Fiction Writing, Mediumship, and Margaret Atwood’s Negotiating with the Dead: the case of the Witch of Endor in the Hebrew Bible (1 Samuel 28:3-15)

My previous example of multiple personality in the Bible was in the New Testament, Mark 5:1-20, the case of the Gerasene demoniac, who, when Jesus asked him his name, famously replied, “My name is Legion; for we are many.” Another example of multiple personality is found in the First Book of Samuel, the story of The Medium (or Witch) of Endor. For, from a psychological point of view, a medium cannot conjure up the deceased, but can only conjure up an alternate personality who represents the deceased.

“Now Samuel had died, and all Israel had mourned for him and buried him…And Saul had put the mediums and the wizards out of the land. The Philistines assembled…and Saul gathered all Israel…When Saul saw the army of the Philistines, he was afraid…And when Saul inquired of the Lord, the Lord did not answer him, either by dreams…or by prophets. Then Saul said to his servants, ‘Seek out for me a woman who is a medium, that I may go to her and inquire of her.’ And his servants said to him, ‘Behold, there is a medium at Endor.’

“So Saul disguised himself…and…came to the woman by night. And he said, ‘Divine for me by a spirit, and bring up for me whomever I shall name to you.’ The woman said to him, ‘Surely you know what Saul has done, how he has cut off the mediums and wizards from 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 said, ‘Bring up Samuel for me…what do you see?’ And the woman said to Saul…‘An old man is coming up; and he is wrapped in a robe.’ And Saul knew that it was Samuel…

“Then Samuel said to Saul, ‘Why have you disturbed me by bringing me up?’ Saul answered, ‘I am in great distress; for the Philistines are warring against me, and God has turned away from me and answers me no more, either by prophets or by dreams; therefore I have summoned you to tell me what to do.'“

Now, when Saul speaks to the late Samuel, who is it that Saul is actually speaking to? It is the “Samuel” alternate personality of the medium. The way that people “speak to the dead” through a medium is that the medium enters a self-hypnotic trance, and then switches to a custom-made alternate personality who represents the deceased. And this process is similar to the way that novelists enter a kind of self-hypnotic trance, conjure up their characters, and then serve as a medium through which their characters are known to their readers.

In this regard, I might mention a book that I’ve mentioned before, a book by Margaret Atwood, in which she talks about the writer’s “jekyll hand and hyde hand,” and says that the writer is always a dual personality. The title of her book is “Negotiating with the Dead: A Writer on Writing” (New York, Anchor Books, 2002). She says the title refers to the way that writing helps the writer deal with the fear of death. But the title suggests to me that the writer is like a medium, and that writing is a kind of mediumship.