As a member of RESCUE who has experienced being set free from demons, one of the things that surprised me as i went through counseling and detoxed from religion was the fact that i had engaged in witchcraft without my knowledge. Looking back I never interacted with people who engaged in witchcraft. In fact, to my knowledge,i never even read occult books or watched any occult shows. I considered such things as the worship of the devil— pure evil which i didn’t want to be associated with.
Consequently, It was shocking and humbling to discover that some of my self- righteous religious acts were no different from those of a new age practitioner . So even though I never engaged in the occult, it was shocking to discover that I learned witchcraft practices in the Institutional Church.
Witchcraft can simply be defined as the practice of magic, the use of spells and invoking spirits.
There are several ways that i was duped into witchcraft while attending an Institutional church.
Witchcraft Prayers
I owned several spiritual warfare books and recited statements that involved commanding “angels”, the stars, planets and even God. I would bind the devil and cast him back to hell. These prayers used scripture out of context. For sure, no human can command God to do anything, so to think otherwise is foolish. We lie to ourselves if we think God is at our beck and call.
To command the sun, moon, planets and stars is delusional, but to command angels has a dangerous spin to it. Gods’ angels do not accept our invitations or instructions but fallen angels do, in order for the devil to have legal right to be in your life, you have to invite him in.
My invitation to these fallen angels had severe consequences. I started suffering from demonic torment – my mind, body and soul was under constant attack. My fear grew greatly as the attacks would happen mainly at night.
During prayer meetings, people used to be manipulated to change their ways by being shamed in public prayers where intercessors would air out people’s issues. When ministers control & manipulate people’s behavior, their actions are a clear sign of witchcraft. There are many examples of how people are controlled in the church and public prayer is one of the them.
Religious Rituals
To counter the demonic torment that I suffered from, i turned to more rituals – applying anointing oil on my bed, door, windows, ceilings and on myself. Inviting the Holy Spirit to come in and fill my apartment, i played worship music and recited bible verses and prayers. None of this helped, In fact, I simply added fuel to the fire. My religious acts were also motivated by fear not faith.
Bibliomancy
I would also, seek out random passages in the Bible and apply them to my life with no regard for the context. I also used it to “decree and declare” my future and pray for certain events to occur. This practice which i was taught in the church actually comes from the Middle ages where people who practiced divination would open the bible and whichever page they landed upon, they would read out the scripture and use it to give spiritual insight into what they are looking for. I was pretty much behaving like my own psychic.
Worshipping in the flesh
The Bridal paradigm in the church has brought about the increase of love songs to Jesus which are disguised as praise and worship songs. Everytime i engaged in a worship session, i would feel warm and tingly in my chest, i assumed that these were “feelings of God’s love” overflowing in me. These experiences were short lived which caused me to depend upon an emotional roller-coaster. The more I felt unloved,the more needed to attend more worship sessions to feel loved. I’ve come to learn that love is not a feeling & more importantly the Holy Spirit does not entertain our flesh. These manifestations of “love” were all sensual and had nothing to do with the Spirit of God. True believers of the Lord Jesus have to worship in Spirit & in Truth.
In the New Idolatry, Pastor Pam Sheppard writes in detail how witchcraft has infiltrated the Institutional Church, One part that stood out to me is how a new age practitioner and a Charismatic Christian could address a similar issue using methods that many would assume are worlds apart, when in reality, they actually are similar and run parallel to each other. Below is an excerpt from the book:-
“For the sake of comparison, consider how both a new age practitioner and a Charismatic Christian would approach a typical problem, namely, a woman seeking to stop the infidelity of a lover or husband. From the occultist, the woman might be required to purchase a defense enchantment like burying her man’s shirt at full moon, while pronouncing a curse or a magic formula seven times. As the shirt wears out and disintegrates in the ground overtime, so also will the man’s love for the other woman fade and dissolve.
Both the occultists and those deceived by charismatic teachings rely on the credulity and readiness of those they counsel and advise. In like manner, charismatic witchcraft might approach this classic problem from a variety of religious perspectives, with the twist that God is made amenable to the woman’s plans. Supernatural dreams and visions labeled the discerning of spirits, a word of wisdom, a word of knowledge and prophecy, intercessory prayers of “binding and loosing” and the taking of scripture out of their natural context and applying them to the woman’s personal agenda are the primary methods of choice. In this instance, the woman might be advised to pray over her man’s side of the bed, anoint it with oil or holy water, name it and claim it by sending forth evil prayers against her man’s lover, in unsavory ways unbefitting to Jesus Christ, and pray controlling, manipulative prayers to change the man’s behavior.Rather than deal openly with the issues of infidelity, sin and spousal abuse, Charismatics are infamous for seeking “the supernatural solution.”
To my dismay, I learned, that many practices both in and out of the church that are widely accepted as normal today actually have their origins in witchcraft. I thank God for my deliverance journey that started when i reached out to Pastor Pam who walked me through the deliverance process, helped me break my false conversion and discard false teachings. I got healed from my torment once I received the truth about the Lord Jesus Christ.
Since we live in such deceptive times, you could be engaging in witchcraft practices, totally unaware. The danger in doing so is you open yourself up to the spiritual world and give demons legal rights to enter your life and run it amok.
If you need to learn more on how witchcraft got widely accepted in the church and how to avoid being deceived get a copy of “The New Idolatry” at
http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/pam_s911
Spiritual Warfare Library of PSM 
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