Sorcery—Drugs

In the Acts we find a damsel possessed with a spirit of divination, or Python. This was the prophetic oracle at Delphi, held to be the center and focus of Gentile divination. An evil spirit connected with that oracle possessed this young woman.
The testimony of the evil spirit to the servants of the most high God is remarkable. It may have been compelled to speak thus when brought face to face with the power of Gad (as the demons owned Christ), but the apostle could not tolerate commendation from such a source—the spirit was cast out by a superior power. Her soothsaying or divination was stopped, and her master lost the source of his evil gains. (Acts 16:16-19.)
In the New Testament, besides the case referred to of the damsel possessed by a spirit of Python, we read of others: Simon who used sorcery and bewitched the people of Samaria for a long time (Acts 8:9-11): Elymas, the sorcerer, a Jew whom they met in Cyprus, perverted the right ways of the Lord. (Acts 13:6-11.) These used magical arts (called curious arts in Acts 19:19) and bewitched the people. Another word is used in the Greek for sorceries in Revelation which refers to drugs (to stupefy with drugs) and then for any system of sorcery by incantations. (Rev. 9:21: 18:23: 21:8: 22:15.) Sorcery is classed with the grossest of sins, and is also applied to the professing church in mystical Babylon. The same word is translated "witchcraft" in Gal. 5:20.
The above is a brief glance at the subtle power of Satan in the unseen world, by which he deludes mankind, at least where man is the willing victim. Is it not clear that divination should not be confounded with mere jugglery? However much that may be associated with it, the real power of Satan is behind it. Some sorcerers converted in modern times in various parts of the world have confessed that they were controlled by a power beyond their own, but that it ceased entirely on their believing and confessing Christ.
It is important to see that this power is of Satan because of the great increase in the present day of attempting to have communications with the spirits of the dead to which even Christians may be and have been drawn, out of mere curiosity. "Let no man beguile you of your reward... intruding into those things which he hath not seen, vainly puffed up by his fleshly mind." Col. 2:18.