"... In a bilingual incantation text from Assyria, the ghosts of the dead are called "gods", as we have seen. To judge from this passage and a number of personal names from Mesopotamia, it does not appear to have been uncommon to refer to the discarnate spirits as "gods." For the explanation of this practice we do not have to go far afield. According to various creation stories from the land of the two rivers, man was created partly with divine blood and so received the immortal spirit of the gods and was able to partake of divine understanding ... what was of vital importance to Saul was to know whether the apparition answered the description of Samuel, the judge and the prophet of God, as it was evidently for the purpose of communicating with the spirit of Samuel, and of no one else (compare 1 Samuel 28), that he had come to Endor. When therefore Saul heard the witch call the ghost an elohim and describe him as an old man and as being covered with a mantle, obviously such as Samuel was accustomed to wear, Saul concluded that he was at last once more in the presence of this man of God, this former representative of God on earth, who could give him absolutely reliable Information, as he had demonstrated in his lifetime ..."