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!
