Wizard0fRot

Beginners necromancy

I think that a lot of us are intimidated by this practice. Some are just scared off by bones but it is a very intimate ceremony that very well is as old as humanity and I know that scared me . But actually I think* that the idea it has a specific use is modern and possibly a neo pagan one

*I was only able to find one historical source on this topic and only 2 other blog posts as well as some tumblr asks. This is a niche topic. 

So I first want to say that you can do this just because you want you, just because it’s pretty. Remember witches intention is everything.

But what is this modern tradition? How can you use this (reddening) practice?

I found that many modern pagans use the reddening mixture as a stand in for blood (one source actually mentioned adding their own blood! More on this later). Blood is life and so rubbing it back into the bone brings back or empowers the spirit. Almost always this spirit is the animal that the bones belong to but I think it’s absolutely possible to tie it to any spirit but I see that being harder, less strong and I’d recommend a strong tag lock for that.

Now what is blackening about? It can also be used for whatever. I actually have done something like this to create a powerful protection charm. But the collective witch community seem to use it for a very similar purpose to reddening. I’ve generally seen blackening used to imbue a bone with the spirit of a god and any spirit that was never physical and thus never bled.

I think that this is also just a really powerful way to use simple color magic, whatever that looks like for you

What a cool practice but

How do you do this???

Now I don’t have much experience here, I have bones I need to clean first :p but a lot of the tips i use here are natural. You can use clothe or food dye, I’ve heard koolaid works? But nature and making things as scratch as possible is important to my craft sooo

Historical a mix of red ocher (sometimes just iron oxide) and animal fat or other tallows

This blog post gave me the confidence that i could in fact make this post and is definitely the best one I red for this. I’m not sure who the op is but they made a mixture of mashed (red) beet, red brick dust, Rowan berry powder, dragon blood powder, (red) wine and their own blood!

You can apparently use raw berry juice, I can just imagine all the amazing colors you could get with this method!!!

This thread has a lot of good ideas for blackening bones