Part 2 of the ‘Death topic request series’
This title was suggested by @ChristopherEvans and rather than writing something educational and interesting I thought I would peel back the veil this week. No, not the veil of death to give an insight to the other side, but instead viel of professionalism to give you a bit of an insight into the backstage shenanigans of a Witches necromantic ritual lol.
As some of you may be aware I help with the public rituals for UK based company ‘Thoth’. One public ritual event we hold every year is ‘The Witches Dumb Supper’ which takes place in the UK at a strange old hotel with dead babies stuffed in the walls. No, we don’t stuff babies in the walls at the event, they’ve been there for a few hundred years lol.
So what problems arise when you promise a bunch of unknown people a night of spirit communion in a dining room usually hired for wakes, in a haunted hotel with a three course meal (served in reverse of course.) Well as it turns out lots of things can go awry which need sorting under the noses of our guests. Many would think that during a necromantic ritual it’s the dead guests which cause the most problems, but I can tell you it really isn’t. The dead bless e’m are usually pretty well behaved. The living guests on the other hand are another story and the staff, well that's a whole other kettle of fish.
We start off in the dining room constructing the altar of the dead and consecrating the ritual space. Sacred ritual space is created to make it more easy for the dead to manifest in front of the living, many of whom have limited psychic ability. The guests arrive and I notice that the kitchen staff who are two rooms away are being a little noisey. Now they wouldn’t normally be that loud, but this is a ‘Dumb Supper’ a ritual usually conducted in complete silence.
I frantically download classical music from itunes with another member of staff in order to create a playlist of nice somber music, which can be played just loud enough to drown out the noise coming from the kitchens, but not quite loud enough to distract our guests from losing themselves in the atmosphere.
While I'm dressed as the grim reaper (scythe and all) in the hall outside the dining room another member of staff is greeting our guests and giving them a quick talk about the history and details of the ritual they will be taking part in. I manage to sort out a playlist and set it to loop when I also notice a little extra noise coming from the lobby area. It’s a noise that fills me with dread … the sound of children!
They say you should never work with children or animals and although this event isn’t open to children that doesn’t mean that there aren’t any staying in the hotel, and so dressed as the grim reaper (i’m fulfilling the role of master of ceremony and so have to represent and tend to the dead guests) I chase the children scythe in hand out of the lobby. I don’t know where the parents are but the hotel manager who I ran past seemed to find it all rather amusing lol.
We start the ritual and I fulfill my role of tending to the altar while other members of our staff wait on the living guests, refilling their drinks and such. Things are going well until I notice one of the other Witches who are running the event is taking notice of something rather negative trying to penetrate the ritual space and affect our mundane guests ...
All in all the night was a success and none of our guests really noticed anything going wrong at all. They all praised the event and had a great time. There were many tears and breakdowns during and after the event but when you're helping people connect to the people they have lost that's bound to happen.
The only thing left for us of course being Halloween night was to break into the local cemetery at midnight to bury the offerings our guests had left on the altar of the dead. Can’t see what could go wrong doing that can you lol?
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