Foundations of Magical Theory - What is necromancy and is it baneful?
Necromancy is succinctly defined as working magically with the dead and death energy. Necromancy can include but is not limited to communing with spirits, communing with ancestors, giving offerings to ancestors, collecting certain death related ingredients such as coffin nails or graveyard dirt, casting bones for divination, casting runes made of bones for divination, invoking the spirits of individuals who had experience with whatever domain you're looking after such as the spirit of a doctor for healing, doing rites so that the spirits of others can cross on in peace and with relative ease, praying to or leaving offerings for deities of death or psychopomps, working with rebirth as one must first die to be reborn, and working with death energy in any way.
Due to the inherent discomfort that many people have surrounding the subject of death, many people are under the misconception that necromancy and anything to do with that is baneful by default. The truth of the matter is, like any other branch of magic, it can be used altruistically, banefully, or anywhere in between. Most necromancy is neutral or net positive for the caster or sorcerer.
Society also plays a part in how necromancy is viewed. Due to the way that mass media portrays necromancy as something inherently dark and done by evil people, the baneful misconception stays prevalent, even in the minds of those who don't practice witchcraft.
This misconception is so permeated into our culture that many practitioners who do work with ancestors and the spirits of other people do not consider it to be necromancy because necromancy is supposed to be that evil thing over there where people do death curses, I'm totally innocent and just over here communing with and honoring people.
Other practitioners even consider things like hero worship in ancient Greek culture and the revival, reconstruction, and adaptation of it in modern times as necromancy because although you are worshiping and idolizing the hero for the actions that they took during their life, they are in fact dead at the point of most magical interaction, therefore things like offerings are said to go to their spirit.
For many people, they utilize ancestor work to get into contact with and connect with their family or their culture. For some it can be the only meaningful interaction they have with anything that comes from where they come from for their location, familial detachment, or any other number of reasons. I find this is especially true among mixed race communities, where they already have a hard time fitting into the cultures that shaped them.
Another factor in the demonization of necromancy is purity culture. Christian colonization and the subsequent purity culture that they induced over time and vast land masses has consistently said that necromancy is an inherently evil and forbidden kind of magic. They've done this as a baseless claim due to the presence of necromancy in certain non-white non-Christian cultures that they were also demonizing all the magic which came from them. This religious smear campaign did a number on the public concept of necromancy leading to the mass media sensationalism.
Our earliest concept of necromancy came in the form of ancestor veneration during the Neolithic period between 5,000 and 2000 BCE the Chinese Yangshao culture. Some people don't count that as ancestor veneration is often times not counted as necromancy, and they cite Mesopotamia between 1,300 and 1,000 BC for their rites where they raised spirits for guidance.
To diminish necromancy as a whole to something inherently baneful or evil is a gross over simplification that lacks any nuance fostered by discomfort, purity culture, and sensationalism. The refusal to accept and/or use the title of necromancer or necromantic practitioner when you work directly with the dead entities or spirits is each individual's prerogative, however I find it to be a choice usually made in poor education and misplaced fear of the situation.
