1 Samuel 28:7

Endor] 4 m. S. of Mt. Tabor, and 10 m. from Mt. Gilboa.

11, 12. This woman would seem to have been what is now called a 'medium'; she sees (very possibly having become entranced) a figure, and Saul from her description at once concludes that it is Samuel. Very possibly Saul saw nothing at all; the words he heard may have come from the woman. Indeed, the LXX translator (who very probably knew as much about such matters as we do) wishing to mark that the words really came from the woman in her trance, spoke of her as a ventriloquist: cp. also Acts 16:16, where the girl, liable to fall into a state of secondary consciousness, is said to have a 'spirit of divination.' To attribute words so spoken to a spirit either internal or external to the medium, was the only course possible to a Hebrew or Jewish narrator.