The “Demon Method”: How necromancy once solved everyone’s problems

I use the internet a lot. I used it to research this article, to get this job, and to check my social media on company time. I use GPS to check the traffic, and I use Google to ask things I’m too old to ask: What’s the best way to cook rice? How do you paint a wall? What does this red light in my car mean?

But for all its connected convenience, the digital age still cannot solve all of my problems. It can’t tell me where I’ve left my car keys or where I saved that document I need for this form. It can’t tell me which of my friends has been lying to me or who stole a comically named street sign from a village nearby. So, what’s a problem-soaked man to do? Who can help me when even ChatGPT can’t?

Well, it’s time I dusted off my necromantic tomes and called in the undead.

Wise old demons

In medieval Europe, there were very few businesses in which the Church didn’t have a share. They brewed beer, printed books, and ran education. So, it’s no surprise that the Church had a lucrative hustle with all things divination.

Divination is the act of trying to predict the future using supernatural forces. It’s in tarot cards, tea-leaf reading, and the runes of the I Ching. In Western Cameroon, they even use burrowing tarantulas to reveal the future. But in medieval Europe, one common form of divination was consulting evil spirits. Clerics would summon demons and use their holy powers to compel the demons to tell the truth. They would ask questions about where their lost property was or whether there was buried treasure nearby. One of the most common requests was for the demon to reveal who a local thief might be.

The demons did not always have the answer. A demon did not have the omniscience of God or even any particularly special supernatural power at all. People would summon demons because they were old and well-traveled. They had been known to live for millennia and had moved across the various planes, temporal and spiritual. In their anguished, demonic roaming, they had earned a bit of wisdom. So, why not sit down with old Pitchfork McDemon to share a bit of advice? As the historian Sophie Page puts it in Divination, Oracles & Omens:

“Some medieval thinkers thought of demons as the first natural scientists, permitted by God to pass the aeons observing and interpreting humans to puzzle out each sin an individual was likely to succumb to. As the demons wandered eternally in the sublunar realm, they noticed things of great interest to the necromancer, such as where treasure was buried, who had stolen objects of value, who was an unfaithful lover, who had been wrongfully imprisoned, and the guilty secrets of princes.”

How to summon responsibly

It’s a risky job to sit down with the Devil’s minions. It’s an essential part of a demon’s job description to be devious, malicious, and prone to bursts of bloody violence. So, if you’re going to try and tame the archfiends of the abyss, you will need some support. Here’s Page’s step-by-step guide on how to go about medieval necromancy in a productive, yet safe, manner.

First, get your tools together. You will need to “own, borrow or commission a book that describes essential ritual formulae and images, and optional instruments to add vivid theatricality such as a wand, a pentagram, a bell, or special clothing.”

Second, choose the time and place. You should “select a space to work, perhaps [your] own bedroom or isolated woods. Timing is also important: [a summoning] usually relates to planetary movements and the goal of the operation. For example, Saturn’s associations with old age, wealth, and violence made the hours or days it ruled over particularly suitable for experiments to identify a thief or find hidden treasure.”

Finally, remember your personal protection equipment. There are a few options here, but it’s always best to grab hold of as many as you can to prevent any accidental possessions or cataclysmic pandemonium. As a minimum, you should brandish a sword with a fiercely loyal dog by your side. You should always summon your demon onto a small lead plate called a lamina so they are tiny and foot-squashable. Even then, you should try to interact with the demon only through a medium like a mirror. Sacrifices can help – any small animal will do. Finally, it’s useful to ward off the corrupted perfidy of a demon with something innocent and pure. So, grab a young child — a son, a daughter, or, as a last resort, some distant cousin perhaps.

Finally, even after all of that, be prepared to treat everything the demon says with a pinch of salt. You are compelling them to speak, but they might yet lie. They also have their limitations. For example, they cannot reveal the crime of anyone who has confessed their sin. They cannot see into holy places or holy hearts.

The end of an era

Happily for sacrificial bats and young cousins all over Europe, necromancy was waning by the end of the 18th century. Society and theology moved away from forcing the demonic to local whims, and nearly three centuries of witch hunts made it riskier than ever. While there was such a thing as church-sanctioned necromancy, it wasn’t good to be seen as the local necromancer. After all, if you spent your day job working with the Devil, might you have been turned?

The history of necromancy is an interesting window into our past more broadly. Not only does it reveal, again, how often and how desperately humans want to know the future. We often need to know. But it also shows us just how interconnected the spiritual and the practical were for the everyday believer. Today, a lot of religious belief exists in the mystical, liminal space between faith and the unknown. We talk in metaphors, symbols, and undefined imagery. Back in medieval Europe, religion was a practical matter. Demons weren’t just agents of the apocalypse, working to bring down the holy order. They were the internet of the pre-digital age.

“Hey, Siri-Demon, do you know where I left my keys?”