What Is a Seance? Deuteronomy 18:10-12 Speaks
Short answer: A seance is a sitting in which people attempt to make contact with the dead, almost always through a medium or someone claiming psychic ability. Deuteronomy 18:10-12 says, "There shall not be found with you anyone who makes his son or his daughter to pass through the fire, one who uses divination, one who tells fortunes, or an enchanter, or a sorcerer," a list that goes on to name mediums and those who consult the dead. The practice is not presented in Scripture as a harmless curiosity or a neutral form of grief therapy. It is set among the things God calls an abomination, and it is forbidden for Israel and for the people of God. The question a seance raises is not only whether the dead can be reached, but whether we are willing to obey the God who told us not to try.
What actually happens in a seance
A seance is usually a small gathering, often in a dimly lit room, where a leader or medium claims to make contact with spirits of the dead. Sittings may include table rapping, automatic writing, a ouija board, a trance state, or simply the medium speaking in a changed voice and delivering messages to the sitters. The word itself comes from the French for a sitting, and in the nineteenth century it became tied to spiritualism, a movement that taught that the living can and should communicate with the dead. People attend for many reasons: grief over a parent or spouse, curiosity, fear, a desire for guidance, or pressure from a friend.
It matters that the practice is not new. Deuteronomy 18 addresses a culture already full of mediums, fortune tellers, and sorcerers, and the law speaks directly to people who might be tempted to use them. The methods change across centuries, but the underlying claim stays the same: that a human being can open a channel to the dead or to unseen powers and bring back information for the living. That claim is exactly what Scripture examines and rejects. A seance is therefore not defined chiefly by candles or a particular ritual, but by the purpose of consulting the dead.
A seance can be performed with great sincerity and still be harmful. The medium may believe in her gift, and the sitters may be mourning honestly. Sincerity is not the issue in Deuteronomy; obedience is. The text does not say that only fraudulent mediums are forbidden, nor does it distinguish between a fake medium and a real one. The command is addressed to the person who seeks and to the person who practices. If a seance cannot reach the dead at all, it is still a false hope and a direct disobedience. If something does answer, then the question becomes more serious still, because the source is not the departed loved one.
Pastorally, a seance promises relief from grief but delivers a different thing. Grief is real, and the desire to hear a lost voice again is one of the most human longings there is. God does not mock that longing. But he knows who the dead are, where they are, and what is on the other side, and he has told us not to go looking for them through forbidden channels. Isaiah 8:19-20 asks, "Should they consult the dead on behalf of the living?" The implied answer is no. The living are to seek their God, not the dead.
Deuteronomy 18:10-12 in its own context
Deuteronomy 18 sits in Moses' final address to Israel on the plains of Moab. The chapter begins by providing for the Levites, then turns sharply to the practices of the nations Israel is about to displace. The text reads, "There shall not be found with you anyone who makes his son or his daughter to pass through the fire, one who uses divination, one who tells fortunes, or an enchanter, or a sorcerer" (Deuteronomy 18:10). The list is not a random collection of superstitions; it is a catalogue of the religious techniques of Canaan. Israel is told that these are the very reasons the land is being taken from its inhabitants.
The phrasing matters. God does not say these things do not work. He says they must not be found among his people. The forbidden practices run from child sacrifice to divination, from fortune telling to sorcery, and verse eleven continues with mediums, spiritists, and those who consult the dead. It is a broad prohibition covering every attempt to gain hidden knowledge or power apart from God. The contrast is stated in verse thirteen: the people are to be blameless before Yahweh. The issue is not whether a technique has power but whether it belongs to the covenant people at all.
Notice the covenant setting. Yahweh has just promised a prophet like Moses in verses fifteen through eighteen, someone through whom God himself would speak. The forbidden arts are the counterfeit of that promise. God provides a true voice; the nations use false ones. A seance belongs to the counterfeit category. It seeks revelation, guidance, or comfort from a source other than God's appointed means, which are his word and his prophet. The passage is therefore not merely a list of banned activities; it is a call to trust the God who speaks rather than the spirits that mutter.
Israel's history shows how seriously this command was meant. Later reforms removed mediums and spiritists from the land, and kings were judged for tolerating them. The law did not fade into a cultural custom. It remained a boundary marker between the worship of Yahweh and the religion of the surrounding nations. When we read Deuteronomy 18:10-12 today, we are reading a command given in a specific covenant setting, but the moral logic it rests on, that God alone is to be sought for what only God can give, carries directly into the church.
The dead can be sought, but not by us
The enduring temptation behind a seance is the belief that the dead have something we need. Deuteronomy forbids the practice, and the narrative of 1 Samuel 28 shows a king who tried it anyway. Saul, having lost the prophetic word and having been refused by Yahweh, tells his servants in 1 Samuel 28:7, "Seek for me a woman who has a familiar spirit, that I may go to her, and inquire of her." He disguises himself and goes by night to a medium at Endor. The scene is a portrait of desperation turning into disobedience, and it ends with Saul terrified and without help.
When the woman sees Samuel or a figure she identifies as Samuel, the text does not encourage us to read the moment as a legitimate channel. Even the medium is frightened. Whatever happened at Endor, it did not give Saul what he wanted. He received a message of judgment, not guidance. The story is not held up as a model of how to hear from God; it is the tragic exception that proves the rule. Saul had been told to wait on Yahweh, and he could not. His final act before his death is a consultation with the dead, and the narrator does not present it as wisdom.
It is worth noticing that Saul himself had earlier removed mediums from the land, obeying the law in form. But when his own need became great, the law lost its weight. That is how temptation usually works. We affirm a command until grief or fear presses in, and then we look for a loophole. A seance is often the loophole a grieving person reaches for. The pastoral answer is not to shame the grief but to redirect it to the God who is actually near, who hears prayer, and who has not left us without comfort.
The New Testament does not repeal the prohibition by silence. It treats the spiritual world with the same seriousness. Second Corinthians 11:14-15 says, as 2 Corinthians 11:14-15 says, "And no wonder, for even Satan masquerades as an angel of light." If an experience in a seance feels comforting or spiritually impressive, that feeling cannot be the test of its source. Deception is not always ugly; sometimes it comes dressed as light. That is precisely why God gave a command rather than leaving us to judge each experience by our feelings.
Why God forbids it, not merely discourages it
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 words are remarkably plain. God does not say to use them carefully or in moderation. He says not to seek them out at all, and he gives the reason: doing so defiles. This is not an arbitrary rule. Contact with the forbidden is treated like contact with uncleanness, something that contaminates the person who touches it. The command is protective, the way a father's warning about a dangerous road is protective.
The deeper reason is that a seance places a created thing, or a rebellious spirit, in the role only God should hold. We were made to seek our Maker, to ask him for guidance, to bring our grief to him, and to trust him with our dead. When we turn to a medium, we are inverting that order. We are saying, in effect, that God is not enough or not accessible, and that another source will do. Isaiah 8:19-20 presses this home by contrast: shouldn't a people consult with their God rather than consult the dead on behalf of the living? The question exposes how inverted the practice is.
There is also the matter of who answers when a seance seems to produce results. Scripture consistently identifies the spiritual powers opposing God as deceptive and hostile. If something speaks in a seance, the believer has no reason to assume it is the loved one. It may be a familiar spirit, a demonic imitation, or a human fabrication, but it is not the voice of the departed saint speaking from glory. The comfort it offers is not anchored in truth, and comfort built on deception will eventually collapse. That is why the command forbids not only the practice but the seeking of it.
Finally, the law reveals God's character. He is jealous for his people, not in a petty way, but because he knows that life is found in him. He gives the prophet, the word, the covenant, and prayer. He does not leave us to fumble among the spirits. When he says no to the medium and the sorcerer, he is saying yes to himself and to the ordinary means of grace he has provided. A seance promises access; God has already given access through Christ, and that access is holy, truthful, and open.
Is a seance always fake, or can it be real?
Christians differ in how much they think actually happens at a seance. Some hold that the whole thing is psychological suggestion, cold reading, or deliberate fraud, and they are surely right about many cases. Others point to passages like 1 Samuel 28 and to the New Testament's treatment of the demonic and conclude that genuine spirit activity can occur. Scripture does not give us a mechanism or an inventory, and honest readers should acknowledge that. The command in Deuteronomy does not depend on resolving the question. Whether the answer is a demon, a deception, or an empty room, God has forbidden the practice.
We can say with confidence that the dead in Christ are not at the medium's disposal. They are with the Lord, and they do not commute back to speak through trances or tables. We can also say that the fallen spiritual powers are real and are described as masquerading, so a startling result is no proof of a departed soul. What we cannot do is promise a precise explanation for every strange experience. Faithfulness does not require us to know the mechanism. It requires us to obey the boundary God has drawn, even when we do not fully understand what lies on the other side of it.
This honesty matters for pastoral care. If a person has participated in a seance and feels frightened or unclean, the answer is not to minimize the danger but to point to Christ's authority and cleansing. The same Lord who forbade the practice forgives those who turn from it. First John 1:9 is not quoted here, but its promise stands. The road back is confession and faith, not further occult investigation. A person should not return to the seance to undo it. Turning to Jesus, not to the spirits, is the way out.
Where Christians differ, we should say so plainly rather than pretending certainty. But the disagreement is about what happens, not about what is commanded. On the command, the text is clear. Do not consult mediums. Do not seek the dead. Do not use divination. Seek the Lord while he may be found, and bring your grief to him. That is the settled path, and it is wide enough for every sincere question a mourner brings.
Grief, curiosity, and the better way
The strongest pull toward a seance is grief, and grief deserves compassion, not contempt. The person who lost a mother, a child, or a spouse is not looking for occult power; they are looking for one more conversation. God understands that longing better than we do. He made us for relationship and for the resurrection. But the way he gives comfort is himself: his word, his Spirit, his people, and the hope of the resurrection. He does not give us the dead on demand, because he knows that would not heal us. It would bind us to a false comfort and away from him.
Curiosity is a weaker pull but a real one, especially in a culture saturated with ghost stories, haunted houses, and television mediums. Many people attend a seance the way they would attend a magic show, expecting entertainment. But the Scriptures do not categorize divination as a hobby. Deuteronomy 18:10-12 places fortune telling and sorcery alongside child sacrifice in the same list of abominations. The category is serious, and it should shape how we treat occult themes in entertainment. A believer may not be able to avoid every advertisement, but the heart should not find fellowship with the thing God forbids.
The better way is not to suppress the questions but to bring them to the right place. When we long for the dead, we can bring that longing to God in prayer. When we want guidance, we go to Scripture, to wise counsel, and to the Lord who promised to give wisdom. When we fear death, we look to the one who conquered it. Revelation 21:8 warns that sorcerers have their part in the second death, a sobering verse, but the same book ends with the marriage supper and the wiping away of every tear. The Bible's answer to the seance is not a cold no; it is a warm invitation to a better hope.
Practically, that means avoiding the seance, the ouija board, the medium's hotline, and the occult-tinged entertainment that makes it all feel harmless. It means teaching children why the practice is forbidden, not only that it is spooky. It means being the kind of church where grieving people can speak honestly and be met with prayer rather than judgment. And it means pointing one another to the resurrected Christ, who has already gone ahead of us into death and come back, so that we do not need to send anyone else to ask the dead for news.
Biblical fidelity check
Deuteronomy 18:10-12 establishes several things plainly. It forbids a range of practices, including divination, fortune telling, sorcery, and consulting the dead, and it calls them abominations that defile the land. It speaks to the community, not only to the occult professional; the people are told that such a person must not be found among them. Leviticus 19:31 adds the command not to seek mediums out and names the defilement that follows. What these texts do not establish is a detailed account of what happens during a seance, how spirits operate, or whether every apparent contact is genuine. The Bible is not a manual of occult mechanics.
A common misreading is to treat the prohibition as cultural or temporary, as if ancient Israel's neighbors were superstitious but we know better. That misreading fails because the commands are tied to God's own character and to the uniqueness of his revelation, not to the ignorance of the ancient world. Another misreading treats the verses as forbidding only fraud while permitting sincere spiritual seeking. But the text forbids the practice and the seeking, not merely the fake. Still another misreading assumes a favorite method, like a ouija board, is fine because it is a game. The category in Deuteronomy is the act of seeking hidden knowledge or the dead through forbidden means, and that category is not narrowed by the modern label we put on the device. Where the Bible is silent, we should be silent; where it speaks, we should obey, and on this it speaks clearly.
Other passages that speak to Deuteronomy 18:10-12
Several related studies can deepen this subject. Natural revelation explains what creation itself shows about God, which helps us see why turning to spirits is a rejection of what is already known: Natural revelation and what creation reveals about God: A Biblical Guide. Temptation is the pressure that often drives people toward forbidden sources, and Paul's promise in 1 Corinthians 10:13 speaks directly to that pressure: What does 1 Corinthians 10:13 promise about temptation?. The call to wait on the Lord, rather than on hidden powers, is captured in Isaiah 40:31 Meaning: Wings Like Eagles. And the promise that God is with his people, so that they need not fear, is the better answer to every fear that drives a person to a seance: What does Isaiah 41:10 mean?.
Frequently asked questions
Is going to a seance a sin?
Yes. Scripture forbids consulting mediums and seeking the dead. Deuteronomy 18:10-12 lists such practices among the things God calls an abomination, and Leviticus 19:31 commands Israel not to seek mediums out or be defiled by them. The command is addressed to the person who seeks as well as the one who practices. Sincerity or grief does not make the act obedient, though it should make us gentle with those who have done it. The remedy is confession and turning to Christ, not returning to the seance to fix it.
Can a medium really contact the dead?
Scripture does not give us a mechanism, and faithful Christians differ. Many seance results are explained by fraud, suggestion, and cold reading. But the Bible takes the spiritual world seriously, and 2 Corinthians 11:14-15 warns that Satan masquerades as an angel of light, so an impressive result proves nothing. What we can say is that the dead in Christ are with the Lord and are not at a medium's disposal. Whatever answers, if anything answers, is not the departed loved one speaking from glory.
What should I do if I have participated in a seance?
Turn to Jesus Christ in confession and faith. The same Lord who forbids the practice forgives those who repent, and his authority is greater than any spirit or memory that frightens you. Do not go back to the seance, the medium, or another occult source to undo it; that only deepens the entanglement. Instead, pray, read Scripture, and ask a mature believer or pastor to walk with you. If fear persists, keep bringing it to God, who has not given his people a spirit of fear but of power, love, and a sound mind.
