Deuteronomy 18:9-14: Why God Forbids Mediums
Short answer: The Church of Spiritualism is a religious movement built around communication with the dead through mediums, and Scripture uniformly forbids that practice. Deuteronomy 18:9-14 says, "When you have come into the land which Yahweh your God gives you, you shall not learn to imitate the abominations of those nations." Leviticus 19:31 says, "Don’t turn to those who are mediums, nor to the wizards. Don’t seek them out, to be defiled by them. I am Yahweh your God." The prohibition is not a cultural preference but a boundary between covenant loyalty to God and dependence on spirits. It matters for anyone considering a Spiritualist congregation, a seance, or a medium today. The question is not whether spiritual experiences feel real; it is whether God has authorised the channel. He has not.
What Deuteronomy 18 Actually Prohibits
Deuteronomy 18:9-14 opens with a command not to imitate the nations. The passage lists several practices that Israel must not learn: child sacrifice, divination, fortune telling, sorcery, charms, consulting spirits, and consulting the dead. The list is not a random collection of ancient superstitions; it describes ways of gaining hidden knowledge or power apart from Yahweh. Moses frames these as the reason the nations were being driven out before Israel. The land was not merely changing owners; it was being cleansed of practices God calls abominable.
The wording matters. God does not say these practices are ineffective. He says they are abominations. That means the issue is not whether a medium can produce information or a seance can produce a sensation. The issue is that the whole enterprise sets a person in a posture of dependence on something other than God. Deuteronomy 18:9-14 does not attempt to disprove the spirit world. It forbids Israel from learning to operate in it the way the surrounding nations did.
This is a covenant issue, not a taste issue. Israel was to be distinct because Yahweh had brought them out of Egypt and was giving them a land. The nations' religious technologies were part of what made them nations under judgment. To adopt those technologies was to adopt their spiritual allegiance, even if the outward ritual looked harmless. The command is therefore moral and relational, not merely ceremonial. It tells us who God is and who his people are called to be.
Why Leviticus Calls It Defilement
Leviticus 19:31 says, "Don’t turn to those who are mediums, nor to the wizards. Don’t seek them out, to be defiled by them. I am Yahweh your God." The command is addressed to ordinary Israelites, not just priests or kings. Turning to a medium is described as defilement, a word used for what makes a person unfit for God's presence. The verse ends with a reminder: I am Yahweh your God. That final clause is the reason. Because he is their God, they must not seek other spiritual authorities.
Leviticus 20:6 raises the stakes further. It says that a person who turns to mediums and wizards to play the prostitute after them will have God's face set against him, and he will be cut off from among his people. The language of prostitution is deliberate. It pictures covenant unfaithfulness. Seeking a spirit through a medium is not simply a private hobby; it is a rival relationship. The severity of the penalty shows that this is not a minor infraction.
Some readers object that these laws belong to ancient Israel and do not apply to the church. But the New Testament never reverses the underlying prohibition. Acts 16:16-18 records Paul confronting a slave girl with a spirit of divination. He does not treat her fortune telling as harmless entertainment. He casts the spirit out. The early church continued to treat spirit consultation as incompatible with loyalty to Christ. The ceremonial details of Leviticus may not bind believers, but the moral boundary remains.
Saul and the Medium at Endor
1 Samuel 28 tells the most famous story about a medium in the Old Testament. Samuel was dead. Saul had earlier removed mediums and wizards from the land. But when the Philistines gathered against him and God did not answer him by dreams, Urim, or prophets, Saul disguised himself and went to a medium at Endor. He asked her to bring up Samuel. The narrative does not present this as a wise decision. It is the desperate act of a king who has already been rejected by God.
The text says the woman saw Samuel and cried out with a loud voice. Whatever happened in that room, the story is not told to recommend the practice. It is told to expose Saul's final collapse. He had banned mediums; now he consults one. He had been told that Yahweh had torn the kingdom from him; now he seeks guidance from the dead. Samuel's message from beyond the grave is not comfort. It is judgment: tomorrow Saul and his sons would be with him. The next day Saul died.
Some readers argue that the medium was genuinely surprised, which suggests something unusual happened. Others note that the text does not explain the mechanism. Either way, the passage is not a guide to seances. It is a warning about what happens when a person who knows better abandons God's appointed means and reaches for forbidden ones.
The story is often misused by those who claim it proves the dead can be contacted. But the Bible never presents Endor as a model to follow. It presents it as the last step of a man who had already turned away from God. Saul's problem was not that he lacked information. It was that he had rejected the word of the Lord and now wanted a shortcut around repentance.
Isaiah's Test for Spiritual Claims
Isaiah 8:19-20 gives a simple test. When people say to consult mediums and wizards who chirp and mutter, the prophet answers, shouldn't a people consult with their God? Should they consult the dead on behalf of the living? The rhetorical question assumes the answer is no. The living have a God to consult. Going to the dead on behalf of the living reverses the proper order of creation and covenant.
The next verse adds the standard: to the law and to the testimony. If they do not speak according to this word, it is because there is no light in them. This is the test that every spiritualist claim must pass. Does the message conform to Scripture? Does it lead people to the God of the Bible, or to spirits that bypass him? A medium may speak in a religious tone, use biblical language, or bring comfort. Isaiah says the standard is the law and the testimony, not the sincerity or the emotional effect of the message.
Notice also the phrase chirp and mutter. It describes the strange sounds of spirit consultation. Isaiah is not impressed by the phenomenon. He treats it as a sign of darkness, not illumination. The people of God are to go to the law and the testimony. We are not to be impressed by spiritual experiences that bypass God's revealed word. That principle applies directly to the Church of Spiritualism and to any movement that treats communication with the dead as a legitimate spiritual path.
What the Church of Spiritualism Actually Teaches
The Church of Spiritualism is a modern religious movement that developed in the nineteenth century and continues today in various forms. It generally teaches that the dead survive in a spirit world, that they can communicate through mediums, and that this communication can bring comfort, guidance, and moral improvement. Many Spiritualist congregations hold services with mediumship, healing, and messages from the dead. Some describe themselves as Christian; others do not. They often use the language of God, Jesus, and the Bible, which is what makes the movement confusing to people who have not examined the biblical texts.
The core practice is the same thing Leviticus forbids: seeking the dead. The sincerity of the participants does not change the biblical assessment. A person may attend a Spiritualist service and hear a message that sounds kind, accurate, or comforting. But Deuteronomy 18, Leviticus 19 and 20, Isaiah 8, and Acts 16 all converge on the same point. God has not authorised his people to seek hidden knowledge or comfort through mediums. The prohibition is repeated across centuries and genres, which makes it one of the clearest moral boundaries in Scripture.
This does not mean that every Spiritualist is a fraud or that every phenomenon is fake. The Bible assumes a real spirit world. It forbids contact with it through forbidden channels. That is a stronger claim than saying it does not work. It says it is wrong even if it appears to work. The question is not whether something produces a result but whether it honours the God who has spoken.
We should also distinguish between a Spiritualist who is deceived and a person who deliberately recruits others into a counterfeit system. The Bible pronounces judgment on the false teacher and the medium, not simply on the confused seeker. Our posture toward individuals should be compassion combined with clarity. We do not pretend the practice is harmless, and we do not treat people as enemies. We tell the truth and point them to the one mediator between God and humanity.
Why the Medium Cannot Replace the Mediator
The gospel answers the longing that drives people to mediums. The dead are not silent because God could not reach across the boundary; he has reached across it in Christ. The Bible speaks of one mediator between God and humanity. That mediator is not a spirit guide or an ancestral voice. The resurrection is God's public answer to death, and it is the basis for real hope, not a seance. Those who have died in Christ are not available for consultation, but they are safe in his presence.
The contrast is stark. The medium offers a private, unverifiable voice. The gospel offers a public, historical event: the death and resurrection of Jesus. The medium offers a message that cannot be tested against Scripture because it arrives through a channel Scripture rejects. The gospel invites examination: the claims are tied to events that happened in history and to a book that can be read. One path leads deeper into darkness; the other leads into the light of a God who has spoken plainly.
This is why the Church of Spiritualism cannot be treated as simply another denomination. Denominations differ on secondary matters. This is not about the mode of baptism or the timing of end-time events. It is about whether we seek the living among the dead. Deuteronomy 18:9-14, Leviticus 19:31, Leviticus 20:6, Isaiah 8:19-20, and Acts 16:16-18 are not ambiguous. The practice is forbidden, and the people of God are called to a different way.
How to Respond to a Friend in Spiritualism
If someone you love is involved in Spiritualism, begin with prayer and humility. You are not fighting a person; you are contending for a person against a spiritual deception. Do not open with ridicule of their experiences. Ask what the messages give them: comfort, guidance, a sense of connection with someone they lost. Then gently bring the conversation to Scripture. Read Deuteronomy 18 with them. Ask whether they believe the Bible is God's word, and if so, how they account for a practice it repeatedly forbids.
Expect resistance, especially if the practice has brought emotional relief. Mediumship often fills a real void left by grief. The Christian answer is not to deny the grief but to redirect it. We grieve with hope because Christ has conquered death. We do not need to contact the dead because we have a living Saviour and a promised resurrection. Offer to pray with them and to read the Bible together. Point them to Jesus, not merely away from the medium.
Also examine your own practices. The occult can enter through entertainment, charms, horoscopes, and casual spiritual curiosity. Israel was warned not to learn the abominations of the nations. The same warning applies to us. A church or a Christian can drift into practices that seem harmless but rest on the same forbidden premise. It is wise to ask whether our habits of seeking guidance reflect trust in God or dependence on something else.
Biblical fidelity check
These passages establish that God forbids his people from consulting mediums, wizards, and the dead, and that the practice brings defilement and covenant judgment. Deuteronomy 18:9-14 lists it among the abominations of the nations. Leviticus 19:31 and 20:6 make it a matter of defilement and being cut off. Isaiah 8:19-20 sets the law and the testimony as the test. Acts 16 shows the New Testament church confronting a spirit of divination. What these passages do not establish is a detailed manual for every pastoral situation involving the occult, nor do they claim that every reported spiritual experience is demonic or fraudulent. They do not tell us the psychological state of every medium.
A common misreading says the prohibition applied only to ancient Israel's neighbours and is obsolete for Christians. That is wrong because the New Testament continues to treat spirit consultation as incompatible with faith in Christ, and because the underlying issue, loyalty to God versus dependence on forbidden spirits, never changes. Another misreading treats 1 Samuel 28 as proof that seances work and are therefore acceptable. That is wrong because the passage presents Saul's consultation as the desperate act of a rejected king and ends in his death, not as a model for God's people.
Other passages that speak to Deuteronomy 18:9-14
The wider story of Israel's leadership helps frame this command. The rise of Samuel begins with Hannah's prayer and God's answer, showing that God provides guidance through his own appointed prophet rather than through the dead, as recorded in 1 Samuel 1: Hannah's Prayer and Samuel's Birth. Samuel's anointing of Saul and the signs that confirmed it demonstrate that God reveals his will through his word and his servants, not through forbidden arts, as in 1 Samuel 10: Samuel Anoints Saul and Signs Confirm. Saul's rescue of Jabesh Gilead shows what faithful leadership looks like when he still obeyed God, in 1 Samuel 11: Saul Rescues Jabesh Gilead and Renews Kingdom. Finally, Samuel's farewell warns Israel that abandoning God brings judgment, which is exactly the road Saul later took to Endor, in 1 Samuel 12: Samuel's Farewell and Israel's Demand for a King.
Frequently asked questions
Is the Church of Spiritualism compatible with Christianity?
No. The Church of Spiritualism is built on communication with the dead through mediums, and Scripture consistently forbids that practice. Deuteronomy 18:9-14 tells Israel not to learn the abominations of the nations. Leviticus 19:31 tells them not to turn to mediums. Isaiah 8:19-20 asks whether the living should consult the dead on their behalf. Even when a Spiritualist group uses the name of Jesus or the Bible, the core practice remains outside the boundaries God has set. Sincerity and religious language do not make the practice faithful.
Does the Bible ever allow consulting the dead for comfort?
Never. Scripture consistently directs God's people to the Lord, his word, and his appointed leaders, not to the dead. Deuteronomy 18 forbids consulting the dead. Leviticus 19:31 calls it defilement. Isaiah 8:19-20 treats it as a reversal of the created order. The comfort God gives comes through his promises, his presence, and the hope of resurrection, not through seances. Grief is real, and God cares about it, but he has not given his people permission to seek relief through forbidden channels. He has given them himself.
What should I do if I have already visited a medium or attended a Spiritualist service?
Turn to Christ and confess it plainly. Scripture says that if we confess our sins, God is faithful and just to forgive us. The seriousness of Deuteronomy 18 and Leviticus 20 does not put you beyond mercy. Repent, remove any objects or practices connected with spirit consultation, and ask God for a clean conscience. Join a Bible-teaching church where God's word is central. If you are struggling with fear or lingering involvement, speak with a mature pastor who can pray with you and help you walk forward in freedom.
