This testimony is my personal thanks to my Saviour and Lord Jesus Christ who saved me from straying into esotericism and delivered me from the clutches of the devil. As a faithful Catholic, I looked for healing for myself and my family through esoteric healing methods and thereby fell into great danger. Full of joy and gratitude, I testify to God's wonderful omnipotence, mercy and love in my life and the grace of a deep conversion He gave me in 2004.

My Path into Esotericism

It all started in 1991. Until that time I had never had anything to do with esoteric practices. With my husband and our two sons I led a completely normal, inconspicuous family life. However, I was far too busy with worldly things that I thought were so important. My everyday tasks and duties took up all my time. Also, I could not share an active Catholic faith life with my Protestant husband, and so I became more and more negligent and lukewarm about practising my Catholic faith. I no longer went to Holy Mass and prayed less and less. But I seriously decided at that time to take care of my faith life again later, when I would have more time.
In this situation, our two-year-old son and I fell ill with neurodermatitis. As we did not want to undergo a lengthy cortisone treatment with many side effects, I - on the recommendation of an acquaintance - went to a healer who allegedly achieved great healing success with divine power flowing through her hands. And this then also happened with both of us. This very likeable woman had long conversations with me in which she often talked about the causes of illnesses and suffering and about the esoteric world view. I willingly let myself be drawn into the conversations, because the question of suffering in the world had occupied me very much since my youth.
Fascinated by the miraculous healing of our neurodermatitis and due to a lack of knowledge of the Holy Scripture, the theory of karma presented to me by the healer seemed quite plausible to me. I came into contact with the Far Eastern healing theory of energies, vibrations and energy blockages as the cause of diseases. For the first time I heard from the healer that chronic illnesses and strokes of fate may even be the result of wrong behaviour from previous lives, as the doctrine of reincarnation advocates.
Even though I rejected this new view at first, my inner blockages were loosened more and more over time. Without any problems I combined the Catholic teachings with the Far Eastern way of thinking, because through the esoteric healing treatment I had been blinded without noticing it and had become blind to the truth. Suddenly I noticed that many good friends whom I valued, including Catholic and Protestant Christians, were engaged in various esoteric healing practices and so-called alternative medicine, which encouraged me to believe all this. Encouraged by the visible healing success, I now wanted to get to know the esoteric teachings and the effects of their healing methods more thoroughly.

Therefore, I read many books on the subject and took part in events of mediumistically gifted people. Everything fascinated me. I believed in the esoteric attempts to explain illnesses with disturbed energy balance, blockades, karma and the doctrine of reincarnation. And so I thought I had finally found a satisfactory answer to the question of the cause and meaning of suffering in the Far Eastern theory of Karma. Since esoteric literature uses a lot of Christian terms, I did not recognise it as a false teaching. But in reality, I was mentally moving further and further away from my faith in Jesus Christ.

Esotericism teaches that man carries the divine perfectly within himself, i.e. is God himself, and reaches perfection through his own efforts. But this means nothing but self-redemption. The creature is independent of the Creator. Man no longer needs a Redeemer, forgiveness, grace or personal prayer. In place of our Triune God, to whom every child of God can have a personal and loving relationship, esotericism puts an impersonal, cosmic image of God, also called "cosmic" or "universal" life force. It is claimed that a universal life energy emanates from the infinity of the cosmos, which permeates everything, sustains everything and with which the human being must be in harmony in order to be healthy and happy. This can be achieved with the help of esoteric healing methods and techniques, through Yoga and Far Eastern meditation. In esotericism, this "becoming one" with the cosmos is considered the highest goal in life. It usually takes many lifetimes to achieve this goal.

Esoteric Healing Methods under a Christian Cloak

In December 2000 I heard about a new alternative practitioner in our town who was supposed to have special healing abilities. Because of the positive experiences in 1991 with our neurodermatitis, I wanted to have my allergy treated by her. She also made a trustworthy impression, was a likeable, down-to-earth woman and a Protestant Christian, so that I immediately trusted her. Her treatment methods covered a wide esoteric spectrum: homeopathy, Schüßler salts, Bach flowers, facial diagnosis, energy work, Reiki, putting word magic on illnesses and various other esoteric healing methods. With her, I again encountered this mixture of Far Eastern, esoteric thinking, combined with familiar Christian elements, which I now considered "normal".
This alternative practitioner was very successful because she had mediumistic abilities. She spoke openly about being in spiritual contact with angels who helped her heal. In addition, she did pendulum dowsing for all therapies and remedies, with quick and visible healing results. She explained to me that the pendulum dowsing and the spiritual contact with the angels were God's gift, given to her by God for healing.
These were completely new experiences for me. The healer often spoke of her faith in God. I saw her Bible and even a statue of Jesus in her treatment room. Blinded by the Christian appearance of this woman, by the visible healing success, as well as by my own acceptance of esoteric-Far Eastern thoughts, I let her treat me and my family. Only much too late did I realise that I was in occult territory with this woman, for her mediumistic healing abilities were in fact evoked by powers of the darkness. In my inexperience, however, I had no doubt about her alleged "divine healing gifts". At that time I believed that everything that heals must be good and come from God.
I did not know at that time that the devil can also do fake healings. They are fake healings where the original illnesses or problems appear to be " healed" but in reality they are just shifted to other areas. It is true that the physical pain or neurodermatitis disappears after the occult-esoteric treatment; but instead, some time later, sometimes only after years, new problems arise which may no longer affect only the body, but also the soul and the spirit. Often other physical illnesses appear, but also mental problems, fears, nightmares, aggressions, quarrels, human relationship problems and even disturbances in the relationship with God, such as blockages in praying or sudden aversion to divine things. The devil camouflages his destructive intentions unnoticed with the supposedly "gentle" esoteric healing methods. He fakes healings so that people will let themselves in for it and he gets power over people to harm their souls.

Instead of going to doctors, we now mostly went to this alternative practitioner with our illnesses. My eldest son suddenly had inexplicable headaches, which we had treated by her. After a few treatment appointments, the alternative practitioner spontaneously and unexpectedly gave me a pendulum with the explanation that I now had to learn to do pendulum dowsing. She wanted to take a baby break and close her office for a quarter of a year. During her absence, I was to do pendulum dowsing to find out the duration of the intake of a very highly potentised homeopathic remedy myself, so that my son's treatment which had started so successfully - and was expensive as well- would not have to be discontinued.
At first I felt a spontaneous reluctance to do the pendulum dowsing myself. The alternative practitioner tried to take away all my reservations and resistance. She explained to me that pendulum dowsing was absolutely harmless and nothing special at all. As a rule, it was only the contact with one's own subconscious mind, which in this way indicated what the body or the soul needed. I believed her explanations. Moreover, I had to take a quick decision, as she was only available for a few more days. Either I helped my son by balancing the remedies that had been effective so far, or the expensive treatment could not have been completed. Although everything in me resisted, I finally picked up the pendulum.
Unconsciously, just by accepting the pendulum, I had given the evil one a declaration of consent to be allowed to work through me. At that time I did not know that occult powers, namely demons, were behind the pendulum swing. Now everything happened very quickly. Suddenly I gained mediumistic abilities. They were simply there!

Mediumistic Abilities

So I finished my son's treatment exactly as the healer had explained it to me. He was completely relieved of his headaches and my reluctance to use the pendulum disappeared completely. I now also used the pendulum in my everyday life. In the beginning, I used the pendulum to balance medicines, food and all kinds of things. It fascinated me how one could get in touch with the subconscious mind in this way. Through certain questions which I asked and the answers I received, I soon had the suspicion that it could not only be the subconscious mind which caused the pendulum swing. For I began to pendulum dowse over letters as well, and thus whole sentences with meaningful content concerning my life emerged. This gave the pendulum a new quality. My palms also began to hurt more often, especially at night.
Very soon I received another mediumistic ability: my right hand was flooded with warm waves and tingled in an unusual way. I suspected that it would write automatically if I admitted it, because I had read about this mediumistic gift. In Automatic Writing, the human hand is guided by an invisible, supernatural force and then writes on its own. At first it seemed a bit scary to me, but I had seen many unusual things with the healer, which supposedly all came from God. So I told Jesus that I wanted to pay very close attention to what my hand would write. If it was something bad or insignificant, I didn't want to get involved any further. If, on the other hand, something good and holy came down on paper, I wanted to take it as God's will that He wanted to make contact with me in this way. With naïve trust, I released my hand. It wrote a few words in a language unknown to me. The first legible sentence was: "Glory, praise, honor and all glory to our Lord." I took these words as a sign that it was something holy and continued to write, for I had not realised who was meant by "our Lord". I believed in my ignorance that it was a praise to my Triune God.

My Angel

Now an "angel" introduced himself to me in writing. He gave his name and his high degree in the angelic hierarchy. He wrote with my hand that he was sent to me by God to accompany me and lead me to holiness. God would give me the gift of healing with the aim of leading souls to Jesus, and he, my "angel", was to help me, teach me and protect me. He explained to me that God was going to give me the Stigmata, the Holy Wounds, and that was why my palms had been hurting so much at night for a few weeks.
To come straight to the point: This "angel" was in fact a demon masquerading as an angel of light. His behaviour appeared friendly and dignified, almost holy! This false "angel" dictated beautiful prayers and texts full of holy words to me, which left no doubt about his supposedly divine origin. In a very friendly way, he gave me good help and advice for my little everyday problems, which were extremely useful to me, and he also explained to me that it was he who had caused the pendulum to swing in each case. Communication and everyday contact with this "angel" was usually through the pendulum, through automatic writing or through the mediumistic gift of thought transmission, which I also received later - a silent, wordless communication between the "angel" and me.

You Must Not Use the Pendulum

Meine Familie und ich waren in dieser Zeit öfter krank als sonst. Wir wurden aber immer wieder schnell gesund, dank meines angeblichen „Helfers von Gott“, der mir Ratschläge für eine rasche Heilung gab, die sehr gut wirksam waren. Heute bin ich fest davon überzeugt, dass diese Krankheiten durch diesen bösen Geist verursacht wurden, der mir dann gleich die passende Heilmethode zeigte, damit ich mich noch mehr auf ihn einließ, ihm bedingungslos glaubte, und er auf diese Weise Macht über mich bekommen konnte.
So ging es eine Zeitlang, bis plötzlich eine innere Stimme zu mir sprach:„Du darfst nicht pendeln!“ und das Pendel abrupt stehenblieb. Sooft ich es auch versuchte, es hat sich von da an nie wieder bewegt. In dieser Zeit zog sich auch der „Engel“ zurück, was mich verwirrte. Deshalb beschloss ich, mir bei der Heilpraktikerin Rat zu holen. Sie war die einzige mir bekannte Person, die Erfahrung in übernatürlichen Dingen hatte. Sie erklärte mir, ich sei eine sehr begnadete Seele, und diese Fähigkeiten kämen alle von Gott. Ich solle mir wegen des stillstehenden Pendels und des abgebrochenen Kontaktes mit dem „Engel“ keine Sorgen machen. Pausen im Kontakt mit dem „Himmel“ wären ganz normal, das sei auch bei ihr so. Manchmal wäre so etwas nur eine Prüfung.
Da das Pendeln nicht mehr funktionierte, riet sie mir, die Kontaktaufnahme zu dem „Engel“ mit einer Art Wünschelrute, einem sogenannten „Biotensor“, den sie mir dann gab, zu versuchen. Tatsächlich trat der „Engel“ dadurch plötzlich wieder in mein Leben. Er erklärte mir, er habe sich auf Gottes Anweisung hin zurückziehen müssen. Alles sei eine Prüfung für mich gewesen. Jetzt dürfe er mir wieder helfen, und bald schon wollte er mich im Heilen ausbilden.
Ich hatte noch nicht verstanden, dass es Jesus war, der mit den Worten „Du darfst nicht pendeln!“ begonnen hatte, mir einen Ausweg zu zeigen, denn der Dämon hatte die Absicht, mich mit seiner Kraft seelisch und körperlich zu zerstören. Aber davon ahnte ich nichts. Es klang alles so überzeugend, was dieser als Engel getarnte Dämon an Erklärungen lieferte. Deshalb war ich sicher, dass dies alles von Gott kommen musste. Zudem geschahen ja auch vor meinen Augen wundersame Dinge, die hilfreich und heilig schienen.

My Training as a Healer

The so-called "angel" told me what I should learn, e.g. healing with Bach flowers. In bookshops I acquired the relevant books and also bought the necessary remedies, in this case the vials with the Bach flower essences. I only needed to learn the basic knowledge of the respective healing method. During the treatments, the supposed "angel" gave me clear instructions on what I had to do. For each illness I was shown exactly which healing method I should use and in what way. This enabled me to get to know and practise many different healing methods in a very short time.
The focus of my training was on homeopathy, Schüßler salts, Bach flowers, various other energetic flower essences, energy drops, angel drops, healing stones, foot reflexology and kinesiology. I was additionally given the ability of dowsing. I was also able to heal through photos and nametags.

The supposed "angel" also compiled a collection of healing prayers with me, which he dictated to me, Christian-looking texts that seemed very pious. Some prayers contained complementary signs made of lines and circles. Blessing with consecrated rosaries was a main part of the healing. I was even supposed to use holy water for healing. This confusing mixture of the occult and genuine beliefs was to remove even the last spark of doubt I had about the divine origin of this healing method.
Today I know that I was basically practising white magic, disguised in Christian wrapping and Catholic disguise. In white magic, Satan evokes illusory healings and illusory miracles in order to attract people, draw them into his sphere of power and obtain entitlement to their lives. But every form of magic is sin and violates the first commandment. That is why the Catholic Church warns us urgently against it in its Catechism (cf. CCC Nos. 2113-2117, 2138).

My mistake was that I did not turn to a priest to receive help and instruction from the Church. I did not have the courage, because I did not know a priest in whom I could have confided. I was afraid of not being understood and possibly being sent for medical treatment as being mentally unstable. So I settled everything between God and myself and kept my mediumistic abilities largely secret. My false "angel" also commanded me to do so. Only after completing the entire healing training was I to make my abilities known and work publicly as a healer. But everything was to turn out quite differently. God knew about my ignorance and He knew my good intention to win souls for Him through healing. Therefore, in His mercy, He led me back to Himself.

My Deliverance from Esotericism

My return to the Catholic Church and its teachings took place gently and carefully and ran parallel to my esoteric aberration and healing training.
At first I was happy about the mediumistic gifts I possessed. We no longer needed a doctor and I really seemed to be a soul gifted by God. In the meantime, the texts and advice were also dictated to me as a "direct address from God". Nevertheless, the desire grew in me to be allowed to be completely "normal" again. I just wanted to lead a good, inconspicuous, Catholic life, and so I increasingly felt my mediumistic gifts to be a burden. I didn't want to have them any more. But because I believed that healing was a divine mandate for me, I was afraid of denying God something if I stopped doing it. This became a real spiritual hardship for me.
In the meantime, my faith life became more and more intense and intimate. I went to Holy Mass regularly again and also began to go to confession again after more than 20 years. But the more vividly I practised the Catholic faith, the more problematic it became for me to reconcile the Gospel of Jesus Christ with the esoteric teachings of energies and meridians, of vibrations and power streams, of Karma and essences. But the false "angel" assured me again and again that my calling was still to win souls through healing in order to lead them to Jesus and to His Church. Esoteric healing, he said, was only a God-ordained "means to an end" for me as a Catholic to achieve this goal in this day and age.

My healing training was now almost complete and the time was approaching to start to work publicly as a healing practitioner. But in my heart, esoteric healing and an authentic Catholic life simply no longer went together. I entered into a deep conflict of souls. For weeks I begged Jesus and Mary - often on my knees and sometimes in tears - to save me from going astray and to show me clearly what was the will of God.

I praise my God and also thank the Blessed Mother from the bottom of my heart, who heard my prayers and came to my help. Slowly but surely I developed a greater and greater aversion to everything esoteric, especially to esoteric remedies. I began to feel a very great love for the Catholic Church, which I had previously found so much fault with, and I realised quite clearly that the Holy Scripture was incompatible with the teachings of esotericism.

My false "angel", however, in an unbelievable way supported those desires that God put into my heart, in such a way that I would never have recognised him as a demon. For example, if I had the desire to go to confession more often, he even encouraged me to do so. I was not to suspect who I was really dealing with. For three and a half years, the demon disguised himself as an "angel of light" without revealing himself. He behaved towards me like a holy friend, always helpful, friendly and dignified, never exerted pressure on me and never forced his will on me. Everything looked good and holy!

Since I really was seeking nothing but the will of God, He in His goodness gave me the saving thought of having my charism confirmed by a priest. Only after a clear sign from the Church would I be willing to accept esoteric healing as a "means to an end" ordained by God. After much prayer, I finally met a priest in whom I could confide. He warned me against clever deceptions of the devil and advised me to pray that God would send me a gifted priest who, enlightened by the Holy Spirit, could give me clarity.

This priest was to be Father James Manjackal. In 2004, he held a retreat in Hamburg, which I signed up for. I expected decisive help from this charismatically gifted priest. Three days before the retreat began, my hand began to tingle again very strongly. This meant that the disguised "angel" wanted to tell me something in writing. I hoped that God would reveal something important to me before the retreat. What I then wrote brought the decisive turn in my life and was the conclusion of the cleverly laid trap into which the devil had led me.

The text read: "I am a demon. I must now leave you, and so I reveal myself to you to frighten you. You could never heal. All was in vain."

Father James confirmed to me that this "angel" had been an evil spirit, and that I now had to resist Satan with all my will and renew my faith in Jesus Christ. By his authority and in the name of Jesus Christ, Father James broke the demonic bonds. Final deliverance was then given to me through Holy Confession and sincere repentance.

Even though I destroyed all esoteric objects, remedies, books and CDs after this retreat, the said "angel" was still allowed to attack me externally for some time. He now showed his true face and my supposedly holy friend now became my enemy. But Jesus was especially close to me during this time. I was wonderfully carried by Him through all the attacks in this difficult time.

The devil's services and healing successes do not come for free. He demands his price, sooner or later! He does not want our happiness and salvation, but wants to destroy our soul. In this day and age, Satan achieves his evil goal through the alternative, esoteric healing methods through which he lies to us with " fake healings" and wants to draw us into his sphere of power.

Jesus is my only Saviour

After all these experiences I had become involved in, I focused my life completely on Jesus Christ, my Saviour and Redeemer. He not only freed me from Satan's bondages, but He additionally gifted me with a completely new depth of faith:
I realised the necessity of reading the Holy Scripture and knowing well the teachings of the Catholic Church. I discovered the beauty of prayer - especially adoration - and received the grace to pray intimately and with confidence. The desire and joy to go to daily Holy Mass awoke in me, and the meaning of the Holy Eucharist was revealed to me in a whole new way. My heart was opened wide to the love of the Blessed Mother, and so I was given the desire to learn to pray the Rosary in order to contemplate the life of Jesus with Mary. I also began to rethink my attitude towards the Holy Father, and I realised that I wanted to change some things in the way I lived my life. As a consequence, I stopped taking the pill, for example, and observed Catholic teaching as set out in the encyclical Humanae Vitae. That was much easier than I thought.

Today I am a very happy Catholic and I want to tell everyone about the beauty and fullness of our faith. If we practise our faith in the Church in a living way, we are best protected from the snares of the enemy, who at first always disguises himself as an angel of light, but sooner or later has to show his true face. I want to thank God, my Saviour, until the end of my life, give Him all the glory and love Him more every day.

© Copyright Martina Schmilewski / 2012