As Israel’s King Saul was coming to the nadir, and indeed the end, of his reign, he paid a visit to the medium of Endor (1 Samuel 28:6). He did this only after “the Lord did not answer him by dreams or Urim or prophets.” Saul knew mediums were forbidden by God, so he assumed a disguise and asked the witch to call up the spirit of deceased Samuel. This is of course ironic, because Samuel himself would have forbidden Saul to do such a thing—in fact, the story reveals that Samuel was none too pleased to be summoned. Witchcraft was wrong because Israel was to live by the Word of God, both in its written form and according to the living prophetic voice, in this case Samuel’s.
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