Christian Necromancy

If there was ever any doubt that Charismatic Christianity constitutes a school of magick, this should set it to rest. Apparently, the Word of Faith charismatic movement has adopted a practice dubbed "grave-sucking" that appears to be a form of straight-up necromancy. The idea is that by lying on top of a believer's grave and and performing certain prayers, a living person can absorb the powers and blessings that said believer accrued in life. As this article from Youth Apologetics Training points out, there is no real Biblical support for this practice and in many ways it runs counter to mainstream Christian theology.

Maybe that believer had a gift of healing. Maybe they were an apostle, prophet or evangelist. This of course assumes that they were actually empowered in these ways which I have serious doubts. Whatever the case, now God’s plans for that particular anointing are placed on hold. How does God correct this and get his plans back on track? We as believers must find a way to retrieve the mantle or anointing from the rotting corpse six feet under. Only then can we get God’s plans back on track. This is achieved by placing our hands on the gravestone of the deceased or lying on top of the grave. Sometimes a prayer will be offered to God to aid in this perceived power transfer.

I kid you not! Some people actually believe this. God’s plan has in fact been frustrated and now God needs us to seek out His lost anointing so we can bale God and His plans out. They believe that by laying there on the grave they will be able to pull the anointing from the dead. It’s as if they believe the Holy Spirit is lost and doesn’t seem to realize that the person they empowered is dead and is no longer able to minister in this empowered way. Suddenly the Holy Spirit senses someone is lying on the dirt six feet above His head. The Holy Spirit, apparently not caring who is laying up there decides to jump into the new body giving them the supernatural abilities that the dearly departed once had. Again this assumes that the person in the grave was in fact empowered by the Holy Spirit.

Not only does this sound just like necromancy as practiced by some occultists, it also displays an incredible amount of concretizing on the part of practitioners. It treats the Holy Spirit as a sort of substance that can be accumulated and remains in the bones of the deceased, rather than the unfolding of metanoia or enlightenment within the consciousness of the individual believer. Likewise, Word of Faith follows the green or prosperity gospel, which teaches that God wants you to be rich and only the unrighteous are poor - in direct contradiction to the teachings of Jesus.

So in case you were wondering where the warped teachings of the green gospel eventually lead, here you go - follow it long enough and you'll find yourself skulking around graveyards, seeking out remaining bits of embodied Holy Spirit to absorb from the dead. That's incredibly creepy.

This Guy Has to be a Magician

Remember my attempts back in June to identify the precise nature of the dead weasel spell unleashed in Hoquiam, Washington over the summer? In the comments Rob did come up with some possible ideas, but at the time nobody really knew whether this was some sort of magical operation or just a very strange one. However, more recent evidence suggests that the weasel-unleasher is a magician after all. He was just acquitted of wrongdoing in connection with the weasel assault.

A jury acquitted a Hoquiam man who was accused of breaking into a home and throwing a dead mink at another man during a confrontation that made weasel headlines across the country.

Defense lawyer Chris Crew said Monday the Grays Harbor County jury found 33-year-old Jobie J. Watkins of Hoquiam not guilty of burglary.

Crew said witnesses provided inconsistent accounts and the "prosecution failed to prove a link to the mink."

It's not a mink, it's a martin, dammit! And now I punch the author of this article. What I find incredible is that a jury could possibly think that anyone would just make the story up. It's way too weird, which suggested it being a spell in the first place. But a magician could probably pull it off using a really powerful spell for obtaining legal victories. If you have access to decent collection of grimoires, you can find a lot of those all across the Western Esoteric Tradition.

I've never seen a necromantic version, but that doesn't mean one doesn't exist. I wonder what sort of dead animal you would use. Liber 777 lists elephant and spider for Libra, which rules legal proceedings. The former is completely impractical unless you could work with a piece of ivory rather than an entire body, but the latter is quite easy to obtain almost anywhere. On the other hand, neither mink, martin, nor weasel appear anywhere in the 777 animals column, so Watkins is probably using a totally different set of attributions.

Another Thwarted Necromancer

More from the Magick Using Dead Things file! German customs officials in Potsdam have confiscated a collection of ape body parts from an African-born man returning from the Congo. Officals believe that the body parts were destined for use in magical rituals, since in traditional African folk magick body parts from apes are believed to strengthen the effects of many ritual methods. And despite the man's claims, none of the parts seized sound particularly appetizing.

The haul - which included chimp heads, hands, internal organs and several penises - were discovered in the suitcase of African-born David Bueno, 41, who claimed he planned to eat them.

But contraband expert believe the parts were to be used in witchcraft and voodoo rituals where animal body parts are said to bring strength and power to believers.

A customs spokesman said: "This is increasingly common, sadly. These body parts are used in religious rites or medicine."

Bueno - who was on his way back from the Congo - is facing charges of trafficking endangered species.

It's interesting to see how deep the urge to deny involvement in magical practices goes with cases like this. The trafficking of endangered species is just as illegal whether you plan to eat them or cast spells with them, but Bueno nonetheless insists that his motive was the former. Of course, the fact that in Africa magical practitioners often wind up being killed by angry mobs is a pretty strong incentive not to identify yourself as a sorcerer or necromancer if you ever plan on returning to the continent.

Some African witch doctors go so far as to use body parts from human albinos in their rituals, so it's at least somewhat reassuring that Bueno appears to limit himself to apes. Still, with how close to extinction some of these ape species are African magicians should probably be busy researching alternatives if they want their school of magick to survive in the long term.

Anybody Recognize This Spell?

In the magical community necromancy usually gets a bum rap. I'm not talking about spells to conjure up the spirits of those who have passed on and converse with them, but rather the sort of necromancy that involves casting spells with dead things. Like weasels, as in this story from Hoquiam, Washington.

Police say a man was carrying a dead weasel when he burst into a Hoquiam apartment and assaulted a man.

The victim asked, "Why are you carrying a weasel?" Police said the attacker said, "It's not a weasel, it's a marten," then punched him in the nose and fled.

The attacker was apparently looking for his girlfriend and had gone to her former boyfriend's apartment Monday night where the victim was a guest.

KXRO reports he left the carcass behind.

Police later found the suspect arguing with his girlfriend at another location and arrested the 33-year-old Hoquiam man after a fight.

He said he had found the marten dead near Hoquiam, but police don't know why he carried it with him.

A marten is a member of the weasel family.

I realize that police reports can be incomplete, but I figure there can't be too many spells that make use of a deceased marten. It's a dead giveaway, so to speak. And the punching might be a ritual gesture or it might be superfluous. I'm thinking that this could be of the same family as the dreaded mutilated raccoon spell, which was unleashed at least once during the Salem witch wars of 2007. If you happen to know what this spell might be or what the caster was trying to accomplish go ahead and leave it in the comments.

And no, "prove to the world what a dumbass he is" doesn't provide me with any new insights. I already thought of that one.

Opossum Resurrection Fails, Alcohol Involved

Here's one from the "where the hell do you find these people?" file. A Pennsylvania man was arrested and charged with public drunkenness after witnesses claimed that he attempted to resurrect a dead opossum along the side of a highway.

State police Trooper Jamie Levier says several witnesses saw 55-year-old Donald Wolfe, of Brookville, near the animal Thursday along Route 36 in Oliver Township, about 65 miles northeast of Pittsburgh.

It's hard to determine the exact magical method employed because the witness descriptions lack some key details, but regardless of technique drunken magick is almost always a bad idea. This case is no exception.

The trooper says one person saw Wolfe kneeling before the animal and gesturing as though he were conducting a seance. He says another saw Wolfe attempting to give mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.

So it might be some sort of energy work, though I don't know of any energy work technique offhand that involves mouth-to-mouth with the dead. That can result in some nasty diseases, especially given the condition of this particular animal.

Levier says the animal already had been dead a while.

So is there any chance that this could have worked, maybe with a more recently deceased opossum? As medical science has found the line between life and death is not necessarily as absolute as people once thought. Nevertheless, I would really like to know in what twisted alternate universe performing CPR on roadkill is a good idea, with or without arcane gestures - and I expect I'll be waiting awhile for an answer.

Drunken magick - just don't do it, especially in front of witnesses. And especially if it involves dead things.