Are you interested in angels, demons, spirits, ghosts, and monsters? Are you curious about their origins, tales, and influence upon history and on the present day? If so, sit back, relax, and welcome to Southern Demonology, the podcast that explores all of this and more. I want to start off today's episode with another listener inbox feature. And this one's a little bit special, and it was really heartwarming. We had a member join named Tahri, and she shared a picture of a teapot, and she said that it was a ghost teapot.
And she goes, It's not haunted or anything, but it is either the culmination of a huge series of coincidences or a ghost gave it to me to get me to go check on her son. She continues, So the possible ghost in question was maybe six years deceased. She had three kids, all above sixty years of age. I have no idea when she started bothering me, but I first noticed it when someone randomly gave me a bouquet of flowers for absolutely no reason. The bouquet was immediately recognizable as a fresh living copy of the dried bouquet said ghost had in her house for at least 20 years before her death.
I thought that was weird, but chalked it up to coincidence. The person who gave me the flowers was unable to explain why they gave me the flowers, and I figured they must have been re-gifting something they didn't want because they weren't exactly cheap. So I would have felt bad to toss them. I received a few odd gifts that kept making me think of the old lady, but kept assuming it was just more coincidence, and my brain deciding to see patterns where there wasn't anything. The dreams had to have been more the same.
My overworked brain just pulling up stuff that was hanging around in my head in the day. I kept being reminded of the lady, so of course she was in my dreams. I was a little spooked and declared out loud, if you're a ghost trying to get a message to me, I need a much clearer message, because right now I'm pretty sure this is all weird coincidence, which is where the teapot comes in. I was out looking for props for a set. I needed a teapot. I went to a few secondhand stores, but they seemed to only have super modern looking pots, so it wasn't looking like I'd be successful that day.
Then I got to the last store on my planned route. I saw this pot the second I walked in. It was close to perfect. I picked it up to check the price, and on the bottom of the pot it had been signed by the painter and stamped with the country of origin and maker's mark. It had the old lady's first and almost middle name, missing one S. Also a totally reasonable price sticker for the second hand teapot. I felt that was about as clear a message as I was going to get while still remaining in the realm of coincidence. So I took it home and tried to ask the old duck what she wanted.
I couldn't work out how to get the answers from her. Not like she was the knocking type ghost. So I tried a tarot deck. Unfortunately that came out as incomprehensible shouting, all the spookiest looking cards regardless of their meaning. Then I tried to put myself in her shoes. If I'm a dead old lady and I'm bothering someone urgently, this all happened in the span of two weeks. What on earth would cause me to get in such a flustered state? So I started with the most logical thing I could think of, her living descendants.
Turns out her youngest was in a pretty bad way, and hadn't given any next of kin info to his care team because he wasn't in the argument with his brother and hated his sister for stealing his dog, i. e. rescuing it from starvation and abuse. So I wound up acting as a sort of go-between between the nurses and the rest of the family. He lived for I think another three years before finally passed from a heart attack. So it could be coincidence. Nothing totally unexplainable happened.
The teapot with the name on it really felt like it was stretching the limits of probability, but still within the scope of chance. She hadn't bothered me since. She didn't try to contact me about his impending heart attack, or at least not that I noticed. Thank you for that beautiful story. I really do appreciate it. If you would like to share your own experience or a question and have that read possibly on the podcast, please feel free to contact me. Go to Southern Demonology.com, click on the listener inbox button, and fill out the form, and uh that will be sent straight to me.
With that finished, I now want to turn to the rest of the story. So I began writing this episode thinking that I was going to focus on this idea I had called the complexity mandate. It's kind of like the inverse of Occam's razor, the thought experiment where the idea with the least amount of variables or parameters wins. I. The mandate simply says that everything is more complex than it seems. And I was going to chart that through physics, philosophy, and worldviews. Well, was going to is inaccurate.
I was actually three pages of script into that episode, and if you'd like to hear it, please let me know. But the final piece of that examination was going to take a singular topic and deep dive into it. Yet that use case became so compelling that I had to switch gears midstream to focus upon it as a I think that y'all would enjoy it a lot more. B it fits much better into the subject matter that I normally cover, and C it's much more compelling in the end. What's the old military adage that strategy never survives the first enemy encounter? Well, that's true even in writing.
I do warn you that today's episode is a little controversial. I'm not doing it for controversy's sake, but because a theme has come up a few times in interviews, and it definitely needs to be talked about and explored. In fact, I'd like to credit one of my Discord users, Ravensong, for suggesting the topic. The moment was brought up I had a serious doll moment. As always, let me prefix this conversation with my standard warning of I do not claim to be 100% correct.
As beings of the flesh, us trying to understand anything belonging to the spirit is improbable at best of times and nigh own impossible in the worst. With that said though, let's talk about whether ghosts exist from a biblical perspective. For this conversation, I will be focusing upon the Hebrew Bible as that is where my expertise lives. If interested, then I might invite a guest on to cover the Christian New Testament aspect. Welcome to Southern Demonology. As always, I'm your host, JJ.
Some I have spoken to have indicated that they do not believe in ghosts, that these things we think they are are just the demonic in disguise. And that must be so because the Bible said it was that way. But what exactly does the Hebrew Bible say about ghosts? Let's take a deep dive, shall we? Of course, the Hebrew Bible was called the Tanakh, short for its three divisions Torah for law, Nevaim or for Prophets, and Katuvim for writings. So let's start with the Torah. And for the record, I'm using the New Revised Standard Version for the biblical quotations here.
I normally use the RSV, but in this case the NRSV has better translations for some of the technical language involved. The Torah doesn't say that there are not ghosts, but that one should not consort with necromancers or those who have dealings with magic. In Deuteronomy 18, nine through fourteen. No one shall be found among you who makes a son or daughter pass through fire, or who practices divination, or is a soothsayer, or an auger, or a sorcerer, or one who casts spells, or who consults with ghosts or spirits, or who seeks oracles from the dead.
For whoever does these things is abhorrent to the Lord. It is because of such abhorrent practices that the Lord your God is driving them out before you. You must remain completely loyal to the Lord your God. Although these nations that you are about to dispossess do give heed to soothsayers and diviners, as for you, the Lord your God does not permit you to do so. Deuteronomy twenty six fourteen also writes that one should not offer anything to the dead. I have not eaten of it while in mourning, I have not removed any of it while I was unclean, and I have not offered any of it to the dead.
I have obeyed the Lord my God, doing just as you commanded me. Leviticus twenty echoes Deuteronomy eighteen. If any turn to mediums and wizards prostituting themselves to them, I will set my face against them and will cut them off from the people. Now on to the prophets. Isaiah has quite a few passages against necromancy. For example, eight nineteen through twenty says Now if people say to you, consult the ghosts and the familiar spirits that chirp and mutter, should not a people consult their gods, the dead on the behalf of the living, for teaching and for instruction?
Surely those who speak like this will have no dawn. Isaiah twenty six fourteen goes even further. The dead do not live, shades do not rise, because you have punished and destroyed them and wiped out all memory of them. Isaiah nineteen even claims that the Egyptians will resort to necromancy, a rather strange claim according to the dictionary of deities and demons of the Bible, quote due to the virtual lack of necromancy attested in ancient Egypt, unquote. See, the Lord is riding on a swift cloud and comes to Egypt.
The idols of Egypt will tremble at his presence, and the heart of the Egyptians will melt within them. I will stir up Egyptians against Egyptians, and they will fight one against the other, neighbor against neighbor, city against city, kingdom against kingdom. The spirit of the Egyptians within them will be emptied out, and I will confound their plans. They will consult the idols and the spirits of the dead, and the ghosts and the familiar spirits. I will deliver the Egyptians into the land of a hard master. A fierce king will rule over them, says the sovereign, the Lord of hosts.
Second Kings provides quite a few examples of how a king should not behave. In 2 Kings 21 6, Manasseh's wrongdoing is called out by playing with necromancy and magic. He made his son pass through fire, he practiced soothsain and augury, and dealt with mediums and with wizards. He did much evil in the sight of the Lord, provoking him to anger. Josiah then comes along in 2 Kings 23, 24 and eradicates the practice.
Moreover, Josiah put away the mediums, wizards, teraphim, idols, and all the abominations that were seen in the land of Judah and in Jerusalem, so that he established the words of the law that were written in the book of the priest Helkiah and found in the house of the Lord. Finally, let's look towards the writings. Whereas the Torah provided laws against consorting with ghosts, and the prophets' denunciations against it, along with the bad people that did, it's in this section that we find the reasonings why one should not deal with necromancy or ghosts. Let's start with Job.
In chapter seven, verses eight through ten. The eye that beholds me will see me no more, while your eyes are upon me I shall be gone. And the cloud fades and vanishes, so those who go down to Sheol do not come up. They return no more to their houses, nor do their places know them any more. In Job fourteen twelve we find So mortals lie down and do not rise again, until the heavens are no more, they will not awake or be roused out of their sleep.
In other words, both of these passages seek to steer people away from the dead, as their trip to the underworld is a one way path, and they will not awake or be roused again. In Ecclesiastes, the living know that they will die, but the dead know nothing. They have no more reward, and even the memory of them is lost. Their love and their hate and their envy have already perished. Never again were they have any share in all that happens under the sun. This passage adds yet another reason.
Even if you did try to speak to the dead, then you would get nothing out of it as they do not know anything. We even find one last abjuration in Psalms eighty eight. Do you work wonders for the dead? Do the shades rise up to praise you? The question you have to ask yourself is why are there so many passages related to the spirits of the dead? In Hebrew the word is Ab or Alef Wahit. If the Israelites expressly did not believe in ghosts, then why were there laws against it? Prophets denouncing it, and wisdom literature making claims that would make the entire endeavor pointless.
Perhaps an even better question is why is necromancy used in Samuel twenty eight? Chapters three through fourteen state and this is really important. Now Samuel had died, and all Israel had mourned for him and buried him in Rama, his own city. Saul had expelled the mediums and the wizards from the land. The Philistines assembled and came and encamped at Shenem. Saul gathered all Israel, and they camped at Gilboa. When Saul saw the army of the Philistines, he was afraid, and his heart trembled greatly.
When Saul inquired of the Lord, the Lord did not answer him, not by dreams, or by Erim, or by prophets. Then Saul said to his servants, seek me out a woman who is a medium, so that I may go to her and inquire of her. His servants said to him, There is medium at Indor. So Saul disguised himself and put on other clothes and went there, he and two men with him. They came to the woman by night, and he said Consult a spirit for me, and bring up for me the one whom I name to you. The woman said to him, Surely you know that Saul has done, how he has cut off the mediums and the wizards in the land.
Why then are you laying a snare for my life to bring about my death? But Saul swore to her by the Lord, as the Lord lives, no punishment shall come upon you for this thing. Then the woman said, Whom shall I bring up for you? He answered Bring up Samuel for me. When the woman saw Samuel she cried out with a loud voice, and the woman said to Saul, Why have you deceived me? You are Saul The king said to her, Have no fear. What did you see? The woman said to Saul, I see a divine being coming up from the ground. He said to her, What is his appearance? She said An old man is coming up.
He is wrapped in a robe. So Saul knew that it was Samuel, and he bowed with his face to the ground and did obese. You see, the ancient Near East was rife with ghosts. The Babylonians had official priestly exorcists that took care of not only demons but also spirits that would infect the body and cause illness. The Canaanite religion, though not an entirely clear picture due to the poor amount of literary evidence, has enough to point out that it definitely had rights dealing with the dead.
With the Ugaritic funerary text, we do have a ritual where a new king calls upon the deceased royal ancestors to participate in the funeral of the dead king and to bless his rule. According to the DDD, quote, this text demonstrates that the dead were not simply cut off from the living, rather they continue to exist in the underworld and with proper invocation could be beseeched to grant favors for the living. And as I've said before, Israel is not divorced from the times or cultures that surrounded it, but was influenced and responded to it.
We see this everywhere, from the sudden rise of dualism where there was none before, the adoption and transfiguration of texts and stories such as Proverbs and Job, and Israel is doing the same thing on the subject of ghosts. The Hebrew Bible never claims that there aren't any spirits. The nearest it comes to negating them is that they don't come back from Sheol. But that's not the same as categorically denying their existence. Further, the fact that there were laws against the practice of communing with ghosts does the inverse.
After all, one would not make a law if the subject matter of it simply did not exist. Even the DDD states quite clearly, quote, from such laws we may safely infer that cults of the dead existed and flourished in ancient Palestine to the extent that they were considered a threat to what eventually emerged as normative I'm gonna say Judaism here, unquote. Sorry, the text uses a term involving the tetragrammaton, and out of respect for my Jewish friends, I don't feel comfortable saying that particular word.
So to conclude, one would be tremendously hard pressed to say that the Hebrew Bible says that there are no ghosts. There are laws against messing with them, statements saying that people who do are unclean, that God is strictly against such practices, but that's not the same as denying them outright. We even have a necromanic rite described in the Neveim with the indoor incident. Finally, I'm not here to challenge anyone's belief system. You do you. All I'm trying to do is to throw some additional light and evidence into the matter.
This is why I was going to use this use case to demonstrate the complexity mandate. For even though we yearn for simplicity, things are rarely as straightforward as they might seem. Or I would argue never at all. Thank you for listening to Southern Demonology. Find us online at Southern Demonology.com where you can find all of our social and podcasting links. Also, if you have a moment, please feel free to rate this podcast and leave any encouraging feedbacks that you may have. As always, I am JJ and it has been a pleasure getting to talk to you today.