Let it never be forgotten that this belief which has not only been the cause of the deaths of tens of thousands of innocent women, but has sent far more into the worst convulsions of madness and despair, is the evident and unmistakable teaching of the Bible.
SAUL'S SPIRITUALIST STANCE AT ENDOR.
"Our own time has revived a group of beliefs and practices which have their roots deep in the very stratum of early philosophy, where witchcraft makes its first appearance. This group of beliefs and practices constitutes what is now commonly known as Spiritualism."—Dr. E. B. Tylor, "Primitive Culture" vol. i., p. 128.
The oldest portion of the Old Testament scriptures are imbedded in the Book of Judges and the Books of Samuel. Few indeed of these narratives throw more light on the early belief of the Jews than the story of Saul and the witch of Endor. It is hardly necessary to recount the story, which is told with a vigor and simplicity showing its antiquity and genuineness. Saul, who had incurred Samuel's enmity by refusing to slay the king Agag, after the death of the prophet, found troubles come upon him. Alarmed at the strength of his enemies, the Philistines, he "inquired of the Lord." But the Lord was not at home. At any rate, he "answered him not, neither by dreams, nor by Urim, nor by prophets." The legitimate modes of learning one's fortune being thus shut up, Saul sought in disguise and by night a woman who had an ob. or familiar spirit. Now Saul had done his best to suppress witchcraft, having "put away those who had familiar spirits, and the wizards out of the land." So when he said to the witch, "I pray thee divine unto me by the familiar spirit and bring him up whom I shall name unto thee," the woman was afraid, and asked if he laid a snare for her. Saul swore hard and fast he would not hurt her, and it is evident from his question he believed in her powers of necromancy by the aid of the familiar spirit. This alone shows that the Jews, like all uncivilised people, and many who call themselves civilised, believed in ghosts and the possibility of their return, but, as we shall see, it does not imply that they believed in future rewards and punishments. Saul's expectations were not disappointed. He asked to see Samuel, and up Samuel came. He asked what she saw, and she said Elohirn, or as we have it, "gods ascending out of the earth." In this fact that the same word in Hebrew is used for ghosts and for gods, we have the most important light upon the origin of all theology.
The modern Christian of course believes that Samuel as a holy prophet dwells in heaven above, and may wonder, if he thinks of the narrative at all, why he should be recalled from his abode of bliss and placed under the magic control of this weird, not to say scandalous, female. But Samuel came up, not down from heaven, in accordance, of course, with the old belief that Sheol, or the underworld, was beneath the earth.
Christian commentators have resorted to a deal of shuffling and wriggling to escape the difficulties of this story, and its endorsement of the superstition of witchcraft. The Speakers' Commentary suggests that the Witch of Endor was a female ventriloquist, but, disingenuously, does not explain that ventriloquists in ancient times were really supposed to have a spirit rumbling or talking inside their bodies. As Dr. E. B. Tylor says in that great storehouse of savage beliefs, Primitive Culture, "To this day in China one may get an oracular response from a spirit apparently talking out of a medium's stomach, for a fee of about twopence-halfpenny."
Some make out, because Saul at first asked the woman what she saw, that, as at many modern seances, it was only the medium, who saw the ghost, and Saul only knew who it was through her, else why should he have asked her what form Samuel had?—which elicited the not very detailed reply of "an old man cometh up; and he is covered with a mantle"—that is, we suppose, with the ghost of a mantle. She did the seeing and he the hearing. But it says "Saul perceived it was Samuel," and prostrated himself, which he would hardly have done at a description. Indeed, the whole narrative is inconsistent with the modern theory of imposture on the part of the witch. Had this been the explanation, the writer should have said so plainly. He should have said her terror was pretended, that the apparition was unreal, and that Saul trembled at the woman's words, whereas it is plainly declared that "he was sore afraid because of the words of Samuel." Moreover, and this is decisive, the spirit utters a prophecy—not an encouraging, but a gloomy one—which was exactly fulfilled.
All this shows the writer was saturated in supernaturalism. He never uses an expression indicating a shadow of a ghost of a doubt of the ghost. He might easily have said the whole thing was deceit. He does not, for he believed in witchcraft like the priests who ordered "Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live." One little circumstance shows his sympathy. Samuel says: "Why hast thou disquieted me to bring me up?" This is quite in consonance with savage belief that spirits should not be disturbed. Here was Samuel quietly buried in Ramah, some fifty miles off, taking his comfortable nap, may be for millenniums in Sheol, when the old woman's incantations bustle him out of his grave and transport him to Endor. No wonder he felt disquieted and prophesied vengeance to Saul and to his sons, "because thou obeyedst not the voice of the Lord nor executedest his fierce wrath upon Amalek."
Matthew Henry and other commentators think that the person who presented himself to Saul was not Samuel, but Satan assuming his appearance. Those who believe in Satan, and that he can transform himself into an angel of light (2 Cor. xi. 14), cannot refuse to credit the possibility of this. Folks with that comfortable belief can credit anything. To sensible people it is scarcely necessary to say there is nothing about Satan in the narrative, nor any conceivable reason why he should be credited with a true prophecy. The words uttered are declared to be the words of Samuel.*