Note 214.2 — Chapter XII · Eschatologic Ideas of East and West.

So far, it appears that there was little or no communion according to Babylonian belief between the dead and the living, except at the family sacramental meal held after the funeral. Only the vexed and neglected soul of the unburied or the unhallowed dead returned to disturb the living. And perhaps at times the Babylonians, as the Israelites, resorted to “necromancy,” the evocation of the dead by spells, so as to question them concerning the future. One evidence of this is the passage in the Epic of Gilgamesh, where the hero is able to evoke the spectre of his friend Eabani and question it. This was probably suggested by an actual practice, which is attested by such priestly titles as “he who leads up the dead,” “he who questions the dead.”214.2 In ancient Greece we have the further evidence, which is lacking in the Babylonian record, of actual νεκυομαντεῖα or shrines where the dead were consulted, and some of these may have descended from the pre-Homeric period; for the evocation of ghosts seems to have been specially practised in Arcadia, where so much primitive lore survived.