Discourse About Spirits of the Dead 

Large crowds followed Jesus, pleading to be healed miraculously. Jesus escaped to nearby Endor for a few days of rest. Here, the Master recounted the story of King Saul and the witch of Endor to his apostles. Briefly, Saul, the king of Israel, seeks advice on defeating the Philistine army. He does not receive an answer from God, so he seeks out a witch living in Endor. The woman then summons a spirit who predicts Saul’s downfall.

Jesus assured his apostles that the errant and rebellious spirits, who frequently impersonated the purported spirits of the dead, would be brought under control so that they could no longer do these strange things. He taught his disciples that once he returned to the Father and had poured out his spirit on all flesh, such semispirit beings – so-called unclean spirits – would no longer be able to possess mortals who were feeble and evil-minded.

Jesus, during his ministry, spoke of angels and exorcized evil spirits. So, it’s clear that there were both good and evil beings on earth that he and others experienced and are invisible to humans. Jesus explains that there are multitudinous orders; one such order is the midwayers, non-visible beings midway between the mortal and angelic levels. In the past, these beings sometimes impersonated spirits of the dead, as in the story of King Saul. The rebellious midwayers were able to influence the minds of certain inferior and evil-minded mortals and to partially control their actions. Jesus told one to leave a person and never return.

Jesus explained to his apostles that the spirits of departed mortals do not return to their own realm to converse with their living counterparts. In other words, humans who die do not return to earth as ghosts. Only at the end of a dispensational era would the advancing spirit of a mortal be able to return to earth, and then only under rare circumstances and as part of the planet's spiritual administration.

One of the many benefits of Jesus’ incarnation is that the rebellious midwayers were removed from earth. The loyal midwayers help us in ways unseen and are engaged in important missions on our planet.