This is the true story of how Jesus rescued me from the occult. If you missed part one you can view it here.
It was 1997 and I had been exploring the occult for three months. My online friend 'Jessica' helped me get in touch with my 'guardian angel' and dabble in out-of-body experiences.
There seemed to be no consequences for this exploration, up until now.
The visitor
It started in the early hours of the morning, about 3:00 am.
I woke feeling a bad 'presence' in the room—someone or something was watching me. I had an unnatural sense of fear—fear so powerful it was paralysing.
I have had an experience in recent years of sleep paralysis as a result of medication I was taking. But this was different: disturbingly different.
I opened my eyes briefly, but dared not to look around, fearing what I might see. Closing my eyes I began to think, 'go away, go away, go away'. I did not like what was happening.
The force was attempting to take control of my body, and it felt as if the paralysis was the battle ground. After 10 minutes I regained control and jumped up to confront whatever was in my room—but there was nothing.
I turned on every light and powered up my computer to see if Jessica was online to ask what on earth had just happened. She was not online. I just pottered around on the computer afraid to go to sleep. Google did not exist yet so I had no way of searching for an answer! After a few hours daylight appeared, I fell asleep and slept all morning.
This experience repeated several times each week. Sometimes I would hear the presence mumbling something, although I could never make out what was being said.
Sleepless nights
Some nights other strange things would happen—I was woken by a room full of light. I would jump up surrounded by a bright, white light and as suddenly as it appeared, it would disappear.
Some nights I would hear strange sounds outside my room, and hear scratching noises. I would go to investigate but there was nothing there.
Other nights I would just feel uneasy and could not sleep. Almost nightly I began having horribly strange nightmares.
I told Jessica what was going on, she did her thing with her spirits and said there was a spirit visitor causing the trouble. She said my guardian angel could help me—but nothing worked and the experiences increased.
Jesus intervenes
I mentioned my experiences to a Christian friend: 'Dude that sounds like some sort of spiritual attack', he said. 'Tell it to leave in the name of Jesus if it happens again'.
This was the best advice ever.
I was open to Christianity, but I had no idea—just a vague understanding that there was a God and a guy named Jesus who performed some miracles.
Surely enough, the visitor returned a few nights later. This time I opened my eyes and looked to the left. I saw a short, wide entity, about one and a half metres high and a metre wide with dark red eyes glaring at me. It felt like the eyes were vortexes that would consume me if I looked at them for too long.
I quickly closed my eyes and thought 'oh no, oh no, oh no'. Then I remembered to try and use Jesus's name. The first word I attempted to say was 'Jesus' but it came out as 'J...' as a force grabbed my throat, stopping me from talking!
I said it over and over again in my mind, 'Jesus—help me, Jesus—help me'. Eventually the force left.
Why did this force try to stop me from saying Jesus's name? There's got to be something in that, I thought. I came out of the night with a glimmer of hope for the first time in several weeks.
About a week later the entity had another attempt at paralysing me, but as soon as I was aware of what was going on I said, 'In Jesus's name, leave!' and bang: the experience stopped. The presence had gone and my body was back under my control.
Wow! I need to look into this Jesus guy some more, I thought. So I borrowed as many books and videos as my Christian friend would allow.
However, the entity began to increase attempts to paralyse me. It became more cunning, trying everything from attempting to paralyse me faster and trying to paralyse me while I was still awake in bed!
I would feel this force starting at my feet, working its way up my body, but I would simply say, 'In Jesus's name, leave' and it would. Every time. But it continued to return, usually within an hour or two.
My Saviour
A month later I decided to become a Christian. I followed the prompt at the end of a sermon video—they invited people watching at home to join in the salvation prayer.
An overwhelming sense of peace flooded my body, as if I was standing under a waterfall. I gave thanks to Jesus for literally saving me! For the first time in weeks I slept well, totally uninterrupted.
After this time, the terrible experiences stopped completely. I tried to contact Jessica to tell her what had happened, but strangely, she completely disappeared.
At this point, through reading the Bible and Christian literature, I came to understand I had been dabbling in the occult. I realised this was the source of the bad spiritual things. I threw away or burned the occult items, and turned right away from it.
Thanks to Jesus and his saving grace I have never looked back: amen!
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, and most things tech-related and driving his wife crazy with a constant stream of inventions! He lives with his wife Michelle and three children in God's own land of Southern Adelaide, Australia.
Michael Dahlenburg's previous articles may be viewed at http://www.pressserviceinternational.org/michael-dahlenburg.html