When I was younger, I loved ghost stories, stories about monsters and haunted houses, etc. The joy came from knowing that the scary stuff in these stories couldn’t get me. I mean, they weren’t real, right?
Imagine my surprise when we get a real life, seer-invoked, ghost in our bible reading from 1 Samuel 28, yesterday’s Bible In A Year podcast. Here’s Saul trying to get the seer’s services, after he’s actually kicked them out of the kingdom:
“Whom do you want me to conjure up?” the woman asked him.
“Conjure up Samuel for me,” he replied.
When the woman saw Samuel, she shrieked at the top of her voice and said to Saul, “Why have you deceived me? You are Saul!
But the king said to her, “Do not be afraid. What do you see?”
“I see a god rising from the earth,” she replied.
“What does he look like?” asked Saul. “An old man is coming up wrapped in a robe,” she replied. Saul knew that it was Samuel, and so he bowed his face to the ground in homage.
1 Samuel 28: 11-14
So here we have it. A ghost of a dead man (we’ve been told Samuel is dead a few times). And what does the ghost say?
Samuel then said to Saul, “Why do you disturb me by conjuring me up?” Saul replied: “I am in great distress, for the Philistines are waging war against me and God has turned away from me. Since God no longer answers me through prophets or in dreams, I have called upon you to tell me what I should do.”e16To this Samuel said: “But why do you ask me, if the LORD has abandoned you for your neighbor?f
1 Samuel 28: 15-16
This seer was successful and Samuel’s ghost came and continued to speak truth about God to a human.
The Spiritual journey has unexpected turns 🙂
Learnings from this:
- Ghosts are real! As Fr. Mike mentioned in the podcast, the spiritual world is real!
- God can allow His message to be sent through ghosts, coincidences, writing that shows up on a wall (Daniel 5), a whale, etc, so don’t forget it and also look out for it, maybe He’s sending a message to us.
- A reminder that divination and magic are real and to stay away from it! The Catechism teaches the following:
Divination and magic
2115 God can reveal the future to his prophets or to other saints. Still, a sound Christian attitude consists in putting oneself confidently into the hands of Providence for whatever concerns the future, and giving up all unhealthy curiosity about it. Improvidence, however, can constitute a lack of responsibility.
All forms of divination are to be rejected: recourse to Satan or demons, conjuring up the dead or other practices falsely supposed to “unveil” the future.48 Consulting horoscopes, astrology, palm reading, interpretation of omens and lots, the phenomena of clairvoyance, and recourse to mediums all conceal a desire for power over time, history, and, in the last analysis, other human beings, as well as a wish to conciliate hidden powers. They contradict the honor, respect, and loving fear that we owe to God alone.
2117 All practices of magic or sorcery, by which one attempts to tame occult powers, so as to place them at one’s service and have a supernatural power over others – even if this were for the sake of restoring their health – are gravely contrary to the virtue of religion. These practices are even more to be condemned when accompanied by the intention of harming someone, or when they have recourse to the intervention of demons. Wearing charms is also reprehensible. Spiritism often implies divination or magical practices; the Church for her part warns the faithful against it. Recourse to so-called traditional cures does not justify either the invocation of evil powers or the exploitation of another’s credulity.
Things that may seem “mystical” or “supernatural” on the spiritual journey should be discerned properly. There is no true wisdom and no true path forward that is not from God!
Let Us Pray: Loving Father, Author of All Life, You have created all things that are good. Things mundane in our daily life, and things awe-inspiring, unseen, unknowable, and inconceivable. Guide us on our spiritual journey to the revelation of Your love for us and for the world. Protect us from any evil that would attempt to persuade us to put our trust in any place but yours.
St. Michael the Archangel, pray for us.