What is a séance

In the land of Canaan the evil of the nations had risen to an intolerable level: their iniquity was full: therefore God was judging them before Israel. So God warns Israel against adopting any of the evil practices that caused His judgment. These included making sons or daughters pass through the fire (v.10), a thing the nations considered a religious ceremony (Deut.12:31), sacrificing their children to idols. To quote from Fausset's Encyclopedia (p.485), "Kimshi represents Moloch as a hollow brass human-like body with ox's head, and hands stretched forth to receive. When it was thoroughly heated the priests put the babe into its hand whilst drums were beat to drown the infant cries, lest the parents should relent." Is seems hard to understand how such wickedness could be justified by religious zeal, yet such is the seduction of satanic power.

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.

In order to visit the woman Saul disguises himself. How sadly degraded tor a king of Israeli But tie needed supernatural help, and since he had refused the Word of God he desperately seeks help from demonic sources. He took two men with him and went by night, for he wanted no-one to suspect his consulting a spirit medium. Since that time, and even recently, there have been other heads of government who realized their own human limitations and have consulted mediums because they had no confidence In God's Word,

He asks the woman to bring up for him a person who had died. This is what mediums profess to do. But it Is false. They only contact an evil spirit who impersonates the dead person's. The spirit knows something of the dead person's past, and may refer to this to persuade the inquirer that he is actually the dead person.

Where can we obtain light concerning this great question? Man is admittedly powerless here. Of himself he can know absolutely nothing outside his present environment. Some will tell us that they obtain a lot of information concerning the invisible world by attending spiritualistic seances. There, they say, they get into communication with the departed, and learn direct from them the truth as to the spirit realm. No greater delusion was ever prepared by the Devil for the children of men. It is not denied that persons do hold conversation with spirits, but it is not with the dead they thus speak, but with demons who personate them. This awful sin is sternly denounced is Isaiah 8:19-20 and elsewhere in Holy Scripture. The Spirit of God asks indignantly, "Should not a people seek to their God?" Only from God, through His Word, can we learn anything reliable concerning the world beyond.

Let us briefly consider the circumstances of King Saul. His forty years' reign of self-will and disobedience to God was now ending. The Philistines had declared war against him, and he was to meet them in battle on the morrow. Filled with foreboding, the unhappy King appealed to God, but without avail. Then he inquired for someone possessed of a familiar spirit, and learning that there was such a person at Endor, he went by night in a disguise and asked her to bring up Samuel. Some will perhaps say: "That is somewhat like what Spiritualists do to-day." They do absolutely nothing of the kind. The claim to put the living in communication with the dead is a monstrous fraud. The keys of Hades are in divine hands alone. Neither the just nor the unjust can be disturbed by Spiritualistic mediums. Yet it is not denied that such persons are in communication with the invisible world, but it is with demons they have to do; and it is with demons the mediums link up their miserable dupes.

This complex character had some knowledge of God — alas, no heart knowledge! He brought the name of the one true God into his nefarious practises in order to give them an air of respectability. Also, many persons would be more easily duped by his use of the name of God. Balaam was what is now called a "Spiritualist." A very misleading name really; "Spiritist" or "Demonist" would be more correct. Modern Spiritualists seem to be divided into two classes; there are those who leave God quite out of their pretensions (which is at least honest); and there are also those who call themselves "Christian Spiritualists." The latter class are particularly dangerous; for these are not Bible-reading days, and many souls are easily led astray by the use of the word "Christian." In quite a number of cases the clergy tamper with this great evil and even recommend it as a useful adjunct to "preaching." The truth is, there is no possible connection between Christianity and Spiritualism. God in His word — notably in Deut. 18:9-14 — unsparingly condemns this iniquity in all its forms. It is apostasy — a turning away from God and His revealed truth. It is intercourse with demons, ruinous to all who practise it. The land of Canaan was full of this when the hosts of Israel marched in, and they were divinely charged to utterly exterminate it. Indeed, the prevalence of this particular evil was one of the principal reasons why the holy and righteous God could tolerate the seven Canaanitish nations no longer.

An enquirer goes to a Spiritist seance, and gets into touch with a medium; and is amazed how he can be told secrets in his life which the medium has no chance of knowing by ordinary methods. Moreover he hears a prophecy as to what will happen to him in the near future, and lo! the prophecy comes true.

But is it possible to hold communication with spirits? The answer is "Yes." But — with whom? "Can we speak to our dead? is the eager question of many in our time.

The great war has given tremendous impetus to this thing. The world is full of sorrow as never before. Empty chairs and aching hearts abound on every hand. Mourners are told that they may still keep in touch with the departed. The Press has given every encouragement to this, and eminent men have lent their influence thereto. But is it true, or is it instead a monstrous delusion and fraud?

Thus the Committee set to work, evidently determined to eliminate, if this report is true, every chance of deception, but it would not be so easy to do this when the room was plunged in darkness; when that happened, there surely must have come to the memories of some of these investigators those solemn words of the Lord Jesus, "Men love darkness rather than light, because their deeds are evil". And these spirits are evidently like them, and this is the more strange, since they profess to come from realms of light. Why did not one of these investigators propose that they should open the séance by some suitable passage of Scripture, and with prayer to God that He would preserve them from deception and cause His truth to triumph? That would surely have been appropriate, since they were there representing the Church of Scotland, and professing to be servants of God.

There are those who contend that there is nothing but deception in this thing, and that all the phenomena displayed at these séances can be reproduced by clever conjurors. We are sure that they are wrong. It may be that a large percentage of the phenomena is fraudulent, we believe it is, but there is that which is real, devilishly real. It has been proved again and again, that at these darkened séances intelligent beings not in the flesh do communicate through mediums. Men of science and letters have become confirmed Spiritists, who were once absolute sceptics on the subject, simply by what they have seen and heard. And we have no doubt that when the Scotch Committee has completed its investigations it will be compelled to the conclusion that spirits do communicate. But then they will have to address themselves to the further question, who are the spirits?

Are these the spirits of the human dead? Surely not. They are evil spirits, which, as the Bible shows us, desire to possess human bodies, such spirits as possessed Mary of Magdala and Legion before the delivering power of Jesus set them free; and the damsel of Philippi. And the spirits that possess the bodies of mediums today, and speak at these séances are spirits of the same order; spirits in rebellion against God. For their own purposes they may veil their malignity and even appear as ministers of righteousness, for Satan, their arch-leader, transforms himself — when it suits him — into an angel of light (2 Cor. 11:14-15); but such they are, for no unfallen angel would transgress the definitely expressed commands of God, nor would they assist men and women in this terrible defiance of His will (Deut. 18:9-14).

All the so-called revelations from departed spirits which are being made nowadays are, when not impostures, as many of them are, lying messages from an evil spirit with whom the medium is communicating. God does not use unholy channels for the communication of truth; and while it is quite possible for the demon to tell of various events which have taken place in one's past life, or the lives of his acquaintances, and to give "revelations" which are in accord with the habit of mind of the person who has departed, they never emanate from the departed.