Episode 58 | Between the Living and the Dead: A Journey into Necromancy

Summary

In this enlightening conversation, Kate and Kristal delve into the intricate world of necromancy, exploring its true essence beyond popular misconceptions. They discuss personal experiences in the underworld, the significant role of Hekate, and the various tools and rituals that necromancers utilize. The dialogue emphasizes the importance of understanding the underworld as a multifaceted realm, the necessity of protection in necromantic practices, and the unique relationship between the living and the dead. Through their shared insights, they aim to demystify necromancy and highlight its potential for healing and growth.

Highlights:

• Necromancy is about communicating with the dead, not animating them.
• Personal experiences in the underworld can be transformative and enlightening.
• Hekate plays a central role in necromancy as a guide and protector.
• The underworld is not just a dark place; it has gardens and streams.
• Tools like grave dirt and bones are essential for necromantic rituals.
• The necromantic circle differs from traditional Wiccan or New Age circles in structure and purpose.
• Consecration and protection are vital in necromantic work to avoid unwanted attachments.
• The dead are not omniscient; they have their own limitations and experiences.
• Understanding the multiplicity of souls can enhance spiritual practices.
• Necromancers can help guide lost souls back to the living.
• Eidolon/Eidola or Eidolans is a spirit image of a living or dead person, spectre or phantasm and the word Kristal uses to refer to spirits. From ancient Greek literature and referenced in The Bones Fall in a Spiral by Mortellus.

Resources Mentioned:

The Bones Fall in a Spiral by Mortellus  (this book is where Kristal has adapted many of her current rituals and practices), The Egyptian Book of the Dead | Ancient Egyptian Funerary Text, Greek Magical Papyri | Graeco-Roman Egypt Text

Links to all our social media
Witching Out Loud on Substack @witchingoutloud

Kate
Website: www.starsandmoontarot.com
Instagram @priestessforhire
Instagram @starsandmoontarot

Kristal
Website: https://theunveiledspirit.com/
Substack @kristalthomas
BlueSky @theunveiledspirit.bsky.social
Facebook & Instagram: @TheUnveiledSpirit

Editor & Associate Producer:
Ash Black at Blackheart Media LLC
@blackheartmediallc on FaceBook

Audio Attribution
For audio attributions please visit: Audio Attributions
Intro & Outro Music: www.purple-planet.com - Let the Mystery Unfold from Ep 56 forward.

Chapters

• 0:26 Introduction and Summary
• 1:17 Journey to the Underworld Meditation
• 6:53 Symbolism from the Underworld
• 7:37 Introduction to Kristal's Necromancy Story
• 8:14 Understanding Necromancy: Myths and Realities
• 18:10 The Role of Necromancers: Service and Connection to the Dead
• 19:02 Mediums vs. Necromancers: Understanding the Distinction
• 20:25 Multiplicity of the Soul and Spiritual Experiences
• 23:38 The Underworld: A Different Perspective
• 24:50 The Role of Necromancers in Soul Retrieval
• 26:18 Hecate and the Call for Necromancers
• 27:21 The Nature of the Dead and Their Knowledge
• 28:45 Exploring the Underworld: A Personal Journey
• 32:04 Tools of the Necromancer: Grave Salt and More
• 37:15 The Necromantic Circle
• 40:44 Consecration and Protection in Necromancy
• 43:13 Protections from Posession
• 45:56 Bringing Spirits Closer to the Living
• 46:42 Outro

Transcript

Kate: 0:03

Hail and welcome to Witching Out Loud, the short form podcast where we celebrate the art of witchcraft and finding magic in your daily life. Join us for a cozy chat about witchy ways and practical woo-woo.

Kristal: 0:16

I'm Kristal of Unveiled, Necromancer and Spiritual Mindset Coach.

Kate: 0:21

And I'm Kate with Priestess for Hire and an intuitive tarot reader. In an earlier episode, we talked about shamanism, which is something I strongly align with. And today we're going to chat about necromancy, Kristal's primary calling. This is not animating the dead as portrayed in popular media. This is communicating with the dead and facilitating them in their afterlife. Today we'll cover what is necromancy, the underworld and the tools of the necromancer, and necromantic ritual.

Kristal: 1:10

So that's a good combo for the underworld. But choose your poison. Enter yourself into your meditative state however you get there. And then once you're in this meditative state, I want you to see the world tree on your mind's eye in front of you. Walk towards the world tree, and that door appears for you to go down into the world tree, into your soul home. Come deep into the soul seat of your body, of your soul. Once you arrive in this space, ask for the door to the underworld. You see the door up here, you may see some symbols, some colors. For me, it is black with gold, an etching and an onk. Step through that door knowing you are safe in these travels, and at any time you may call for Hekate to guide you and shine her light for you. As you walk forward, the way opens into a cave. You are traveling down the Axis Mundi, the soul of the world. Deeper into the underworld you move. As you're walking, notice any of the sights, the sounds that appear around you. How does it feel differently? As you walk, you come upon a crossroads, and a figure appears with torches on either side and black hounds at her feet. Hakate is here. Ask her to guide you into the underworld. She turns and heads deeper into the underworld, her torches lighting the way. Follow her. She beckons you into your inner world. She leads you to a river. There is a boat. Hekate waves you onto the boat. The boat begins moving of its own accord, floating easily down the river. Your boat will bring you to a place that you are meant to be on this trip. Notice the lands as you move through. If you feel called to an area, your boat will naturally pause for you to step out of the boat and explore this space, remembering that you are safe here. You may find yourself in the groves of Persephone, the gateway of Hakate, the blessed fields, the land of dreams, the halls of night, Tartarus, Duat, maybe the fields of the indifferent dead. Who do you find here? Is it a guide? Is it an ancestor? A deity? Speak with them and ask what you were brought to this place to understand. What knowledge can you bring back with you? And when you are complete, thank your guide, your ancestor, the deity that you were speaking with. Move back to your boat, step in, and it will bring you back to the gateway with Hekate. And she will guide you back to this realm. Coming back to this realm. Coming back to your soul home. Coming back through the world tree. Back to your body. Clearing and balancing in any way that you need to.

Kate: 6:26

I can't even talk about half of what just happened. Uh-huh.

Kristal: 6:30

Some of it's secret, but it's quite a it usually is when it's the underworld.

Kate: 6:37

Mm-hmm. Uh, but Persephone psychopompt, and Hekate met us there. And then we went somewhere special to me. And these deer showed up, these black deer. And I'm not really entirely sure what they were for, but they were, they just kind of like materialized out of the forest and then kind of circled around Persephone and Hikate and me, and just were like, we we see you, you know, we know who you are, and we're with you. Do you know anything about deer in that underworld place?

Kristal: 7:10

Well, deer in general are about growth. They're about life, they're about abundance. And in the underworld, that's no different. It's just a different plane, but that they're black, like there's some growth for you in there. And you could follow them to find where that growth is. So usually when animals appear to me, and for me, I'm I'm with Hakate. So it's usually a black dog. It usually looks much like my black dog, but he's kind of ghosty, like moves more like the dog in Nightmare Before Christmas. Totally the image I had. And I follow him towards like where I need to be, um, and is a guide. So they could be a guide for you in the underworld on where your growth is.

Kate: 7:59

Nice. Okay. Thanks. Okay. Okay.

Kristal: 8:03

Welcome to the underworld, Kate.

Kate: 8:05

For real. I don't think I've ever actually consciously on purposely gone there. Yeah.

Kristal: 8:11

Most people don't because it's ingrained in our minds and our hearts and our culture that down and underworld and dark is evil, is hell, is fire and brimstone. No one goes there willingly. And that's not the underworld. I want to tell a little bit of my story and how I came to necromancy before I jump into what necromancy is, because I think it helps dispel some of the myths along the story and the blockages that come up in our brains around it. Because I think I've said this on other episodes. I am a Taurus, I'm Venus, I am life, I am a gardener, I am an herbalist, I am all green things, happy, pretty much love and light. But deep in my soul is this dark darkness. And I think I was always this really growth love and light piece because I was trying to balance that. And as I've continued to balance that, I don't feel the need for one over the other anymore. So it's interesting that the necromancy has come forward. And I was feeling uh Hekate calling me towards something. And this all happened about two years ago as I was working through some trauma and recovering some personal memories. And recovering those memories unlocked a piece of my magic. And it was the necromancy. And I didn't understand it. I didn't know what was happening. And so I went to a reader. Uh, I was at Crescent Moon in Tacoma, and they were having like a spiritual fair. And this gal had this beautiful set that was an astrology wheel, and then she had all these crystals and stones. And you picked a certain amount of crystals and stones. It's very much like bone reading, and then you toss them onto the mat and they fall into the different astrological houses and things like that. So I got a reading from her, and um, she kept saying, I I feel like uh there's a goddess here. Uh, I think it's Hekate. And she was worried that I was gonna freak out that it was Hekate, and I'm like, Oh, yeah, yeah, I work with her all the time. And she's like, Oh, okay, good. Uh and then she goes on, see that chick. She's like, I think she's asking you to be like a death doula. And so I was like, Okay, like it didn't ping in my soul. So I did a little research. I'm like, what does a death doula do? And I'm like, I don't want to sit at the bedside of dying people. I said, Hekate, I respectfully decline. And respect she's like, Yeah, she's like, come do a journey with me. So I got all set up. She gave me some guidelines on what to do, and so I set up the incense that she told me, the altar, everything, and went on this journey with her. And she took me to the underworld for the first time. And unbeknownst to me was not the first time. So I went on this journey with her. When I woke up from this journey, it was two hours later. And I did not fall asleep.

Kate: 11:20

Holy shit.

Kristal: 11:20

I was gone for a long time. I was exhausted, I was starving. It was really intense. And that's when she made it understood to me that she said, I didn't say death doula, I said necromancer, and let me show you what that means. And so she took me on this whole tour of the underworld, was introduced to Hades and Persephone, and they're like, Finally she's back. And I'm like, What do you mean I'm back? Right? And so this is what I say when I say the old magics are coming back into the world. Our old magics are coming back to us. So in a past life, I was a necromancer, full-blown, and not necessarily a good person. It was a tough one. And to make an example, like Hades took me to some places within the underworld, and he took me to where all the souls kind of are kept. And he's like, This time, you don't touch anything here. This is not for you, right? You prove to me that you deserve to be here. So I uh fucked something up. It was a past me. I'm like, it wasn't me. He's like, I'm watching you. And I feel like this is some of the ways that necromancy got this bad rap. I was male in that incarnation. Um, and it was power. It was about power and ego. And necromancers not only spoke with the dead in those times, they commanded them for their own thing.

Kate: 12:58

That animation story comes from that we have today.

Kristal: 13:02

Exactly. And they weren't necessarily great about it. They would tie the dead to their will, bind them to them for their purposes, which makes sense why I have so much struggle with that in my practice now of binding or commanding demons or things of that nature, because I messed that up once before, and I apparently my soul remembers not to go down that road. And it helped to learn why, why I had such an aversion to it. It's not that I don't do it, but it takes a lot to get me there. And I always make sure my ego's not involved. Always before I get started. So it makes so much sense. Persephone's this was where I started building a relationship with Persephone at that time because she was like poo-pooing Hades almost. Like, she's not gonna do that this time because she's her, right? She's not him. And Hekate's like, I'm teaching her. So you guys need to get on board. I'm teaching her. And she started taking me through and teaching me some of the things I'll share in our episode. And then I came across, I started doing research. So a lot of the stuff that I'm gonna talk about came from the Egyptian Book of the Dead, which is a series of 12 or 8 books. Don't quote me. So it's only one book of all of them, but it's about the funerary rites and rituals of the dead. Very fascinating stuff. And then actually, one of our listeners and a friend of mine said, I came across this book. And it's The Bones Fall in a Spiral, a necromantic primer. So this is a more modern one. And this is by Mortellus. She is a mortician and a necromancer. Fabulous book. If anyone is interested in necromancy, definitely grab her book. So I started doing some more research because everything was personal gnosis and these journeys I was going on with uh Hikate. And I was like, I started to get really nervous. And then uncovering that past life really helped me understand why I was so nervous. And I'm like, I'm gonna mess this up again. And I'm like, why, why do I have these feelings? So I started reading her book and then saw maps of the underworld. I was like, this is real. Like this other person I've never met in my life or talked to is seeing the same things I'm seeing. So this is really real. Um, so it's fantastic to have that. No, it's not just your imagination. Right. So let's talk about that's kind of how I I am. I am not an expert in necromancy. I would say Mortellis is definitely an expert in necromancy. So take some classes from her, grab her books. Um I am a newbie. So this is what I'm new at, and really working it very differently, I think, than other people are, because of what Hekate has tasked me to do. So a necromancer is simply someone who does divination through consultation with the dead. And uh, got this term from Mortellus's idolon, which is a term that means specter or phantasm. And I really like that because I don't see like a dead person doesn't just appear to me looking like Kate staring at me through the computer screen. It's uh whispers of a person, it's a shadow of a person. It looks like a phantasm or a specter, but that feels very horror movie kind of feel to it. And so when I came across that word Eidolon, I really love it. And I feel that the spirits that I'm working with have more respect from it. Yeah, and I interact differently. Yes, absolutely. E-I D-O-L-O-N.

Kate: 16:55

Absolutely was not typing that correctly from the start. That way we can all find this.

Kristal: 17:03

Yeah, I had to do the same thing. So it's been it's been a big learning curve for me. But it's all about this belief in the dead that they have an existence beyond life. And I know that I've seen spirits and Eidolon my whole life, but I couldn't control it necessarily. Today, I can control it and when I want to speak to them and when I do not. And I can control it in a bone reading when I'm in the middle of a wine bar doing a bone reading for someone and their ancestors come through. I can get those messages to them now. And that's because of this study in necromancy. So I have found it now to be a very beautiful path. And I was very scared of it walking in. And I think all this life-giving Taurian energy that I have blended with the necromancy gives it so much depth and life. So I I'm really excited to be on this path and sharing it with everybody today. Fantastic. Thank you. And yeah, it is service-oriented, it's a service-oriented uh ministry of talking to the spirits and giving voice to the dead that can comfort the living. Right. When I have someone sitting across from me getting a bone reading, and their father who's recently passed, comes through and I just simply say they're here and they love you, like the amount of comfort that comes to someone in that moment, it's a service. And I feel honored that I get to do that. And so if I'm stilted as I go through it, it's because I fight with my past kind of life nature, going, no, I shouldn't be doing this. One of the cool things that I learned, actually, before I step into that, you don't have to be psychic or a medium to practice necromancy. You can learn necromancy. And uh Mortellis talks about, especially those who have touched death. So you've had a near-death experience, a major trauma, things of that nature can bring you really close to the underworld and then thereby give you more of a connection. But she shares lots of rituals. There's lots of books that share lots of rituals that can help you connect more and you do not have to be psychic or medium to do the work. Right. And I make a distinction between a medium and a necromancer. A medium to me is someone who receives communication, right? They kind of get downloads, much like a channel. They get a download of that information. A necromancer calls it forth. And it's where I get in that sticky space of, oh, should I be commanding them? And that's where a lot of my beliefs around banishing and commanding are not necessarily harsh. They are clear communication, right? And so that helps me move into that. So I think that's the distinction between the medium and that. And the other thing that I found fascinating is before Christianity changed the narrative on souls, that we have one soul, we believed that the soul was made up of a lot of parts, like multiple pieces of us. And when I'm working with spirits, that's what I find, right? It's not the whole person. Yeah, it's not the whole person that appears in front of me. It's one facet of that person, which explains a lot in spirituality how Hikate can be with me, but also with you. And we have a similar but different experience, right? It's like those entities, those energies, they're not one piece.

Kate: 20:55

I agree. It and it I think it's really important for us to to pause in this moment and like really do whatever work is necessary to allow yourself to sink into that because I experience so much variety in the woo. And I work with deities that other people have very different interpretations of, and it really can't invalidate either of us. We're still having the experience we're having. And I don't feel eloquent right now about it, but it is just really important to begin to accept multiplicity. Yeah. The fact that a bazillion timelines can exist, right? Even even beyond just the one and the two, but like 700,000 million timelines are existing at the same time. So if you're having one Persephone and they're having another Persephone, it's just a different timeline where a different thing came to different conclusions. And anyway, I just my mind is not completely wrapped around it yet. But it was a really important moment of like, because I come from absolutism in Christianity. There is one God and one way to be, and we have the truth on it. Fuck no.

Kristal: 22:00

Yeah. The world is almost never black and white.

Kate: 22:03

Right. There are a hundred million bazillion gods and seven hundred thousand million ways just for that god to express itself in her own way. So do whatever shadow work necessary to begin to accept and open yourself to multiplicity.

Kristal: 22:17

Yeah.

Kate: 22:17

Well said. Okay. Sorry. Commercial break ended.

Kristal: 22:20

And just start with your soul is lots of pieces. It's not just one big chunk. And I, you know, when you start looking at it that way, past lives make more sense. It's like, how could how could this person be connected to that person? Well, it's not. There was other parts that that were connected to this part over here. And so, yeah, it's just it can be a little bit of a mind fuck, but a cool mind fuck.

Kate: 22:45

Well, and to add to the mind fuck, I'm listening to the Dolores Cannon books. She's just changing my world. So glad she got to exist and to give us what we what we have from her. You can imprint, you can go into the Akashic Records and you can ask for these different lives to be imprinted upon you for this incarnation so that you come in with that knowledge and experience. So you can manifest knowledge and experience of lifetimes you didn't even actually live, because it's just a library, and we can also take that knowledge. And so it further should not invalidate your experience to think that there are you and someone else can both have memories of being Cleopatra because one of you, or 10,000 of you, downloaded that lifetime and imprinted it on this incarnation so that you would have access to her experience. It doesn't mean that someone is the true Cleopatra and someone else is not. Yeah, well said.

Kristal: 23:39

When you brought up the um Akashic Records, I will put this on our social media, but there's this cool map that is from the Bones Fall in a Spiral. And she kind of mapped how the different planes of reality work together. And you have like the collective unconscious, which is where our Akashic records are the dreaming, the astral plane, the realms of deity, and of course the kingdom of the dead. So it reminded me of how those things kind of move together, and they're not, it's not like upper world is up and underworld is down. It's more that they're on the same field, the same plane. They're just kind of Venn diagrammed together. So it's not, even though we call it underworld and upper world, that's that's not quite how it works. So I love calling it the kingdom of the dead and trying to switch my um verbiage from underworld to that, because I think it helps dispel some of those myths too. Right. Um, things that the necromancers do, other than obviously giving voice to the dead and hope to those living, uh, they can help assist the dead on their journey to the underworld. And this is where most of my work is is assisting those that are lost to find their way. And my work is a little different, and I haven't found this in any necromantic text, is a little bit of an, I guess, a necromantic shaman of because I'm doing soul retrieval of sorts, but they're the souls pieces that are stuck in the underworld, and I bring those back. So, and I I do it willy-nilly. I don't always do it like Kate doesn't come to me and say, go find this piece. It's I find a lost piece while I'm journeying and I ask if it wants to go home, and then I bring it home, and then I ask the person, their highest self, and it's people I don't know. I ask them if if they want this piece back, and this is where it was lost. And do they want it back? And I bring it back to them. So if you woke up one morning and you're like, How did I remember this? Why do I feel sad about this? Or why do I feel more complete? Could have been me.

Kate: 25:53

Could have been. Feel free to tell me anytime you come across my parts and pieces laying about. I have a picture of you as a litter patrol. And you're like, found a piece. Okay, I'm the soul then and put it in the bag. Just walking around littering the underworld with pieces and parts of ourselves trailing behind us, you know, and you're like, fuck's sake, people. Oh my gosh.

Kristal: 26:17

This is the work Hekate wants me to do. And when she brought me through these pieces, and I saw how many of these fragments were in the underworld, it was me, Hekate, uh, Persephone, and Hades. And he said, they don't belong here. They're not like the underworld was never meant to house this many fragments of people, but this is stuffing your darkness down. This we're stuffing it into these dark places and never going back for it. And that's why she's calling forth the necromancers to assist in this work. So I am working to document my work and write a book on this process. That's where I veer from other necromancers is this new process. When I look at someone like Mortellis, who's a mortician, makes so much sense. She has so much reverence for the dead. I and there's a lot of service in that at least. And that is a classic necromantic path. I do want to say the dead in my belief are not all-knowing. Just like I don't believe spirits, guides, ancestors are all knowing. We don't die and all of a sudden become God. Like we're not all-knowing omnipotent, we're still flawed.

Kate: 27:38

I think it's a big fallacy that we're taught that the other side is omniscience. This is the the only reason that we're not omniscient is because we're alive and that's it. No, they are not omniscient. I don't care what purpose they have, unless they are source, they're really not omniscient, actually.

Kristal: 27:53

Yeah. So it's really hard to accept. Verify the information that you get, right? The same, like go back to the spirit episode on elements. We also did another episode, maybe on divination. It was divination.

Kate: 28:06

And we talked about you can expect to meet on the other side to uh guides and allows. And how to verify.

Kristal: 28:14

So definitely do that. And also another big fear I had is, you know, the abusers that are dead. Yeah, you can block them from coming through too. Like you don't have to confront them, you don't have to have them in your space. You can say, you know, no one who has harmed me in life gets access to me on the other plane either. So those are two big fears I wanted to lay to rest. I want to talk about what it looks like in the underworld. And this was the part that I loved. And I did put a map and I'll um put that out there. This is it most looks like the Greek interpretation of the underworld to me when I go there. But there is this access to all these different places that I can get to. So I can also get to Duat, which is more of the Egyptian space. And when you're looking at this, there's all these rivers. So it made so much sense when I saw this photo. I was like, God, why is there so much friggin' water in the underworld? It's just rivers. It's all freaking everything together. Yep, exactly. And so when I went on a journey after recovering some memories and realizing there was a big piece of my soul that was in the underworld and trapped, I came into the underworld and I found myself in the like what would be like the Stygian marsh. It's just like this black, inky, swampy pond that's just feeding into the river of memory, which is where we go to lose all of our memories of our past life before we were reborn again. And myself was broken and covered in that kind of tar black dirt. And I pulled myself out and pulled all of that off of myself. It was really intense. And I brought her back with me to my soul home. We are still not integrated. It's almost a split personality feel, but we're working on it. And that is where I learned the process was by doing it on myself. And I've recovered other pieces that were not quite so dramatic, but that is probably where I got such a connection to the underworld because part of me's been there most of my life. And she still hangs out there. She is most comfortable there.

Kate: 30:41

Yeah, she's infused. She's steeped, like a little teabag.

Kristal: 30:45

She's like this over here. And so for me, when I went down there and started exploring, and especially because I spend a lot of time there with myself, um, who lives there, I really wanted to kind of map it out and understand it because I feel so at peace when I'm there. When other people talk about heaven, that to me is the underworld. It's this peace. It's not all dark, it's not fire and brimstone. There are groves, there are gardens, there are ponds and streams and waterfalls. All of that exists there too. It's just, and it's probably for my neurodivergent little brain, it's all muted. So there's like it's like a shade of gray over it, like the cloudy gray northwestern sky feel to the whole thing.

Kate: 31:42

Yeah, that's how it felt when you were leading us through it earlier. And it feels like it's just the saturation is toned down so that it's less stimulating. We don't have to be overstimulated by those data points because we need to be receptive to different data points while we're there. So the saturation is just turned down a little. Exactly.

Kristal: 32:00

Um, so I wanted to share that a little bit before I jumped into some of the tools of the necromancer. Um, obviously, Hekate is a central figure in necromancy and probably the main figure of necromancy. I did not know that, and I worked with her for a long time. She's the crossroads, she's torches, she's got that psychopomp role of guiding. So I am a torchbearer for Hekate. So I am a guide that helps guide those through the underworld. I feel more every day, more if I could spend more time on it. Mercury is also tied with necromancy because he's also a guide of souls and sometimes comes alongside Hekate. And it was so interesting to me the first time Mercury came alongside. And it was like he was very non-binary, somewhat effeminate, and I thought it was Nike, and he was so offended. Yeah. Um, and so I haven't done a ton of work with Mercury, but am becoming acquainted with Mercury because what he does really well is helps me messenger those souls back to people. Like he has that skill and ability. So I need to do that.

Kate: 33:16

Sorry. Now I just had an image of him yeeting souls. You and him being like, off you go, yeet that shit, yeet soul.

Kristal: 33:26

Goofball. The underworld is the realm that's overseen by gods of death and liminality, and it's inhabited by the dead. It's not just inhabited by the bad people, it is inhabited by all dead. The Elysian fields are in the underworld. They're not in a heaven. I'm not Christian. All dead to me are in the underworld. They're just in a different part. It's like a theme park that, like, this one over here is a whole world unto itself, and this one over here is a whole world unto itself, and they're just connected through a liminal space. Just depending on your life, who you were and where you were, is where you go to in the underworld. But all dead are there. Um, tools for necromancers, grave salt. So I will make grave salt by taking the kind of shavings from a headstone and mixing that with salt. All ethically sourced. I don't just wander around to everyone's headstone. It has to be someone I know or that a spirit has invited me to that grave site. Mortellus uses corpse water. So literally, as she's washing her beloved dead, she saves that water. I think in the type of work that she does and classic necromancy, it's probably needed. She also uses sutures or suture needles that were used on the dead.

Kate: 34:59

Yeah, I can see how it'd be imbued with an incredible amount of power. My first instinct is I don't want to get stuck with someone else's ick.

Kristal: 35:08

I think she's mostly using it from beloved dead or those that she's had permission. She doesn't just on any willy-nilly person that she does it, but she goes through the whole ethical practice of it in her book. So definitely read that if you're curious about that part. She also makes instruments and things from bone, like she has a bone flute that she uses to call souls. So she has a very different practice. It's it's really quite beautiful. Um, I use grave dirt and grave dust. So grave dirt is being taken from a grave, and I have a whole ritual to go through to do that. And grave dust is using just like a brush to brush the dust off of headstones. And so then when I do a necromantic circle, I have those things on my altar that help connect me with the underworld and connect me with the dead. And of course, bones. Bones for me, that's how I came to bone reading. As soon as I was around a bone reader and I had a full set in front of me, all of the messages that were coming through from spirit were just clean and clear. And bones call to me now. It's it's like a little conduit for me to speak to the spirit world to actually get clear messages from Eidolon. Nice. Yeah. Coffin nails I do use a lot. I love coffin nails, especially when I can get them that were in someone's coffin and have been recovered. Uh, because there's a big connection to the underworld. So that really helps me in my path of connecting to the underworld and bringing bridging between me and the underworld to bring those pieces of soul back.

unknown: 36:49

Yeah.

Kristal: 36:50

So that's what all those tools are doing for me. They're helping to create a bridge between this world and that world so that I can bring things across.

Kate: 36:58

Nice. They're like your uh etheric architecture. That's very cool. Yeah.

Kristal: 37:03

And then, of course, spirit boards, pendulum, any of your divination can help in those communication. I find with my bones that I don't really need all the things I used to need. It just channels it right through the bones. One of the things I wanted to share is the difference in the necromantic circle versus a traditional Wicca or spiritual new age circle that you would cast is instead of just four corners, you do all. So you have north, northeast, east, southeast, south, southwest, west, northwest, north.

Kate: 37:38

Because you don't want to fucking get lost in the underworld.

Kristal: 37:41

No. So your compass is far more sophisticated when you're there. The anchor between the worlds needs to be more solid to do the work that we're doing too. And each of the points lines up with a part of the soul. So you have the ethereal form, the verdure, the ceaseless one, the character, the carnal form, vitality, the witness, and the umbra. And then because we are working with a lot of water in the underworld, we are facing west. And I've found that in pretty much the Book of the Dead and Mortellus's book. So you can find them in a lot of those different places that it's all facing west. So that's our main altar.

Kate: 38:29

Yeah, what she's describing is her west is like north for every other compass. This image is oriented with west at the top in the same way we would see north at the top, just so you all have a visual before you come and look at the image.

Kristal: 38:43

Yeah. Exactly. And so I will do grave salt with water instead of like in a normal ritual, I would do water and mix it with salt to create my protections. What I'm trying to consecrate in a space for a necromantic circle versus my basic Wiccan circle is I'm trying to create an anchor for me in this world so that I can travel safely to the underworld and move through it and still come back to my life. When you definitely want to anoint all nine points. So the eight kind of cardinal points plus spirit, right? And what's different is calling the quarters. You have eight. So it's a little more involved. There's eight different quarters to call, or eights, as it as you will. So when I do my normal circle, I would invoke Earth and bring it, right? Come to me. When we do necromantic, we banish Earth to cast the circle and call the quarters because we're trying to let go of our earthly and move into the realm of spirit. So those are those are big differences in working a necromantic. Another is we will consecrate ourselves as dead to go walk through the realm of the dead. I don't find I have to do this as much in my work as I imagine those who do work like uh Mortellus do need to because I see them, because I do have the psychic touch. It's so it's a little bit different. But those who don't aren't psychic, aren't medium, this would, this is a definite space to go. And you're gonna use uh grave salt or corpse water. Um, I usually do grave dust and salted water myself. I don't feel like I have to go that far. And I throw that on each, so it's kind of like I'm letting go of my body and moving into spirit. And then we do offerings and libation at this point versus at the end, like we do on a traditional Wiccan ritual. Like usually choose foods that are for the dead I'm working with, but if I'm just general, it's just flat wine or stale bread, so somewhat tasteless. And I set that aside for the dead, and then I take a toast to the inhabitants of the underworld. So I say to the unseen ones who dwell beyond the veil, not lost but changed, to Osiris who guides the way, and to Hakate, torchbearer at the crossroads, to the silent company who yet hear our call, drink with me in shadow and in light. So you like throw yourself a mini funeral and then enter. Yeah. And then as we do any work and then come back, we have to do a consecration of life to come back into the land of the living, to be resurrected, right? This is also probably where stories of necromancers reviving the dead come from. Um, and so I do facing east with clean salt and water. I sometimes use wine as well because that connects with hikate. And I stir that together, and then I do on my body, I am revivified, touching the back of my neck. And by this, my vitality is restored, right? And then I touch my throat, neutral, unwavering, cleansed of all that that would do harm. My hands chose this life, and this life works only my will. Bring myself back. And it also, like one and that very part is like my hands chose this life. It's like this part of almost cleansing off any attachments, right? And I do that when I leave a cemetery as well. I do it when I leave bone reading, right? So I'm just like, I'm revived by this. My vitality is restored, neutral, unwavering, cleansed of all that that would do harm. My hands chose this life, and this life works my own life. Very cool. I think so.

Kate: 42:38

That's far more ceremony than I anticipated.

Kristal: 42:41

It is, and it feels honorific. It feels very much in service. And also when I'm coming back and I'm now reviving myself, I have probably moved or touched three, four, maybe five souls and brought them back to themselves. Sometimes only one if it's difficult, right? They have a hard time assimilating. Right. So sometimes I'll spend that whole time with one person, but others I'm doing two or three. So then when I come back, I want to get all of that stuff off of me. Like so only Kristal remains.

Kate: 43:16

Yeah. I think I think possession is probably people's greatest fear around this. Is like, well, what if they overpower me? What if I don't have control over whether or not they leave? It would be mine.

Kristal: 43:27

I think big difference between kind of a channel and a medium is you're calling that into you and it's moving through you. And as a necromancer, I'm not. I am calling it to me. It's outside of me. It doesn't come into my body. And I think that's a big distinction, possibly. Right. And so someone who is a natural channel like yourself might need to do some more protections when you go in than I do. But I do have protections. I always wear a hood and that covers my nerika, which is where you enter the soul. It covers the top of my head, my crown chakra. And so I'm not getting attached, I feel like. Gown that I wear that has a hood that covers all of that. I also put braids in my hair that help confuse people and spirits from being able to attach and then cleansing myself afterwards.

Kate: 44:26

That makes sense. Because my body is my tool, I would ingest. I would just be like, well, I'm gonna cleanse you through me. You know, whatever that would be my instinct. So I'm really, really glad that you um shared the whole process, not just the fun highlights or whatever, because it would be my first inclination. Like, well, I'm gonna let that pass through me. And then on the other side, it's ready to reintegrate with you. Don't worry about it. That might not be wise. Again, we have another Kateism where Kate just like walks right into the water and is like, I don't know, dissolve me. But it would be my instinct because my body is the channel. Thank you for saving me.

Kristal: 45:09

I don't let them pass through me. I'm I tell them where to go and what to do. That's the power of a necromancer. I can command the ghost, the piece of what to do and where to go. An example of things that catch me often, especially when I'm driving and I see roadkill, right? I see a raccoon on the side. It's like I feel them just like they have this violent end and they're stuck. And I just have a little ritual I do even as I'm driving past them to guide them. Like it's okay to let go and go here. So I when I pass a cemetery, I feel calm and peaceful. Because most of them have moved on. They're not really hanging around there. They're hanging around people. They want to be close to the living. And as a necromancer, I get the privilege to bring them closer to the living. Oh, that feels like a good ending.

Kate: 46:03

It does. Thank you for sharing this. This has been an amazing insight into who you are and what your practice is and also understanding ways that I can overlap and support as well. Yeah. Thank you.

Kristal: 46:18

I am going to do a necromantic ritual live on November 1st here in Kitsap at Bremerton. So you can find that information on my website for those who are local. And I will probably do some stuff on my own social media around that. So you'll be able to check that and I can share it over to Witching Out Loud as well. All right. I've got it blocked out on my calendar. I'm going to absolutely be there with my Persephone. Go talk to Eidolon and do witchy shit. Thanks for listening to Witching Out Loud. You can find us at Witching Out Loud on Instagram. Follow us for highlights, reminders, witchy tips, and seasonal celebrations. And share with us how you are witching out loud. Until next time, do witchy shit.