What do you think?
Rate this book
The Bones Fall in a Spiral: A Necromantic Primer
Providing more than fifty exercises, rituals, spells, and recipes, this book teaches you how to honor and work magically with the dead. Mortellus shares the history and power of death magic while also demonstrating its ability to bring comfort and connection. They show you a variety of ways to build a meaningful and safe practice, from using necromantic tools and instruments, to understanding the very nature of a soul.
The Bones Fall in a Spiral dispels misconceptions about necromancy, helps you ethically work with spirits and remains, and provides a book of shades—an extensive spell book featuring step-by-step instructions. Explore correspondences, devotions, sigils, rites, and healing magic. Discover how to help the dying cross over, set up an altar, investigate the paranormal, protect yourself, and more. This deeply researched and respectful book empowers you to learn from the dead and become a guardian of the liminal spaces between our world and theirs.
The Bones Fall in a Spiral dispels misconceptions about necromancy, helps you ethically work with spirits and remains, and provides a book of shades—an extensive spell book featuring step-by-step instructions. Explore correspondences, devotions, sigils, rites, and healing magic. Discover how to help the dying cross over, set up an altar, investigate the paranormal, protect yourself, and more. This deeply researched and respectful book empowers you to learn from the dead and become a guardian of the liminal spaces between our world and theirs.
272 pages, Paperback
Published October 3, 2023
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 25 of 25 reviews
June 1, 2024
Whether you agree with the author's personal gnosis or not, this book is incredibly thought provoking and bold. Dusty old necromancy books are often inaccessible, outdated, and surprisingly misogynistic. This is a fresh look on necromancy that weaves in a lot of the author's personal practice (which I love, even if my perspective differs.) We read this book in my book club and it sparked some deep conversations about how we view death, the afterlife, and spiritual entities. In my own practice, I disagree with some of the points made throughout the book but *that's okay*. This STILL is a 5 star read for me due to its sheer audacity and the conversations it provoked. I am often so sick of occult books being a constant regurgitation of other occult books... It's a snore to read the same thing being repeated over, and over, and over again. Mortellus gives us newness, and for that, I am appreciative.
October 2, 2023
Where to start besides saying that this book is long over due and I am beyond thrilled that it came by way of Mortellus!
This book is educational without being pretentious - which if you know or follow the author isn’t surprising - but given the subject matter and other books on the subject, is refreshing to say the least.
For anyone who is interested in death magic, honoring the dead, learning necromancy, or just looking to learn I promise you won’t be let down. And with wonderful citations, you are sure to find your next read within the pages.
Mortellus’ expertise and knowledge on the subject are beautifully woven with their personal experience and practice. The rituals, spells, exercises, and recipes in this book are just as exciting and informative as the pages that surround them.
And while this books magical focus is death magic/necromancy, it also tackles the outdated ideals that certain magic, practices, spells, or rituals can only be performed by those within a heteronormative lens.
A must read for all magical practitioners!
This book is educational without being pretentious - which if you know or follow the author isn’t surprising - but given the subject matter and other books on the subject, is refreshing to say the least.
For anyone who is interested in death magic, honoring the dead, learning necromancy, or just looking to learn I promise you won’t be let down. And with wonderful citations, you are sure to find your next read within the pages.
Mortellus’ expertise and knowledge on the subject are beautifully woven with their personal experience and practice. The rituals, spells, exercises, and recipes in this book are just as exciting and informative as the pages that surround them.
And while this books magical focus is death magic/necromancy, it also tackles the outdated ideals that certain magic, practices, spells, or rituals can only be performed by those within a heteronormative lens.
A must read for all magical practitioners!
March 16, 2024
A strange and fascinating book with a lot of practical ideas.
November 28, 2024
4.5 rounded up.
An excellent book that I'll need to dip into frequently and re-read.
An excellent book that I'll need to dip into frequently and re-read.
October 18, 2023
Mortellus is a gem 🫀
August 19, 2026
The Bones Fall in a Spiral is an ambitious book, and I think that ambition is both what makes it interesting and what kept it from fully landing for me. Mortellus is trying to offer a serious introduction to necromancy that moves beyond spooky aesthetics and generic ancestor work, and there is a lot here about death, spirits, ritual structure, divination, offerings, and the practical realities of building a necromantic practice. I appreciated the willingness to treat the subject as a real magical discipline rather than simply as a gothic theme.
The strongest parts for me were the ones that dealt directly with practice. Mortellus clearly wants the reader to actually do the work rather than merely collect ideas about death magic, and I respect that. There is an effort to give structure to something that is often presented in occult books as either dangerously mysterious or frustratingly vague. The practical orientation makes the book much more useful than something that simply romanticizes graveyards, bones, and spirits without giving the reader a way to engage responsibly.
I also appreciated that the book takes relationships with the dead seriously. Necromancy is not reduced to "talking to ghosts," and the dead are not treated as interchangeable tools. There is an underlying emphasis on relationship, boundaries, offerings, and developing the ability to discern what kind of contact you are actually having. That is important material, especially in a subject where beginners can easily mistake imagination, fear, projection, or wishful thinking for meaningful spirit contact.
Where the book lost me was in how much of the material felt bound to Mortellus's particular framework. I don't object to authors having strong personal systems, especially in advanced or specialized occult writing, but there were points where I wanted a clearer distinction between broader necromantic principles, historical practices, contemporary traditions, and Mortellus's own methodology. Those things can all coexist, but I prefer knowing exactly what kind of material I am engaging with so that I can decide how transferable it is to my own practice.
I also wanted more historical depth. Necromancy is an enormous subject with roots and expressions across ancient Mediterranean religion, ceremonial magic, folk practice, funerary traditions, ancestor veneration, spirit work, and later occult systems. A primer obviously cannot cover all of that, but there were places where I wanted more context for why certain practices were being used and how they related to older traditions. Without that background, some of the material occasionally felt more like a contemporary system of death magic than an introduction to necromancy in the broader sense.
The book can also feel dense. There is a lot of conceptual material layered together, and I sometimes found myself wishing the structure were tighter and more progressive. A primer should ideally make me feel that each chapter gives me exactly what I need to understand the next one. Here, I occasionally felt like I was being introduced to several different aspects of necromantic practice at once before I had fully absorbed the foundation underneath them.
I had a similar reaction to the tone. There is a seriousness to the writing that suits the subject, but at times it felt more elaborate than it needed to be. Necromancy is already intimidating enough for many readers, and I think greater simplicity in the explanations would have made some of the material more accessible without making it less sophisticated. There were moments when I understood the point but had to work harder than I thought necessary to get there.
I also think the title creates expectations the book doesn't completely satisfy. Calling something a necromantic primer makes me expect a very clear foundation that could support a wide range of later necromantic paths. What I found felt more specific than that: a substantial introduction to one practitioner's approach to death work and spirit contact. That approach may resonate deeply with some readers, but I would hesitate to treat it as a universal foundation for necromancy.
Another thing I wanted more of was explicit discussion of the limits of necromantic interpretation. When working with the dead, it is incredibly easy to turn every dream, coincidence, bodily sensation, tarot pull, or unusual event into evidence of spirit contact. A strong necromantic training system should repeatedly encourage verification, pattern recognition, skepticism toward one's own assumptions, and comfort with the possibility that sometimes nothing supernatural is happening. The book does discuss discernment, but I would have liked that epistemological caution pushed even further because it is one of the most important skills in any serious spirit practice.
I also found myself wanting more differentiation between ancestor work and necromancy. Those areas can overlap, but they are not automatically the same thing. Working with beloved dead, unknown dead, restless spirits, cemetery spirits, and deliberately conjured dead can involve very different relationships, risks, obligations, and magical goals. The book touches on these distinctions, but I wanted even more precision because the umbrella of "working with the dead" can conceal enormous differences in practice.
There is still a lot here that I think is worth engaging with, particularly for someone who has already done foundational spirit work and wants to explore death-oriented practice more seriously. I just don't think I would make this my only book on necromancy. I would want to read it alongside historical material, books from other necromantic traditions, scholarship on funerary and ancestor practices, and works that approach spirit contact from very different metaphysical perspectives.
What I ultimately took from The Bones Fall in a Spiral was less a universal primer on necromancy and more an invitation into Mortellus's particular necromantic world. That world is thoughtful, serious, and clearly built from substantial personal practice, but I found myself wanting more historical grounding, tighter structure, clearer separation between personal system and broader tradition, and a little more space for the reader to build a framework of their own.
The strongest parts for me were the ones that dealt directly with practice. Mortellus clearly wants the reader to actually do the work rather than merely collect ideas about death magic, and I respect that. There is an effort to give structure to something that is often presented in occult books as either dangerously mysterious or frustratingly vague. The practical orientation makes the book much more useful than something that simply romanticizes graveyards, bones, and spirits without giving the reader a way to engage responsibly.
I also appreciated that the book takes relationships with the dead seriously. Necromancy is not reduced to "talking to ghosts," and the dead are not treated as interchangeable tools. There is an underlying emphasis on relationship, boundaries, offerings, and developing the ability to discern what kind of contact you are actually having. That is important material, especially in a subject where beginners can easily mistake imagination, fear, projection, or wishful thinking for meaningful spirit contact.
Where the book lost me was in how much of the material felt bound to Mortellus's particular framework. I don't object to authors having strong personal systems, especially in advanced or specialized occult writing, but there were points where I wanted a clearer distinction between broader necromantic principles, historical practices, contemporary traditions, and Mortellus's own methodology. Those things can all coexist, but I prefer knowing exactly what kind of material I am engaging with so that I can decide how transferable it is to my own practice.
I also wanted more historical depth. Necromancy is an enormous subject with roots and expressions across ancient Mediterranean religion, ceremonial magic, folk practice, funerary traditions, ancestor veneration, spirit work, and later occult systems. A primer obviously cannot cover all of that, but there were places where I wanted more context for why certain practices were being used and how they related to older traditions. Without that background, some of the material occasionally felt more like a contemporary system of death magic than an introduction to necromancy in the broader sense.
The book can also feel dense. There is a lot of conceptual material layered together, and I sometimes found myself wishing the structure were tighter and more progressive. A primer should ideally make me feel that each chapter gives me exactly what I need to understand the next one. Here, I occasionally felt like I was being introduced to several different aspects of necromantic practice at once before I had fully absorbed the foundation underneath them.
I had a similar reaction to the tone. There is a seriousness to the writing that suits the subject, but at times it felt more elaborate than it needed to be. Necromancy is already intimidating enough for many readers, and I think greater simplicity in the explanations would have made some of the material more accessible without making it less sophisticated. There were moments when I understood the point but had to work harder than I thought necessary to get there.
I also think the title creates expectations the book doesn't completely satisfy. Calling something a necromantic primer makes me expect a very clear foundation that could support a wide range of later necromantic paths. What I found felt more specific than that: a substantial introduction to one practitioner's approach to death work and spirit contact. That approach may resonate deeply with some readers, but I would hesitate to treat it as a universal foundation for necromancy.
Another thing I wanted more of was explicit discussion of the limits of necromantic interpretation. When working with the dead, it is incredibly easy to turn every dream, coincidence, bodily sensation, tarot pull, or unusual event into evidence of spirit contact. A strong necromantic training system should repeatedly encourage verification, pattern recognition, skepticism toward one's own assumptions, and comfort with the possibility that sometimes nothing supernatural is happening. The book does discuss discernment, but I would have liked that epistemological caution pushed even further because it is one of the most important skills in any serious spirit practice.
I also found myself wanting more differentiation between ancestor work and necromancy. Those areas can overlap, but they are not automatically the same thing. Working with beloved dead, unknown dead, restless spirits, cemetery spirits, and deliberately conjured dead can involve very different relationships, risks, obligations, and magical goals. The book touches on these distinctions, but I wanted even more precision because the umbrella of "working with the dead" can conceal enormous differences in practice.
There is still a lot here that I think is worth engaging with, particularly for someone who has already done foundational spirit work and wants to explore death-oriented practice more seriously. I just don't think I would make this my only book on necromancy. I would want to read it alongside historical material, books from other necromantic traditions, scholarship on funerary and ancestor practices, and works that approach spirit contact from very different metaphysical perspectives.
What I ultimately took from The Bones Fall in a Spiral was less a universal primer on necromancy and more an invitation into Mortellus's particular necromantic world. That world is thoughtful, serious, and clearly built from substantial personal practice, but I found myself wanting more historical grounding, tighter structure, clearer separation between personal system and broader tradition, and a little more space for the reader to build a framework of their own.
December 13, 2023
Incredible work, perfect for the beginner or experienced practicioner. Highly recommend!
July 26, 2023
In The Bones Fall in a Spiral, author, witch, and mortician Mortellus melds together mythologies of death and personal experiences to share their own practice while providing the reader with numerous rituals and exercises.
Part One is a basic manual to necromancy. While there is some discussion of liminal spaces and lucid dreaming, this is not a book for beginner witches and instead focuses on practices unique to necromancy and death work. The soul, or rather the parts of the soul, are explored through the lens of Ancient Greek and Egyptian mythologies as well as classifications of the various dead and their purpose.
Next, the author outlines instruments and materials that might be found in a necromancer’s toolkit along with ideas for use. This is followed by a guide to basic necromantic practices such as setting up an altar and making offerings.
Part Two, which comprises almost half the book, is the author’s “Book of Shades,” which serves as a blueprint of various rituals, spells, and exercises so the reader can participate in their own necromantic practice. This includes rituals for the wheel of the year, pathworking, healing, divination, summoning, banishing, binding, protection, grief, and devotion. While many readers will be excited about the sheer number of exercises, others may be disappointed in the difficulty involved to obtain some of the recommended ritual items such as blood, coffin nails, corpse water, and various herbs.
Readers with a serious interest in understanding necromancy and adding necromantic magic to their own personal practices will find much inspiration from The Bones Fall in a Spiral.
Thank you to NetGalley and Crossed Crow Books for providing an ARC in exchange for an honest review.
Part One is a basic manual to necromancy. While there is some discussion of liminal spaces and lucid dreaming, this is not a book for beginner witches and instead focuses on practices unique to necromancy and death work. The soul, or rather the parts of the soul, are explored through the lens of Ancient Greek and Egyptian mythologies as well as classifications of the various dead and their purpose.
Next, the author outlines instruments and materials that might be found in a necromancer’s toolkit along with ideas for use. This is followed by a guide to basic necromantic practices such as setting up an altar and making offerings.
Part Two, which comprises almost half the book, is the author’s “Book of Shades,” which serves as a blueprint of various rituals, spells, and exercises so the reader can participate in their own necromantic practice. This includes rituals for the wheel of the year, pathworking, healing, divination, summoning, banishing, binding, protection, grief, and devotion. While many readers will be excited about the sheer number of exercises, others may be disappointed in the difficulty involved to obtain some of the recommended ritual items such as blood, coffin nails, corpse water, and various herbs.
Readers with a serious interest in understanding necromancy and adding necromantic magic to their own personal practices will find much inspiration from The Bones Fall in a Spiral.
Thank you to NetGalley and Crossed Crow Books for providing an ARC in exchange for an honest review.
November 11, 2024
There’s nothing quite like Mortellus’s The Bones Fall in a Spiral. This isn’t just a guide to necromancy—it’s a thoughtful, thorough, and intensely respectful look at what it means to work with the dead. Mortellus strips away the gothic clichés and misunderstandings around necromancy, offering a path that’s rooted in ethics, tradition, and personal growth. They provide exercises, rituals, and spells, yes, but it’s the way they approach necromancy as an act of compassion and honor that makes this book stand out.
The “book of shades” alone could be a treasure for any practitioner, loaded with beautifully detailed spells and devotions that guide you from setting up an altar to aiding spirits in crossing over. Mortellus’s wisdom here goes beyond the superficial—they really understand the nature of spirit work and help you approach it with respect, caution, and purpose. If you’re serious about working with the dead in a way that’s safe, powerful, and profoundly meaningful, you’ll find everything you need in this book.
The “book of shades” alone could be a treasure for any practitioner, loaded with beautifully detailed spells and devotions that guide you from setting up an altar to aiding spirits in crossing over. Mortellus’s wisdom here goes beyond the superficial—they really understand the nature of spirit work and help you approach it with respect, caution, and purpose. If you’re serious about working with the dead in a way that’s safe, powerful, and profoundly meaningful, you’ll find everything you need in this book.
January 28, 2025
This was a fascinating read about a much maligned specialization in magic.
It is rich with lore and knowledge coming from Mortellus experience, research, and unverified personal gnosis. Coming from the Gardenarian tridition, Mortellus does a lot of reframing and connection-building with concepts already familiar to a practicing witch.
Mortellus makes the discipline understandable and, for me, palatable, if not always accessible. While not necessary in every circumstance, many rituals and spells herein require items that you'd have to be or befriend a mortician and/or gravedigger to acquire.
I appreciated that they assume a level of prior magical practice from their reader, but it seems like she also assumed that we have access to grave goods like reclaimed coffin nails, water used to clean and bathe the dead, and more.
At the same time there is certainly enough in this book to ponder, and even to add to my practice, without volunteering at a graveyard.
It is rich with lore and knowledge coming from Mortellus experience, research, and unverified personal gnosis. Coming from the Gardenarian tridition, Mortellus does a lot of reframing and connection-building with concepts already familiar to a practicing witch.
Mortellus makes the discipline understandable and, for me, palatable, if not always accessible. While not necessary in every circumstance, many rituals and spells herein require items that you'd have to be or befriend a mortician and/or gravedigger to acquire.
I appreciated that they assume a level of prior magical practice from their reader, but it seems like she also assumed that we have access to grave goods like reclaimed coffin nails, water used to clean and bathe the dead, and more.
At the same time there is certainly enough in this book to ponder, and even to add to my practice, without volunteering at a graveyard.
October 31, 2023
This about is full of information, rituals and exercises. The first half is theory and the second is a book of shade and full of spells. There are times that in the first part of the book the author will say refer to such and such page and says to follow the exercise.
The second part of the book I mentioned has serval rituals and spells. A huge part of this book is painting sigils on your body.
Now this book only comes in two formats, a physical book and a audiobook. The audio was half price of the physical book so I got the audiobook. Now for my interest level the audio worked fine but if you want to use this book to help you with your necromancy practice I would suggest getting the physical book. The author often made reference to page specific page numbers in her book and there wasn’t a PDF included with the sigils.
The second part of the book I mentioned has serval rituals and spells. A huge part of this book is painting sigils on your body.
Now this book only comes in two formats, a physical book and a audiobook. The audio was half price of the physical book so I got the audiobook. Now for my interest level the audio worked fine but if you want to use this book to help you with your necromancy practice I would suggest getting the physical book. The author often made reference to page specific page numbers in her book and there wasn’t a PDF included with the sigils.
October 2, 2023
The Bones Fall In A Spiral by Mortellus is an incredibly well written and well researched book on the topic of Necromancy. It’s common for metaphysical books to centered around the author’s worldview and perspective, often only citing sources within their own echo chamber. Mortellus refreshingly pulls from a wide background of sources in their research and cites everything for further study. They also handle their subject matter with grace and reverence, a far cry from the sensationalized concept of a necromancer in science-fiction and pop culture. This path isn’t for everyone, and that’s ok. We are not all called to walk the same path. However, the knowledge and insight from this book stand to benefit all metaphysical practitioners and is a must have for your library shelves.
October 2, 2023
There is no shortage of material available on the subject of necromancy, but the quality and validity of said material is questionable, at best. This highly anticipated tome, however, comes to us from the world’s foremost expert on necromancy. With their background as a mortician, magical practitioner, and degree in education, readers are in for a very special learning experience.
The Bones Fall in a Spiral will flip the script on what you think you know about necromancy. In their own way, Mortellus parts the veil on the mysteries of the Underworld and invites readers to open up their minds and gain new perspective. This book will transform the way you approach working with the dead as well as revitalize and reinvigorate other areas of your magical practice.
The Bones Fall in a Spiral will flip the script on what you think you know about necromancy. In their own way, Mortellus parts the veil on the mysteries of the Underworld and invites readers to open up their minds and gain new perspective. This book will transform the way you approach working with the dead as well as revitalize and reinvigorate other areas of your magical practice.
October 18, 2023
The Bones Fall in a Spiral by Mortellus is an excellent read on the topic of necromancy as seen and practiced through a Wiccan lens. Having already loved this author's previous work I am delighted to say their writing style and knowledge continues to be a valuable resource and I will certainly be adding a physical copy to my collection as soon as I am able.
March 3, 2024
I found this book to be an excellent overview of not only what necromancy really is, but how one can practice it ethically and honorably. Mortellus does an amazing job of taking a topic that’s honestly scary and uncomfortable for a lot of people and making it accessible and quite frankly, not scary.
December 6, 2024
a great book of practical magic. This book is by Mortellus who is amazing - a Pathfinder playing visionary who provides helpful and legal advice on this difficult field. It is not for me, at all, but I am glad that this book exists.
September 21, 2026
I originally bought this book as research for my fictional book series, but I found it so fascinating that I started incorporating some of its lessons into my own ancestral practices. It is my go-to book on necromancy both professionally and personally.
December 10, 2023
Great book for all the necrophiles out there. Great at picking up the necrophilic shit. Definitely give it a read.
July 26, 2024
An amazing look into the framework of what it takes to be a modern day necromancer.
August 14, 2024
Beautiful, calm, on point and friendly. Thank you for giving us your guide and your love for the other side, Im not feeling alone anymore. 🫂
October 11, 2024
Beautifully written.
This is a delicious read. A book I’m sure I will be picking up again and again.
This is a delicious read. A book I’m sure I will be picking up again and again.
October 22, 2024
Great resource and insight to necromancy
December 5, 2024
Truly one of the most informative and helpful books I have read.
July 20, 2025
This was a amazing book. It became an instant favorite. I read it on a road trip down to Long Island and I finished it before I made it there. It contains invaluable information and references, which naturally, the bibliography became a TBR and I ordered my own copy of most the books referenced (if I didn't own them already). While reading, being able to recognize many of the sources made me feel such a sense of accomplishment, and also made me trust the text more as I knew that they KNEW their stuff. This has so many wonderful practices in, as well as warnings and tips. It really is a wonderful book and I highly recommend it. (As an added bonus the title is a nod to nerdy stuff which I appreciate)
November 15, 2025
Fascinating and workable. ‘Each of us will confront and know death. So, learn this magic while you live, or learn it in death—but learn it you will.’
Displaying 1 - 25 of 25 reviews