Sacrifices have been part of the Egyptian, Greek, and Germanic necromancy traditions, and even some voodoo rites are claimed offerings to placate various gods. Indeed, the tradition of blood sacrifice itself goes back as far as any culture or religion we know of. Blood sacrifices are recommended throughout the old testament as an atonement for sin, human sacrifices were offered to Moloch, and the Aztecs were infamous for their bloody offerings, the Druids were called barbaric by Caesar for their blood sacrifices, and in general it tends to be hard to find religions that have not, at some time, supported the sacrifice of blood. Necromancy was no different in this regard and is often considered one of the first sacrificing systems that emerged from a civilised culture. Middle-eastern biblical cultures, of course, far predate any necromantic rites with regards to their penchant for blood, but it is the black-robed rites of the ancient necromancer that has gained occultism itself a reputation for vile sacrilege.

Sacrifices come in many forms -- the first of which is the spoken word. There are always many examples available for what constitutes a sacrifice or not, but in general a sacrifice is a symbolic offering to the immaterial dead which shows gratefulness for their services or some symbolic thing which is designated (for whatever reason) as a call sign to draw the attention of the spiritual powers. Examples of calling spirits have ranged from everything between simply verbally calling the name of the spirit to fruit, grain, or honey offerings, to the more symbolic offering of wine, and the more precious offering of blood. Simply calling to a spirit is one of the favoured methods in the modern age because of our present social revulsion to "primitive" rites involving the sacrifice of anything living. Calling can entail simply speaking the name or it can be more involved as a mystical intonation or "vibrated name" similar to the methods used in common ritual magics like the Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram.

The second major method of sacrifice was the food or wealth offering. These two types of offering are put in the same category here because of their proposed mechanism: the spirits see the goods of the material world as a sign of respect to them, as a form of homage, and respect this sign as a request for audience and appear for the necromancer to converse. Common food offerings were one or more of the following: refined oils, milk, honey, water, and wine. These were all common things to bring to a proper burial as well though so they would not have been considered necessarily "necromantic" in the originating Germanic and Greco-Roman cultures. As an alternative to food items, personal effects or items of value to the necromancer or the target spirit are sometimes used as a symbol for the type of spirit that one wishes to draw the attention of. Swords, jewellery of the deceased (for specific spirits), coins, or raw minerals or metals are employed as a sign for the spirits needed.

The third and most common necromantic sacrifice is the blood sacrifice. The most extreme of these sacrifices has been and always will be the human sacrifice, but slightly more restrained is the blood sacrifice which was considered more of a compulsion for the spirit to appear rather than an invite. It was theorised, in Greek necromancy, that the spirits of the dead yearn for that which contains life, hence their use of objects from the mortal life of a spirit to draw them back to earth. Blood, however, is a special case. Blood has long been considered the fluid which actually contains life itself. This notion is mirrored most poignantly in the biblical passage Leviticus 17:11, which states, "For the life of the flesh is in the blood: and I have given it to you upon the altar to make an atonement for your souls: for it is the blood that maketh an atonement for the soul." (KJV; emphasis added). As well as the levitical law proclaiming the virtue of life literally in the blood we can see even hundreds of years later that this notion had not died out. Elizabeth Bathory -- The Countess of Blood -- bathed in the blood of virgins to attempt to preserve her youth. This was directly fuelled by the notion that blood inherently has the power of life. Necromancers in history have been recorded as capturing sheep and slitting their throats to let out the blood (known as haimakouria (blood-sating) in Greek).

The method of application for all of these methods is either placing the sacrifice on the tomb, building a spirit shrine (altar), or digging a hole in the ground to allow the blood or foods to be spilt into. Items would be placed in a hole near any landmark associated in any way with death to draw up the spirits because Hades -- the Underworld -- was rumoured to literally be under the earth. The hole was considered a bit of a head start for spirits so they would more readily take notice. In some cases this philosophy is seen as less than accurate though, so it can also be fairly said that the netherworld was not only a physically lower place, but also a facet of reality which coterminously exists with the physical world. As one of the many facets of the prism which renders an understanding of the entire crystal. This is also why lakes were common sites for necromantic rites (due to their depth) and the fact that water has traditionally been observed as the element of reflection of the spirit (unlike air, which is the unruly spirit). Spirits that were charmed were thought to either possess the body of the necromancer in some rare circumstances or, more commonly, to actually physically appear to the eyes as shades of their bodies as they were shortly before they died. That is to say that if a warrior spirit was charmed through necromancy it would appear as it was buried, perhaps still clad in its battle armor, but in health, usually neglecting any scars or marks that the corpse ultimately had when it fell; there are, of course, exceptions to this. In many cases, such as Germanic legends of the spirits of the will-o-wisps, they would speak through empathy or as poltergeists by manipulating the environment around the necromancer to make their presence known.