Do you know what necromancy means? Well, I thought I did. Some old-fashioned term for witchcraft, right? That term is mentioned in the title of one of the 26 recurring Christian Science weekly Bible Lesson topics that Mary Baker Eddy specified: “Ancient and Modern Necromancy, alias Mesmerism and Hypnotism, Denounced,” a Lesson subject I had studied dozens of times over the years.
I had always seen this Lesson as a periodic check-in with the “dark arts” (so to speak) for the purpose of exposing forms of witchcraft; in other words, denouncing intentional and unintentional mental forces that seem to control and manipulate people and circumstances.
Well, by equating necromancy with witchcraft I was close. But only close. I had a door into a new world of insights waiting for me. And that began when I became curious and looked up necromancy in various dictionaries. Here’s what I found in Webster’s dictionary of 1828:
