30:39.120 --> 0:30:41.600 like the family is a thing that exists solely in 0:30:41.640 --> 0:30:44.680 the present, maybe it sinks back a little bit in time, 0:30:45.120 --> 0:30:48.000 but is not deeply rooted in the past. 0:30:48.320 --> 0:30:51.520 Well, yeah, it seems to me to highlight how culturally variable. 0:30:52.520 --> 0:30:55.560 The idea of the family is like what constitutes the 0:30:55.560 --> 0:30:59.400 family and as especially as like a functional unit still 0:30:59.720 --> 0:31:03.959 having an effect on all members within. Yeah, but so anyway, 0:31:04.000 --> 0:31:06.680 to look at a few assessments from this paper, Lebacca 0:31:06.760 --> 0:31:10.640 says that there's a common belief among people of the 0:31:10.720 --> 0:31:14.000 Bipetti society that the main thing ancestors want is to 0:31:14.040 --> 0:31:17.560 be remembered and respected by their descendants. And if the 0:31:17.640 --> 0:31:21.400 living faithfully remember and venerate their ancestors, they're going to 0:31:21.440 --> 0:31:24.760 be blessed with good health, healthy livestock and crops, good weather, 0:31:24.880 --> 0:31:28.920 and so forth. And sometimes for a healing to take place, 0:31:29.040 --> 0:31:32.320 a healer will have to consult the spirits of ancestors 0:31:32.360 --> 0:31:36.560 directly to find out what to do. Another interesting thing 0:31:36.600 --> 0:31:39.720 he notes is that he says Bipetti often feel that 0:31:39.840 --> 0:31:45.880 it is inappropriate to approach their supreme deity or God directly, 0:31:45.960 --> 0:31:49.160 and instead would use their ancestral spirits as sort of 0:31:49.200 --> 0:31:55.320 intermediaries or emissaries between themselves and God. So I thought 0:31:55.360 --> 0:31:57.920 this was an interesting layer of perspective that gives us, 0:31:57.960 --> 0:32:01.240 I think, a more nuanced view of what it means 0:32:01.320 --> 0:32:05.240 to be in contact in communication with the dead, because 0:32:05.280 --> 0:32:09.160 here's one case where people today certainly do use rituals 0:32:09.200 --> 0:32:13.520 such as communal music and dance and consultation with healers 0:32:13.640 --> 0:32:16.960 using divination bones to get in contact with the dead, 0:32:17.520 --> 0:32:19.600 But it does not seem to me, at least not 0:32:19.760 --> 0:32:23.360 in the cases documented in this study, to usually be 0:32:23.440 --> 0:32:26.720 for the purpose of like knowing the future in advance, 0:32:27.160 --> 0:32:30.320 but rather for the purpose of gaining perspective on the 0:32:30.360 --> 0:32:34.680 present and the past. You establish communication with the dead 0:32:35.120 --> 0:32:38.680 in order to receive wisdom and to receive advice, and 0:32:38.720 --> 0:32:41.840 to find out what your ancestors want you to do 0:32:42.040 --> 0:32:44.640 or expect you to do, and to find out how 0:32:44.680 --> 0:32:49.400 the ancestors advice and desires are connected to the trials 0:32:49.400 --> 0:32:52.400 and other things you are experiencing in your daily life. 0:32:52.840 --> 0:32:57.000 And this really got me thinking, because it made me 0:32:57.080 --> 0:33:00.640 think that actually, even in a lot of the cases 0:33:00.680 --> 0:33:04.040 we've already been looking at from you know, accounts from 0:33:04.080 --> 0:33:07.400 the ancient world and so forth, a lot of the 0:33:07.480 --> 0:33:10.280 cases of divination through spirits of the dead that we 0:33:10.400 --> 0:33:14.360 looked at did not consist of a person seeking to 0:33:14.480 --> 0:33:16.760 know the future in the kind of you know, the 0:33:16.800 --> 0:33:20.040 fictional sorcerer sense we think about, where like somebody wants 0:33:20.120 --> 0:33:22.120 ultimate power, and so they want to know what happens 0:33:22.120 --> 0:33:26.800 ahead of time to exploit that. Instead, it very often 0:33:26.840 --> 0:33:31.520 seemed to involve a much more personal, intimate, interactive kind 0:33:31.520 --> 0:33:35.240 of knowledge, like knowledge useful for the exorcism of an 0:33:35.320 --> 0:33:40.040 unwanted ghost, or knowledge useful to get advice, or you know, 0:33:40.240 --> 0:33:44.080 wisdom from an ancestor or other knowledge of that kind 0:33:44.080 --> 0:33:46.040 of personal sort. Does that make sense? 0:33:46.760 --> 0:33:48.920 Yeah, yeah, I mean in a way it almost puts 0:33:48.920 --> 0:33:51.400 things more in line with this idea that what we 0:33:51.440 --> 0:33:53.920 think of as necromancy is maybe more in line with 0:33:54.040 --> 0:33:58.240 various shamanistic practices going stretching back through various human cultures, 0:33:58.840 --> 0:34:02.960 very far back in human existence. But yeah, not the 0:34:03.040 --> 0:34:06.640 but a lot of like smaller practices aimed at sort 0:34:06.640 --> 0:34:10.960 of realigning your life, things that almost could be thought 0:34:11.000 --> 0:34:15.120 of as having a therapeutic property to them. You know, 0:34:15.200 --> 0:34:17.720 it's like something feels out of line in my life. 0:34:17.800 --> 0:34:19.719 I need to get right with the ancestors. I need 0:34:19.760 --> 0:34:22.800 to touch base with the ancestors in one form or another. 0:34:23.400 --> 0:34:25.799 But that makes me feel like maybe we should come 0:34:25.840 --> 0:34:28.400 back and further explore the other side of the scale 0:34:28.440 --> 0:34:32.960 as well. If that's a view of divination seeking communication 0:34:33.120 --> 0:34:37.239 with the dead as a kind of intimate, wholesome, integrated 0:34:37.280 --> 0:34:40.080 thing within people's lives and culture that helps provide the 0:34:40.120 --> 0:34:44.160 perspective of ancestors and wisdom. There are also culturally very 0:34:44.200 --> 0:34:47.920 different views that would place it back in the category 0:34:48.000 --> 0:34:52.440 of like a special extreme, transactional kind of event ritual. 0:34:53.239 --> 0:34:56.520 Yeah. Yeah, And in this we're gonna we've been talking 0:34:56.520 --> 0:35:01.319 about sort of bottom up necromancy, necromancy, things like necromancy 0:35:01.360 --> 0:35:06.600 that have emerged as part of traditional practices. Now let's 0:35:06.600 --> 0:35:09.759 turn back to medieval Christian Europe and think about sort 0:35:09.760 --> 0:35:13.440 of like the top down view of a Christian hierarchy 0:35:14.160 --> 0:35:20.160 looking to stamp out necromatic practices and necromatic texts, because, 0:35:20.160 --> 0:35:22.920 as we've mentioned several times already, there is this general 0:35:22.960 --> 0:35:26.640 attitude in medieval Christian Europe, again very top down, not 0:35:26.800 --> 0:35:29.799 talking about like traditional pre Christian beliefs that are still 0:35:29.840 --> 0:35:33.440 resonating among the various peoples of Europe and various peoples 0:35:33.800 --> 0:35:38.560 under the control of Christian forces, but rather this top 0:35:38.600 --> 0:35:42.040 down view that first of all, the dead cannot be 0:35:42.080 --> 0:35:45.879 communicated with, and they should not be communicated with. If 0:35:45.880 --> 0:35:49.640 you attempt necromancy, you may well speak with something, but 0:35:49.760 --> 0:35:52.440 it will be a demon rather than a ghost, and 0:35:52.520 --> 0:35:55.720 so only ill can come of it. Now that being said, 0:35:56.160 --> 0:36:00.440 necromancy and necromatic texts certainly existed and were circul related. 0:36:01.200 --> 0:36:04.080 At times, they were greatly feared by the Church, as 0:36:04.160 --> 0:36:08.560 pointed out by Richard Keikeffer in nineteen ninety sevens Forbidden Rights. 0:36:08.680 --> 0:36:12.719 When Franciscan Friar Bernard de Lussius was accused by the 0:36:12.719 --> 0:36:16.600 Holy Inquisition of using necromancy against the Pope in thirteen nineteen, 0:36:17.080 --> 0:36:19.319 he was cleared of the charge, but he was still 0:36:19.360 --> 0:36:24.280 sent to prison for merely possessing a book of alleged necromancy. 0:36:24.920 --> 0:36:26.840 Simon, I'd rather see you dead. 0:36:28.200 --> 0:36:33.120 Exactly. I mean that the movie you're referencing does does 0:36:33.400 --> 0:36:38.080 present this various top down view of forbidden knowledge and 0:36:38.680 --> 0:36:39.240 so forth. 0:36:40.080 --> 0:36:41.919 We're talking about The Devil Rides Out by the Way, 0:36:41.960 --> 0:36:44.960 where Christopher Lee's character like, Oh, it's okay for him 0:36:45.120 --> 0:36:48.279 to know about all of the forbidden magical rituals, but 0:36:48.320 --> 0:36:50.960 it's not okay for his friend Simon to know about them. 0:36:51.120 --> 0:36:54.080 Oh yeah, I mean within one of these cultural situations, 0:36:54.120 --> 0:36:56.560 it's always okay for someone to know about them, to 0:36:56.600 --> 0:36:58.560 know about these things, and those are the ones who 0:36:58.600 --> 0:37:01.080 get to tell everyone else that they're not allowed to 0:37:01.120 --> 0:37:05.160 know about them. The witch hunters get all the cool texts. Anyway, 0:37:05.239 --> 0:37:10.160 Fears and accusations of clergy possessing and or using necromantic 0:37:10.200 --> 0:37:15.680 writings continued afterwards. However, Keir Keffer discusses these books as 0:37:15.760 --> 0:37:20.320 concerning quote explicitly demonic magic as well, and this seems 0:37:20.320 --> 0:37:22.439 to have been the case during the Middle Ages as well, 0:37:22.480 --> 0:37:27.680 where sometimes something described as necromancy did involve divination via 0:37:27.719 --> 0:37:31.200 the dead, but other times it was used interchangeably with 0:37:31.760 --> 0:37:36.760 demonic magic. By most theological definitions. However, communication with demons 0:37:36.800 --> 0:37:39.880 and demonic divination would not be the same as merely 0:37:39.920 --> 0:37:43.719 speaking with the dead, unless you're getting into this again 0:37:43.760 --> 0:37:48.920 this very specific Christian caveat about the distinction or the 0:37:49.000 --> 0:37:52.280 lack of a distinction between the two key Keffer writes quote. 0:37:52.400 --> 0:37:55.319 One possible reason for the conflation of these terms and 0:37:55.400 --> 0:37:58.799 concepts was the widespread assumption that when one engaged in 0:37:58.800 --> 0:38:03.000 necromancy in the area sense conjuring the spirits of the deceased, 0:38:03.280 --> 0:38:07.120 the spirits which in fact appeared were demons in the 0:38:07.200 --> 0:38:10.960 forms of the dead and the biblical example here that 0:38:11.080 --> 0:38:16.360 is often summoned up to support this is the shade 0:38:16.400 --> 0:38:20.239 of Samuel being conjured by the Witch of Indoor, and 0:38:20.280 --> 0:38:23.040 it is said that this is not really the spirit 0:38:23.080 --> 0:38:26.319 of Samuel, this is a demon in the guise of 0:38:26.360 --> 0:38:26.920 his spirit. 0:38:27.400 --> 0:38:29.799 I don't think the Bible says that. I think in 0:38:29.840 --> 0:38:32.600 the Bible it is pretty much understood to be Samuel. 0:38:33.239 --> 0:38:35.680 Yeah. Yeah, but again you get into like, what are 0:38:35.719 --> 0:38:40.720 the official interpretations of a given religious text, right, Yeah, Still, 0:38:40.760 --> 0:38:44.480 there was discussion of pure necromancy in various texts. A 0:38:44.560 --> 0:38:47.200 couple of examples are brought up here. There's the Rowlinson 0:38:47.400 --> 0:38:51.360 Necromatic Manuscript, as it's popularly known. This is a Latin 0:38:51.360 --> 0:38:54.800 and Middle English collection of texts on magic and divination, 0:38:55.200 --> 0:38:59.040 including the invocation of angels as well as the dead. 0:38:59.400 --> 0:39:02.439 Its name for Richard Rowlinson, an eighteenth century clergy member 0:39:02.440 --> 0:39:06.400 and collector of rare books and manuscripts. So yeah, it 0:39:06.440 --> 0:39:09.839 contains instructions for necromantic magic, as does the so called 0:39:09.960 --> 0:39:15.040 Munich Manual of Demonic Magic, a fifteenth century Godick grimour. 0:39:15.520 --> 0:39:20.160 Instructions from the Munich Manual via Keith Kefer involve the 0:39:20.320 --> 0:39:24.520 creation of multiple magic circles, a sword and a ring, 0:39:25.320 --> 0:39:28.520 and you can use these rights to speak to the dead, certainly, 0:39:28.560 --> 0:39:31.120 but also you can make a living person appear dead. 0:39:31.600 --> 0:39:33.640 You can also make a living person fall in love 0:39:33.680 --> 0:39:47.280 with you, and many other things. Hmm. Now. In one section, 0:39:47.680 --> 0:39:50.759 ki Keffer adds some interesting ideas about the idea of 0:39:50.880 --> 0:39:56.400 necromancy and nonsense. We often assume that everyone considering necromancy 0:39:56.440 --> 0:40:00.200 in medieval times was either an eager believer or a 0:40:00.280 --> 0:40:03.000 fearful inquisitor when it came to this kind of stuff, 0:40:03.480 --> 0:40:06.680 so he writes the following quote. One might add to 0:40:06.760 --> 0:40:10.319 this that it is not altogether anachronistic to see the 0:40:10.360 --> 0:40:14.880 notion of necromancy as nonsense. As it's at its most playful, 0:40:15.200 --> 0:40:18.920 it was a deliberate violation of sense, a fantasy of illusion, 0:40:19.200 --> 0:40:23.399 perhaps intended more for imaginative entertainment than for actual use. 0:40:24.000 --> 0:40:28.480 Yet the boundaries between sense and nonsense are rarely quite stable, 0:40:28.880 --> 0:40:32.960 and themes that seem to an outsider absolutely nonsensical could 0:40:33.000 --> 0:40:36.480 be taken in deadly earnest by some observers within the 0:40:36.480 --> 0:40:42.160 culture quote and the deadly earnest observers in this particular case, 0:40:42.360 --> 0:40:45.040 he would be referring to would be like the witch 0:40:45.120 --> 0:40:50.320 hunters and so forth, the demonology theorists that brought about 0:40:50.360 --> 0:40:53.200 so much actual, real misery in the world. 0:40:53.760 --> 0:40:57.719 Ah, So he's exploring the possibility that it was the 0:40:58.200 --> 0:41:01.360 inquisitors and so forth who would who were taking the 0:41:01.480 --> 0:41:04.960 concept more literally than the people who practiced it. 0:41:05.520 --> 0:41:07.919 Yeah, and I think maybe suggesting that there is again 0:41:08.040 --> 0:41:11.520 kind of a it's not just necromancy and non necromancy. 0:41:11.560 --> 0:41:15.840 You know, there's a broad spectrum of various beliefs, practices, rights, 0:41:15.840 --> 0:41:20.680 but also stories, legends, myths that may concern speaking with 0:41:20.760 --> 0:41:25.400 the dead that are understood to varying degrees within a 0:41:25.480 --> 0:41:29.840 given group to not be reality, you know, to in 0:41:29.880 --> 0:41:32.800 the same way that myth is somewhere between reality and fiction. 0:41:33.280 --> 0:41:36.840 You know that some of these traditions hold that place. 0:41:36.880 --> 0:41:39.920 But then you have someone come in with an agenda, 0:41:40.760 --> 0:41:43.799 with a violent agenda, and they're here to stamp out 0:41:43.880 --> 0:41:46.960 practices that are a threat to the church, to stamp 0:41:47.000 --> 0:41:49.480 out individuals that are a threat to the church. Well, 0:41:49.640 --> 0:41:51.759 then they can take any of these things and use 0:41:51.800 --> 0:41:55.279 them to support their case. Now for a little more 0:41:55.320 --> 0:41:58.120 detail on where the church stood on necromancy, and again 0:41:58.320 --> 0:42:00.879 you're dealing with. We're dealing with a with centuries here, 0:42:00.920 --> 0:42:04.080 we're dealing with all sorts of individuals coming in with 0:42:04.080 --> 0:42:06.920 different ideas. So this is not presented to be like 0:42:07.920 --> 0:42:11.680 the word on necromancy. But I thought it would be 0:42:11.880 --> 0:42:18.000 interesting to turn to the famous writings of Thomas Aquinas, 0:42:18.000 --> 0:42:21.399 who lived twelve twenty five through twelve seventy four. This 0:42:21.520 --> 0:42:25.680 is from the Summa Theologica, or the Summary of Theology. 0:42:26.400 --> 0:42:28.839 The book covers a great deal of ground, but it 0:42:28.920 --> 0:42:32.799 does mention necromancy in a few places and gets to 0:42:32.840 --> 0:42:35.640 the meat of what it was thought to be at 0:42:35.640 --> 0:42:38.640 the time in terms of divination. So this is from 0:42:38.680 --> 0:42:43.680 a translation of a Summa theological quote. All divinations seek 0:42:43.719 --> 0:42:47.120 to acquire for knowledge of future events by means of 0:42:47.160 --> 0:42:50.560 some council and help of a demon who is either 0:42:50.680 --> 0:42:54.040 expressly called upon to give his help, or else thrust 0:42:54.080 --> 0:42:58.560 himself in secretly, in order to tell certain future things 0:42:58.680 --> 0:43:02.440 unknown to men but known to him the demon in 0:43:02.480 --> 0:43:06.080 such manners as to have been explained in Isaiah fifty 0:43:06.120 --> 0:43:06.560 seven to three. 0:43:06.960 --> 0:43:09.680 The statement almost seems like a direct argument against what 0:43:09.719 --> 0:43:13.400 we were just talking about with respect to the subtlety 0:43:13.520 --> 0:43:17.000 and complex range of different kinds of communication with the 0:43:17.040 --> 0:43:19.799 dead that might take place, especially in a culture that 0:43:20.120 --> 0:43:23.400 practices common forms of ancestor veneration. 0:43:24.200 --> 0:43:26.560 Yeah, I mean this is like, clearly we're dealing with 0:43:26.560 --> 0:43:28.560 a situation where it is not thought that there is 0:43:28.600 --> 0:43:31.560 any room for this sort of thing within within the 0:43:31.640 --> 0:43:34.920 Christian world, and anything outside of the Christian world that 0:43:35.000 --> 0:43:38.240 even looks like this is probably against the rules. 0:43:38.400 --> 0:43:41.120 It's always to know the future, and it's always a demon. 0:43:41.800 --> 0:43:46.400 Yes, So Aquinas continues to in states when demons are 0:43:46.440 --> 0:43:49.360 expressly invoked, they are wont to foretell the future in 0:43:49.400 --> 0:43:52.880 many ways. Sometimes they offer themselves to human sight and 0:43:52.960 --> 0:43:56.840 hearing by mock apparitions in order to foretell the future, 0:43:57.200 --> 0:44:02.600 and this species is called the digitation because man's eyes 0:44:02.640 --> 0:44:06.440 are blindfolded. Sometimes they make use of dreams, and this 0:44:06.560 --> 0:44:10.640 is called divination by dreams. Sometimes they employ apparitions or 0:44:10.719 --> 0:44:14.920 utterances of the dead, and this species is called necromancy, 0:44:15.480 --> 0:44:20.160 for as Isidore observes, in Greek, necron means dead and 0:44:20.280 --> 0:44:24.800 mantilla divination, because after certain incantations and the sprinkling of blood, 0:44:25.040 --> 0:44:27.680 the dead seem to come to life to divine and 0:44:27.719 --> 0:44:30.520 to answer questions so he goes on to discuss other 0:44:30.560 --> 0:44:33.759 forms of divination. Divination, he says, which is practiced without 0:44:33.800 --> 0:44:37.960 express invocation of demons, occurs in two forms, one by 0:44:38.000 --> 0:44:41.359 observing things in nature, and the other by observing things 0:44:41.440 --> 0:44:44.120 due to human action, like rolling dice or flipping through 0:44:44.160 --> 0:44:47.600 a book. He writes again in translation, accordingly, it is 0:44:47.640 --> 0:44:50.600 clear that there are three kinds of divination. The first 0:44:50.640 --> 0:44:53.399 is when the demons are invoked openly. This comes under 0:44:53.440 --> 0:44:56.880 the head of necromancy. The second is merely an observation 0:44:57.080 --> 0:45:00.239 of the disposition or movement of some other being, and 0:45:00.280 --> 0:45:03.560 this belongs to augury, while the third consists in doing 0:45:03.600 --> 0:45:06.680 something in order to discover the occult, and this belongs 0:45:06.719 --> 0:45:10.280 to sordilach. Under each of these, many others are contained 0:45:10.320 --> 0:45:14.720 as explained above, And he says, in all the afore said, 0:45:15.000 --> 0:45:17.600 there is the same general, but not the same special 0:45:17.719 --> 0:45:21.000 character of sin, For it is much more grievous to 0:45:21.120 --> 0:45:23.920 invoke the demons than to do things that deserve the 0:45:23.920 --> 0:45:27.719 demon's interference. So he's saying, look, if you're trying to 0:45:27.800 --> 0:45:30.040 do let's say you're trying to speak to the spirit 0:45:30.080 --> 0:45:32.359 of the dead, and a demon intercepts the call, as 0:45:32.360 --> 0:45:36.480 they always will and then manipulates you through that communication. 0:45:36.640 --> 0:45:39.840 That's one thing, like, that's bad, you've messed up, But 0:45:40.200 --> 0:45:43.120 you haven't messed up as badly if you had gone 0:45:43.120 --> 0:45:46.800 out and done a demonic ritual and said, hey, demons, 0:45:48.120 --> 0:45:49.680 I need you to come here because we have things 0:45:49.719 --> 0:45:53.799 to talk about now. I did find it interesting that 0:45:54.080 --> 0:45:59.120 Aquinas stresses that merely speaking to a demon or inquiring 0:45:59.600 --> 0:46:04.239 of the truth from a demon is not unlawful, in 0:46:04.320 --> 0:46:08.200 part because Christ spoke to the demon legion. He spoke 0:46:08.239 --> 0:46:11.400 to the demons that were in the swine or were 0:46:11.480 --> 0:46:16.480 driven into the swine. However, it is unlawful to invoke 0:46:16.560 --> 0:46:20.520 a demon. So by this classification, I would think, if 0:46:20.520 --> 0:46:23.399 a demon comes up to you and is like, hey, suck, 0:46:24.160 --> 0:46:27.080 you have every right to go suck back, but it 0:46:27.200 --> 0:46:31.200 is unlawful to summon the demon and then go suck. Right. 0:46:31.320 --> 0:46:34.200 Yes, So if you encounter a demon, you can talk 0:46:34.239 --> 0:46:36.640 to you, probably you can argue with it or whatever, 0:46:37.000 --> 0:46:40.880 but you can't say like, hey, demons, if any demon 0:46:40.960 --> 0:46:42.120 is out there, come debate me. 0:46:42.800 --> 0:46:44.800 Yeah. Yeah, Like if you're Martin Luther and the demons 0:46:44.800 --> 0:46:46.640 show up, you can cuss at them and throw things 0:46:46.680 --> 0:46:50.200 at them. And drive them away, right, that's not demonic 0:46:50.480 --> 0:46:53.560 witchcraft or what have you. But if you summon them, 0:46:53.680 --> 0:46:56.120 I guess even if you summon them to cuss at 0:46:56.120 --> 0:46:57.279 them like, that's bad. 0:46:57.840 --> 0:47:00.960 I would assume so. But especially if you summon them 0:47:01.000 --> 0:47:03.399 in order to gain power from them, that's bad. 0:47:04.280 --> 0:47:06.799 Yeah, so Aquina says, quote. Now, it is one thing 0:47:06.840 --> 0:47:08.680 to question a demon who comes to us of his 0:47:08.719 --> 0:47:11.000 own accord, and it is lawful to do so at 0:47:11.040 --> 0:47:13.719 times for the good of others, especially when he can 0:47:13.760 --> 0:47:15.880 be compelled by the power of God to tell the truth, 0:47:16.440 --> 0:47:18.799 and another to invoke a demon in order to gain 0:47:18.840 --> 0:47:22.160 from him knowledge of things hidden from us. Now that 0:47:22.200 --> 0:47:24.320 I don't know, it seems to me like that opens 0:47:24.360 --> 0:47:27.799 up a gray area. Are like, are you just could 0:47:27.800 --> 0:47:29.719 you put yourself in a position where you're just in 0:47:29.800 --> 0:47:33.400 the right place to encounter demons, so you're not quite 0:47:33.440 --> 0:47:36.920 summoning them, but you're like, you're not baiting the demon, 0:47:37.000 --> 0:47:39.839 but you are hanging out in a place or a 0:47:39.880 --> 0:47:41.680 position where they might show up. 0:47:41.719 --> 0:47:44.279 I don't know, Like, I'm gonna just keep moving my 0:47:44.440 --> 0:47:46.440 arms this way, and if they happen to touch a 0:47:46.480 --> 0:47:49.280 wija board, that that's its problem, not mine. 0:47:49.680 --> 0:47:51.480 Yeah, I'm or yeah, I'm going to hang out in 0:47:51.560 --> 0:47:56.719 this this this haunted crypt and we'll just see what happens. Yeah. 0:47:56.840 --> 0:48:00.000 He also mentions that divination by the stars is fine 0:48:00.280 --> 0:48:03.759 so long as you're not invoking a demon. So again, 0:48:03.840 --> 0:48:06.440 this is just a snapshot at some of the top 0:48:06.520 --> 0:48:09.360 down ideas about speaking to the dead and why you 0:48:09.400 --> 0:48:12.239 shouldn't do it, and ultimately a little bit of demonology 0:48:12.360 --> 0:48:15.319 splashed in there as well. But you know, there's so 0:48:15.440 --> 0:48:19.160 much that would have been going on in different cultures 0:48:19.440 --> 0:48:24.279 throughout the centuries covered by the Middle Ages here. I mean, 0:48:25.000 --> 0:48:27.720 there are all sorts of traditions involving, you know, speaking 0:48:28.200 --> 0:48:32.320 to the dead, conjuring the dead at crossroads and so forth, 0:48:33.040 --> 0:48:35.080 and then there's so many on top of that, there's 0:48:35.080 --> 0:48:38.279 so many different traditions, legends, ghost stories, et cetera that 0:48:38.400 --> 0:48:41.239 deal with this sort of thing that again may not 0:48:41.360 --> 0:48:43.920 have a like literal role within the culture saying this 0:48:44.080 --> 0:48:46.680 is how you speak to the dead, but like here 0:48:46.719 --> 0:48:49.120 is an idea of speaking to the dead, and it 0:48:49.160 --> 0:48:51.680 can still have a great deal of importance within a 0:48:51.719 --> 0:48:52.320 given culture. 0:48:52.719 --> 0:48:56.040 Now, seeing these different views of communicating with the dead 0:48:56.200 --> 0:49:01.080 side by side, it really highlights how how one, I 0:49:01.120 --> 0:49:04.960 think could easily be mistaken for the other by an 0:49:05.120 --> 0:49:10.000 unsympathetic observer, like somebody who's got a particular theological point 0:49:10.000 --> 0:49:12.799 of view and who looks into a culture, one of 0:49:12.800 --> 0:49:16.560 the many cultures that practice's forms of ancestor veneration that 0:49:16.719 --> 0:49:20.239 may involve some type of ritual of consulting with the 0:49:20.280 --> 0:49:23.680 dead with the ancestors seeking their wisdom or getting information 0:49:23.719 --> 0:49:27.799 about how they're continuing to affect your life. Like that, 0:49:27.920 --> 0:49:31.239 an unsympathetic observer looks in on a culture and sees that, 0:49:31.760 --> 0:49:35.360 and they say, oh, they're doing witchcraft in order to 0:49:35.400 --> 0:49:37.960 get power from the dead so that they can like 0:49:38.320 --> 0:49:41.840 no events in advance and you know, and manipulate people. 0:49:42.320 --> 0:49:44.800 It seems very clear how that kind of mistaken impression 0:49:44.880 --> 0:49:49.720 could be formed. And I wonder if that gives rise 0:49:49.920 --> 0:49:55.120 to some legends of necromantic practices that probably weren't ever 0:49:55.200 --> 0:49:59.680 actually practiced, that were just like unsympathetic observer looking in 0:49:59.840 --> 0:50:04.319 on ancestor veneration of some form in another culture and 0:50:04.400 --> 0:50:07.279 saying like, ah, they're they're consulting the dead in order 0:50:07.320 --> 0:50:08.560 to do something malicious. 0:50:09.320 --> 0:50:11.839 Yeah, absolutely. And then at the same time, I mean, 0:50:11.880 --> 0:50:15.239 you have things like the veneration of saints within uh, 0:50:16.040 --> 0:50:19.239 you know, Catholic Christian traditions that you know, you could 0:50:19.280 --> 0:50:21.600 make an argument for sort of you know, scratching the 0:50:21.640 --> 0:50:24.400 same itch. So you know, a lot of this falls 0:50:25.160 --> 0:50:28.600 you know, a lot of this depends on who's judging, 0:50:29.360 --> 0:50:32.120 who's laying out the laws, and who's saying what is 0:50:32.160 --> 0:50:36.560 acceptable and what is not acceptable. When we consider individuals 0:50:36.560 --> 0:50:38.239 and generations that came before us. 0:50:38.719 --> 0:50:41.560 Do you think Aquinas was saying it's okay to talk 0:50:41.600 --> 0:50:44.640 to a demon if you didn't summon it, because like 0:50:44.719 --> 0:50:48.000 he did that one time, Like he's a actually that's 0:50:48.120 --> 0:50:48.840 not a problem. 0:50:49.920 --> 0:50:53.120 Well, there there are so many you know, I enjoy 0:50:53.200 --> 0:50:56.719 reading about this occasionally, like getting into exactly what was 0:50:56.880 --> 0:51:01.279 thought of as correct concerning demons at various points in 0:51:01.280 --> 0:51:03.839 the Middle Ages, like what could they do and what 0:51:03.920 --> 0:51:07.719 could they not do in accordance with divine will? And 0:51:07.760 --> 0:51:11.000 there's some of that in Aquinas's writing, for sure, and 0:51:11.040 --> 0:51:12.960 you see that in the writings of other key individuals 0:51:13.000 --> 0:51:16.960 as well, like can they like one classic example of 0:51:16.960 --> 0:51:20.200 this we just we've discussed multiple times is can an 0:51:20.239 --> 0:51:24.279 incubus or succubist take on a complete disguise as a 0:51:24.280 --> 0:51:28.359 beautiful human to seduce humans, And there's the ideal, No, 0:51:29.360 --> 0:51:32.240 that wouldn't be fair to the faithful. So there'll always 0:51:32.239 --> 0:51:35.360 be some sort of a tell like duck feed or 0:51:35.440 --> 0:51:37.880 some sort of goat feed or something just so that 0:51:37.960 --> 0:51:40.719 you'll have so the faithful will have an out that 0:51:40.920 --> 0:51:42.680 you know, and so there's a lot of stuff like that. 0:51:42.760 --> 0:51:44.920 Can demons do miracles and so forth. 0:51:45.440 --> 0:51:47.239 Though I think as we discussed with the idea of 0:51:47.239 --> 0:51:50.319 the duck feed, I wonder if the idea was was 0:51:50.400 --> 0:51:54.719 really about the faithful having out or more about saying like, ah, yeah, 0:51:54.719 --> 0:51:57.960 if you did succumb to an incubus or a succubus, 0:51:57.960 --> 0:52:00.439 it's your fault because there was something there you should 0:52:00.480 --> 0:52:03.480 have noticed, right. It's about saying, like, you, you know, 0:52:03.560 --> 0:52:05.759 it wasn't unfair to you. You should have been more 0:52:05.800 --> 0:52:06.880 on the lookout. 0:52:07.000 --> 0:52:10.960 Right, And also like what would a just god allow 0:52:11.920 --> 0:52:14.440 under his domain? You know? And you know, there's of 0:52:14.480 --> 0:52:17.400 course the more pressing side of that, like why do 0:52:17.560 --> 0:52:19.600 bad things happen to good people? Why is there suffering 0:52:19.640 --> 0:52:21.560 in the world, and so forth, And that's I guess 0:52:21.560 --> 0:52:24.480 the larger concern. But then when you get into demonology, 0:52:25.160 --> 0:52:27.359 like that's a whole other area. Like, Okay, well these 0:52:27.440 --> 0:52:29.839 demons get to run around and just do whatever. That 0:52:29.880 --> 0:52:32.160 doesn't seem right. They're like, well, no, no, no, they can 0:52:32.239 --> 0:52:35.319 do certain things. And I believe Aquinas writes that, like, 0:52:35.719 --> 0:52:38.840 they are allowed to do certain things because by allowing 0:52:38.920 --> 0:52:43.200 the demons a certain amount of freedom, it actually has 0:52:43.239 --> 0:52:46.520 a positive impact on the faithful, you know, because like 0:52:46.680 --> 0:52:51.120 in having to deal with all this demonic stuff, like 0:52:51.200 --> 0:52:54.040 it's going to end up bolstering your faith to some extent. 0:52:54.440 --> 0:52:54.800 Hmm. 0:52:55.520 --> 0:52:58.480 But it's complicate. It's complicated. That's why. That's why people 0:52:58.480 --> 0:53:01.120 like Aquinas did so many words to it. 0:53:01.880 --> 0:53:03.759 Okay, should we wrap up necromancy there? 0:53:04.360 --> 0:53:06.640 I believe we will, but you know, we'd love to 0:53:06.640 --> 0:53:08.840 hear from everyone out there. If there's an example of 0:53:09.600 --> 0:53:15.520 outright necromancy and fiction, legend and lore, or various examples 0:53:15.560 --> 0:53:20.200 of communication with spirits or ancestor veneration that you think 0:53:20.640 --> 0:53:22.880 are notable and you'd like to bring up, well, write in. 0:53:23.000 --> 0:53:25.080 We would love to hear from you. We can keep 0:53:25.080 --> 0:53:30.240 discussing this topic on future editions of listener Mail. 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