- 146 - Then you know that your time has come. Not in every case are the spirits allowed to sound this warning; when they are, it is a special mark of Divine favour, granted to give the person to whom this warning is issued a chance to use the moments remaining to make his peace with God and implore His help for the fateful step into the Beyond. With Saul also it was the last appeal by God’s spirit messengers, urging him to return to that God to Whom he had become unfaithful. But Saul, although he knew he was about to die, instead of turning inwardly to God and renewing his oath of loyalty to Him, at first simply went through the outward formality of calling upon God through mediums and asking for help with his worldly troubles.. He sought no inner communion with God in repentance of his past behaviour. Because of this, God did not answer his outward query, and Saul, fearing for his earthly life, sought out the conjurer. When Saul said: ‘I am in dire need’, he was speaking of the certainty of death that weighed upon him. I would like to take this opportunity to point out briefly the many other ways in which an approaching death is foretold. As you know, it is a popular belief that: • The howling of dogs, • The appearance of certain birds, • The turning white of plants, and many other occurrences are signs of an impending death. This is not superstition, as your scientifically enlightened age pronounces it to be. It is true. And even if such signs do not specify the person who is meant, everyone familiar with them should take them to heart and pause to reflect upon his own inner state. These signs are a call from your spirit friends, meant to remind you of God and the reckoning you must give Him after departing from this earth. It is the spirit world that uses those animals as instruments, causing them to do the things that you regard as omens. As I have told you repeatedly, animals also may be used as mediums by either the good or the evil spirit world. The same is true of plants and flowers, but the spirit world employs such signs only when the people who see them are able to understand them, for it does nothing without a purpose. That is all I need tell you regarding this point. Coming back to the conjurer of Endor, it may appear strange that Samuel answered her summons at all. He was not one of ‘the dead’, not one of those who were separated from God. He was not one of the spirits of the abyss with which that woman was in the habit of communicating. He was one of God’s good spirits. This fact the woman herself recognized from the superhuman size in which Samuel’s spirit appeared. The appearance of the spirit of Samuel was God’s immediate punishment for Saul’s offense in consulting the Powers of Evil. If an evil spirit had come in Samuel’s place, it would not have predicted truthfully the terrible fate awaiting Saul, but would have beguiled him with some pleasant falsehood. Hence it was God’s will that the good spirit of Samuel should appear before the clairvoyant, who was likewise clairaudient, and through her announce to Saul what the coming day held in store for him. To learn this so far ahead of time was the hardest part of what Saul had to bear. ‘Tomorrow you and your sons and a large part of your army will die.’ This prediction was the
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