Isaiah 8:19 Them that have familiar spirits

    Between His death and resurrection, the Savior went to the spirit world

And when they shall say unto you, Seek unto them that have familiar spirits, and unto wizards that peep, and that mutter: should not a people seek unto their God? for the living to the dead? -Isaiah 8:19 Bible, King James Version 

 

Apocalypse Explained, by Emanuel Swedenborg, [1757-9], tr. by John Whitehead [1911], at sacred-texts.com

 

1182. ...(Continuation) [4] Something shall now be said about the speech of spirits with man. Many believe that man can be taught by the Lord by means of spirits speaking with him; but those who believe this and are willing to believe it do not know that it is attended with danger to their souls. So long as man is living in the world, as to his spirit he is in the midst of spirits, although spirits do not know that they are with man, nor does man know that he is with spirits... But as soon as spirits begin to speak with man they come out of their spiritual state into man's natural state, and they then know that they are with man and they conjoin themselves with the thoughts of his affection and speak with him from those thoughts. They can enter into no other state of man, for all conjunction is by like affection and thought therefrom, while unlike separates. For this reason the speaking spirit must be in the same principles as the man is, whether they be true or false; and these he stirs up, and through his affection conjoined to man's affection he strongly confirms them. This makes clear that none but like spirits speak with man... [5] All spirits that speak with man were once men in the world, and were then of like character. This has been granted me to know by repeated experience. And what is absurd, when a man believes that the Holy Spirit is speaking with him or operating upon him the spirit also believes himself to be the Holy Spirit. This is common with enthusiastic spirits. All this shows the danger in which a man is who speaks with spirits... Man does not know what the quality of his affection is, whether it be good or evil, or with what others it is conjoined... Whenever a spirit from like affection favors man's thoughts or principles, one leads the other as the blind lead the blind until both fall into the pit... For this reason such interaction was forbidden to the sons of Israel under penalty of death.