1 Samuel 28:14
And he said unto her, What form is he of? And she said, An old man cometh up; and he is covered with a mantle. And Saul perceived that it was Samuel, and he stooped with his face to the ground, and bowed himself. And he said unto her, What form is he of? And she said, An old man cometh up; and he is covered with a mantle. And Saul perceived that it was Samuel, and he stooped with his face to the ground, and bowed himself.
Saul's crisis came under the Philistine threat at Shunem, with Israel encamped near Mount Gilboa where Gideon had once routed Midian with only three hundred men through trust in God. In contrast to Gideon's trust, Saul felt forsaken by God and alone and defenseless, and he greatly feared the Philistine army. He believed God no longer answered him through prophets or dreams, and in his distress he sought guidance.
After the woman's incantations she described an old man coming up covered with a mantle. Saul himself saw nothing, but from her description he concluded that it was Samuel. He stooped with his face to the ground and bowed himself before the apparition.
The apparition was not Samuel and was not God's prophet. Samuel was not present, was not brought up from the grave, and remained at rest. Its appearance and Saul's recognition of it did not make it God's prophet.
The figure was a supernatural deception produced by Satan working through the woman. It was an evil spirit and familiar spirit in the form of a Satanic angel. Satan and his angels can take the form of the dead and imitate their speech and manner. Satan knew Samuel well enough to represent him convincingly and to speak as Samuel would, with lying words under the guise of a departed friend. He could assume Samuel's form just as he could appear as an angel of light when tempting Christ in the wilderness.
God did not cause Samuel to appear. Satan was not permitted to disturb Samuel in the grave or to resurrect him. God does not give Satan power to resurrect the dead.
The dead do not come back to communicate with the living. The dead know not anything, their thoughts and their love and hatred have perished, and there is no communion between the dead and the living.
Saul had rejected Samuel's counsel while Samuel lived, yet in crisis he tried to reach Heaven's messenger through an evil spirit. He was a willing captive whom Satan led cautiously at first until his perceptions were blunted and then more boldly until he committed the crime of consulting the woman of Endor. By doing so he placed himself in Satan's power.
In the encounter the evil spirit first warned the medium that her visitor was Saul and then spoke to Saul as if it were Samuel. Satan spread before Saul a correct description and true statement and prediction of his fate and doom and exulted in his confusion. Saul received that prediction of his doom through the woman of Endor.
The appearance and correct prediction served Satan's purpose of opening a way for Israel to be instructed by his cunning. It was meant to lead Israel to trust the sorceress, to turn from God as counselor, and to seek hidden knowledge instead of trusting what God has revealed. In rebellion against God they would thus learn of Satan and sever the last link holding them to God. The mystic voice at Endor was the ancient working of what is now called modern Spiritualism, by which Satan gains control of minds through mediums, clairvoyants, fortune-tellers, secret associations and seances, showing the danger of seeking counsel through sorcery and communication with spirits.