CHAPTER ONE:
FROM WITCHCRAFT TO JESUS
In my first book, "To Curse the Root," I summarized my rebirth experience of how I came to receive the Lord Jesus Christ as my personal Savior while I was an active New Age occultist medium. In Chapter 1 entitled "My Walk in the Spirit," I present a brief account of those prior supernatural happenings that led up to my miraculous rebirth on March 29, 1977. I also wrote about various facets of how I communicated with demons--- that in my ignorance I thought them to be friendly spirit guides---human spirits from the dead who shared spiritual revelations with me. However in the pages of this my testimony, I will revisit that experience from a different perspective.
For many years, I did not understand why the Lord set the stage for me to come to Him in such a strange, non-traditional way. First of all, not only was I not looking for Jesus but I placed the Lord's story on the same footing as Santa Claus or Superman. For me, the legends surrounding these two fictional characters were harmless compared to what I once believed to be "the myth" of Jesus Christ. Since in throughout the decade of the 60's and most of the 70's I was a militant racist, I believed that His story was strategically designed by the white man to enslave the minds of black people to passively receive the white man's oppression. Therefore, in March of 1977, it was a miracle that I would be drawn to the cross.
Days before I became born again, I saw crosses everywhere. Driving in my car, the crosses on top of or affixed to churches on the streets seemed magnified in their size. The cross loomed large before me, everywhere I went. Even when two leaves fell to the ground, they landed on top of each other into the shape of a cross. I couldn't seem to avoid the cross. Then one night, I dreamt that I had given birth to a baby in a room, and then abandoned the infant for three weeks. After the third week, I remembered the baby. I said to myself, "Oh, my goodness, the baby's diaper must be really dirty. I've got to change Him."
The room was dark, but there was a holy and still quality to it. The baby was lying on top of a dressing table. As I dreamt, it never crossed my mind that the baby would have died of starvation over a three week period. All I could think about was that dirty diaper. As is often the case with dreams, I overlooked the miracle that the baby was even alive after 3 weeks without food. There was a spotlight on that baby that seemed to come down from the ceiling. He laid there very serene and peaceful. This baby was most beautiful. He looked like he came from the Middle East. His skin was a beautiful brown and his hair was dark and straight. His diaper was white and clean. I removed the diaper pins and I was shocked to see that the baby had healed wounds on his side. I thought that perhaps the diaper pins had created the wounds. I felt compassion for the pain the baby must have endured, with no one there to protect him from these bruise marks.
Then an astounding thing happened, even for a dream. This three week old baby began to speak. He looked deep into my eyes and asked me an astounding question: "Would you bring me my cross, please?" I was in a state of shock and total
confusion. As I slept, I began to reason in my mind and assure myself in my own thoughts: "No, the baby didn't say that. I know the baby didn't ask me for a cross. He asked me to bring him a pillow." I was more concerned about the fact that the baby asked me for His cross than that a newborn was actually talking. In the midst of my rationalizations, I walked across the room and picked up a pillow that was sitting on a chair. I was planning to lay the baby on it when--- right in my hand,--- the pillow turned into a cross.
Needless to say, I woke up bugged out!!!! Not only was I constantly seeing crosses, but now I was dreaming about crosses. No one had to explain to me Who the baby represented. I KNEW who He was. It was the baby Jesus. It was also clear that the marks of the diaper pins were symbolic of the wombs that our Savior and Redeemer received in His side as He sacrificed His precious blood for the sins of the world. The three weeks of my rejection and abandonment of the baby represented the three days between the Lord Jesus Christ's death, burial and resurrection. I was given a dream to confront me about my disbelief in the Lord. And I was shook up. I went out and purchased my first bible.
The impact of this dream was even more powerful when you consider what I had already experienced while I was conducting one of my usual communication sessions with my so called spirit guides. Through an occult practice called spiritual or automatic writing, I loosely held the top of a pen, while another person held the bottom. In this way, the demons would use our "energy" to write?--a more advanced rendition of the planchette/Ouija Board method. On previous occasions, religious demons had written pages and pages of material about Islam and Hinduism but nothing at all about Christianity.
In fact, my "spirit friends" had never once used the word "sinner." Nor did they ever quote to me from the Bible. Their religious approach was universal and ecumenical in its "anything goes in religion" gospel. In this regard, the religious demon tried to cause me to believe that there were several ways to worship and to believe in a god or gods. However, I was not fully convinced by any of their teachings. After all, I was an atheist. However, with these unusual writings, I enhanced my belief and began to call myself "an agnostic."
As an unbeliever, my early experiences with psychic power at least caused me to believe that there may have been a universal, psychic force that emanated from within me, because perhaps I myself was a god. In other words, I had become a narcissistic personality, a mental health diagnosis for the demon who causes a person to believe that he or she is either God or a god. I have never been a patient of a psychiatrist. However, as I look back now, I say to myself "Girl, you sho nuf was narcissistic!"
However, a few days before I dreamt about the Lord, I was referred to in the automatic writings as a "materialistic sinner." I wondered angrily, "Who changed the script on me?" This was a major diversion from the complimentary strokes that I had grown accustomed to. My spirit guides Had revealed through the writings that I was to become an even greater psychic than either Edgar Cayce or Jean Dixon.
Where did all the flattery go? Cursing and beating the air, I challenged this new spirit to come forth and show himself. This occurrence is described in detail in "To Curse the Root:"
I was in a ground floor apartment on Morton Avenue in Albany New York, directly perpendicular to Elizabeth Street. As I stepped out of the door, I saw a sunny sky turn dark and watched the wind violently stir up and blow down the hill all of the street litter, cans and bottles that were on the sidewalks. With a certain amount of fear and trepidation, I headed home.(To Curse the Root, p.11)
What actually transpired on that strange day when the writings changed and I was called a sinner? It took several years for me to fully understand. Today I believe that the Lord allowed one of His angels to communicate with me for a brief moment, not only with a few words but with an immediate and drastic change in the weather conditions, for no place else in the city experienced this dark wind storm except those few sidewalks on Morton Avenue. I further realize that there are many Christians who will disagree with me. They will say that God would not communicate to anyone with spiritual writing because necromancy is a demonic practice. Perhaps.
However, I could point to several passages from scripture that show how the Lord has used Satan to accomplish His will but it is not my intent to prove what cannot be proven. Furthermore, the angel knew that I was not really communicating with the dead. My so-called spirit guides had never been born into this earth as human beings. They are demons! In Daniel Chapter 10, the word of God suggests that spiritual warfare necessitates that angels and demons will mutually communicate, interact and actually do battle. Therefore, I believe that for a brief moment in time, an angel of God pushed aside the demons and communicated to me.
Others will also debate by arguing that angels are not allowed to preach. I don't think telling me that I am a materialistic sinner and quoting a supportive scripture is "preaching." For example, angels didn't preach to Cornelius, but they were instrumental in setting up the events that led to Peter doing the preaching that brought forth the rebirth of Cornelius and those gathered with him. Even so, pointing to the scriptures to prove the involvement of angels in the spiritual affairs of believers is a task that is even easier to accomplish. Simply put, even by deductive reasoning and plain common sense, you can comprehend without much help that Satan would not send a message that would draw one of his own out of his very kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ. Satan is not a fool.
The fact is that demons were already progressively destroying me due to my lack of knowledge about Satan's kingdom of the occult. An atheist from childhood who as an adult was hungry for power, Satan appeared to own me for the duration. Why would one of his demons send me a message that would draw me into the enemy's camp---a camp that I was already completely ignorant of, having never attended church ALL of my life? As Jesus declared, "Satan will not cast out Satan, or how can his kingdom stand?" Therefore, if Satan didn't call me a materialistic sinner,
and since I most vehemently thought that I was both righteous and generous, then who wrote those words to me?
I believe that it had to be an angel sent by the Lord Jesus Christ.