Familiar Spirit

A familiar spirit ('ob in Hebrew) was the supposed spirit of a dead person who could be consulted by a necromancer or medium. The practitioners who claimed to possess such spirits were called in Hebrew ba'al 'ob ("masters of the ob") and are consistently condemned in Mosaic law as engaging in a detestable practice of the nations. Leviticus 19:31 and 20:6 forbid Israelites from consulting them; Deuteronomy 18:11 lists communication with familiar spirits among the abominable divination practices that were driving the Canaanites from the land.

The most extended biblical narrative involving a familiar spirit is Saul's consultation of the woman at Endor (1 Samuel 28), where the king, having expelled all mediums from the land, secretly sought one out on the eve of his final battle. The event underscores the prohibition's gravity: Saul's action was cited as one of the reasons for his death and the transfer of the kingdom (2 Kings 21:6; 2 Chronicles 33:6; 1 Chronicles 10:13). King Manasseh's consulting of familiar spirits is likewise numbered among the sins that provoked God's judgment on Judah.