A Child, Seeking Answers

It all began when my mother died when I was still a toddler.  I have no memory of her, but I’ve been told that she was a very religious woman who was active in the local Catholic church.  She passed away shortly after she gave birth to my brother. My father was left alone and with two children to care for.  In his grief, he broke all relations with the Church and raised my brother and I without any spiritual guidance. 

One of the few exceptions was one of my babysitters, who was a family of devout Baptists.  I was still a young child when they took care of me and my brother.  Most of what I remember about attending their church was that there was a lot of singing.  I found it odd that they really liked this Jesus fellow. All I knew about Jesus was that he died a really long time ago.  I don’t think my father liked them taking us to church, because they weren’t our babysitters for long.  The last time I saw them, they gave me a copy of a children’s illustrated version of the King James Bible.

I’ve always been a curious person.

As a child, I especially loved learning about math, science and technology. Starting around the age of eleven, I expanded my interests to include religion and philosophy. I thought a lot about death, the afterlife and if there really was a God or not.  However, unlike science and technology, this wasn’t something I could explore by doing experiments.  

I thought that perhaps, the King James Bible I’d been given several years before would have those answers. I decided to become a Christian, even though I had no idea what that really meant.  I thought that if there was a God, He would make life perfect for me.  I found the Bible and started reading it from Genesis chapter 1.  This lasted a whole two days.  On a rainy evening, I tracked mud in the house and got scolded for doing so.  While sitting outside and cleaning the mud off of my shoes, I looked up to Heaven and denounced God.  I asked Satan to enter my life.  Since God didn't make everything perfect for me, I fully expected Satan to fill the role. He is God's enemy, after all.  That also lasted about two days.  Satan didn't fit the role of the Cosmic Santa Claus any more than God did. Disappointed, I decided that there couldn't be a spiritual realm after all and I became an atheist.

Little did I know, Satan didn’t leave me empty-handed.

Early Gifts and a New Friend

Several months later, I began to notice some unusual talents that started to manifest themselves.  One of these centered around oddly realistic dreams.  I’ve always had the ability to control my dreams, and at the time I often dreamt of cartoons. However, every once in a while, I’d dream of places and events that felt very real. They were places I’d never been to before and they were activities I’d never done.  This was so unusual, I took note of these dreams when they happened and tried to remember every detail.

At the time, my family often played card games.  After I started getting the oddly realistic dreams, I noticed that I had an uncanny ability to know who had the better cards in their hand.  I could also predict what the next cards in the deck were.  I tried using this knowledge to start winning these games. It worked often enough that my brother accused me of marking the cards.

I began to wonder if I were psychic.

Dropping the atheist shell like an out-of-style fashion, I embraced these gifts, thinking they might be a way to understanding the spiritual realm.  After I did this, a weird feeling began to guide me when I made decisions.  It gave me insight about what other people were thinking.  I tried to use this to manipulate people, and it worked.  

I was insatiably curious.  What was this strange feeling?  Was it a guardian spirit?  Was it something different entirely?  When I was alone, I tried to talk to it and seek its guidance.  Shortly after school ended for the summer, I received a name for the creature behind this feeling: Liar.  (Note: this is NOT his real name!  I changed it so that nobody reading this would be tempted to seek him out.)  When I prayed to him using that name, he began to talk to me inside my head.  He claimed he could guide me and give me purpose.  He told me that I was to be a great prophet during the last days.  He said he would reveal more to me as time passed.  Until then, he would teach me how to use my spiritual gifts and I needed to train with them.

Two days after my twelfth birthday, the oldest of my odd dreams came true.   

I was riding my bicycle and entered a parking lot behind a building.  I remembered seeing that building in a dream.  It wasn’t just the building but also every car in the parking lot right down to the exact types, colors, locations and even my position in relation to them all.  It was a similar experience to déjà vu, but much stronger and much more vivid.  Unlike déjà vu, this was no strange but ambiguous feeling that I’d seen all this before. 

I remembered when I had that dream.  It was the first one of the oddly realistic dreams that wasn’t just about the cartoons I watched at the time.  Because of that, I’d made special note of it.  This wasn’t just some feeling.  I knew when I had the original dream.  I knew when and where it was fulfilled.  I had a vision of the future that had come true. This couldn’t be explained away by pop psychology or as some sort of mental disorder.  That’s when I knew for certain that this wasn’t all my imagination.  These spiritual gifts were real.

Liar told me that this was only the beginning.  He promised many more gifts were to come.

A False Prophet, Possessed

Up until now, I kept these gifts to myself because I didn’t want anyone to think I was crazy.  After I knew the gifts were real, Liar encouraged me to use them openly, especially the gift of telling the future.  Whenever he’d give me a prediction about anything, I’d tell people about it.  Through Liar, I told my classmates everything from when they would get a pop quiz to what grades they were going to get on their tests.  The biggest prediction Liar had me to tell them was the date of the nuclear cataclysm that was to mark be beginning of the end of the world: April 21st, 1994.

To my dismay, I soon found myself surrounded by people wanting to know anything I could tell them about the future.  For someone as introverted as I am, that’s a living nightmare! I couldn't take the stress of predicting the futures of countless adolescent kids, so I stopped giving them anything Liar told me.  Instead, I made up outrageous conflicting stories just to get them to leave me alone.  I found it odd that Liar wasn’t offended by this, but I never asked him why. 

To my dismay, my plan to get my classmates to leave me alone worked all too well.  For an entire year after that, nobody would speak to me.  The only exceptions were family, teachers and a hapless kid named Jeremy who was convinced that I was some sort of messiah.  He devoted himself to worshiping me.  Even though he was my only human friend left, I found his his mindless devotion repulsive. The more abuse I heaped onto him, the more he was convinced that I was just testing him.  The only real friend I thought I had at the time was Liar, which in retrospect was probably his goal all along.  Liar stayed with me through it all. He said I shouldn’t lament the loss of my old friendships. All I needed was his teachings and my gifts.

Now that he had my undivided attention, he began to instruct me with a very different type of religious teaching than any I’d heard of before.  He said that the Bible was originally true and written faithfully.  However, in the millennia since it was written, many of the truths in its pages were either lost or changed and corrupted by evil men .  Only he could tell me which passages were still true and which were lies.  It was then that he had me pull out my old King James Bible.  He told me which passages I should read and which I should ignore.  He had me read selected passages, taken out of context, to support a new religion that he was beginning to teach me.

Liar taught me there were multiple gods, not just one God and the Devil.  Many of these gods were selfish, destructive and evil, but four of them were good.  He said that passages in the Bible that mention the Trinity originally included a fourth god, one whose name he wasn’t yet allowed to reveal.  Nevertheless, he said I should pray to this fourth god in addition to the traditional Father, Son and Holy Spirit.  After I was convinced that those teachings were true, Liar claimed that he wasn’t just some spirit guide but that he was in fact the Holy Spirit.  He showed me more select passages from the Bible (see the Q&A page for which ones) which he used to convince me that I needed to accept him into my body.  He showed me how to build an altar and how to perform a ritual where I would give a burnt offering and invite him into my body.  Shortly after my thirteenth birthday, I followed his instructions and Liar became the lord of my life.

Glimpsing Light

After I did that, things became fairly nice for a while.  Jeremy moved away at the end of 8th grade, but when I entered high school, my classmates started to talk to me again. In time, I got a new set of friends.  This time, I kept Lair’s teachings and predictions to myself.  I didn’t want another incident like the one in middle school to cost me all of my friends again.  Since I had a destiny none of them could understand, I thought I was better than anyone around me, but I kept that to myself.

Liar encouraged that arrogance.  He began to instruct me in occultic practices using the altar I’d built to invite him into my body.  He also inflated my ego by telling me that I was destined to become a great leader.  An outward shell of arrogance in this world is attractive and many people mistake it for leadership abilities and my new friends were no exception.  It wasn’t long before I led many of our activities.  In time, I became the president of one of the school’s clubs as well.

However, the shell of my pride was very brittle.  In my junior year of high school, I became friends with Mary. She was a girl in my Latin class. That semester, she and I were also teaching assistants.  We graded papers together for a science class right before lunch.  Although I found her attractive, I believed I was too superior to her for anything meaningful to ever happen.  When we talked, I bragged about all manner of things – except the spiritual realm.  I still wasn’t open about my continued activities along those lines.  Liar encouraged my haughty behavior.  He told me that puffing up my ego would protect me from getting bogged down by all the messy emotions that lesser beings were so often distracted by.

Instead of either being repulsed or entranced by my silly show of machismo, she had the only reaction I wasn't prepared for— she genuinely cared about me.  Liar insisted my attraction to her was merely physical.  He reminded me that she was hardly my first crush.  This was just a passing thing.  I was too important to fall for someone like her.  Sure, most of my friends were dating by this time, but they don't have important spiritual missions, like I did.  For the first time, his lies couldn't agree with what was in my heart.  I accepted Liar's words as true, but I became torn.  I’d never experienced anything like this before.

Near the end of November, the school was having a balloon send-off during AIDS Awareness Week.  During one of my classes that day, I wrote what I thought to be a hilarious note stating that the Antichrist is walking the Earth; Jesus had returned, and the time is drawing near for Armageddon.  Since the high school I attended at that time was on a mountain ridge near a major city, if I tied the note to the balloon during the send-off, the balloon would likely pop over the city.  Someone could get the note falling from the sky and freak out.  I showed this note several of my friends and they thought it was hilarious.

The balloon send-off was during lunch, so I had the opportunity to show it to Mary before I sent it on its way.  When she read it, then looked at me with eyes full of hurt and told me that she actually believed in the things I was making fun of.  I was shocked.  She was a Christian!  Of all the people I could be attracted to, she had to be a Christian.  Before I could respond, the teacher came into the cubicle where we graded papers together and offered us a balloon each.  Mary said that she was going to stay there during the send-off.  She asked me to stay there and not send the note off.

It was the first time that I was standing between the Kingdom of Light and the Kingdom of Darkness.  There were two roads for me to choose, and they were each clear as day.  Liar was screaming in my head to leave and send off the balloon with the note.  I had entrusted Liar with my life thus far, so I took his advice.  I grabbed a balloon, tied the note to it and sent it off.  I chose to remain with what I was comfortable with: darkness.

My friendship with Mary collapsed shortly thereafter.  I tried to use one of the occultic gifts Liar was teaching me to try to affect another person's dreams to try to manipulate her into re-establishing our friendship, but it wasn't working.  This was the first time that my gifts failed to affect someone else.  Mary graduated high school at the end of the year, a year before I did.  Shortly thereafter, I never saw her again.  The chance to apologize had come and gone. 

A God Wannabe

After Mary graduated, there appeared a rift in my heart that continued to widen as time progressed.  I didn’t know it at the time, but the Law of God is written in everyone’s heart₍₁₎.  I was no exception, even though I didn’t believe in the teachings of the Bible regarding sin and redemption.  Lair told me that those teachings were lies, added to the Bible by the Catholic Church long after the original manuscripts were written. However, I knew in my heart that I was a sinner and that being an unbeliever is no excuse.  For most people, what I did to Mary may seem like no big deal, but it was something I couldn’t let go. 

Pride is an effective weapon to fight a guilty conscience, something Liar knew very well.  As I started to become aware of my guilt, he told me that I was ready for a new revelation: that I wasn’t destined to be a mere prophet, but that I was to become a god.  He said I was destined to become the Holy Spirit in the flesh.  That was to occur during the Cataclysm itself, through merging of Liar's consciousness with my own.  After that, my true identity as a god would be revealed to the survivors.  He taught me a new spiritual gift to help me prepare for those times: seeing people's auras, which he said was a visual representation of a person’s soul.  With this ability, I would be able to discern those who are spiritually enlightened from those who are ignorant. He told me that was how I could avoid ever being in a situation like the one with Mary again. Furthermore, the color, shape and strength of the aura would give me insights into a person’s personality and he taught me how to use that to manipulate others.

After I graduated high school, I enrolled at the University of California at Riverside.  Liar told me to go to this school, despite the fact that I was also accepted at the University of Southern California, because he said that he had important work for me there.  The first person I met there was Tom, who was someone who practiced occultic magic for many years, but had seen very few results.  Tom was far more outgoing than I was, so most of the friends I met in the first few months at the university were acquaintances of his.  Lair said he was a safe person I could talk to, so I told Tom about everything, including Liar, what I had done and what I could do.  He was ecstatic and was eager to see this for himself.  Tom wanted me to use these talents almost every second that I was with him, and Liar was all too happy for me to accommodate.  

Tom invited me to a party hosted by some of his friends.  During that party, out came a Ouija board.  Like many people who are serious about occultic practices, I was very dismissive of Ouija boards.  After all, it’s a mass-produced product made by a toy manufacturer.  I thought it’d be more accurate to call it “Divination for Dummies.”  Nevertheless, Tom wanted me to be one of the two people holding the indicator used to spell out messages during a séance.  I’d never performed a séance before, but I was certain that we weren’t doing it correctly, since no one was in a trance-like state.  I was also certain the other person touching the indicator was the one moving it around to spell out answers to the various questions people asked during the ceremony, since all of the questions and answers were what you’d expect if people were just fooling around with the thing.  

However, that changed when a woman asked for her grandmother to respond.  Suddenly, we started getting answers in gibberish.  One of Tom's friends was writing it all down.  When the indicator stopped moving, that friend showed what he’d written to the girl who asked the question.  The girl looked at it and starting crying.  She told us the response was in German.  She also told us that her grandmother lived and died in Germany.  Neither me nor the other person touching the indicator had met this woman before that night.   We didn’t know German and we certainly didn’t know that her grandmother only spoke German.  The only way we could have gotten that message from the Ouija board was through genuine supernatural activity. Because the other person touching the Ouija board’s indicator had never done anything remotely like this before, that’s was when Tom and his friends knew for sure that I wasn’t just someone dabbing in the occult.

After that night, I started to practice my gifts more openly, but still only with Tom and his friends.  I didn’t want a repeat of what happened in middle school.  One of Tom’s friends participated in ghost hunts, and he invited me and Tom to come along with one such hunt. This happened on a cold night in late fall.  Tom was the one found the ghost, which manifested itself at first as an area of warmth in an unheated area just outside of a building.  Tom called me over and with Liar’s instruction on how to do this, I guided the spirit to the other side.  As I was doing so, everyone else there gasped and stepped back.  When I asked why later on, they said I was glowing.  (Note: I no longer believe that the spirit was a ghost. It was just another demon who manifested himself in a way that would mimic the way we thought a ghost would act.)

Most of Tom’s friends were getting uncomfortable with what I could do.  Dabbling with tarot cards, palm reading and fooling around with Ouija boards were one thing, but they weren’t ready to handle more serious involvement with supernatural activity.  After the incident with the ghost, they slowly stopped participating when I practiced my gifts in public.  It wasn’t long before it was once again only me and Tom.  That was fine with me.  I was more comfortable practicing my gifts alone or with Tom than as a part of a larger group. 

References

1. Romans 1:20 & Romans 2:14-16

Joining a New Age Cult

Liar continued to teach me new gifts.  I learned how to use crystals to aid in my candle divination rituals.  Another of these new gifts was astral projection: supposedly being able to spiritually leave my body while in a state of deep meditation.  Tom wanted to try it too, so we could meet outside of our bodies and exchange messages.  However, he was unable to enter the deep state of meditation required. He kept falling asleep when he tried.

It was about a month after the incident with the ghost when Tom introduced me to Susan.  Susan wasn’t a student. She ran a hot dog stand on campus.  It was just off of a busy intersection of two walkways near the center of campus.  Tom met her when he stopped to get a hot dog, and when he asked her about a crystal she was wearing around her neck she said she was in a New Age group.

The New Age movement is more of a collection of spiritual beliefs than an independent religion.  These beliefs are borrowed heavily from the occultic movement of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the counter-culture of the 1960s, the neopagan movement of the late 20th century, various eastern religions and even a bit of Christianity.  For this reason, the beliefs and practices from one New Age group often differ from another. However, one key teaching they tend to share is universalism: that there are essential teachings common to most of the world’s religions and spiritual truth is not exclusive to any one of them.  Therefore, there are many paths to enlightenment and it’s up to each person to find out for themselves what is true.  Although the New Age teaches that spiritual authority rests with each individual, there are a number of teachers, self-styled prophets and psychics that practitioners seek out for guidance.

Although some of these beliefs differed from what Liar was teaching me, this was a group he greatly wanted me to join. When Susan asked me and Tom if we’d like to attend a meeting, I happily accepted.  When I went to the meeting, I found out why Liar wanted me to join it so badly.  The head of the group was a woman named Gloria who’d been in the New Age movement for decades.  When I started talking to Gloria, I recognized who it was that I was talking with—not Gloria but the spirit inside her.  She was possessed by a demon who was claiming to be the fourth god that I’d praying to for years!  Liar had been preparing me to meet her ever since I was thirteen. 

Gloria also recognized me.  The demons we were possessed by were apparently communicating the entire time.  She immediately took it upon herself to instruct me in occultic practices that Liar hadn’t taught me yet.  Liar had already taught me many of the things she would normally teach new members of her group, so she skipped those and taught me things she normally wouldn’t teach unless someone had been in her group for years.  She taught me how to use various crystals for healing and protection, as well as how to properly do a séance to channel the spirits of the dead.  She taught me about Karma, and she especially emphasized the teaching of reincarnation.  Gloria also told Susan that I had made a promise to her in a previous life.  Susan never said what that promise was, but she was suddenly very interested in me as a potential romantic partner, so it wasn’t hard to guess. 

Gloria agreed with Liar that I was destined to be a prophet and god. However, her definition of a god differed from Liar’s teachings.  She believed that there is a spark of divinity in everyone, but very few would ever learn how to awaken it.  She told me that I was destined to live, teach and be martyred in much of the same fashion as Christ was.  (The secular image of Christ, that is: a prophet, teacher and good man but not Lord, Savior and the only way to God the Father as is taught in the Bible.)  

I had no problems with believing in Karma (although that became an issue later on), but I had problems believing in reincarnation.  She said I was an old soul and that my spiritual awareness was the result of having lived, died and lived again many times, each time awakening more and more of my divine potential.  Liar had claimed that I was going to become immortal after my bodily death and that I would become a god in a pantheon similar to the gods of ancient Greece or Rome.  He didn’t mention anything about past lives.  Even if reincarnation was true, it didn't make sense to me that I could make a binding promise to Susan that would transcend lives like that, especially if I didn’t remember the promise itself.

To convince me, Gloria had me go through a regression ritual.  This is a form of deep hypnosis, where the hypnotist would have the person undergoing the ritual relive pieces of their past lives.  When I was in this state, I experienced bits and pieces of supposed past lives until I saw an image of a beach.  Liar hinted to me that I was seeing an image from ancient Israel.  To me, it looked like any other beach.  Gloria told me that I was experiencing my life as the apostle Peter.  She said she wanted for me to see this, so I wouldn't be surprised when I am martyred in this life.  She told me to experience that life's death.  I didn't know how Peter died. I assumed he was stoned to death for being a heretic.  So, I "experienced" being stoned to death.  It was very convincing, even painful!  It was enough to get me believing in reincarnation.  It was only many months later that I learned it was not real.  The apostle Peter wasn’t stoned to death.  He was executed in Rome, not in Israel, and he was crucified upside down!

Deceiving and Being Deceived

Once I accepted Gloria’s teachings and joined her cult, I fully embraced my new role as a god in training.  It was a time of incredible darkness in my life.  I was extremely arrogant, even to the point of no longer considering myself human.  I thought of everyone else as beneath me, which helped me get past my introverted nature. I started to practice my abilities openly again without fearing a repeat of being mobbed by people wanting to know their futures. If I practiced my gifts for someone else, I only did so for those who I thought were worthy.  I had nothing to prove to anyone else.

Both Liar and Gloria were teaching me new spiritual gifts and both Tom and Susan loved participating when I practiced these gifts. Soon, several of Tom’s newest friends started joining us as well.  It was clear it wouldn’t be long before I’d be starting a New Age group of my own.

One of these new gifts was aura manipulation.  Rather than just seeing someone’s aura, Liar instructed me how to change auras, first my own and later the auras of others as well.  This didn’t change their personality in any major way, but I could use it to make someone feel a sense of unease or to give someone a more favorable disposition toward me.  One thing I liked doing was reaching out with my aura and touch theirs. The effect was the sensation of a little tap on their shoulder, even if I was several feet away from them.  This didn’t always work but it worked often enough that I used that ability often, especially when I was hanging out with Susan or Tom.

Practicing this ability required me to read auras far more often than I had before, so I would often just read the auras of people passing by Susan’s hot dog cart.  Oddly, the occasional person had no aura.  I asked Liar about this, and he said that some people are so inwardly focused and closed off to any alternative viewpoints that they had no souls.  That was more than a little disturbing! I didn’t try practicing my gifts on those people, which was something Liar said was a good idea.

In addition to the new gifts, Liar was teaching me how to think like a demon, especially with regard to destroying the faith of Christians.  He taught me the secret of defeating Christians’ faith was getting them to close their Bibles.  The best way to do that was to appeal to their ego.  I’d say something like: “I don’t care what some 2,000 year old book written by ignorant shepherds says.  What do you think?”  Doing that would both denigrate the Bible as a source of wisdom and encourage them to use their minds and worldly logic instead.  Once they made that mistake, Liar would feed me arguments to counter whatever they said and to sow seeds of doubt.  Without the Bible to guide them, they had little hope of defeating these points. They weren’t really debating me at that point, but the demon.  Defeating me in debate would be easy. I was only an 18 year old who thought I knew far more than I actually did. Liar, on the other hand, was using layers of deception and worldly logic that demons had been perfecting for thousands of years.

In a twist of irony that Liar no doubt enjoyed, he employed that same tactic on me to make sure I didn’t seriously consider anything these Christians believed.  He said Bible was mostly lies, so I should ignore nearly all of its teachings. I was to trust only Liar to tell me which of the Bible’s teachings were genuine and which were false teachings added long after the original manuscripts were written. Liar fed my pride by telling me that my grasp of complex theological concepts was pure genius, even though I was actually just parroting what he told me to say.  I believed him and thought I understood it all.  In retrospect, I really understood almost nothing.

Liar had me seek Christians out rather than avoid them like I did in high school.  Whenever a Christian would share their beliefs, I mocked them and lured them into debating me.  The more public the setting, the better.  Whenever a Christian took the bait and closed their Bible, both Liar and I smiled inwardly.  Before another word was uttered, we knew we’d win that argument and leave that Christian humiliated before anyone else who was watching. 

It wasn’t long before I hated Christians and the God of the Bible.  I hated God because, if He existed, I thought He was an imposter for not being the cosmic Santa Claus I expected back in my youth.  I hated Christians for being foolish enough to believe in Him in the first place.  I saw Christianity as a list of absurd rules that only an idiot would believe in.  I was a warrior of darkness. I was a declared enemy of God and I was extremely proud of it.

A Battle Between Sin and Karma

Despite the fact that I was a declared enemy of God, Jesus had different plans for me.  I was puffed up by pride, but I still felt guilt over what happened with Mary back in high school.  Liar told me she was no different than the other Christians I hated, but in my heart I knew that wasn’t true.  She’d been a friend who I cared for greatly, and I betrayed that friendship.  No matter how much I hated other Christians and attacked their faith without any regret, what I did to her still bothered me.  The more I exalted myself and the more spiritual gifts I mastered, the more the rift in my heart became apparent.  

When I mentioned this to Susan and Gloria, they reemphasized the teachings about Karma and Liar completely agreed with them.  Karma is supposedly like a spiritual law of nature.  Gloria told me that anything bad I did do would be returned to me three times and everything good would be returned to me ten times.  It is this law that Gloria taught was key to spiritual growth.  She said it’s also one of the main ways the New Age movement is compatible with all religions, for everyone has some understanding of fairness and justice.  She claimed Karma is the spiritual fulfillment of both and all religions give their faithful members good Karma.

However, I knew in my heart that was a lie.  Although I accepted and believed in Karma, what it really teaches is that sin is something temporary.  The Spirit of Truth was testifying with my heart that no matter how many bad things might happen to me in this life (or in any hypothetical lives to come,) the fact remains that I had intentionally hurt someone I loved.  Even by the loose standards of the New Age movement, that's really bad.  I knew in my heart I was a sinner, and all sin is eternal.  Only something equally eternal could pay the price for sin.  I might have been winning one debate after another against Christians on campus, but one argument they kept coming back to stuck in my mind: we are all sinners and that the penalty for sin is death.  That made sense to me.  Death is eternal, just like sin. 

Liar told me to reject that line of thinking.  He reminded me that eternal sin doesn’t exist.  Even if it did, if the Christian God was real, surely He’d hate me just as much as I hated Him.  So, by the absurd logic of Christianity, I’d be going to Hell no matter what else I did.  He said I didn’t shouldn’t worry about it.  After all, Christianity isn’t true… right?

True Power Revealed

I wasn’t long before I was spent. I was more powerful than ever. I was mastering new spiritual gifts with ease. I believed it wouldn’t be long before I could do nearly anything I wanted. Yet, at the same time, I was miserable. In my mind, I was nearly a god, but I still had that one pesky sin couldn't be resolved by Karma.

Susan and Liar tried to take my mind off of it with all of the reincarnation stuff. Gloria said that I needed to make the choice to toss away this useless burden. Liar said if I was to follow my destiny, I needed to harden my heart and let go of the past. However, the rift in my heart was something I couldn't just let go. I was torn between two incompatible world views. I’d been taught one by Liar for what seemed like my entire life. The other was something I knew in my heart to be true, no matter how much I tried to deny it.

One day in early spring that year, when I was the midst of struggling with all this, there was a group of students open-air preaching on campus. Liar told me to go over and heckle them, which I happily did. Heckling Christians who were foolish enough to preach on campus was just the type of fun distraction I could use. I went over to where they were preaching and started listening for holes in their argument to rip it to pieces like I did with the others. However, the speaker said something I didn’t expect: “Jesus loves you.”

That surprised me. If the God of the Bible was true, surely He’d hate me. Liar was telling me to yell at them, but I wanted to hear more. Instead of heckling them, hiding behind a wall of pride or trying to find weak points in his arguments I could exploit, I listened to everything the speaker had to say.

He said that Jesus loved us so much that, even though He lived a life without sin, He went willingly to the cross to die for us, to pay the price for our sins in our place. He broke the chains of sin and death by rising from the grave, and He’s alive even now. As a result, we can place our sins on His shoulders by having faith, accepting His sacrifice on our behalf and making him the Lord of our lives. I knew I’d heard this many times in previous debates, but this time, it made sense. I wanted to learn more.

Liar was livid. He wanted me to mock them, to scream at them, to derail their teachings, but instead of doing any of those things, I accepted an invitation to their Bible study meeting that afternoon. Liar was apoplectic and let me know exactly what he thought about attending that Bible study with lots of screaming in my head. However, I was done listening to him. I finally found a possible solution to the problem that had been vexing me for years and Liar’s screaming wasn’t going to stop me from attending that Bible study.

At the Bible study, they were studying the book of Daniel, chapter 3. In that chapter, three men were thrown into a burning furnace by Nebuchadnezzar for refusing to bow down to a gold idol made in his image. Yet, rather than burning alive as the king expected, they were saved by one who had the appearance of "a son of the gods." That intrigued me. Was that an image of Christ even before His birth? Was it an angel? I wanted to learn more. So, despite Liar's vitriolic abuse, I returned next week when they were studying Daniel chapter 4.

That chapter shocked me to the core. It's the story of how Nebuchadnezzar, one of the most evil and prideful men in all of history, was judged by God and had his sanity taken away. He was driven from his throne and from civilization entirely for seven years. At the conclusion of that chapter, he repented of his sins and God responded to his repentance. He received his sanity back and even regained the throne. Even though he was guilty of murdering countless Jews and destroying the Temple of God in Jerusalem, God gave him mercy and measure of salvation (howbeit, a worldly one for the moment, for Jesus hadn't yet been crucified) when he humbled himself and repented.

That opened my eyes. God’s judgement of Nebuchadnezzar wasn’t an act of hatred, but an act of love. God’s judgement led directly to his repentance. As evil as this man was, God still loved him and was still willing to save him. Here, in the Old Testament hundreds of years before Jesus was born, was the clear and unambiguous message of the Gospel: a wicked pagan king was shown the saving grace of Christ's love, hundreds of years before Christ Himself was born! If God could go so far as loving Nebuchadnezzar, then surely He could love me. If the salvation of Jesus Christ can transcend time and space to save this wicked ruler, then surely I too could be saved.

Liar was my best friend no longer. He taunted me and tried to keep me from doing what was in my heart, but it was to no avail. Immediately after the Bible study was over, I went to an empty area of campus and prayed to receive Christ as my Lord and Savior. Two days later, I talked to Susan and confessed to her my decision to accept Jesus into my life. To my surprise, she told me that it was no problem; there are many Christians in New Age groups. She said that I could continue to come to the meetings and Gloria wouldn't hold anything against me.

For the first time in my life, I felt the presence of the Spirit in my life. The Spirit testified to me that I can never go back, even though I had no reason to know that. I told Susan that I would never return. Even though Susan and I were never intimate, she took it like a jilted lover. She was furious and reminded me that I made a promise to her in a previous life. I wanted to tell her that it was unreasonable to expect I would be bound by that type of promise, but the Spirit prompted me to just say goodbye and leave, so that’s what I did. I never returned. Susan left the campus a year later and I never saw her again. Tom accepted the news with a little disappointment, because he knew that I wouldn't be doing any more rituals for him. I saw him on campus occasionally until I graduated, but after that point we had different sets of friends, so we almost never spoke.

By far, the worst reaction to this news was Liar’s. Even after my conversion, he was still in my head, and he wasn’t going to leave willingly. The entire time I knew him up until the moment I accepted Christ, he pretended to be either an angel of light or even God Himself, but now the mask was off. I had no doubt about what he really was. He was a demon, a fallen angel, and a rather foul-mouthed one at that. To say he was furious is a gross understatement!

Freedom

After spring break and the start of the next quarter in college, I saw a girl in my philosophy class that I recognized. She was someone I saw near Susan’s hot dog stand a few weeks before I accepted Christ. She was one of the people that I’d tried aura reading on and got nothing. Even though I was a Christian now, I remembered Liar telling me when I first saw her that having no aura meant she had no soul. When I saw her in class, that memory made me nervous, especially when she chose the seat next to mine. Before class started, however, she draw a large cross in the top margin of her notepad. It was then that I remembered back in high school, when none of the Liar’s false gifts worked on Mary, either. Mary was a Christian. I wondered if none of Liar’s false gifts worked on this woman was because she was a Christian too.

After class, she introduced herself as Amanda. She asked me if I were a Christian. I told her yes. She was surprised to hear that. She said she was a Christian as well and that the Lord instructed her talk to me several weeks ago. However, she knew that I was in the occult at the time and was afraid that I would try to cast a spell on her. She asked if I was still in the occult and pointed out the crystals I still wore around my neck. I told her I wasn’t into that anymore and the crystals were just crystals now.

She invited me to a fellowship meeting the following night at 7:30 PM. I didn’t know what fellowship meant, and Liar was screaming at me to get away from this woman, so I was hesitant to go. It must have been obvious because she said that if I preferred, she could meet me outside and then introduce me to everyone before the meeting. That sounded far less intimidating, so I agreed.

The following night, with Liar still spewing unholy threats inside my head, I met her outside the building. Again, Liar told me to get away from her and to not enter the building, but I ignored him. As we were about to go inside, Liar seized control over my body. At first, my legs froze up, then I felt what seemed to be like a giant hand close over my throat. I could still breathe, but I couldn’t speak at all. Then, I lost control over my arms and toppled over. I lied there, seized and in bondage to a demon who I’d asked to enter my body five years before.

Amanda went straight into prayer, speaking indecipherably. I don’t know if she was speaking in tongues or if Liar just make me unable to understand what she was saying. When she was done, she looked up and commanded Liar to be bound in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, and for him to leave me, for I was now Christ's, and he had no power over me. To my surprise, Liar had no choice but to obey. He left and as soon as he did, my arms regained their function, my throat cleared up and could move my legs again. The last thing Liar did was kick me in the head on the way out.

After he was gone, Amanda laid hands on me and prayed for Jesus to fill me with the Spirit now that the demon was gone. I felt overwhelmed by power and love, but the experience was very different than how it felt when Liar was in me. The Holy Spirit is far more powerful than any demon, but isn’t loud and full of pride like Liar was. The Spirit is quiet, gentle and patient. It felt weird not hearing anything in my head anymore, especially since Liar had been so vocal and disruptive since I accepted Christ. Amanda and I prayed together for what must have been an hour. The fellowship meeting ended, and people left the building while we were still praying.

After we were done praying, I removed the two crystal and silver amulets that I wore around my neck and gave them to her. I asked her to dispose of them in a way that they would never harm anyone ever again, for I used them often while I was in the occult.

When she left to dispose of them, I went into the bathroom to clean myself up. There was a large open window there that led into the dark, landscaped area behind the building. I knew all I had to do was crawl out of the window and I could go back to the New Age group and walk away from Christ. I could invite Liar back into my body and get back everything I had lost. If I left the bathroom through the front door, that meant walking away from my old life and in faith accepting an entirely new life, which was a scary choice! Once again, I was standing between the Kingdom of Light and the Kingdom of Darkness. It was tempting to return to the old life, even though I knew it was based on a web of lies, but I knew what I had to do. I walked out the front door. For the first time in my life, I knew peace.

A New Life

The story of my life certainly doesn’t end there.  Accepting Jesus as my Lord and Savior was the greatest and best decision I’ve ever made, but salvation isn’t just fire insurance.  It’s a new life, one where I trust and follow Christ’s teachings rather than my own fleshly desires₍₁₎.  That’s not to say that I haven’t struggled with sin; I certainly have!  Even the most faithful will struggle with sin and temptation₍₂₎, but thankfully, by the power of God, those who’re following Jesus are no longer slaves to sin ₍₃₎. 

When we confess our sins to God and repent (which means to resist the temptation to sin₍₄₎,) God forgives us for our sins. We aren’t slaves to sin because we can resist further temptation using the strength of God rather than our own weak, fleshly nature₍₅₎.  We no longer need to fear the spiritual consequences of our sins, because the blood of Jesus has paid the penalty of those sins, even if our sins are grievous₍₆₎.

So how can someone be saved?  It starts by believing that Jesus is who He said He was.  Jesus is God in the flesh₍₇₎ and the only way to the father₍₈₎.  Jesus lived a sinless life₍₉₎.  He died to pay the price for our sins, rose from the grave₍₁₀₎ and broke the power of sin and death₍₁₁₎.  He offers this salvation to all who place their Faith in Him₍₁₂₎. 

If you confess with your mouth that Jesus as your Lord and believe in Him as your Savior, then you will be saved.

Romans 10:9

However, just believing isn’t enough.  Like I said earlier, salvation isn’t just fire insurance.  We need to accept Jesus as our Lord as well₍₁₃₎, which is the key to this new life.  Everyone will ultimately acknowledge that Jesus is Lord₍₁₄₎, but for many, it’ll be on the day of judgement when it’s too late.  Accepting Jesus as your Lord means becoming a disciple of Christ, both learning and following His teachings₍₁₅₎. 

Just as I couldn’t just return to the New Age group and remain a faithful Christian, you can’t just return to your old sinful ways₍₁₆₎.  You need to turn away from your sinful lifestyle and follow the teachings of Christ₍₁₇₎.  This may mean you need to make the difficult choice of ending some friendships and relationships, but it’s worth it!  What you gain far exceeds anything you might lose.

Romans 10:9 proclaims: “If you confess with your mouth that Jesus as your Lord and believe in Him as your Savior, then you will be saved.” Confessing, in this context, means to verbally agree with.  For many people, including myself, this was done in a prayer.  The exact words aren’t important.  This isn’t a magical incantation or anything like casting a spell in a role-playing game.  Prayer is simply talking to God, which is something we can all do.  It doesn’t require a priest praying on your behalf.  If you’ve never prayed before, you can start by reading this example prayer and when you’re ready, saying something similar in your own words: “God, thank you for sending Jesus to die for my sins on the cross and raising Him from the dead.  I’m a sinner and I need your forgiveness.  Jesus, I accept your gift of salvation and I accept you as the Lord of my life.  In Jesus’ name, amen.”

If you made such a prayer, you’ve started on your journey as a Christian.  So, what is this new life?  Being a Christian means following the teachings of Jesus, but Christianity isn’t a list of rules, as is widely believed₍₁₈₎.  It’s a having a relationship with God.  Like all relationships, it grows stronger when nurtured and grows weaker when neglected.  You can nurture this relationship by studying the Word of God, obeying its teachings, having fellowship with other believers and through prayer₍₁₉₎.

All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness; so that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work.

2 Timothy 3:16-17

The Bible is the Word of God.  Get yourself a copy if you don’t already have one and start reading it.  I recommend starting with the book of John and continuing with the books of Acts and Romans.  Those three books are right next to each other and they’re like the 1, 2, 3s of core Christian teachings.  John beautifully tells the story of Jesus.  The history of the early Church is in Acts.  The book of Romans spells out the core Christian beliefs in a wonderful, easy to understand fashion.  After that, read as your heart and the Holy Spirit directs, but it’s important that you don’t neglect this!  There’s a reason Liar wanted me to get Christians to close their Bibles when I used to debate them.  A good working knowledge of Scripture is a solid foundation that you can rely on to keep you from being swayed by one false teaching after another₍₂₀₎.  It doesn’t matter if false teachings come from demons, news anchors, celebrities, college professors or your best friend, the Word of God is the best way to keep your feet on the narrow path and toward the narrow gate that leads to salvation₍₂₁₎.

Fellowship with other believers means finding believers and discussing spiritual matters with them.  A big mistake a lot of Christians make is believing that they can be “Lone Ranger” Christians.  The problem is that we’re frequently surrounded by a worldly culture that is hostile to the teachings of the Bible.  It’s easy to be led astray by such teachings.  That’s why fellowship is important, whether you’re a new believer or someone who’s believed all of your life.  Those who are new to the faith can learn from those who’ve been walking with Christ for many years, but even those who have been Christians for many years struggle and need help from other believers from time to time!  No matter if you’ve accepted Christ today or decades ago, being rooted in the faith with fellow believers means you can always find encouragement and instruction from those who’ve been walking with Christ for many years. 

He who walks with wise men will be wise, but the companion of fools will suffer harm.

Proverbs 13:20

Often, the best way to find fellowship is through a good church that teaches from the Bible first and foremost.  Unfortunately, there are many churches that teach contemporary trends, philosophies and politics, only occasionally opening a Bible to try to add a spiritual element to otherwise worldly teachings.  If you find a church like that, I’d recommend moving on and finding one that teaches the Word of God clearly and faithfully.  When you find a good church, seek out a pastor of that church and ask if they have a program to teach new believers the core concepts of Christianity.  Many churches do.  Also, seek to be baptized.  Baptism is something Jesus commanded us to do₍₂₂₎.  It’s a public proclamation or your faith in Christ and symbolizes you being buried with Christ and raised to life again, as Christ was₍₂₃₎.  Even if they don’t have a formal program for new believers, the pastor may introduce you to one of their deacons or elders who can guide you through those teachings, or they may guide you through those teaching themselves.  Find out when they do activities outside of church as well.  Most churches have potlucks or other activities that help you get to know other believers and befriend them.  This goes a long way toward not feeling like an outsider when you join a church.

Iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.

Proverbs 27:17

Lastly, pray often.  Prayer isn’t just asking God for things, although that is a common belief.  As I said before, prayer is simply talking to God.  Pray to thank God when good things happen in your life.  Pray to confess your sins to God and to ask forgiveness.  Pray for spiritual strength, for wisdom and even pray just to thank God for being alive or to say you’re frustrated about something.  Being a Christian is having a relationship with God and all relationships require effective communication, so pray to God often₍₂₄₎!

May God bless you mightily!

—James Justin

Next to Escape from the Thorns: Common Pitfalls

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References

1. John 14:21

2. Romans 7:14-25

3. Romans 6:16-19

4. James 4:7

5. Romans 8:1-17

6. 1 John 1:7-10

7. John 10:30

8. John 14:6

9. 1 John 3:5

10. 1 Corinthians 15:3-4

11. Romans 6:5-11

12. Ephesians 2:8

13. John 14:15 & Romans 10:9

14. Philippians 2:10-11

15. John 12:26

16. 1 Corinthians 10:21

17. Matthew 7:21-27

18. Matthew 11:28-30

19. Acts 2:42

20. Matthew 7:24-27

21. Matthew 7:13-14

22. Matthew 28:19

23. Colossians 2:9-12

24. Ephesians 6:18-20