Did the witch of Endor really summon Samuel, or was it demonic trickery?
A viewer asks whether the witch of Endor actually summoned Samuel (1 Samuel 28) or whether it was demonic trickery, noting he has heard different interpretations.
Answer
The best interpretation follows what we believe demonic forces can do. They are preternatural, in the sense that they can take anything already created and reform it to look like something else. That is preternatural power; supernatural power, creating something out of nothing, they do not have. God only lets them use this preternatural power in certain places, at certain times, with certain people; thank God he does not let these demons loose everywhere, or we would see illusions wherever we went. In this case, because of how evil King Saul was, going to the witch of Endor instead of to God, God allowed the witch to bring up a representation of Samuel so that Saul thought it was actually Samuel. So most interpretations hold that it was not really Samuel coming up from the dead, which will never happen according to other things in Scripture, but the preternatural power of the demonic, permitted by God, producing the appearance of Samuel. That is how I would explain it.