“‘And the king said unto her, be not afraid; for what sawest thou? And the woman said unto Saul, I saw Gods ascending out of the earth.’ The king here assures the woman, that tho’ he was Saul, yet no hurt should come to her, and therefore bids her not be afraid. But she turning her face to Saul as she spake to him, and he to her, and so her sight being off from the object, Saul asked her, ‘What sawest thou?’ and she in like manner answered, ‘I saw Gods,’ &c. For Gods, I suppose any free translator in Greek, Latin, and English, would say, δαίμονας, _genios_, spirits. And ‏אלהים‎ signifies Angels as well as Gods; and it is likely these wise women take the spirits they converse with to be good angels, as Ann Bodenham the witch told a worthy and learned friend of mine, that these spirits, such as she had, were good spirits, and would do a man all good offices all the days of his life; and ’tis likely this woman of Endor had the same opinion of hers, and therefore we need not wonder that she calls them ‏אלהים‎ _Elohim_, especially Samuel appearing among them, to say nothing of the presence of Saul. And that more than one spirit appears at a time, there are repeated examples in Ann Bodenham’s magical evocations of them, whose history, I must confess, I take to be very true. “The case stands therefore thus: The woman and Saul being in the same room, she turning her face from Saul, mutters to herself some magical form of evocation of spirits; where upon they beginning to appear and rise up, seemingly out of the earth, upon the sight of Samuel’s countenance, she cryed out to Saul, and turning her face towards him, spoke to him. Now that Saul hitherto saw nothing, though in the same room, might be either because the body of the woman was interposed betwixt his eyes and them, or the vehicles of those spirits were not yet attempered to that conspissation that they would strike the eyes of Saul, tho’ they did of the witch. And that some may see an object, others not seeing it, you have an instance in the child upon Walker’s shoulders, appearing to Mr. Fairhair, and it may be to the judge, but invisible to the rest of the Court; and many such examples there are. But I proceed to verse 14.