“Familiar Spirit”
The phrase familiar spirit is used in biblical texts to refer to necromancy or the attempted practice of communion with the dead. An alternate rendering for “familiar spirit” is ghosts“ or as we would know it,”’spirits“ (Brown, Driver, Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament, p. 15). Here Nephi applies Isaiah’s words to the departed of his own people who, through the Book of Mormon, speak to those of the last days from the grave with a voice of warning.”
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