Since I wrote an entire book on the subject, here is an excerpt of Honoring Death: The Arte of Daemonolatry Necromancy.

First let me start at the beginning. When I was very young I would often see shadows and talk to people no one else could see. Those around me attributed it to an overactive imagination. I just thought I had secret friends who had powers of invisibility. But my true interest in necromancy began when I was eight years old. I remember growing up hearing fantastical family ghost stories about seeing and communicating with the dead. Necromancy has been a “gift” on the female side of our family for generations. Each generation has tales to impart. From my great grandmother seeing smoke pour out of a pair of boots at the end of the bed at the same time my great grandfather was dying in a barn fire, to my grandmother seeing the soul of her dead child leave the house at the child’s exact moment of death, to my mom and aunt being visited by dark shadows, to me being visited by those same dark shadows and seeing the souls of dead things leave their bodies.

It was this last experience that caused me to begin checking out books about divination and necromancy from the school and local library at the tender age of twelve.

I haven’t told a lot of people this story simply because I’ve always been very ashamed of myself. A lot happened during my teens and early twenties. A lot of it scared the shit out of me (pardon the expletive, but it’s fitting). As a result of this for a lot of years I viewed my ability for necromancy as a curse. I was terrified to go into graveyards because I didn’t know how to block out the energy or to quiet the voices of the dead. I couldn’t handle it and quite frankly it terrified me. Seeing the dead was even worse. I pushed my luck with it though, even though it scared me, and finally by the time I was in my early twenties, after a great deal of paranormal investigating and scaring myself so badly – I completely blocked my ability out. I’m not even sure how I did it. But somehow I’d figured out how to effectively tune out the dead even though sometimes they would still get through with frightening consequences (stories which you’ll read in this book when I have a point to illustrate).

Then, in the mid-nineties something happened. On October 31, on my way to a Euronymous rite, a black cat and a white cat ran in front of my car. I slammed on the brakes but it was too late. Sadly I hit both cats. I got out of my car in a panic, frantically searching for the injured animals in hopes I could get them to the cat hospital fifteen minutes away. Several other motorists who’d seen the incident stopped to help me look for them. We never did find the cats despite four of us searching for at least a half hour. I love animals and so for me – this was a traumatic experience. I’d killed another living thing. I went to the ritual with a heavy heart and grief stricken. That was the night the dead came back. And my abilities came back with a vengeance.

I began having vivid, morbid dreams about dead cats. Then dead dogs. Then dead people. Then dead people who I’d known when they were alive. They’d come back into my dreams and give me their final words. It was a terrible experience. I still shudder thinking about it. There were nights I’d wake up screaming from the dreams and the dreams wouldn’t go away. The man who raped me as a girl would often come back into my dreams to apologize. Not only did I foresee my aunt’s collapse from an aneurism, but after she died she came back to tell me not to feel guilty for not spending time with her (at the time I felt really bad about that). I saw murders that were committed locally only to wake up and see the paper the next morning. It was like living in a nightmare.

I tried working through the fear. I really did. I joined a local ghost hunting group and even went to investigate a graveyard. When I opened myself up, the fear crept in, past experiences came back to memory, and I immediately resigned as their medium. Later, the Demonolatry group I currently work with decided to do some paranormal investigations. I could never bring myself to go. When they’d bring back evidence, disembodied voices on digital voice recorders I’d feel myself go white because in my mind’s eye, I could actually see the shadows of those the voices belonged to.

Finally deciding I needed to do something, I began talking to other necromancers. Much to my surprise, many of those I met had a similar story and assured me that my fear was very natural. It often is that way with necromancers who have a strong ability for it. The only exceptions seem to be those rare few who had someone to initially guide them through their “awakening” or those who may have the ability, but it’s not strong or invasive. I have a strong and invasive mediumship ability that grows as I get older, which I’m told is how it works in our family. It’s only been recently that I’ve been able to discuss the ability with my mother and sister. My mom told me she never discussed it with us because she didn’t want to scare us. Of course we laughed when we all came clean with each other about having these experiences. Experiences we’d all been keeping to ourselves for fear people would think we were crazy.

What I’m most ashamed of is that I had the resources available to me to learn how to control and use my abilities and instead I turned my nose up at them and I ran from them. I was a stubborn woman in my twenties. It wasn’t until I was in my thirties that I began working with Anpu (i.e. Anubis) to attune myself to the death energy and began working with Demonolatry necromancers to learn how to control my gift instead of allowing it to control me.

To read more: Honoring Death: The Arte of Daemonolatry Necromancy  (Also available from your local bookseller, on Kindle, Nook, and in Hardcover and Paperback from Lulu).