Communicating with the Dead
by: Dalton Gilreath

God has always condemned the practice of necromancy (Deut 18:10-11). The idea that people could and can actually communicate with the dead is foreign to the scriptures. Yet, many are being fooled by supposed mediums throughout the world. There is a popular show on TLC right now called Long Island Medium in which a woman claims that she can communicate with people’s lost loved ones that many are watching and believing, even surprisingly in the church. Keep in mind that even if these mediums were able to communicate with the dead, it would be contrary to God’s will and we should not support it. Additionally, she could not learn anything about the living or their future because Solomon made it clear that the dead “know not anything” (Ecclesiastes 9:5). The inference seems to be that the dead do not have an awareness of any activity on Earth just as we do not have an awareness of their lives. Isaiah gives further evidence when describing how Abraham is “ignorant of us” (Isaiah 63:16). The context of the statement is that only God knows and can help Israel. The truth is that only one person has ever or will ever conjure the dead with the exception of the witch of Endor (1 Sam 28:7-12). In that sole case even she was surprised that Samuel appeared for a moment. Both the witch and the “client” saw the spirit plainly and communicated with him together which is never the case with false mediums today who are the only ones able to see what they claim to conjure. Clearly God had intervened in that special instance. Outside of this particular case no evidence biblical or otherwise can be found to suggest that necromancy is anything more than a magic trick. Harry Houdini once gave a standing challenge to those who would claim to speak to the dead. He claimed there was no action that a medium could enact that he himself could not duplicate with simple magic. There is a reason that challenge was never accepted.