In my teenage years, I felt desperately as though something was seriously lacking in my life. I often felt inadequate and longed to better myself somehow. Because of an interest in the unusual and bizarre, I would frequently purchase literature dealing with unusual phenomena and paranormal subjects (UFOs, ghosts, etc.).
I noticed various advertisements in these magazines that offered books on all kinds of subjects. One advertisement in particular caught my eye. It was on self-improvement. I ordered this book thinking, as the advertisement promised, that it would revolutionise my life. When the book came I was surprised by some of the techniques that it encouraged.
The author strongly recommended self-hypnosis and as a result, I began practising it secretly in my bedroom with the aid of a cassette recorder and a lit candle. It wasn’t long before I craved more something a bit deeper. After noticing other advertisements in other magazines I began to practice ‘white’ witchcraft and set up an altar in my bedroom. It seemed harmless enough at the time and there was a new sense of excitement and interest in my life with the bonus of the possibility to change things for the better.
My interest in dark and morbid things also began to grow at this time. I dressed in black and got into the ‘gothic’ scene. At the peak of this period in my life I was dressing in black most of the time, wearing white face paint and black eyeliner! Even though my hair is naturally a very dark brown I would always dye it black because I wanted it to be jet black. I began to acquire quite an interesting array of occult literature and set them up on a shelf in my bedroom, but I kept the more disturbing books hidden away because I knew that my parents would become offended.
I also set up shelves to fill them with anything unusual. I began to make my clay models, many of which were extremely grotesque such as twisted and tormented faces and creatures with horns. I felt compelled and driven to create such things. I even acquired a goat’s skull and hung it from the wall. For a weekend I would visit a nightclub in Liverpool called ‘Planet X’. This was a popular meeting place for people like myself. Interestingly, I noticed that a lot of people there also had an interest in sinister things as well as an interest in the occult.
My first release from this bondage occurred months later. I was standing at the front of the Church being prayed for for a headache when suddenly I fell on the floor (much to the surprise of the man praying for me), and began shouting in another voice. People in the congregation who had witnessed the event later said that I had slithered across the floor like a snake. At this time, the Church had a congregation of about four hundred and fifty to five hundred. Some of these people are still at the Church to this day and clearly remember the incident.
The Pastor, the Rev. Paul, came over to me and began rebuking the spirit in the name of Jesus Christ. Inside myself, I could feel two personalities at work, my own and that of the spirit that had its grip on me and was presumably responsible for making my new life as a Christian so difficult. This spirit was mocking the Pastor and laughing at him at the top of its voice. Somehow, I could feel its arrogance and mockery. When the Pastor kept mentioning the name of Jesus I could feel its annoyance. The laughter stopped and it became extremely angry.
As the years have gone on I have felt that God has continued to heal me and help me, although not as dramatically as what has just been described. Over the years I have felt God heal me gradually and I have felt Him changing me. I eventually got married to Donna whom I met at the Wirral Christian Centre.
We have two boys, Nathaniel (aged 7) and Edward (aged 6). After completing a degree at Regents Theological College in Nantwich, Cheshire I went back to the Wirral Christian Centre where I served as Assistant Pastor for a short time.
At present, I am an Area Director for a Christian charity called Reachout Trust, an organisation which deals with helping those who are tangled up in the deception of the occult and cults. I think that because I was caught up in such terrible deception I have a special empathy with those who are also deceived. I long to see people in such groups come into a true and living relationship with Jesus Christ.
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Also Read:
- Men in the Bible: A Man of Considerable Goodwill
- The Myth of Omnipresence (1): The 5 Places God Always Is
- Overwhelmed
- Great Truths Adults Learned
- I Passed a Professional Exam and Got a Job After 10 Years
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