1 Samuel 28:7 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

Seek me a woman that hath a familiar spirit That converses with evil spirits, or hath power to call up, or make to appear, the spirits of dead persons, in order to answer questions, or give information of what may be inquired of them: see on Deuteronomy 18:10-11. Saul mentions a woman rather than a man, because the weaker sex were most addicted to these practices. In this he acted like a distracted man, who now approved what he had before condemned. He had partly cut off, and partly frighted away wizards, sorcerers, and such as had, or professed to have, these familiar spirits, and now he seeks unto them! What will not fear and folly force men to! How such a practice as this came to be used at first, and on what pretence, we cannot now say; but it appears to have been very ancient, because we find express laws against it in the books of Moses. It is probable it had its rise in Egypt, where an over-strained search after, and pretence to knowledge, made many fall into the strangest absurdities and impieties that ever entered into the human heart. And in all likelihood, not only the Israelites, but the heathen, who, we find, in general used this practice, were first infected with it from thence. In all probability, those who pretended to this power were generally impostors, who only deceived those who consulted them by delusive tricks; yet we may draw this important conclusion from it, that it has always been a prevailing notion among all people, that the soul of man still subsists in another state after the body is dead; for this practice evidently supposes, and indeed was built on this belief.