The Necromancers

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Few people, even among Catholics, have heard of Robert Hugh Benson. That was not the case 100 years ago. As an author and novelist, the Catholic priest from Britain was incredibly popular. The reading public and the Catholic Church suffered greatly when he died in 1914. Benson was skilled in attacking evil practices without appearing to preach about them. He also had the knack for crossing genres. He is more well-known for his historical novel Come Rack! Come Rope! about Catholics persecuted and martyred in Elizabethan England.

The Necromancers, first published in 1909, is set in contemporary Britain, and the main character is the young barrister Laurie Baxter. Baxter falls in love with a local girl, Amy, who dies of natural causes before they wed. One could say he was obsessed with Amy Nugent. In his distress after her death, he can-t bear her absence. He needs to contact her, to touch her again, if at all possible.

Baxter had recently converted intellectually to the Catholic Faith, but not with his heart. Amy-s death provides a test that he appears to fail. He connects with a spiritualist circle hoping that the medium will help him bring back his love. He will do anything to get back to Amy, except wait for eternity. As goes the ironic inscription on Amy-s tombstone, -I shall see her but not now.-

One conversation early in Baxter-s immersion into spiritualism - necromancy - gives clues to its potential for disaster and provides lessons for readers in the 21st century. He has a dream in which he encounters an overwhelmingly evil presence.

For he was perfectly aware that fear, and a sickening kind of repulsion, formed a very large element in his emotions. For nearly two hours, unless three persons had lied consummately, he--his essential being, that sleepless self that underlies all--had been in strange company, had become identified in some horrible manner with the soul of a dead person.

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