The Witch Of Endor

hile the occult has been popular in American media for most of my generation, the most recent wave of network television programming has practically inundated US TV screens with the supernatural. The cable net USA Network seems to have started the trend with the series version of Stephen King's Dead Zone, a show about a psychic that helps the police solve difficult crimes.

NBC followed suit with Medium, where the big screen actress Patricia Arquette just won a best actress Emmy award for her role as Allison DuBois -- a real life psychic that helps the police solve horrifying crimes. Recognizing a trend, CBS has now weighed in with the Ghost Whisperer, based on another psychic who helps people come to grips with life and death experiences. This one has the sultry Jennifer Love Hewitt.

These efforts follow numerous theatrical films of late concerning supernatural abilities including White Noise, The Missing, Bewitched, and The Gift (or go further back and consider Bell Book & Candle, the Witches of Eastwick, Charmed, etc). 

It's worth noting how situation ethics are commonly employed in all these flirtations with the occult. For example, the police are usually portrayed as skeptics, but when a horrible killer is on the loose, they're willing to turn to a psychic. At the same time, we rarely see the psychics and/or witches portrayed as some repugnant hunchback, for today's psychics are almost always attractive like Medium's Arquette or Ghost Whisperer's Hewitt. And let us not forget, they're helping make their communities a better place by solving serious crimes.

Scripture detailed the causality of situation ethics as well when Israel's backslidden King Saul consulted the Witch of Endor. At the time, Israel's primary prophet Samuel had just died, and the king was threatened by a significant host of Philistines. Of course, Saul only went to the night hag when the LORD refused to answer his entreaties for direction:

"And when Saul inquired of the Lord, the Lord answered him not, neither by dreams nor by Urim, nor by prophets" (I Samuel 28:6).

Saul's justifications are of interest, for they help to demonstrate the slippery slope that a progressive rejection of the LORD always facilitates. Instead of proclaiming a fast, or assigning men to seek out a true prophet of the LORD in the land of Israel,

"Saul disguised himself, and put on other raiment, and he went, and he went, and two men with him, and they came tot he woman by night: and he said, I pray thee, divine unot ome by the familiar spirit, and bring me him up, whom I shall name unto thee" (I Samuel 28:8).

One can almost see an Israelite advisor objecting to Saul's course of action, with the king justifying his moves because his country needs direction -- and after all, the LORD just won't answer. In what has to be one of the most bizarre examples of twisted logic illustrated anywhere in the scriptures, we see that because Saul has lost his connection to the LORD with the death of the prophet Samuel, and God has chosen not to answer Saul's various supplications, Saul has gone to a medium to try to conjure up the spirit of Samuel the prophet, so Samuel can then petition God on his behalf!

This plan is so poorly conceived that most recognize the flawed thinking behind it, yet our leaders are doing essentially the same thing when the authorities turn to occult power to supposedly combat evil. As the wickedness in our society continues to escalate, the ostensibly decent factions within our allegedly "Christian" nation are turning to those that have familiar spirits for guidance. This is the rough equivalent of Satan's right hand chasing his prey into his left hand.

And just as the sad example of Saul seeking his own way through an unclean spirit ended up with the King of Israel in great spiritual darkness, the once upright nation of America has deceived herself to such a degree that she has become a "the habitation of devils, and the hold of every foul spirit, and a cage of every unclean and hateful bird" (Revelation 18:2).

In short, 21st century America would have quickly endeared herself to the Witch of Endor.

September 20 2005 -- James Lloyd

Copyright © 2005, 2008 Christian Media Network