It’s time for me to share my testimony. My purpose in taking the time to write this post is to help you get to know me, not to convince anyone to believe the way I do. Seriously, my take on the world is wild. I don’t need anyone to agree with me, but I would enjoy some company.
When I was in my early twenties I spent an entire summer sleeping with the lights on. You see, paranormal phenomena are often sensitive to electromagnetic fields. Sometimes something as simple as leaving the lights on can disrupt extra dimensional tinkering of the unwanted kind. I can tell you that for me personally, the question of whether we are alone in the universe has been decisively settled. In addition to being a college student, I was probably somebody’s science project. I woke up with bone scooped out of my ankle, nose bleeds following my nighttime encounters and the kind of weirdness in my day to day life that beggars description. I prefer the term “anomalous trauma survivor,” and I will tell you plainly that we will never get a handle on the alien phenomenon until we get a better grip on the nature of space-time, which is nothing like what we’ve been told, but that’s a subject for another post.
For years it went on and there was nothing I could do about it. I tried praying, saging, crystals around the bed, star codes, numerology and every new age approach known to man. In one instance a technique led to my soul being snatched out of my body and dragged through the wall of my apartment complex instead of the usual poking and prodding on my bed, but I don’t count that as a win. The woo woo was completely ineffective.
Finally, my mentor suggested that I say the following: “In the name of Jesus Christ and by the power of his most precious blood, I demand you leave my room right now!” She said it in a twangy southern drawl so fierce it could’ve drawn blood. I really, REALLY didn’t expect it to work. I figured Jesus was probably a social engineering tool for the weak minded—if he ever even existed—but I was game to try. I got my chance a few days later. During these experiences I was usually paralyzed before the beings arrived and I was accustomed to feeling it slide over me like a prodromal dread. I couldn’t speak, but I thought my mentors words with all my strength. The paralysis was immediately arrested and I sat up in my bed. That was the first time I had ever been able to stop an abduction.
At that time I worked at a Crystal shop and professing Jesus/Christianity was seen as a clear manifestation of the oppressor culture and an efficient way to never be invited to anything ever again. Despite my initial horror, I had to admit that reality consists of that which does not go away when you stop believing in it, and the name of Jesus did in fact stop the abductions.
So we’re clear, the name of Jesus is also indispensable when my clients fall on the floor shaking or slithering like snakes. This happens a solid 5-10 times a year in both Christian and non-Christian populations, and anyone who visits my office should know that deliverance via the name of Jesus is never an agenda of mine, but it is also never outside the realm of possibility.
Anyway. Around the time my abductions stopped I was also waking up to the matrix of control around us. A persons first moments of coherence are often marked by paranoia and it was no different for me. I can remember sitting in traffic by myself pondering what force in this world could possibly be trustworthy. I actually screamed the question at the air and demanded an answer. At that moment a biker swerved in front of me. The back of his jacket said JESUS. Again, this raised more questions than answers and was very very uncool.
With lightning speed I discovered that although Jesus is apparently the badest gangster that ever was, many of the people who claim to follow him are deranged. Jesus is the character of God, and God is not a narcissist. God is not the character or timbre of a Roman occupying force: what Philip K Dick called the “black iron prison.” God cherishes the feminine, which includes women, the earth and our bodies. There are boundaries required around human behavior for everyone’s protection and highest good, but God does not demand right angled thinking, hospital corners, group think, blank stares, spiritual bypassing or emotional sterility.
In fact, the Holy Spirit is the essence of magic: the human will and imagination aligned with a loving higher power, the Saint Elmo’s fire that beats our hearts and fires up our nervous system. My God is about skin in the game, humility and connection. That’s why I trust a man named Jesus with the flight of my soul and not a concept like christ consciousness. When I am inside out I require human connection.
It troubles me that when my soul hurts, ninety percent of the time I would rather sit with a Buddhist or a plant medicine person rather than another believer. Setting aside any discussions we might have about hedonism or “pharmakeia,” generally speaking, people who have sat through the complete dissolution and reconstitution of their ego know how to hold really tight and expansive space for others. There is a place for shifting our mindset, there is a place for supportive scripture, for journaling and for deliverance, but a hurting person requires connection before correction. The connection is the medicine. It is free like the grace of God, and it penetrates our flesh and bone often without a word spoken. There is no condemnation in it, and I call anyone willing to truly connect in the spirit of Jesus a brother or sister in Christ, regardless of what religious construct they may be coming from.
In my life and work, I exist in a liminal space between traditionally Christian and pagan worldviews, both of which are actually represented in The Bible if you know where to look. For instance, the parable of the trees in Judges 9 infers that the natural kingdom is sentient. In the gospels we are told that when nobody else will praise God the rocks will. People from a non-Christian background might see the cross on the wall in my office and assume I’m a bigot. Church goers might see the rocks and tools in my office and assume I practice witchcraft. Actually neither is true. I say growth requires triggers and I’m privileged to be in a position to nettle both groups.
Finally, reality consists of those things that don’t go away when we stop believing in them. For the purposes of my testimony today I am certain of three things:
*God is not a narcissistic control freak.
*Magic (the conjunction of man’s imagination and will under the headship of a loving God) is real and changes the fabric of reality instantly via human pineal function.
*The name of Jesus applied alongside quality human connection casts out evil and heals human lives: “For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds, casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God…” 2 Corinthians 10:4-6
There you have it. I hope you know me a little better now, and I hope we can still be friends.
