Although you might shake your head and say, “Noo, of course witchcraft doesn’t work, it’s fairytale stuff”, the bible is of a different “opinion” here.

Nowhere in the bible is there an indication that witchcraft, sorcery, divination, soothsaying, fortune telling and the like is just a fancy imagination of the people practicing it. We find Pharaoh’s magicians performing miracles by their “secret arts” (Exo 7:11), we find kings relying on the help of enchanters and the like to interpret their dreams, even if their powers are obviously limited (Dan 2:2), we find a girl in Acts whose owner profits from her gift of fortune telling (Act 16:16), and many more examples. The most prominent is probably King Saul consulting the witch of En-dor, a woman with a familiar spirit, a medium, to talk to the prophet Samuel after his death (1 Sam 28), for which he later on is condemned (see also 1 Chro 10:13). This witch wakes Samuel up, who seems anything but amused by the disturbance. There is no question of whether or not her secret art worked.

If you look at the Hebrew word translated “divination” or “witchcraft”, you find that it can even be used in a positive way:

H7081
qesem
From H7080; a lot; also divination (including its fee), oracle: – (reward of) divination, divine sentence, witchcraft.
1) divination, witchcraft
1a) of the nations, Balaam
1b) of false prophets
1c) in a good sense (king’s lips as oracles)

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