TESTIMONY OF "JENNY" Former New Ager.
I came from a very dysfunctional family, and while my parents loved me very much they weren't quite sure how to show it. I was abused at the age of ten. My parents separated at the age of twelve, and my mother passed away when I was fifteen. My father was and still is an alcoholic, and through all these trials and tribulations. I have had as a child, as I went into adulthood it gave me a sense of confusion. I didn't know how to love unconditionally. It gave me all sorts of problems.About five years ago, two of our children were diagnosed with serious diseases. My son was diagnosed with Crohn's Disease, and within 12 months our daughter was diagnosed with a tumour. It was a very hard time for all of us. I wanted to know why this was happening to me - all these problems kept happening, because I also had marriage problems as well. I started to question life. I couldn't understand why things kept going wrong.
Some friends of mine came around one night and we sat around the fire and started talking about spiritual beliefs. They wanted to know where I was coming from. I had believed in God but that was about it. There was nothing more to it. My friends spoke about their beliefs in evolution, reincarnation, they spoke about the universe, their star signs, peace and energy, and most of all to be in touch with self.
Round about this time when we were talking about all this, I was very vulnerable as you can imagine. I was looking for answers. I wanted answers. I wanted to make my life better and make it better for my husband and my children. I had all these problems, and they were always put on me. I thought I was the one who had to fix it - after all, it was all my fault!
Through all this I started to look into the New Age. I looked into holistic healing, because of my son and daughter. I wanted to heal therm because it was my fault. I looked into Homeopathy because I wanted to heal them I went through Acupuncture, Hypnosis, Hands on Healing, Naturopathy, Yoga, and lots of Self-help course to find out what sort of person I was, because I was so confused with the upbringing that I had. These courses cost me a small fortune, because when I finished one course I would go into another because I didn't quite get the answers I was looking for. I was searching and searching. I wanted to believe in something, I wanted to believe that there was a way out.
During 1994, our daughter was diagnosed with cancer, and she had her right leg amputated during this time. My girlfriend from New Zealand rang me after five years of not hearing from each other, and she had heard about the bad news and wanted to console me and she asked me how I was. I said to her, "I have got it in control - I'm not worried - everything is fine. We are happy, my daughter is happy, and everything was just fine." She was a bit concerned about that because she couldn't understand, after everything I had been through, how I could be so together.
After a few phone calls, she started to question my spiritual beliefs, and I just told her that I was involved in Hands-on-Healing, and those other things, and she told me that she was a Born-Again Christian. I thought, Okay. We talked about a few other things and before I knew why I kept ringing her back because she had a heart for helping me, and I sensed that. I didn't realise how hard my heart was. After many conversations and talking to her about my problems, it made me realise that what I had been going through over the past five years was such a lie. I wasn't honest with myself, I was always worrying about how I was around other people. I had no values or morals. I was so selfish, It was all me, me, me! There was no giving or anything. I had this motto, whatever felt good, then just do it. I didn't worry about what the consequences were.
In June 1995, I felt I was changing. I wasn't quite sure what was going on. I was totally confused and I was out of control and most of all, what I was trying to run from, I was alone more than ever. Because of this I judged myself. I thought "I'm not getting this right." I was in so much anger and despair, I didn't know where to turn. I was talking with my girlfriend from New Zealand, and she obviously sensed over the phone there was something changing within me. She guided me and after I got off the phone I went into one room in my house, and I fell to my knees and for the first time I spoke to God, I said "I need help!" I surrendered my life to Him, I told Him to take control of my life.
Since I gave my life to God, my values and morals have been put into order, my relationship problems stemming from my childhood are being made right, and there are many more things to learn but I know that God is there right by my side, and He has said to me that He will never leave me or forsake me, and He will always be there for me, holding my hand.
There are a couple of Scriptures which are close to my heart. It isn't just through the children's diseases or my husband and I having a turbulent marriage, and at this stage we are still separated, but God has His hand on that, and He is building our relationship the way it always should have been, and in Romans 5:3, we read, "We rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance, perseverance character, and character, hope. And hope does not disappoint us because God has poured out His love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit whom He has given us." That Scripture is a real comfort to me.
Whatever happened in my childhood and through my older years and my children and my marriage, God is now turning it all around and will use it for good.
Another promise the Lord gave me is in Jeremiah 29:11; "For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future." For the first time in my life, I have hope and things are getting better. He will restore my heart, my children and my marriage. The desire that I have always had in my heart that I want both a mother and a father for our children under one roof the way it should be - a whole family unit. Why am I sharing all this with you? You should never, ever give up hope,
Proverbs 3 :5, says, "Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding, in all of your ways acknowledge Him and He will make your paths straight." What a promise!
To conclude this, when I went through the New Age, trying to find answers, there were no answers there - it was all lies and deception, and false hope. It is only through Jesus Christ that we can every find real hope - He is there beside us, and gives us the answers and the love we are looking for. I pray and hope that God will make Himself known to you too. All we have to do is ask.
TESTIMONY OF "JOHN" Former New Ager
"I would like to tell you about my involvement in the New Age. I grew up in a Christian church. In the late 1980's I found myself with a number of personal problems which I couldn't resolve. I felt there wasn't an answer in the church for me, so I left. Leaving the church after all those years left an enormous hole in my life. I was looking for something to fill that gap so one day I saw an advertisement in the paper for Alpha Dynamics and New Age philosophy. I thought it sounded very interesting and went along to try it. I signed up and it was quite expensive.I did a weekend seminar and I was totally wrapped (excited). It was so good. Basically, what we did was we were taught to meditate and take ourselves down into a trance. In that trance state, we constructed a workshop at the very centre of our being. In that workshop we gathered all the knowledge of the world. We went to the great libraries and we put all this knowledge, knowledge about medicine, physics, science, maths, we put it all into our libraries. Of course when you think of it, that does away with the concept of God. We have knowledge ourselves. Then we invited into our workshop a companion, someone who would guide us and help us to access the knowledge we had. My guide, when I invited him into my life, came to me with a Bible name, the name was Samuel. It was a name I could relate to and respond to. Of course, a spirit guide does away with the person of the Holy Spirit.
Also in our workshop we gathered all the tools and equipment you could ever need in order to perform a task, or anything else. All of this mechanical equipment, the technical equipment was all there and you use it in order to resolve problems to build things in your mind to heal people. Of course, on reflection, that does away with the power of the Holy Spirit. Finally in our workshop, when we had a problem, you would take that problem to your workshop and work on it with your knowledge tools and your companion. You could bring healing or create things in your mind which then manifest outside in the physical. You could take a person into your mind, work on their back, for instance, and then they would be healed. It was enormously powerful.
While I was connected with Alpha Dynamics, teaching it and helping with seminars and giving public demonstrations on mind control, a few incidences happened which frightened me. I began to question, 'could this happen if this was the God of Love, the God of compassion?' I began to think about that and the though occurred to me that this was wrong. I shouldn't be doing this. Around about the same time, I felt God whispering, "John, I want you back," I resisted for a while but then I contacted a friend who I trusted, an Anglican priest, and I arranged to meet with him, and I told him about my involvement in New Age, and my confusion, my despair at the time, how I was thinking about suicide, divorce and all sorts of things. He talked with me again about my Christian faith, and we went back through the basics. We began to put it together again who God is, who Christ is, and who the Holy Spirit is, and how they related together. In doing all of that I began to realise where things were wrong.
In 1991, I repented of my whole New Age involvement, and I sought forgiveness and renounced it all, and accepted Jesus Christ as my Lord and saviour at the same time. In fact after all my years in the Christian church I met Jesus for the first time in 1991. I discovered that the Holy Spirit wasn't a 'thing' or an 'it,' but a person who is still active in the world.
This was just tremendous for me. To people who are thinking about New Age or involvement in it, I say, get out of it and don't touch it - it isn't harmless, it is powerful and it works. If you are person who is interacting with someone involved in the New Age, don't patronise them, don't suggest to them it doesn't work, because they, more than likely, know that it does. Treat them with respect, but continue to minister Jesus to their lives.