CORPUS NECROMANTICUM BOOKS I & II
CORPUS NECROMANTICUM
Book I — ARCHAEOLOGY OF THE VEIL
Book II — PRAXIS MORTUORUM
Hardcover Edition — Two-Volume Set
440 pages total
Leather Special Edition includes Altar cloth
Large format: 6.50 × 9.25 inches
Orion Delacroix
A substantial two-volume study combining the historical foundations of necromancy with a practical and experimental system of contemporary mortuary work.
CORPUS NECROMANTICUM is a two-volume exploration of necromancy as historical tradition and living experimental practice, moving from the oldest funerary cosmologies and surviving ritual documents toward a contemporary system of contact in which memory, altered states of attention, archival investigation and ritual experience become parts of a single discipline.
Book I — ARCHAEOLOGY OF THE VEIL: Ancient Sources, Funerary Cosmologies, and Historical Formation of Necromancy approaches necromancy through its historical foundations, following the changing relationship between the living and the dead across ancient Mesopotamia and Egypt, the Greek nekyia, Roman funerary religion, late-antique ritual technologies and the learned magical traditions of the medieval world. Through manuscripts, theological controversies and judicial records, the volume traces the transformation of necromantia into nigromantia, examining how communication with the deceased gradually entered the same intellectual territory as demonic conjuration, forbidden knowledge and ritual magic. Rather than treating necromancy as a single timeless system, the book reveals a shifting field shaped by burial customs, concepts of posthumous identity and changing theories concerning the beings believed to answer the living.
Moving through the Ars Notoria, the Liber Iuratus Honorii, John of Morigny, the Picatrix, the Munich Manual, Rawlinson D.252 and the Livre des Esperitz, the first volume follows the gradual construction of the Western necromantic imagination until Renaissance grimoires, Spiritualism and contemporary reconstruction emerge from centuries of transmission and reinterpretation. Its final movement deliberately carries the reader toward Praxis Mortuorum, where historical consciousness becomes the foundation for direct experimentation
Book II — PRAXIS MORTUORUM: Experimental Necromancy, Ritual Contact, and the Technologies of the Dead enters this operative territory and develops necromancy as a disciplined experimental art centered upon the deceased as remembered persons and possible presences, while giving equal importance to the mechanisms of memory, imagination and altered perception that accompany the experience of contact. The operator becomes part of the experiment, learning to distinguish experience from interpretation while creating a personal archive through which dreams, impressions and recurrent correspondences can be examined across time.
The second volume moves progressively through funerary literacy and ritual preparation into the construction of the mortuary field, evocation, receptive necromancy, voice work, listening practices, dream incubation and visionary contact, before advancing toward experimental procedures involving unknown deceased persons, archival verification, acoustic presence and sustained cycles of contact. The Liber Mortuorum eventually becomes the operator's central record, transforming isolated experiences into a body of accumulated evidence through which recurring symbols and personal methods can emerge. Book II therefore functions simultaneously as grimoire, experimental journal and practical laboratory, carrying the reader from the archaeology of necromancy into a living system where historical knowledge becomes direct experience.
Together, the two volumes form a single descent through the necromantic tradition: Book I excavates the structures through which humanity imagined and approached the dead, while Book II enters those structures experimentally and transforms them into a contemporary technology of remembrance, perception and ritual contact.
CONTENTS
BOOK I : ARCHAEOLOGY OF THE VEIL
Ancient Sources, Funerary Cosmologies, and Historical Formation of Necromancy
Introduction—The Dead as Historical Presence
Chapter I — The Problem of Defining Necromancy
Chapter II — How to Study a Forbidden Practice Historically
Chapter III — Death as a Social Relationship
Chapter IV — Body, Shadow, and Survival
Chapter V — Mesopotamia and the Return of the Eṭemmu
Chapter VI — Egypt and the Transfigured Intelligence of the Deceased
Chapter VII — The Greek Nekyia
Chapter VIII — Hecate, Hermes, and Mediators of the Limit
Chapter IX — Rome: Manes and Lemures within Family Memory
Chapter X — The Magical Papyri and the Technology of Names
Chapter XI — The Woman of Endor and the Forbidden Dead
Chapter XII — Theurgy and the Mediation of Daimones
Chapter XIII — Byzantium and the Magical Inheritance of Solomon
Chapter XIV — Spiritual Magic in the Islamic World
Chapter XV — Medieval Jewish Traditions
Chapter XVI — From Necromancy to Nigromancy
Chapter XVII — The Clerical Underworld
Chapter XVIII — The Inverted Liturgy
Chapter XIX — The Ars Notoria and the Supernatural Acquisition of Knowledge
Chapter XX — The Liber Iuratus Honorii
Chapter XXI — John of Morigny and the Liber Florum
Chapter XXII — The Operational Universe of the Picatrix
Chapter XXIII — The Munich Manual Clm 849
Chapter XXIV — Rawlinson D.252 and the Evocation of Shades
Chapter XXV — The Livre des Esperitz
Chapter XXVI — Theology of the Demonic Pact
Chapter XXVII — Forbidden Books Under Papal Inquisition
Chapter XXVIII — Political Power through Necromantic Conspiracy
Chapter XXIX — From Nigromancy to Demonological Witchcraft
Chapter XXX — Renaissance Grimoires and Catalogued Spirits
Chapter XXXI — Spiritualism and the Occult Survival of the Soul
Chapter XXXII — Contemporary Necromancy as Reconstruction
Epilogue — Where History Becomes Praxis Mortuorum
Esta progresión lleva deliberadamente desde las cosmologías funerarias antiguas hasta la reconstrucción contemporánea y termina preparando el paso hacia el segundo volumen.
BOOK II — PRAXIS MORTUORUM
Experimental Necromancy, Ritual Contact, and the Technologies of the Dead
Introduction — From Archaeology to Praxis
PART I — THE FORMATION OF THE NECROMANTIC OPERATOR
Chapter I — Principles of Contemporary Necromancy
Chapter II — The Operator Before Death
Chapter III — Funerary Literacy
Chapter IV — The Necromantic State of Attention
Chapter V — Discernment and the Control of Suggestion
PART II — BUILDING THE MORTUARY FIELD
Chapter VI — The Chamber of the Dead
Chapter VII — The Memorial Object
Chapter VIII — The Name as a Necromantic Interface
Chapter IX — Opening and Closing the Mortuary Field
PART III — METHODS OF CONTACT
Chapter X — The Art of Evocation
Chapter XI — Receptive Necromancy
Chapter XII — The Mortuary Voice
Chapter XIII — The Listening Chamber
Chapter XIV — Necromantic Dream Incubation
Chapter XV — The Visionary Field
Chapter XVI — The Necromantic Walk
PART IV — EXPERIMENTAL NECROMANCY
Chapter XVII — The Unknown Dead
Chapter XVIII — Blind Contact and Verification
Chapter XIX — The Archive as Necromantic Chamber
Chapter XX — Electronic Voice and Acoustic Presence
Chapter XXI — The Seven-Night Contact Cycle
PART V — THE LIBER MORTUORUM
Chapter XXII — Constructing the Liber Mortuorum
Chapter XXIII — Signs, Recurrences, and Correspondences
Chapter XXIV — Verification after Contact
Chapter XXV — The Personal Necromantic Method
PART VI — THE DEEPER PRAXIS
Chapter XXVI — The Rite of the Forgotten Name
Chapter XXVII — The Chamber of Reciprocal Memory
Chapter XXVIII — The Vigil of the Dead
Chapter XXIX — Integration: Returning from the Dead
Chapter XXX — Praxis Mortuorum: The Living System
Epilogue — When the Veil Becomes Method