Necromancy and Psychic Attack
Necromancy means literally "divination by the dead" and one of it's principal aims is to discover the future. The dead, no longer bound by the limitations of the mortal, physical plane can see the events of the future, and can be compelled to reveal them. Moving on a shadowy plane surrounding the physical one, they can also see the locations of buried treasure, and they know the nature of spirits and demons and how best to communicate with them.
It is considered particularly dangerous because the nastiness of it's procedures stirs up evil currents or attracts evil forces which may fasten on the magician.
For nine days before the ceremony the necromancer and his assistants prepare for it by surrounding themselves with the aura of death. They dress in musty grave clothes taken from the corpses. These must not be taken off until the operation is finished. When the clothes are first put on, they recite the funeral services over themselves.
The constant appearance of the number 9 in necromancy may be connected with the old 9 spheres through which the soul rises after death.
In some cases, the dead are summoned to attack a person the magician wishes to harm or master.
This process amounts to a rape by means of a zombie, one of the living dead, a corpse which the magician has animated and which is subject to his will. Alternatively, another person can be attacked by enlisting a demonic power.
To evoke a demonic force against an enemy, the magician performs a ceremony of Mars, the planet of violence and destruction.
The magician offers himself as the channel through which this force can manifest itself. To direct it at the victim, a link is needed, a lock of the victims hair or a nail, for instance. Failing this, the magician can create an artificial link by identifying something in his possession with the victim.
Another way of launching a psychic attack is through an artificial elemental. Occultists say that elementals, the minor and burthis siritis of fire, air, earth, and water exist in nature but it is also possible to make a artificial one with a temporary lease on life.
It may appear in animal form or as something which is part human and part animal. It will not be liable to ordinary sight, but the person attacked by it will see it, and so will anyone who is clairvoyant.
The symptoms of a succcessful psychic attack are said to include extreme fear, anxiety and mental distress, bruises on the body, sometimes in the form of a goats hoof or an ace of clubs, broad smears of slime sometimes with foot prints in them, the smell of decomposing flesh, poltergeist phenomena, inexplicable out breaks of fire, and a curious and sinister sound called the astral bell, which may vary from a clear bell like note to a faint click.
Occultists say that the symptoms associated with psychic attack can also be caused by malevolent spirits in cases where something has gone wrong in a magical operation. Evil beings may show themselves in appalling nightmares or in noises, pools of slime or blood, moving balls of light, or disgusting stenches.
