What are familial spirits?
Question 08132
The concept of “familial spirits” or “familiar spirits” appears in several English translations of the Old Testament and has generated significant discussion in both scholarly and popular Christian contexts. Understanding what the biblical text actually describes, as distinct from what later tradition or contemporary spiritual warfare teaching has made of the concept, is essential for thinking about this topic with clarity.
What the Old Testament Text Describes
The Hebrew word most directly translated “familiar spirit” is ob (אוֹב), which appears in a number of Old Testament passages prohibiting certain forms of occult practice. Leviticus 19:31 commands, “Do not turn to mediums or necromancers; do not seek them out, and so make yourselves unclean by them: I am the LORD your God.” Leviticus 20:6 intensifies the warning: “If a person turns to mediums and necromancers, whoring after them, I will set my face against that person and will cut him off from among his people.” Deuteronomy 18:10–12 includes consulting a medium or necromancer in a comprehensive list of abominations that the nations of Canaan practised and that Israel was to reject absolutely.
The term ob appears to refer to a spirit associated with the dead, or more precisely, a spirit that claimed to mediate communication with the dead. The “medium” (ba’alat ob, literally “mistress of an ob”) was someone who claimed access to such a spirit. The most detailed narrative example is the medium at Endor in 1 Samuel 28, where Saul, in desperation, sought to consult the deceased Samuel through a woman who possessed an ob. Whatever happened on that occasion, and the text is deliberately unsettling in its ambiguity about certain details, the practice itself was condemned without qualification.
The “Familiar” Language
The English word “familiar” in this context comes from the Latin familiaris, meaning a household servant or attendant. It entered English usage through the idea that certain spirits were thought to attend or serve particular individuals, becoming “familiar” to them in the sense of being regularly present and personally associated with the practitioner. This is the sense in which the King James Version renders passages such as Leviticus 20:27 and Isaiah 8:19. The ESV and most modern translations use “medium” or “necromancer” rather than “familiar spirit,” reflecting a translation choice that focuses on the practice rather than on the specific terminology for the spirit involved.
The concept, then, is of a demonic entity associated with a particular human practitioner, through whom the practitioner claimed to access supernatural knowledge, typically involving communication with the dead. Whether any genuine communication with the dead was occurring, or whether demonic entities were impersonating deceased persons, is a question the text does not settle definitively. What is settled is the absolute prohibition on the practice and the theological basis for that prohibition: Israel’s knowledge was to come from the LORD and His Word, not from the spirit world accessed through occult means.
Familiar Spirits and Contemporary Teaching
In some contemporary charismatic and deliverance ministry contexts, the concept of “familiar spirits” has been expanded well beyond what the biblical text describes. The term is sometimes used to refer to demons that are said to attach themselves to family lines, passing information from generation to generation, which is why, it is claimed, certain patterns of sin recur across families or why a psychic or medium can seem to know personal details about a person’s deceased relatives. The demon, on this reading, has been “familiar” with the family for generations and carries accumulated knowledge of its members.
There is no biblical warrant for this specific framework. The idea that demons track family lines and carry detailed personal information across generations is an inference from the concept of generational bondage, which is itself built on a contested reading of Exodus 20:5 (“visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and the fourth generation”). As addressed elsewhere in this series, the Exodus passage speaks to the natural consequences of sin within families living in the same household under the same idolatrous patterns, not to a mechanism of demonic transmission that operates automatically across generations regardless of the spiritual state of the individuals involved. Ezekiel 18 is the definitive corrective: “The soul who sins shall die. The son shall not suffer for the iniquity of the father” (Ezekiel 18:20).
This is not to deny that demons may possess knowledge about individuals and families. The demons who encountered Jesus demonstrated knowledge of His identity (Mark 1:24; 5:7). The slave girl in Acts 16:16–18 possessed a “spirit of divination” (pneuma pythona) that enabled her to provide accurate information. Demonic beings evidently have access to knowledge that humans do not, and it is entirely plausible that such knowledge could include details about a person’s family history. What is not warranted is the construction of an elaborate theological framework of “familiar spirits” as a distinct category of demon with a specific generational mandate, because the biblical text simply does not teach this.
The Pastoral Concern
The danger of the expanded “familiar spirit” teaching is that it shifts attention away from personal responsibility and the sufficiency of Christ’s work and toward a preoccupation with identifying and confronting specific demonic entities. If my struggle with anger is attributed to a familiar spirit that has tracked my family line for four generations, the focus moves from repentance, the renewal of the mind, and the Spirit’s sanctifying work to a deliverance encounter aimed at breaking a generational curse. The New Testament nowhere instructs believers to identify specific demons attached to their family history. It instructs them to put on the armour of God, to resist the devil, and to walk by the Spirit.
So, now what?
The biblical prohibition on consulting mediums and familiar spirits remains as relevant as it was when Moses issued it. Any practice that seeks supernatural knowledge from sources other than God and His Word, whether through formal occult ritual, casual engagement with psychics or mediums, or the use of tools associated with spiritism, is to be rejected without qualification. Christians who have engaged in such practices before coming to faith should understand that their standing in Christ is secure, that no demonic entity has a claim on them that supersedes the Holy Spirit’s indwelling, and that repentance and renunciation of past occult involvement is the appropriate response. The answer to the spirit world’s counterfeit knowledge is not deeper engagement with spiritual warfare methodology but deeper engagement with the God who has spoken clearly and sufficiently in His Word.
“And when they say to you, ‘Inquire of the mediums and the necromancers who chirp and mutter,’ should not a people inquire of their God?” Isaiah 8:19
