When I was about 12 I was a big fan of TV programmes like charmed and bewitched and liked the idea of magic, so I convinced myself that I wanted to be a witch. I would steal herbs and other ingredients from the kitchen and would make up potions and chant rhymes I had made up for spells in my bedroom, and sometimes spells that I made up would actually seem to work. I also had convinced myself that I was psychic from dreaming about certain things before they would happen, and so my interest in the occult was born.
Around
the same time my mother (who was a single parent) asked me what I would think if
she was to start seeing someone, I replied that I would be happy for her and so
she went ahead. However when I met her new boyfriend I had this horrible
feeling about him, something deep inside me told me this man was evil. I really
wanted my mum to be happy but I couldn’t shake the bad feeling I had, so I
decided to investigate further and see what I could find out about this man, I
befriended his young daughter and asked her questions, I soon found out that
this man had a track record for hurting women (I’m not just talking emotional
hurt here, but domestic violence and rape, it was as if this man was on a
mission to exploit and degrade women). After discovering this I felt a deep
need to protect my mum but when I told her what I had found out she was already
blinded by love and refused to believe me. I felt a deep anger rise in my
heart, this man was in my home and was going to hurt my mum, it was inevitable
and there was nothing I could do or say to stop it. And so I acted up, I knew
that if this man were to hurt me my mum would leave him, so I tried to be as
annoying as possible to anger him, one time I was sure he was about to hit me,
but then my older brother walked into the house and so he backed off (he only
hit women and children, and so was way too cowardly to pick a fight with a
grown man present like my brother). Looking back at this I know that God was
protecting me here.
Eventually
my mother did leave this man but not before he had hurt her, I felt like I had
failed in protecting my mother and also felt hurt that my mum hadn’t believed
me when all of it could have been prevented if only she would have listened to
me. And so I became quite isolated spending a lot of my time in my room casting
made up spells and sinking deeper into the occult. With me unknowingly opening
gateways with experimenting with the occult and with the deep anger and hurt I
was holding deep inside my heart its not surprising that something dark began
to manifest itself in my room.
I
started suffering terrible nightmares and would regularly wake up screaming, my
mum would come running into my room and the dark presence would immediately
hide, I could see in my mothers eyes that she was seriously questioning my
mental health, and if I’m honest so was I. I grew out of making up spells, it
all seemed a little childish, however the nightmares didn’t stop. The dark
presence was experimenting with different ways of torturing me in my sleep. At
nighttime it seemed as if there were three different dimensions I existed in,
the first I experienced when I was asleep was the nightmare itself, this part
tended to vary but would usually involve me being trapped, or being hunted and
then would come the torture, a lot of the time involving acid and burning but
not always. An example of one of these nightmares I remember having was me
running through a woodland area being chased by something, but I didn’t know
what, then suddenly I was inside a bag or sack trying to kick myself free while
being dragged off to somewhere, then I was in an old empty warehouse or barn
tied up while this guy who looked like an insane scientist was about to drill
into my skull, at this point I screamed in the dream (this for me was a big
tell tale sign that this was no ordinary bad dream, I’m one of those people who
in bad dreams tries to scream but no sound comes out, however in these dreams I
was able to release my fear through screaming). I would then try to force
myself awake, and whatever dream I was having the next place I would go would
always be the same, a place I would go between dreaming and waking, it was like
a dark cave, where I was laid down on a stone slab and this creature, who
looked like a half dead, really tall and really strong man would be holding me
down by my arms and shaking me, as though in effort to get even more fear out
of me. I would then force myself to wake up even more and would wake screaming
in my bedroom, still feeling the presence of something dark with me until my
mum would run in, when everything would seem normal again. And this pattern
would repeat whenever I went to sleep it was like a constant battle, and I was
exhausted.
Once my
best friend slept round my house and the next morning I woke up, at first
feeling pleasantly surprised, as I realised that not once had I sunk into one of
those nightmares that night. However once I turned to look at my friend and say
good morning, she was sat there giving me the most bizarre look and said
“Laura?” to which I replied “who else?” she then asked me if I had remembered
anything from last night, at this point I felt unnerved and asked her what she
was talking about, she then explained what happened that night. After we had
both gone to sleep, my friend had suddenly woken feeling uneasy, she turned to
face me and saw I was staring at her with a look of hatred on my face, I then
sat up in the bed and stared more intently at her, she went and hid in the
bathroom and said that my eyes had followed her as she went, and that she could
tell that it was not me looking at her. Her words gave me chills and that
morning my friend was really uneasy around me and soon went home. I felt a
mixture of emotions, mostly fear, this dark presence in my room had taken
control over my body and I had no recollection of it, I felt a little relieved
that I now knew I wasn’t going insane, but then the realisation hit me, this
thing was real, there was something evil in my room and it was trying to
isolate me by frightening my friend and making my mum believe I was crazy, it
wanted me to be alone.
My mum
had decided that a change of environment might be good for me, as all these
things were occurring in my bedroom, so we swapped rooms. That night I felt
exhausted, as I had gotten into the habit of trying to resist sleep. I lay in
the bed facing my mum’s ornament of an angel on her bedside table, I remembered
going to church from when I was little and then I prayed. I prayed a simple
prayer, something like “Jesus, please keep me safe tonight as I sleep, send
some angels to watch over and protect me, Amen” I immediately felt safer and
peace as I drifted off, into a peaceful sleep.
The
next day I spoke to one of my friends who lived across the street from me, I
hadn’t told her about the prayer (I thought at the time that it would have made
me sound like a dork), but she said that she had looked out of her window that
night, and saw bright lights above the roof of my house. Later on my mother
told me that after we swapped rooms she saw a solid, orange sphere that floated
out of my old room and go through the wall towards next door. Jesus had set me
free from this torment, if I hadn’t of said that prayer I would probably would
have ended up on a mental health unit.
Now you
would think I would have learnt my lesson after this experience, but apparently
not, I developed a curiosity for the paranormal and spiritual teachings. So it
wasn’t long before I was reading up on occult related material, spirits,
angels, crystals, energy healing, auras, past lives, tarot, psychic, yoga,
meditation, you name it and I probably would have had some knowledge regarding
the topic. About the only thing I didn’t believe in was hell; I was under the
deception that all roads led to heaven or at least to the same afterlife in
some kind of spirit realm. Of course I had a few problems or spirit attacks,
usually at night, but I put this down to me being extra sensitive.
There
was one experience I had that I couldn’t explain with all my new age theories,
a dream I had, in which two large black dogs barged their way in through my
front door, up the stairs and into my room, as if following a scent, they then
came up to me, one at each side of me and gently grasped each of my arms in
their mouths, so that their teeth were touching my skin but not hurting me,
they then became still and solid like statues holding me prisoner like this, I
was paralysed on the spot.
When I
woke I just put this down to a bad dream, but later on that day when I was
working in a care home and one of the residents that suffered dementia was
terrified of me, she said that there was a black dog following me and told me
to get away from her.
I
decided that there must be more to this dream and so typed in ‘black dog’ into
a search engine, I came across a description of a hell hound, the description
was uncanny to my dream and I found myself wondering “what if hell is real?”
However
I put this experience to the back of my mind and carried on with my life, and
my new age practices. A year later a friend I met on a college course invited
me to go to church with her, and she taught me that the devil was behind the
new age deceptions to lead people astray, now I’m a stubborn person but
suddenly it just clicked, this truth fitted in with everything I had
experienced. I then knew Jesus was the only truth and the only way to reach eternal
life. I accepted Jesus as the Lord of my life and removed all things of the
occult from my home. My friend gave me a Bible and I started to learn more
about the truth.
It
seemed I was finally on the right path, however I soon noticed that the church
I was attending didn’t feel right. There was a constant turnover of people, it
was common for long term members to leave and then new people would come in and
take their place, I asked my friend about this and she told me that the church
seemed to change every three months. Now I didn’t know a lot about churches but
from what I remembered about the one I belonged to as a young child, it felt
warm and I saw the people there as family. It’s not normal for a family to lose
its members every three months, with no questions asked. I also noticed that
when people left no one would ask them why? This church didn’t seem to care
when they lost their sheep. I even found that in the bible study groups I
attended people would be gossiping and saying unfriendly things about other
members of the church or about the people who had left, I found myself not
fitting in with these people, and asking myself whether Jesus really wanted me.
I also
found I didn’t learn a great deal about Jesus during my time attending this
church, it seemed to me that Sunday services were more about getting a high
from the worship rather than getting and maintaining a closer relationship with
Jesus. People would shake on the floor; erupt into speaking in unknown tongues
and vomit when they were in the presence of the Holy Spirit. There was one time
when the pastor was shaking so violently on the floor that I thought that he
was going to hurt himself, and so I said a silent prayer for Jesus to keep him
safe, immediately after thinking Amen, he stopped shaking and then a moment
later his wife started to shake in the exact the same way, it was as if
whatever came out of him, entered the closest human being to him, which just so
happened to be his wife, and I personally don’t believe it was the Holy Spirit.
One
time the pastor was praying over me for me to be baptized in the Holy Spirit
and absolutely nothing happened to me, he even blew air into my face! (Unknown
to me, my mum was worried by the things I had been telling her and so was
praying while I was at church).
I was
also taught at this church that speaking in unknown tongues was a sign that you
had been baptized by the Holy Spirit, everyone in the church did it and I got
the impression that they didn’t believe I had the Holy spirit because I didn’t
have this ‘gift’, they justified this teaching by saying it was like what
happened in Acts 2, to the believers. However after reading this I have found
that speaking in unknown tongues isn’t the miracle here but rather speaking in
other tongues, in other languages Acts 2:“And
they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and began to speak with other
tongues, as the Spirit gave them this utterance. And there were dwelling at
Jerusalem Jews, devout men, out of every nation under heaven. Now when this
noised abroard, the multitude came together, and were confounded, because that
every man heard them speak in his own language. And they were all amazed and
marvelled, saying to one another, Behold, are not all these which speak
Galileans? And how hear we every man in our own tongue, wherein we were born?”
Acts 2
I also
decided that if this were the true Holy Spirit then why would no other miracles
take place such as limbs growing back and people being raised from the dead. I
came to my own conclusion that the miracle of speaking in tongues had been
taken out of context and made into a ‘gift’ that every ‘true’ christian has.
Some
teachings by Jesus also came to my mind about what I was seeing and how not
everyone are true disciples of Jesus. Such as: “But if
thine eye be evil, thy whole body shall be full of darkness. If therefore the
light that is in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness!” Matthew 6:23
“Not
everyone that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name?
and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful
works? And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me ye
that work iniquity. ” Matthew 7:21-23
I did
leave that church and I haven’t yet joined another, I’m spending my time
getting closer to Jesus, reading the Bible and praying. It seems the closer to
the truth I get, the narrower the path becomes but I know if I’m holding Jesus’
hand I won’t fall. It’s been a long journey so far even though I’m only 18, I
am so thankful Jesus never seems to tire of saving me from these crazy
situations I keep getting myself into and I am not going to repeat these past
mistakes again. I pray that all deceptions and lies like these are exposed for
what they are.
I have
also noticed through reading others testimonies as well as experiencing my own
that the main lure of the occult appeals to people who are searching for a
deeper truth and meaning in life, if it wasn’t for the occult leading so many
people away I think these people would be led directly to Jesus and the word of
God, the only real truth.
Thank
you for reading my testimony,
By;
Laura
Out Of
One Wolfs Mouth And Into Another, But Jesus Saved Me
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