Witch of Endor(GPT)

Saul goes to the witch of Endor to call up the ghost of Samuel the Prophet.  Which she does.

Wicked Saul.

https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/scriptures/ot/1-sam/28?lang=eng

The normal progressive interpretation of this is that it was a delusion or a corruption of the text.  Never happened, lol, you can’t speak to spirits.

The normal conservative interpretation of this is that it was a devil pretending to be Samuel.  Witches can’t summon prophets, lol.  Or else some kind of weird one-off that God allowed where God sent dead Samuel apparently at the witch’s summons to give Saul a message instead of just sending the message directly in a dream or via a living prophet, for no easily discernible reason.

None of these really respect the story.  What the story says is that there were people with familiar spirits who could summon the dead, it was wicked to do so but feasible, and this witch summoned the actual Samuel who spoke to Saul the way Samuel was accustomed to doing.

That is hard, possibly impossible, to reconcile with our current state of knowledge.  Do we have to reconcile it?  Is it not possible that there are things about prior dispensations we just don’t understand, or even things about our own dispensation?

It is entirely possible that the story is a delusion or corruption.  The OT is not pristine.  It is also possible that it was a devil pretending, or an unexplained one off.  It could be one of those, but it doesn’t have to be one of those.

There’s a Vice piece lately claiming that Tim Ballard, the guy from the human trafficking movie, or people in his organization, were using a psychic to talk to Nephi.  I haven’t felt forced to develop an opinion on Mr. Ballard or his organization, he has nothing to do with me, nor do I think Vice has even a tiny bit of credibility.  Therefore I have no opinion on whether the psychic Nephi thing happened and don’t expect to ever  have one.

But the witch of Endor story indicates that it is at least possible that a psychic somehow contacted the real Nephi—and that it was wicked to do so.

There is now an LLM AI being trained on the Wilford Woodruff papers to chat with  you in the character of Wilford Woodruff.  My first reaction was, neat!  My second reaction was, wait, what if this is like the witch of Endor but worse because its only a simulacrum?  Genuine question.  I don’t know.

The psychic-Nephi/witch of Endor connection popped into my head.  I mulled it over then sat to write it down.  When I did, the first thing I saw was the Wilford Woodruff news.  Synchronicity?