Garden Necromancy: Summoning Spirits

Many, many plants have historically been associated with the dead and the spirit world; often these were grave goods (offerings buried with the dead), or plants traditionally grown in cemeteries. The plant traditionally associated with raising the dead is the yew, but there are many other plants which are associated with the dead for the purpose of summoning the spirits, most often to entice the spirit into answering questions about the future. The magical incense burned by witches to attract spirits and help the materialize is known as a “suffumigation”. Various plants were used in suffumigations, including anise, dried carnation flowers, amaranth flowers, and gardenia petals, dittany of Crete, frankincense, heather, pipsissewa, sweetgrass, and wormwood. Dittany, in particular, was considered an excellent base; spirits would appear in the center of the smoke. Balm of gillead was also burned as a material basis for spirits. Asafoetida destroys the spirit manifestations when throw into the fire (although I’ve also found information that it pulls in negative spirits).

Sandalwood is very commonly combined with other herbs for conjuring spirits. Wormwood, mixed with sandalwood, should be burned while in a graveyard. This will cause the spirits of the dead there to rise and speak. Crushed willow bark with sandalwood should be burned outdoors during the waning moon for conjuring. Sandalwood and frankincense is burned during seances. Lavender is also mixed with sandalwood for spirit summoning.

An incense for summoning recalcitrant spirits consists of three parts wormwood and one part Solomon’s Seal. This is good for human dead who are not in very helpful moods. An incense for summoning spirits which were in a depressed state when they died consists of three parts wormwood and one part vervain. This is also good for people who are not aware they are dead. This will not only call them, but will also lighten their mood. The ancient Greeks believed that wormwood should be burned on a fire of privet in order to summon the dead, since a fire of privet was thought to open the doors of the Underworld.

A recipe from a seventeenth century manuscript, ‘Secret of Secrets’, gives the following recipe for calling spirits:

Hermes saith there is nothing like unto spermaceti to Raise spirits suddenly, being compounded of spermaceti, lignum aloes and pepperwort and Muske saffron Red storage mixed with the bloud of a Lapwing this being fumigated. And if it be fumigated About Toombes or graves of the dead it causes spirits and ghosts of the dead to gather together as it is sayd.

Other spirit offerings used, especially if seeking blessings from the spirits, include lilac, mint, and purple heather, specifically. Pipsissewa is blended with rose petals and violets to draw beneficial spirits. Catnip, if grown near the house or hung over the door will attract good spirits and good luck. Althea is considered a ‘spirit puller’: you place it on the altar to bring in good spirits during a ceremony.

Solomon’s Seal was used as an offering to elementals when pleading for their aid. Bladderwrack was used specifically to summon water spirits. Broom (the plant, not the household implement) was used to call forth the spirits of the air. From a mountaintop, you would throw the broom up in the air to raise the winds and to call the air spirits. When the winds needed to be calmed, you would burn the broom and bury the ashes.

Boil some thistle, then remove it from heat and lie or sit beside it as the steam rises. Listen carefully, and you should be able to get the spirits to answer your questions. Tea made from dandelion root and placed beside the bed while still steaming will also call them.

The Chinese called spirits using bamboo flutes-they would carve the name of the spirit into a bamboo flute. A flute carved from elder, played at midnight far from human habitation, will also summon them. A German legend says that a sprig of mistletoe carried into an old house will allow you to see the ghosts that live there, and that you can also force the ghosts to answer your questions. In ancient Greece, visitors to the Oracle of the Dead on the bank of the river Acheron were given lupin seeds to eat before the spirits of the dead were invoked.