Ancient Tomb Cult: Lessons for Contemporary Magical Practice with Kadmus

In the 2023 Salem Witch Fest class on Hero Worship set up a contrast between three different approaches to the dead became essential: specifically Hero Cult, Ancestor Worship, and Tomb Cult. Because the class was focused on Hero Worship the unique nature and practices associated with the very different Tomb Cults was not able to be fully developed. However, tomb cult has a lot that it can teach contemporary practitioners about approaches to, and relations with, the dead and the underworld. More than this, similarly to the connections between Hero Cult and cults of the saints, contemporary traditions can be seen as survivals of tomb cult and open a rich entrance to the topic of the dead. So, this course will ask what tomb cult was, how it was different from related traditional approaches to the dead, how it has survived and continued, and what all this has to teach…