A Night of Folk Necromancy

I am very proud to present a recording of A Night of Folk Necromancy, featuring three illustrated lectures on the history, philosophy, and culture of necromancy, ancestor veneration, and various other encounters between the living and the dead.

Recorded Tuesday 26th July, this Night formed the finale of Morbid Anatomy Museum's Utopia/Dystopia series for Hauser & Wirth, and featured myself and my co-host of the Folk Necromancy forum Jesse Hathaway Diaz as well as our very special guest star Mallorie Vaudoise of Italian Folk Magic offering three short illustrated lectures on folk necromancy. These talks were followed up with a lively panel discussion. And so, in case you weren't able to get to the event last week in Manhattan, we recorded it for you and put it up here! The bill runs:

• How to Summon A Ghost in Seventeenth-century England by Dr Alexander Cummins

• The Corpse between the Covers: Summoning the Dead through Ink and Breath (But Not In The Way You Think…) by Jesse Hathaway Diaz

• Naples is for Necromancers by Mallorie Vaudoise

My sincerest gratitudes to my Radio Free Golgotha co-host Jesse, to Mallorie, to Laeti and Joanna of Morbid Anatomy Museum for working on this with us, and to Hauser & Wirth, 22nd Street for having us. And of course, many thanks to everyone who came along and made it such a special Night. For those interested in more of this kind of material and who dance with that particular Devil, consider joining us at the Folk Necromancy Facebook group.

To the Dead and to the Living!

Alexander Cummins

“Necromancer (necromantes) he that practises that wicked Art, a Master of the Black Art, one that seeks to the dead; or consults with Satan in the shape of a dead man. The Hebrews describe him thus; he made himself hungry, and then lodged among the Graves, that the dead might come to him in a dream, and make known to him that which he asked, &c. Others there were that clad themselves with cloathes for that purpose, and spoke certain words, burned Incense, and slept by themselves, that such a dead person might come and talk with them in a dream.”
- Thomas Blount, Glossographia (London, 1661)