What are familiar spirits?

These spirits then are not the spirits of departed human beings. Are there any other kind of spirits? Yes, there are fallen angels, demons, spoken of in the Old Testament as "familiar spirits." When our Lord Jesus Christ was here, there were many who were possessed and oppressed by them. He came into contact with these, and in His mighty power delivered them from this terrible oppression. The Acts of the Apostles tells us of Simon the sorcerer (chapter 8), of Elymas the sorcerer (chapter 13), men who had communication with spirits. And in chapter 16 Paul and Silas, on the arrival to Europe with the gospel, were followed by a girl who had a spirit of python. She was a spirtualistic medium, and she followed Paul and Silas crying out, "These men are the servants of the Most High God who show to us the way of salvation." It is very remarkable that the first manifestation of spiritistic power in opposition to the gospel of God on its arrival in Europe should take on a religious turn, and that is the guise it is putting on today. It would have been of small matter if it had not put on this guise, but it is putting on a religious guise, and claiming to be able to help Christianity. Let us test it. The Scriptures tell us how to test it. We are to test it, not by the phenomena of the rapping tables and planchettes, but by the doctrines that it brings. Sir A. Conan Doyle tells us that these phenomena, which in themselves seem so puerile, are but the ringing of the telephone bell, and that is just the one sentence in all he has written and spoken in which I am in heartiest agreement with him. These things are the ringing of the telephone bell, and when it rings you enquire, Who is there? That is the question. Who is there that wants to communicate with us? The test is, What kind of doctrines do they bring? "Every spirit that confesseth not Jesus Christ come in flesh is not of God," and they do not confess Jesus Christ COME IN FLESH. They say, He is a spirit, and He said, "A spirit has not flesh and bones as ye see me have." Nothing arouses the spiritist more than to insist upon this fact, that Christ is the risen Man in the glory of God. They deny Christ come in the flesh. They deny His deity; they deny His holy, spotless humanity. Sir A. Conan Doyle has the audacity to blaspheme the name of our holy, adorable Lord and Saviour in words like these, "He was a broad-minded man who was always open to new ideas, but he often lost his temper," and I know not whether the faint praise or the censure is the worst blasphemy. His holy, spotless humanity is denied; His sacrificial death is denied; His resurrection is denied. There is no resurrection in the spiritist doctrine, hence there is no true hope, for there is no victory over death apart from resurrection. The doctrines they bring disclose from whence they come. They are not from God; they are not from above. They come from Satan; these spirits are emissaries of Satan; their influence is satanic. Their doctrines strike at the very foundations of Christianity, their purpose is to overthrow the faith. The two things cannot run together. Make no mistake about that. They are in deadly conflict. The gospel of the grace of God concerning Christ has come from God. This is from Satan. One is light, the other is darkness.

CONSULTER WITH FAMILIAR SPIRITS. The word is ob, which signifies 'a leathern bottle or skin,' and is supposed to imply that the persons alluded to were professedly inflated with a spirit. It occurs sixteen times and is translated in all the places as above. As an example of the meaning of this word we have the woman at Endor whom Saul consulted: she is said to have had a familiar spirit. Saul at once said to the woman, "Bring me him up whom I shall name unto thee." The woman, as soon as her life was secured by an oath, replied, "Whom shall I bring up unto thee?" Apparently it was her profession to call up departed spirits, but on this occasion she recognised the work of a superior power, for when she saw Samuel she cried with a loud voice. Samuel told Saul that he and his sons on the morrow would be with him. Whether having the power to call up departed spirits is always implied in the above word is not known. A remarkable thing, in connection with those who have a familiar spirit, is that apparently there is a voice heard 'out of the ground.' Isa. 29:4.*

Shoel obh — "one who consults a familiar spirit." The obh was in the person, as Lev. 20:27 literally reads, although it is also applied to the person himself in whom it is, and this generally. It means, primarily, "a (skin) bottle" (Job 32:19), apparently from its dilatability, and its transference to the possessed person has been supposed to be either from the swelling of the body of which Virgil speaks (Aeneid, 6:46, etc.) with the demoniac inspiration, or from the ventriloquism attending, to which the rendering of the Septuagint refers it. From the demoniac, the term was transferred to the demon.

Practicing witchcraft or soothsaying was also firmly forbidden, as well as the claim of interpreting omens, that is, anything that appeared to be unusual, to which superstition might attach some hidden meaning. One who pretended to have discernment to interpret such things was the victim of satanic deceit. Sorcery, also forbidden, is the practice of delving into spiritism by the use of drugs.

Verse 11 adds to this the evil of conjuring spells, that is, hypnotism, and also the wickedness of one acting as a medium, which means one who is a go-between, bringing messages from an evil spirit to another person. A spiritist is similar, that is, one having contract with evil spirits. One who calls up the dead is one who claims to actually bring a dead person in contact with a living person. This is deception, for it is actually a familiar spirit who impersonates the dead person. The witch of Endor was asked by King Saul to bring up Samuel (1 Sam.28:11), but when the woman saw Samuel she was terrified (v.12), for she was accustomed to the deceit of a familiar spirit. But God intervened in this one case to make a striking exception.

Turning now to the matter of the "Witch of Endor" and the question "was it Samuel who was brought up?" Please note — we do not read she brought Samuel up! We do read she had a "familiar spirit." Such were undoubtedly diabolically empowered to impersonate dead persons. When the witch of Endor saw Samuel himself rising from the earth, she gave a loud shriek of terror, indicating that Samuel's appearance was entirely unexpected by her. The familiar spirit was rendered impotent by the power of God. He, in the exercise of His super-abounding power had brought Samuel up from the grave for the express purpose of pronouncing the impending doom of Saul, the king whom the people had chosen, and whom he had earlier abandoned. So, Samuel, the prophet, divinely raised for the occasion, said, "Tomorrow shalt thou and thy sons be with me" (see 1 Samuel 31:2-6 for the fulfilment of this; also read 1 Samuel 28:11-20). The witch was as much surprised as Saul at the appearance of Samuel. She obviously had no part in bringing him up — this was by the direct intervention of God.

"Now Samuel was dead," as we are here reminded (in verse 3), "and Saul had put away those that had familiar spirits, and the wizards, out of the land." He now saw the host of the Philistines mustering, and his heart trembles. Where was the champion of Israel? and why? Had he himself nothing to do with enfeebling the kingdom? Unable to learn of Jehovah, Saul says to his servants, "Seek me a woman that has a familiar spirit, that I may go to her, and enquire of her." Accordingly the servants tell him of one at Endor. "And Saul disguised himself, and put on other raiment." Every shred of honesty and truth was manifestly gone. "And he went, and two men with him, and they came to the woman by night: and he said, I pray thee, divine to me by the familiar spirit, and bring me him up, whom I shall name to thee. And the woman said to him, Behold, thou knowest what Saul has done, how he has cut off those that have familiar spirits, and the wizards, out of the land: wherefore then layest thou a snare for my life, to cause me to die?" She was afraid that he might be an informer on her to the king!

"And Saul sware to her by Jehovah, saying, As Jehovah lives, there shall no punishment happen to thee for this thing. Then said the woman, Whom shall I bring up to thee? And he said, Bring me up Samuel. And when the woman saw Samuel, she cried with a loud voice: and the woman spake to Saul, saying, Why hast thou deceived me? for thou art Saul." What is the connection? Why should she augur from the sight of Samuel that this must be Saul? We have no reason to believe that Samuel said it was Saul, but she drew unhesitatingly the inference that Saul it must be. And why? Because it was not the familiar spirit she expected, but Samuel whom God alone could send. Why so if not for the king? She only looked for the spirit that she was used to — the demon in New Testament language which personated whosoever was named. When she saw that it was the true Samuel who came, she could not but feel the reality of the case, and gathered, as I suppose from this, that the present was altogether out of her own and Satan's line of falsehood to delude man. It was God Himself who took all up. Hence it was that Saul, in his desperation, wishing to consult a witch and her familiar spirit, was caught in his own trap, and heard his doom from the departed prophet.

Saul's last act of disobedience has now to be recounted. He had driven out David from his home; he had despised God's prophet, in the person of Samuel, at Naioth, in Ramah; he had slain God's priests, namely, Ahimelech, and others, at Nob. Now the mind of God, when he wanted it, he could not get. God had deserted him, who had first put himself in open opposition to God. To an unhallowed source for acquiring knowledge about the future the wretched king then turned. He well knew it was an unhallowed source, and one forbidden of God; for he himself had at one time cut off those that had familiar spirits and wizards out of the land. Of this the witch at Endor reminded him, a last warning, if he would have taken it, to pause in his downward career; for death was the penalty attached to the sin of consulting such people. (Lev. 20:6.) In Saul's case the penalty was exacted (1 Chron. 10:13), and from Samuel's lips, who appeared at his request, he learned of the defeat of Israel, and of the death of himself and of his four sons on the morrow. (1 Sam. 28:19.) Saul, who had openly turned from God, got his answer from the aged prophet of God. God thus met the unhappy man, and did not allow a demon to personate His servant. It was Samuel whom Saul saw. It was an unusual sight the witch beheld. She confessed it, when she told Saul she saw gods ascending out of the earth. Her familiar spirit was unable to act, for God Himself had taken up the matter against Saul.

King Saul, after a long course of evil, was in sore straits. The Philistines were threatening him, and in his dilemma he enquired of the Lord, but He did not answer him, “neither by dreams, nor by Urim, nor by prophets.” Though he had purged the land of those who had familiar spirits, he now sought such aid. Disguised, with two companions, Saul asked the witch of Endor to bring up Samuel. God then intervened. He restrained the personating demon from appearing at the medium’s behest, and allowed the spirit of Samuel to appear. The medium was astonished beyond measure. “When the woman saw Samuel, she cried with a loud voice,” charging Saul with deception, that having threatened with death all those with familiar spirits, and destroying all he could find, he had sought her aid.

“Seek me a woman that has a spirit of Python, that I may go to her and inquire of her” (v. 7). Christendom in our day is no different, about to be “spewed out” of the Lord's mouth. It is calling up spirits and indulging herself with satanic illusions, for at one and the same time there is frightening reality and shameful illusion in these practices. The reality is that a demon puts itself at the disposal of the Pythoness; the illusion is that she is able to call up the dead. The demon only clothes itself with a shadowy appearance, for Jesus holds the keys of death and of Hades and no power but His own is able to open its doors. Satan himself cannot call up the dead. Those who have not believed and who have died are and remain “the spirits in prison.” God alone by making an exception can permit Samuel to come forth from the realm of the invisible and appear.

And how then? Can there be no such thing as the appearance of this or that person after death? Not so infrequently as men think in these wise lands. Only it may be well to add what they are in my judgment. The real spirits of the departed just or unjust? Neither one nor other, but demons or evil spirits which pretend to be either, if God permit, and it suits the enemy's purpose in deceiving. This seems to me a matter of simple faith in what God has written for us to learn. I hold that it is as clearly revealed as possible that evil spirits may so work if it please God to allow it, and may deceive many. I cannot doubt that this has never been absent from the earth, that all the alleged oracles of old were connected with and flowed from the power of evil spirits, that the same thing disguised under other names has wrought more particularly in dark lands, and that even now it may be at work from time to time, of course disguised so as the better to deceive even in the very centre of light.