As a kid, I was raised in a nominal Catholic home. We went to church every Sunday, got enrolled in Catechism classes, watched the unreal changes that took place from thousands of years of tradition into a totally secular religion, and back to the fight for historical truths and traditions that is ongoing now.
But through it all, I was not satisfied. I wanted more. I wanted to know more than anything that I was loved by something greater than myself. People rejected me. They still do.
I am different. It’s okay that I’m not outgoing, positive, peppy attitude that is desired by our world today. I am a data junkie. Give me something to research that is of interest or controversial, and I’m all over it…sometimes to the detriment of my health and familial relationships. But I love to learn more than I love to be around someone who is annoying. I’m just being honest.
So what does that have to do with witchcraft?
I grew up in the 60’s. Bewitched and other cult-type shows were creeping up across the Hollywood screens in the form of sitcoms (situation comedies). Comedy is one of the strongest emotions next to fear. When used to indoctrinate someone or change their minds, either of these emotions can be used to trigger subtle changes in the mindset of the viewers. Fear mongering is common place with advertisers and government officials when they want a viewer to act on something with immediacy. It doesn’t matter to the viewer whether or not the content is correct; the emotion leads them to make the act if the person is vulnerable to that ploy.
But comedy is far more subtle. Most people who view shows that have bad or incorrect content pass it off as just something that is for “fun”. They don’t stop to consider that what they are participating in is feeding their minds with the information contained in that medium.
And so it was with Bewitched. Little did my parents think about the way that show could affect a person. And little did (and does) the society understand that the brain-washing of accepting the unacceptable was taking occuring, displacing the long-held stance of the higher spiritual ground – the belief of Something outside of self – with something far more injurious – the idea that we control everything, even that which is outside of ourselves.
Origin of religions
We have been told that all religions are made up by man, all the while embracing Buddhism, yoga which is part of Hinduism, meditation in the form of New Age or Eastern theosophies, even the idea that we can “send out energies to the universe” from within ourselves to “heal the planet” and “change the outcomes” of whatever we wish if we would just combine our energies together.
But these ideas came from somewhere. And they didn’t come from the mind of man. None of them did. They all have their origins in something that is historically far more ancient than the form they are in today.
The seed is planted
The same is for the origin of witchcraft. In Bewitched, the woman and her mother were both witches. The woman, Samantha or Sam, was married to a mere mortal man who had a hard time trying to get his wife to act more…human. She would twitch her little nose (as eventually did their daughter in a later series) and things “just happened”. Sam could magically clean her house, put things in different places, make people stop misbehaving or behaving – all with the twitch of her nose.
The witch controlled her surroundings and her life. And I wanted that, too.
No family is perfect. No family has awesome parents 100% of the time. And siblings, if there are any in the house, are often arguing at the best of times, fighting fiercely at the worst. The good times are not as often as remembered, so don’t try to say you had an awesomely perfect home. If that were the case, comedians would be out of business when showing what it was like growing up…people wouldn’t be laughing at what they themselves have experienced.
The journey from my roots begins
So, back to the witchcraft. When I left home, the Church became disappointing. There was only one church in the area I moved to, and they didn’t follow the traditions, history, or rules that dictated the Church for several thousand years. I’d already been thrown out of catechism class for questioning the teachings because the teacher couldn’t defend the Faith. And now I saw this upheaval in the only parish in Alabama. So I did what any disappointed Catholic would do. I left.
For over 6 years.
Marriage
I met my husband to be while on a business trip working for the same computer company. He installed the equipment and I taught the people how to run it. But we never really crossed each other’s paths except once when I was first hired. And I hated him. He always teased me and called me a “rookie”. He treated women like objects of desire, not like a human being. I was very happy when he disappeared for a very long time from the office.
But, as fate would have it, he apparently had been married. While out on a business trip, he was thrown out of his house and set up in an apartment, letting him know when he returned home by a note attached to the front door. Nice.
But I didn’t know all that. Instead, when the equipment I was to train on was failing, I was contacted by this guy to ask if I’d like to join him for dinner when I arrived. He had to stay on to make sure the equipment didn’t fail while I trained the students.
After a long conversation with a coworker, I found out about his personal life, and was assured that he wouldn’t bite. Just go to dinner. That was all it was.
Not.
We met up at the hotel when I got in. And went to dinner. And I knew I would marry him. The man I hated.
I told him to fix his own marriage. Unless he was unable to make it work (and marriage takes a LOT of work – give and take on both sides – always), I didn’t want to see him again. He needed to work on his marriage.
But his soon-to-be ex wouldn’t work with him. And he gave her the desired divorce. We were married months later. And I was always accused of breaking up the marriage. I can’t help the perception.
Separation pains
After the birth of two kids, my husband was diagnosed with cancer. A cancer that had no research, and no cure. We were sent information on a natural cure from both sides of the country. But he chose to go the alleopathic route and, in the end, lost his life when his kidneys failed from the single treatment. But he, behind my back, got his marriage annulled, us married in the Church, and the kids baptized. He told me I needed to be Catholic – something he hadn’t been, but became because he wanted to give me something he knew I needed.
And there I was, with two little ones to tend to, and nothing to believe in to get me through. I turned to divinations and other forms of witchcraft. Things began to happen physically in the house, and it scared my kids, myself, and even my neighbors. I called the Archdiocese for an exorcism, but was laughed at, as the last exorcist left for Florida years earlier.
Walk into the pit
So I did the next best thing. I took up the offer from a coven and eventually became a third degree Gardinarian witch.
We lost the house, the cars, the furniture. Everything. We moved to an apartment in the middle of Chambodia where gunshots were heard nightly and a child porn studio was set up in the apartment across the way. And the apartment, even with all the lights on, grew darker every day. More physical manifestations occurred, and things flew across the room. None of it controlled by me.
Changes come
A Christian rapper by the name of Carmen had it right. He outlined what was going on in his “Witch’s Invitation”. To the letter.
One day, a very beautiful soul took the time to give me something I’d been craving. She accepted me where I was at. She gave me something I hadn’t had – love. Real love. She didn’t push me, didn’t coerce me, didn’t correct me. She questioned me. And she just loved me.
One day, when she was going through a rough patch in her life, I went with her to church. It was a modern Protestant church, something called “non-denominational”. And I felt something there that I’d been missing all my life. I feel in love with Love.
And He showed me what I’d been missing.
The journey
My journey went from Catholicism, to agnosticism, to witchcraft through the New Age movement, to Protestantism, and back to my roots.
Remember I said how I loved to research? I did. I did a lot of it. Throughout this journey.
At one point, Protestantism didn’t feel right, either. Just like the New Agers, everyone agreed to disagree, saying they all believed the same thing. Their viewpoint on God differed, just like the New Agers. They disagreed on theological points, like how to baptize and the reason for baptism; communion and what it was and how often it should be held; and a variety of disagreements and interpretations of the main book used by all Christians, the Bible.
Not even the number of books or chapters were in agreement. As one preacher said, Esther was the only book that didn’t mention God. But reading the Catholic bible, I found the text that was removed from the Protestant bible. Along with a bunch of other books. Even the book of James was under attack in the early years of the “Reformation”, and labeled a “book of straw”. All because it mentioned “faith without works is dead”, a directly opposed viewpoint of “sola fidei” – faith alone as the key to salvation.
So I read. I dialogued, discussed, fought, and held views that were wrong, and views that were right. But I couldn’t shake the Truth. And searching for it, I found it. And it lay in the history, traditions, teachings of the Catholic faith. I couldn’t refute it. And there She stood, unmovable, unshakable.
Where religions really reside
What people don’t realize is that what is seen in the form of the people isn’t the Church. No religion can be judged by the people. It is what the religion, and in this case, the Catholic Church teaches. And those who hold the Truth will reflect it beyond the people in the religion. Even the atheists who hold there is no God hold these “truths” to be self-evident, forming their own form of religious belief.
Man is meant to believe in something. He has a hole in his heart that is meant to be filled. And we can only be as good as our teacher. If it’s us, we’re only as good as we think ourselves to be. And that isn’t very much.
Controlling the external and a warning
We also don’t control what is going on outside ourselves. That isn’t for us to do. We are to control what is inside us. And that begins with the mind. And Truth draws us up by our heart.
Our emotions are used by man to control us. But the One Who saves controls us by giving us His Love. And it is shown by those who surround us and accept us for who we are and where we are. And we, with love, draw them in to God. There is no other way to demonstrate that we have a place in the vast universe. That we, as individuals, are important. We matter. Even if no human on this planet can fully accept us, the One who created us always does.
Those in Hollywood, take heed. What you are doing to encourage the unthinkable will not remain forever in your favor. The souls lost by your teachings and their willingness to overlook the evil contained in your shows, the illicit behaviors, the language used, and other morally compromised behaviors will not last forever.
Hypocrisy among Christians…
Christians who justify their viewing of the unthinkable, saying they just fast forward through the bad parts should reconsider their witness to the world who does not understand your acceptance of the movies. Remember that early Christians didn’t compromise their faith. And even Rome fell along with those who compromised their beliefs.
Sari, wherever you are, I can never repay you enough, nor will I ever forget what you gave me. May He who moved you to love me, love you all the more. God bless!
For more on the journey through my darkest years, I have begun a book. I will not share any details in it regarding the events that took place spiritually. Curiosity seekers are discouraged from asking for those. I will not open back up doors that should forever remain closed. But it ill give enough to share what went on. And how I came through to the “other side”. The struggle remains. But the journey is worth the cost.