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Among the most painful difficulties brought on by a catastrophic world event, such as a war, pandemic, or natural disaster, is losing a loved one. Saying goodbye is never easy, and for many, the uncertainty of how their dead loved ones are faring after death can be emotionally draining.

This uncertainty has led some people to seek out and welcome “contact” with their deceased family and friends, according to research that shows surges in “after-death communications” (ADCs) following major widespread tragedies. In America, it’s estimated that as many as one out of every six people—more than 30 million in all—have experienced an ADC, and the phenomenon is universal, regardless of religious beliefs, ethnicity, or income level.

The influenza pandemic that hit between 1918 and 1920 is said to have caused a “spiritualism craze.” Sir Arthur Con Doyle, creator of Sherlock Holmes, reportedly made contact with his son who died in 1918 of pneumonia likely caused by the influenza pandemic.

After the 2011 Japan earthquake and tsunami that killed more than 20,000 people, so many residents reported seeing deceased loved ones that a book and film were produced about the city of Ishinomaki and its many ghosts and spirits.

Something about us doesn’t want to be separated without the chance to say goodbye. Some of us pursue spiritualistic practices to gain assurance of the state of our loved ones in the afterlife. But this raises the question: how can we be sure that the ones we’re encountering are really our loved ones?

In order to properly answer that question, we need to understand a little bit about how ancient Greek philosophers have influenced our way of thinking in both the Western world and in many religions of the world, including Christianity. Names like Plato and Aristotle have more to do with what modern religious people believe than you might imagine.

One key teaching taught by the Greeks is that of dualism, which maintains that there is a separation between the body and the soul. This is built on the idea that there is a distinction between the world we live in that we can see and the true, invisible reality that we cannot see. According to the view, our world and the things we experience are not true reality, but just things that resemble the original, true things, which we can’t see.

You can think of it sort of like this. Maybe when you were a kid you played with shadows on the wall. Now, let’s imagine you are sitting on the couch, and behind you there are objects that are projecting shadows on the wall in front of you. You can make out some of what is going on behind you because you can see the shadows of the actual objects—the real things, although what you’re seeing is not the real thing.

So for Plato (and Greek philosophy in general), the earthly things we experience—and our bodies, specifically—are not actually real. What is real, however, is our soul or spirit. The body stands in the way of the soul and keeps us from experiencing reality.

It’s not difficult to see how this concept has influenced the majority of Christian thought and belief when it comes to death. If, according to Plato and dualism, your body and your soul exist independently of each other, then when you die they are able to go to different places. While the body of a deceased person goes in the grave—or their ashes are scattered, or whatever their remains end up—the spirit has a different journey.

So if the spirit is able to go to heave, then shouldn’t we be able to have some form of communication with our deceased loved ones? Does the Bible give us any clear evidence of this—whether those who come back to encourage or communicate with us are actually those we love?

There’s a lot you can study in the Bible in relation to what happens when we die, but we’ll save that for another time. We are interested here in learning about the practice of spiritualism—communicating with the dead.

In the Old Testament we find the story of King Saul preparing for battle with the Philistines. He sought the Lord, but “the Lord did not answer him, either by dreams or by Urim or by the prophets” (1 Samuel 28:6). Since there was no answer from God, he took matters into his own hands and asked for a medium.

“So Saul disguised himself and put on other clothes, and he went, and two men with him; and they came to the woman by night. And he said, ‘Please conduct a séance for me, and bring up for me the one I shall name to you'” (1 Samuel 28:8). “Then the woman said, ‘Whom shall I bring up for you?’ And he said, ‘Bring up Samuel for me'” (1 Samuel 28:11).

We know from 1 Samuel 28:3 that the prophet Samuel was indeed dead before Sault consulted the witch at Endor. When Saul asked what she saw, she said, “I saw a spirit ascending out of the earth” (1 Samuel 28:13). When asked what the spirit looked like, she responded, “An old man is coming up, and he is covered with a mantle.” “And Saul perceived that it was Samuel” (1 Samuel 28:14).

There are some key details worth paying attention to in this story. First, the witch of Endor said she saw a man coming up out of the earth. Not down from heave, but up. Secondly, the Bible doesn’t actually confirm that the apparition the medium saw was indeed Samuel, only that when Saul heard the description, he perceived that it was Samuel.

If there’s no clarity from the Bible that Samuel came up for Saul that night, who was it that spoke to him? Does the Bible give us any insight into the Greek philosophy of dualism? And if we humans aren’t dualistic in nature, what really happens when someone dies? Are the majority of Christians holding on to ideas that set them up for dangerous deceptions? Is there a reason we’re seeing an increase in paranormal and supernatural activity in our time? What about haunted hotspots like Colorado’s infamous Stanley Hotel?

Join Pastor Shawn Boonstra on a journey through history and behind the doors of America’s most haunted hotel room, Room 217 at the Stanley Hotel, to examine these questions and more in The Serpentine Prophecy.