“What we need is MORE LIGHT.”
- VITRIOL
“It is not evil to work with the underworld, the ancestors, the night, the moon, death, and bones. It is dark, but there is goodness in it. We fear the unknown and the unseen. Modern witches call the above and the gods, but they often ignore the underworld and the spirits of the dead in their circle castings and magics. The chthonic deities and ancestors are great allies with their vast store of ancient wisdom and knowledge of the other worlds… but if neglected and ignored they become as the uninvited fairy from Sleeping Beauty and we all know how well that worked out. Ignore the darkness within yourself and expect the same results.”
I agree, almost completely. But I have to add a few caveats.
It's wrong to characterize Cthonic spirits, or the dead, as Evil. In the same respect, it's also wrong to characterize someone who performs an act of evil as Evil. It is not wrong, however, to say that some, if not many, are dangerous.
If you own a copy of Betz's tome, take a gander through the rituals that call upon the dead. Betz describes this treatment as “unscrupulous” and he is quite right. The individual practitioner may never need, or even desire, to perform any of these rituals. Denying that they exist, and were probably used exactly as they state their purpose is, would be wrong.
In the case of the dead there remain two tricky categories, neither good nor bad: the Restless Dead, and the Heroic Dead. It is tempting for me to treat the Restless Dead as “evil” because of some of the rather humorous events that happened to me surrounding my attempts to use CLM 849 long before I had any idea what I was doing. I did, indeed, gain complete astral sight for the duration of one particular ritual. It was hardly a blessing. I did something to piss something off, and it brought a dozen or more friends to hammer on my circle. I was completely and utterly terrified. I had to resort to exorcisms and hoping that I wasn't completely fucked. I consider myself to have lucked out, as eventually just about all of the angry dead departed. I left the Grimoire, with all it's glorious Latin scripts, prayers, and scrying instructions alone after that. I now have a few copies of it, and still reflect on it every now and again. But I refuse to pick up the book and try to use it again until I know precisely what is happening, and why.
Heroic spirits aren't specifically good in the human sense of the word, either. Piss one off – ancestral or otherwise – and expect to get feedback unlike anything you've ever felt before. Burnt earth and lime pits and maybe a few Restless Friends again screaming at you. And, despite what you might think, it's not so hard to piss them off. Especially if you have obligations to one of them.
In both cases you may end up in a good relationship, but you could also have trouble.
The same could be said of any magical attempts, really. The issue is that the dead appear to be playing – as some Necromancer's have insisted – by very different rules than the average elemental, Angelic, and otherwise spirits. They seem to have very different functions, and very different roles. And all manner of unspeakable, no-good can be gotten up to with them – especially if you're ecstatic and not thinking (I have made that mistake many times) about the ramifications of your actions. And some of them will helpfully suggest it.
Additionally there are those that don't want you prying, and don't want you bothering them. The ghost of a murdered woman does not necessarily want you leading her into the light. She might very well just want revenge. And, unbeknownst to you, she may be entitled to it. Are you going to help her lay waste to her murderer? Are you going to be able to understand what her request is, or be balanced enough to consider helping it out?
These are tricky, individual questions. While there is plenty of fear to be had from not knowing the subject, it seems to me that there's plenty of room for error and miscalculation if you really aren't prepared to act as such a functionary.
While there is plenty of good to be found – especially in some of the Heroic spirits – there is also plenty of room to get fucked up by them.
Let me assert this once, clearly, and without slipping up now that Mercury is not retrograde (well, just about to stop being retrograde): I have some serious qualms about this theoretical structure.
Yes, comparisons could be made. And some insight into the subject could be gleaned from such considerations... However, Persephone is the “Pure, Pure Queen of Down Below.” This does not match, in any form or function, that of a shell. She is further treated by some of the Orphic cults as Praxidike: the Exacter of Justice. And elementally... water. Which I did not realize (Jack = n00b) until Melitta recently mentioned it on a blog post. I probably should have recognized that before. I was too lovestruck in “gazing” at Mnemosyne, I think. Not, uh, very shell-like. Seriously.
I keep focusing on the balance between the elements of water and earth (not to mention fire) in the Orphic scripts. There's something pestering me about it. But I can't put my finger on it.
Regardless, I would be very careful about even considering such spirits or gods as “purified” shells. I don't think that's what they are, at all. I'm also not sure it's smart to try and extend categories of spirits from Judaic mysticism, which only a few people actually understand beyond the basics, to the Graeco-Roman-Egyptian mythos. While similarities and parallels can certainly be found, there is a tendency to create a black and white picture of “good and evil” that doesn't exist. There's also a certain ambiguity about the category of spirit, and Ogden in Greek and Roman Necromancy has a number of stories in which Heroic spirits become enraged at insults cast at them and then blight the populace they were hanging out with, with lice and such.
Even if you walk with a balanced mind, remember that you aren't the only factor involved in witchery that takes place After Dark.
