Just then there appeared before them Moses and Elijah, talking with Jesus. –Matthew 17:3

I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne. –Revelation 20:12

When he opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slain because of the Word of God and the testimony they had maintained. They called out in a loud voice, “How long, Sovereign Lord, holy and true, until you judge the inhabitants of the earth and avenge our blood?” Then each of them was given a white robe, and they were told to wait a little longer, until the full number of their fellow servants, their brothers and sisters, were killed just as they had been.   –Revelation 6:9-11

I have myself many times found on a sudden so lively an apprehension of a deceased friend, that I have sometimes turned about to look: At the same time I have felt an uncommon affection for them. But I never had anything of this kind with regard to any but those that died in faith. In dreams, I have had exceeding lively conversations with them; and I doubt not but they were then very near.   –John Wesley

CORRECTION (4:14): I said, “Samuel had backslidden from the Lord.” NO! Saul did, that’s who I meant.

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Alisa Childers, “Is Necromancy Creeping Into the Church?”

John Weldon and Clifford Wilson, Occult Shock and Psychic Forces: A Biblical View (Master Books, 1980). 482 pages.

The Catholic Encyclopedia, “The Communion of Saints.” Not to be confused with praying to saints, or the “invocation of saints,” as Wesley condemned that in the Articles of Religion against Purgatory: “The Romish doctrine concerning purgatory, pardon, worshiping, and adoration, as well of images as of relics, and also invocation of saints, is a fond thing, vainly invented, and grounded upon no warrant of Scripture, but repugnant to the Word of God.” And why is the invoking of saints against the Bible? Because Deuteronomy 18:11 says to let no one be found among you who is “a medium or spiritist or who consults the dead.” There is no contradiction between Deuteronomy 18:11 and Matthew 17:3, because the first one is referring to trance mediumship like the witch of Endor did, actively seeking to contact familiar spirits by vision (1 Samuel 28); and the second is about Jesus receiving revelation and encouragement from departed saints, in a vision about his future trial and crucifixion. “They spoke about his departure, which he was about to bring to fulfillment at Jerusalem” (Luke 9:31). The first is counterfeit because it comes from a false New Age theology that blends religions and actively seeks out to contact the dead by means of spells; the second is authentic because it comes as an occasional and accidental side effect of communion with God, within the context of a Biblical and orthodox charismatic theology, which allows for the continuation of prophetic dreams and visions (see Archibald Alexander, Thoughts on Religious Experience, Banner of Truth, ch. VII: “Considerations on dreams, visions, etc”).

Augustin Poulain, The Graces of Interior Prayer (Kegan Paul, 1921), p. 310. “When the angels or the saints assume an apparent body in order to manifest themselves, this body never exhibits deformed limbs or an animal aspect. It would be unworthy of them.”

Andrew Pradel, St. Vincent Ferrer: The Angel of the Judgment (TAN Books, 2001).