Ok, thanks. I’ll work on putting that into action. I need to do a bit of research on that first. I have no idea how to do some of these things.
I think i do have a lot of entities in my house. I can feel and see them vaguely; walking around. It feels very natural and normal to me. But you are right: i don’t know what all their intentions are.
@Mulberry I was going to officially start my journey with Works of darkness. But i need to buy some candles that might take a bit of time. I was wondering, till then, what are some basics i could learn in black Magick?
I’m starting to learn about banishing and cleansing. I was going to work with some more Sigils.
Do you think it’s a good idea?
Candles are used because traditionally Fire is a gateway, but you don’t really need it. Water is another gateway and a glass of water in place of the candle can also act similarly.
From page 22 in Works of Darkness:
If it will take a while to get hold of candles (try the dollar store for cheap votives) start without them, or try using an animated gif of one on your phone.
Yes learn banishing and cleansing, try white sage, palo santo, sandalwood or wormwood as smudges. Smudges are meant to repel negative spirits and energies - you waft the smoke over the thing to cleanse with intention that this is what will happen. Use your hands to waft it to the corners of the room the clear the space.
3 Likes
Wow, i didn’t know you could do that.
What about colored candles 
?
I don’t need it?
I can improvise?
No not really. Unless your bent is towards the highly ceremonial and you really like having all the props just to to build a theatrical event that really gets your juices flowing - that’s cool too, but it’s not always practical. 
The way I think of it, it’s like a recipe. Ideally it’s good to follow the recipe straight the first time. Once you know what that’s like, you can start making substitutions and changes to suit your taste. But if you’re trying to make the thing right now and you don’t have x but you have y that’s a common substitute for x, then you’re going to use it. You can always try the recipe again another day for comparison. Either way you get a nice meal out of it.
Same with ritual - this shouldn’t be a one and done, so start with what you’ve got, see what happens, later when you have the colored candles try it again and see if there’s a difference. For you there might be, and that’s ok. For me there really isn’t and that’s fine too - we all have unique energy systems so it would be weird if we all worked identically.
3 Likes
@Maulbeere Wow, thank you. I’ll try it with some water and different colored items.
I really appreciate your help 
Thank you! 
1 Like
The candle colours in Works of Darkness are for a specific meditation. You can skip it if you want to, but as a beginner, it serves a helpful purpose in opening you up to the specific energies.
2 Likes
The comments @Mulberry about the importance of setting boundaries is absolutely vital to understand. You meet so many beings and entities in the underworld, you must know how to protect yourself and set very strict boundries with those you encounter.
I recommend working with a good gatekerper spirit in whatever adition you are pulled towards. They can open door, close roads and help you if you get lost…believe me it is very easy to get lost. Developing a close relationship with at least one deity that is willing to show you around, point you in the right direction and protect you from danger is not bad to have either.
You should ask yourself what your end goals are. Why do you want to work with the dead? It seems like a simple question, but its deeper than it looks. Do you want to help the dead, or use them for the power they can give you? There are no wrong answers, but as long as you know what your true intent and motivations are, that is whst is important and what will guide you along the correct path to reach your goals.
I rarely even set up much of an altar for my private rites. Tree stumps work well, a quiet place in a cemetery, places where large battles have taken place or blood has been spilled, areas near bodies of water (lakes, streams, rivers, ponds, the ocean…whatever you have near you is fine). Those are the true places of power for the necromancer. You are working in the underworld. They don’t care about what supplies you use. Your most powerful supplies are your magical skills you learn. Thats all you really have with you when you are working.
Good Luck!
3 Likes
The Grimoire is totally awesome. You can choose your sigils or difference spirits to work with. There are tons of ways to work with it. It’s one of the best
1 Like
I’m trying 
to think of some way of creating a alter with the death essence in it. It’s a bit difficult for me to follow the books way.
But i have no idea how to achieve it…
By the way: do you think using skull and bones as Relics is unnecessary?
The book also says, to use rum and silver coins as offering to the dead. Do you think it’s needed?
Do you need to do energy work on a regular basis as a necromancer?
If you don’t you get sick?
@Mulberry I realize years ago that i wanted to dedicate my life to necromancy. I feel in my soul this is my path. But at the same time i hear horror story’s saying you shouldn’t spend to long in the death current. It can lead to death or your body decaying.
I was wondering what your thoughts are on this?
Do you think it is true?
(Sorry for being a bit annoying with the questions 
.)
This is kinda true but only because people don’t get a solid base in energy working to understand what they’re doing in the first place.
When a qi healer is working with someone, they are taught very carefully to never breathe in while working with someones energy. The reason is, they’re qi healing a person because they are unbalanced and sick, if they are not careful they can breathe in the sickness. My own teachers picked up cancer from a person they were healing who had this disease, from breathing in the energy accidentally.
For the same reason, vampires that breathe in human energy on purpose learn to “filter” and alchemise it to neutralize unhealthy energy and keep what nourishes them. This is considered a basic skill in vampirism.
The same happens in necromancy. If you breathe in the energy from decaying organic matter, it brings the energy of decay into your body. But necromancers are not taught energy working like qigong practitioners and vampires, as it’s not part of the current. They don’t know not to breathe it in, or how to filter it, or alchemise it after it’s there. After a while, the decay manifests in the physical and they get sick.
To be fair to Abiel, he does talk about how actually did try to alchemise it. But he also got weirdly romantic notions about wallowing it it, and let it eat him alive. He just called it “death energy” and didn’t have targeted tools to understand and deal with the different aspects of what was affecting him. In this respect - and the part where he thinks an obvious parasite is his dad etc, you can read the book as “What NOT to do in Necromancy 101”. I would argue an ounce of prevention is better than a pound of cure and that ways to shield and prevent that energy from saturating you would be preferred, including charms and regular cleansing.
Yes! cleanse after every visit to a graveyard at least. “Death” energy, imo, is teeming with life - it’s the bacteria, woodlice and worms, and the processes of decay you have to worry about - they’re all about living themselves not maintaining your life. They have counterparts on the astral as well, astral beings that serve to clean up old energy discarded by others, the people who does the second death or "moved on’ leave behind astral bodies to decay as well. All these are about is consuming energy, and the last thing you want is for them to get confused and latch on to you because you smell like the grave, energetically speaking.
There is also the “death energy” that is the energy it takes to get a person out of the shell and transitioned into the afterlife state of consciousness. This isn’t very accessible to the incarnate - you get your own when you go into trance, and it’s been and gone by the time you meet a ghost.
The next thing to think about is that without a living body to constantly cultivate qi through, ghosts start to die the second death - they fade, and they can “feed” off living humans like vampires to to try to maintain themselves. Hence “hungry ghosts”.
That can drain you and make you sick too - so in this case you want to cultivate energy every day to build your qi body, replace your energy after being fed on, (though sleep and a good meal will go this as well), fix imbalances this could have caused, and set protections to make you less accessible to this kind of feeding.
You’ll need good boundaries and wards to make sure you don’t bring these home and have them feeding off you willy-nilly.
Old dry bones and spiritual work concern me less. The decay is not there, these can be treated as normal ritual work with discarnates, in my opinion. So you can call the dead to your living room, and what you’ve got is a form of ancestor work.
tl;dr
Necromancy is talking to the spirits of dead humans that still think and act as humans. Ancestors, saints and ascended masters count, I believe.
In trying to do this, there are 3 kinds of energies that are detrimental to your well being, and you want to take steps to mitigate them so you can carry on having good conversations.
- The energy of the physical processes of decay
- The astral entities and energy of the non-physical processes of decay
- The hunger of the ghosts that need energy and aren’t getting it elsewhere (ascended masters are pretty good at cultivating energy for themselves, for example)
2 Likes
Really!!! 
I see …
I’ll look into that, thanks!
Thanks, i will apply this.