Elisabeth N. -  An Extraordinary Conversion Experience
How the Lord Led Me to My Conversion by Strange Ways
Put to paper in March 2013

My name is Elisabeth and I am 29 years old. My husband Wolfgang, to whom I have been married since 2008, is 31 years old.
In 2009, 2011 and 2012 our children Philipp, Miriam and Thomas followed. I grew up basically Catholic, but our Christian life mainly consisted of attending Sunday mass and daily evening prayer, which was always the same.

When I was in my teens, I came into contact with esotericism through my mother. She suffered from anxiety since my birth and at some point she came to a psychologist who also practised family constellations according to Bert Hellinger. After that, she also began to believe in the chakra teachings, "protected" herself and her children by enveloping our aura with "positive" energy, and we met a Catholic priest who walked through our house with a dowsing rod to locate water veins and interference zones (Thank God this priest has meanwhile renounced this). It wasn't that esotericism became such a high priority - my parents continued to attend Holy Mass regularly. But it was enough for me to distance myself from God and after confirmation I only went to church on special occasions.

In July 2002, I met my future husband Wolfgang through a "stray" text message. A few months later I moved into his flat.

Wolfgang came from a rather difficult background. His mother already was the second wife of his father, who had converted to the Protestant faith just to be able to marry a second time in church. When Wolfgang was 6 years old, his father left the young family to marry a third time. He stayed with his father, his two younger brothers with their mother. He grew up with a stepbrother and later got another half-brother. Contact with his mother was prevented by his father and stepmother, and so he did not see his mother or his biological brothers for 15 years. The father was a rather dishonest entertainer who cheated many people for money which they had borrowed from him in good faith, and changed his place of residence dozens of times. Wolfgang suffered a lot from his father's behaviour, always pretending to people and "selling his own grandmother" to maintain his "star image". At the time we met, he also had a mistress on the side.

In my family, however, my friend finally found stability and a loving atmosphere, and he appreciated the sincerity that prevailed among us. So very soon he spent more time at my parents' house than at home, which infuriated his father and stepmother. When I also dared to criticise his father's lifestyle (in the presence of his mistress), it came to an éclat and he shouted at Wolfgang and me that he no longer had a son, that he was dead to him. The mistress was engaged in white magic at the time and I suspect (can't explain it any other way) that this is why my husband had a bad choking attack the very next morning. His half-sister, who had been present at the éclat and had taken our side, suffered the same.

My parents converted in 2003 at a retreat where my mother was cured of her anxiety. At first, we couldn't cope with their lifestyle, because my parents now attended more retreats very often and only talked about faith. We were already annoyed because they urged us to attend Sunday Mass so often. But a few times I allowed myself to be persuaded to go on retreats, where I also made my holy confession every time.

In 2008 I married my husband after almost 6 years of "wild marriage". The wedding was very touching for us. Wolfgang's father stood in the far corner at the church wedding, and ran away at the end of the wedding mass as we were leaving the church, when he saw that Wolfgang's biological mother and brothers, with whom we had finally re-established contact two months before, were with us. We haven't seen him since.

That same year I became pregnant with our son Philipp. I resolved to at least say an evening prayer with my baby regularly, as my parents did with me every day. Two weeks after the birth of our child - it was Assumption Day - we wanted to go to church together for the first time. The night before, however, I had a bad nightmare with a demon in human form. Although the dream had scared me, I tried to suppress it and was looking forward to introducing our new family member to our wedding priest. As luck would have it, a newly ordained priest gave us the first blessing after the Holy Mass.

A few weeks later I had another nightmare in which, after another person showed signs of possession, I suddenly felt something taking possession of me myself. Again I woke up in a cold sweat.

Again, a few weeks later, when our little son was about 3 months old, I woke up one night and saw that there was a light on in the hall. But when I went to get up and see why the light was on, I suddenly couldn't lift my head, something was holding me down. Irritated, I wanted to wake my husband, who was sleeping next to me in bed, but I couldn't move my hand either! I felt like I was held in a vice!!! I closed my eyes tightly and prayed in my mind "In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit . . . ". Then suddenly I heard a loud whistling noise as if from a steam boiler - it was as if I heard whatever it was snorting away angrily. After that I was able to move normally again and to stand up. The light I had seen in the hall had disappeared. I was quite horrified that apparently there really is such a thing as a spiritual world that we cannot grasp with our human senses.

At first I thought that my husband would now think I was crazy, but the following evening he told me that he also had had strange experiences. He heard inexplicable footsteps in the house, shrill laughter and he also saw an ugly grimace in his mind's eye. Because my husband had to work and I did not want to be alone, I spent the next day and night with my parents. My husband later told me that on this night, when he was alone, he suddenly felt a strong pressure on his chest in bed and the miraculous medal he wore around his neck became red-hot. After he had begun to pray "Hail Mary . . . "everything returned to normal.

From then on, we went to confession often, soon started praying the rosary daily and attended Holy Mass every Sunday. However, I still regularly had such attacks and tribulations from the Adversary every 2-3 weeks (even though by far not as severe). These did not stop until two years later when I was fortunate enough to see a real exorcist called Fr. Rufus Pereira (unfortunately he died a few months later). He blessed me and gave me exorcised Holy Water to drink. He then told me that my father-in-law had such great hatred for me for "taking" his son "away" from him that I had to go through such attacks and afflictions. Fr. Rufus was also a great help to my husband in forgiving his father for his bad behaviour.

Today I am very grateful to my father-in-law in some way because without his hatred I would probably never have had such an effective conversion experience!

Praise be to the Lord for all eternity!