A dictionary published in 1656 defined ‘necromancer’ – amongst other things – as one who ‘lodged among the Graves, that the dead might come to him in a dream, and make known to him that which he asked… 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.’

Dream incubation rites seem to have formed a crucial part of interactions between the living and the dead – as well as the gods and spirits – since records began. Certainly the role and meaning of dreams can be attested in historical witch-trial studies and folkloric crafts of the Sabbat alike. Even as the Reformation pushed back against older Catholic notions of Purgatory and the physical locales of deceased souls, the dead continued to return in the night in both unsolicited visitations and at the call of the nigromancers’ “black arts”.

In this class-bundle, contemporary cunning man and historian Dr Alexander Cummins will lead us on an exploratory journey through the operations and experiments of pre-modern nigromantic practitioners seeking to the dead in their dreams and half-waking visions. We will cover suffumigation practices, protocols of preparation and conjuration, ritual intersections with planetary timings and spirits, and various talismanic tools and materia employed in necromantic dreamwork, as well as analyse and explicate deeper underlying cosmo-visions of the nature and influence of the dead in the days and ways of the living.

This class-bundle includes:

An illustrated lecture of 1 hour 44 minutes duration
The accompanying slides for this lecture
Primary source documents concerning early modern dreaming and the dead
Bibliography of primary and secondary source recommended reading