Over the next few months I am going to tell the true story of how Jesus rescued me from the occult.
My testimony starts when I was 17 years old in the year 1997.
I was not brought up as a Christian and my parents were very much non-believers. In fact, the only Christian I knew was a friend from high school.
My weeknights were typically spent at home on my IBM computer, dialling into computer bulletin board services—a pre-internet way of chatting to people, sharing files, games, news groups, email etc.—all character-based and usually free, apart from the cost of the phone call.
From time to time people would come into the chat rooms and strike up a conversation. One day a girl called Jessica (not her real name) came along and we started chatting.
I have always been relatively open in my conversations and, with certain exceptions, I will pretty much discuss anything.
Down the rabbit hole...
Jessica was regularly on the bulletin boards late at night and after a while we started chatting quite often. Over time the conversations revealed she was a spiritualist.
As I also had a personal curiosity in spiritual things our conversations mostly led down this path. Through our discussion I discovered had a 'guardian angel' who would help me with spiritual matters.
Jessica also had 'guardian angels' and would occasionally let them take over her hands and type. Meaning I could also talk to her guardian angels—however I don't remember them saying anything very interesting!
Around this time I began to experiment with fortune telling. To practise, I would offer to do a card reading for anyone who would accept the offer.
I found an unused book explaining the occult. My mother had bought the book intending to give it as a gift but for some reason it remained unused. It was from a regular book store.
It was not labelled as a book of the occult but that is what it was: a book of fortune telling arts and new age ideas. I had also obtained some documents from the bulletin boards' text book sections on astral travel, Ouija boards and remote viewing.
And so I used this material to dabble in the occult.
Blind-folded and playing with fire
At one time I did try astral travel. I visualised things with my eyes closed in a specific order, speaking certain things aloud as I did this. The one time I tried it it felt as if I was being pulled out of my own body and I started to fall backwards.
If you could imagine sitting backwards on the edge of a roof with your eyes closed and someone pushing you off the roof—this is the feeling I got. Fortunately, instead of continuing, I backed off and opened my eyes with a spinning head and a sick feeling. I never tried it again, even though Jessica encouraged me to try and push through the strange sick feelings.
I could perform remote viewing, really without trying it just started one day. I could tell you about items in a room I had never been in before. It started by chatting on the computer to Jessica, she was looking for a container for something and I closed my eyes and could see in her room—I could see a white ice cream container on a drawer in my mind so I said to her, 'use the ice cream container on the drawer'. After going to where I could see one she excitedly said, 'oh my, there is one there! You just performed remote viewing!'
At the time I was quite excited by this new ability. Jessica said she could do it too and had been asking her guides to give me this ability. So as a test I asked, 'What colour shirt am I wearing?' It was a 90s 'hypercolor' shirt (for those of you who remember them), so not an easy guess—but she got it right. I did the same with a few things and got it right too.
I would close my eyes and speak what I wanted to see and I could usually, but not always, see places and areas. The view was always foggy to varying degrees—never clear like you would see in a photo—just motionless images.
My journey into the occult had begun. Encouraged by my success with remote viewing I tried many other things with varying degrees of achievement, not knowing what was waiting for me just around the corner.
Then things went from 'Hey, this is fun!' to 'Oh no, what have I done!' I was about to get in over my head and desperately needed a way out. To find out how Jesus saved me from the depths of the occult look out for my next article, part two of: My journey from the occult to Jesus.
Michael Dahlenburg is an Electronics Engineer currently working in the ATM industry. He is non-denominational and has previously been involved in Church plants and assisting those in ministry. His interests include; enjoying family, home DIY, gardening, all things tech-related and driving his wife crazy with a constant stream of inventions!
He lives with his Wife Michelle and 3 children in Gods own land of Southern Adelaide, Australia.
Michael Dahlenburg's previous articles may be viewed at http://www.pressserviceinternational.org/michael-dahlenburg.html