Editing Necromancy (section)

== Late Middle Ages to Renaissance ==
{{Further|Renaissance magic}}
[[File:A Magician by Edward Kelly.jpg|thumb|Engraving of occultists [[John Dee]] and [[Edward Kelley]] "in the act of invoking the spirit of a deceased person"; from ''Astrology'' (1806) by [[Ebenezer Sibly]].]]
In the wake of inconsistencies of judgment, necromancers and other practitioners of the magic arts were able to utilize spells featuring holy names with impunity, as any biblical references in such [[ritual]]s could be construed as prayers rather than [[Spell (paranormal)|spells]]. As a consequence, the necromancy that appears in the ''Munich Manual'' is an evolution of these theoretical understandings. It has been suggested that the authors of the ''Manual'' knowingly designed the book to be in discord with [[ecclesiastical law]]. The main recipe employed throughout the ''Manual'' used the same religious language and names of power alongside demonic names. An understanding of the names of God derived from [[Apocrypha|apocryphal texts]] and the [[Torah|Hebrew Torah]] required that the author of such rites have at least a casual familiarity with these sources.

Within the tales related in occult manuals are found connections with stories from other cultures' literary traditions. For instance, the ceremony for conjuring a horse closely relates to the Arabic ''[[One Thousand and One Nights]]'' and French [[Romance (heroic literature)|romances]]; [[Geoffrey Chaucer|Chaucer's]] ''[[The Squire's Tale]]'' also bears marked similarities.<ref>Kieckhefer 1998, p. 43.</ref> This becomes a parallel evolution of spells to foreign gods or demons that were once acceptable, and frames them into a new Christian context, albeit demonic and forbidden. As the material for these manuals was apparently derived from scholarly magical and religious texts from a variety of sources in many languages, the scholars who studied these texts likely manufactured their own aggregate sourcebook and manual with which to work spells or magic.

In the notebooks of [[Leonardo da Vinci]], it is stated that "Of all human opinions that is to be reputed the most foolish which deals with the belief in Necromancy, the sister of [[Alchemy]], which gives birth to simple and natural things."<ref>Leonardo. ''Notebooks'', [[s:The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci/XIX#On spirits (1211-1213)|Volume 2, Chapter XIX, Section III:1213]].</ref>