Thin Places: Encountering Christ After the Occult

Plus my evil super power and book recommendations

“Please, please, Jesus… please don’t ever appear to me or let Blessed Mother or any other saints appear to me. I promise to be faithful even if nothing mysterious or dramatic ever happens to me. I’m okay with boring. Let it all be boring. You are enough. No spirits. No visions. No locutions. No flashes of light. No bleeding statues. Nothing. PLEASE.”

My prayer was whispered through the constricted throat of tears and fear. I was a young mother, home alone in the wee hours of a night a little too dark for my comfort. My husband was away on a 24-hour shift as a firefighter; I was in bed, hugging my sleeping babies close to me and trembling in the darkness. Welcome to the odd prayer life of a young Catholic woman trying to cut all material and spiritual ties with the occult.

The early years of my motherhood coincided with the early years of my conversion to a surrendered Catholic life. Though I was sincerely devoted to Christ at the time, I wasn’t exactly a blank slate on which to work. The deep roots of formative belief in something-other-than-Christ took time to dig up and disentangle from the good and true. The influence of New Age and occult ideas and sensibilities touched so many areas of my formation that I still recognize their influence in my life today. I have not ever been tempted to return intellectually or spiritually to that world—it is more accurate to say I have a strong aversion—but the touch of the occult is perhaps something like Frodo’s wound from the Nazgûl…

“I am wounded,” he answered, “It will never really heal.”

If I get to heaven, I will find full healing there; until then, the sorrow and the dread have had to be managed and surrendered to the sweet, clear, resounding victorious joy of Jesus Christ. Great freedom has come over time, especially through the love of my husband and the Eucharist, but the early years were burdened by a persistent heavy fear of the spiritual life and even prayer. To put it bluntly…

I was terrified of encounter.

Go ahead and come close, Jesus. But not too close.

There were some prayers I would not pray. Some surrender that I would not give. I did not trust him enough to protect me. So I begged; and on the darker nights, I sat somewhere between terror and prayer, afraid to fall onto the side of the enemy, and also afraid of the vulnerable targeted battle front of the Church Militant.

My good and tender God resolved some of the biggest obstacles for me in the first months of conversion with a gentle and safe (but clear and powerful) encounter with his Eucharistic presence. Though I was caught up in real joy and deep emotion, I was not swept away into mystical experience or departure from reality. Even so, fear persisted, especially in the long nights when my husband was on shift. My fear was amplified by the darkness, but was not irrational…

I wasn’t terrified of an imaginary purple googly-eyed monster under the bed that could be hugged away with “There is no such thing as googly-eyed purple monsters.” Cold hard fact is that there are monsters in the spiritual realm, I had encountered them, and they were not purple and bizarre. Sometimes horrible and sometimes beautiful. Most unsettling to me was the similarity of occult encounters to many accounts of apparitions or mystical experiences of the saints. In the most superficial details, there was almost no difference to me at all.

The occult was terrifying. But so was Catholic prayer and for similar reasons.

I’m reminded of one of my kids who learned to read very early and who read everything he could get his hands on including lives of the saints. It got into his tiny head that becoming a saint meant that terrible things necessarily happened to you. Like being burned, tortured, cut up, stoned, attacked by demons, bleeding, bed set afire, etc. So he had real fear attached directly to Christ-encounter. (Parents, maybe reread that, pray with it, and adjust.) It was similar with me…

I learned early in my conversion about demonic retribution and manifestations, and the spiritual life felt like the chaos of the Wild West. Nothing felt safe. The occult was not safe, but close proximity to Christ didn’t feel safe either. In fact, it felt like I should expect an increase of direct demonic encounter as a result of my fidelity…

But that is not what happened.

I eventually learned that God is safety. He has graciously allowed me to receive his love on a natural plane, with plenty of beautiful deep emotional consolations and awareness of his presence… but no crazy stuff. I’ve seen miracles but have not had to do battle in ambiguous spiritual places where I can’t discern between feelings of authentic peace and false euphoria. God is mystery, but he makes himself known. He came as a helpless infant. He comes as small as Eucharist. He is tender father and mighty king. And though “he is not a tame lion,” he IS safe and he is good.

The difference between my previous occult prayer and my Christian prayer is that the former chases spiritual experience and escape, and the latter pursues relationship with God. He has moved many walls, brick by brick, with the greatest tenderness, in his time and in his way, so that I might know the reality of encounter with Love itself…

And there is no chaos or terror in Him.

Come close, dear Jesus. Come close as you can. Be my courage and my peace in all circumstances. I trust in You.

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The Roots of Fear

My spiritual formation was an interesting mix of New Age and Catholicism. Almost no one who falls into occult belief intentionally chooses what is bad, but only what they perceive to be a great good, a path to healing, and a respite from pain. The same was true with my hybrid experience of Christianity and the occult. Initially, there did not appear to me to be any conflict at all. God was a God of love, peace, and every good thing, and my desire and beliefs all aligned with that.

I spent formative years straddling the boundary line between two opposing systems of belief without awareness of division. I was comfortable with the ritual, mystery, and symbolism of Catholicism and it didn’t necessarily look or feel substantially different to dive into more esoteric spiritual practices—though I will say that the banality of the post-conciliar felt banner era might drive a lover of beauty to seek something more. In that respect, occultism offers more a spiritual “buzz” for the seeker. They flowed together pretty seamlessly for me until I was older and I began to see the Church—the patriarchy—as oppressive and limited and deadly to spiritual progress. I was a feminist and feminist spirituality (and morality) was my guidepost.

The Church felt oppressive and I wanted to be free, but I also wanted to change her from the inside. I knew many active Catholics who were openly embracing occult practices and so it seemed reasonable to expect that, through activism and living my beliefs authentically, I could help move the needle. I believed in the astrological “Age of Aquarius” and the shifting of the spiritual energy of the earth to the feminine after having been in an imbalance toward the masculine energy for so long. The time was ripe. I was all in.

I believed a lot of stuff that was spiritually, physically, and psychologically harmful but plastered with exciting labels like gnosticism. I believed that the body was inherently evil. I also believed that there were tiny people (think Smurfs) living among us that only the spiritually astute could see. (Go right ahead and judge that.) And aliens. Lots of aliens. Let it suffice to say that when Christ is not the foundation, all manner of belief and behavior become possible.

You can listen to a little more of my story in a recent interview I had with Brooke Taylor on Relevant Radio. It’s a quick overview of my path into New Age beliefs, why that belief was literally a life and death battle, and the joy of finding my home in the hope and person of Jesus Christ.

Brooke asked me how parents can protect their children against occult influences and I didn’t have time for much of an answer. My first thought was to work on healing within the family to build strong holy bonds. But another place to start is by not allowing unfettered access to the “spirituality” section of the library (this was a problem for me)… or the more modern version of intellectual chaos called the cell phone.

I sometimes reflect on the problem of the occult in the Church, where it hides, and why it matters, and I think it would benefit families to understand something about how common and easy it is. Not to make you afraid (God is safe and trustworthy) but to equip and bring hope…

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I have a secret superpower.

With much embarrassment, I admit that my superpower is pretty evil (which is why I don’t use it, just to be clear) and would bring a lot of people to harm. I could also make money doing it. Here’s the nutshell:

My knowledge and experience of both the occult and Catholicism have equipped me to lead Catholics away from the security of Christ while letting them believe that they are still following Him.

It’s creepy but true. I know some of the thin places where the enemy apes Catholic aesthetic and misses truth by only a hair’s breadth, and I know some of the weak places in humanity where we are most easily deceived by our desire for beauty, respite, and hope of healing. I am aware of—and startled by—my own weakness that leads me far afield when I am anywhere but nestled close to the heart of Christ in all his majesty and simplicity.

On social media, I see occult/Christian influencers deceiving the faithful more or less well, and a little demon of pride sometimes rises up in me with a smug “I could do that and do it better.” It’s often true. Their deficiency (and the reason they embrace the occult in the first place) is that they don’t know Catholicism well enough to present a nearly seamless invitation. There are a couple who are remarkably good at sewing confusion and leading people (especially women) into dissent and occultism, and they’re effective because they have stayed in the Church, they know their purpose in leading, and they make the vision beautiful.

There are few things less appealing to a faithful young Catholic woman than a blue-haired elderly nun in a suit jacket and nylons lecturing about celestial alignment and abortion rights. But if you sing the young lady a song about God’s beauty, his steadfast love, his design on her life, his grace flowing through creation for her healing? You’ve got an opening. If you lean in to her preference for what is ancient, sacred, and mysterious? You’ve got an opening. Add incense and a chapel veil and a heart for the vulnerable? You’ve got an opening, a following, and an income.

For example, it might be helpful to consider that Latin is not only a sacra language in Christ’s Church, but also in satanic ritual. We shouldn’t be swept away by the sound of Latin simply because it is Latin, or ritual just because it has beauty, or religious language just because we are starving to hear it in the public square. These are the thin places where detachment (even from liturgical preferences) can help us draw nearer to Christ and away from the very poor leaders called sensuality and arrogance.

Men fall into occult sensibility as well as women but it might look a little different. I see big openings through fixation on pop exorcists, demonology, and fascination with power, the esoteric, ritual aesthetic, Eastern mysticism, apparitions, the intellect, fantasy fiction/gaming, and “tradition.”

Where is weakness? Wherever we are seeking something more than Christ.

I could write a handbook… but I won’t because that would be an evil thing to do. Instead, I encourage the seeker to be content with the simplicity of holiness. When we stop looking for the glitter in the magical and mystical, we are more likely to be perpetually awestruck at the holiness of the mundane.

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Books I’m reading…

• God’s Wounds: The Remarkable Truth of Those Who Bore the Signs of Christ's Passion — When my friend, John Clark, shared with me about his new book, he didn’t know how much I’ve struggled with any macabre physical manifestations of God (see my post above). At first, I avoided the book because I was waiting on a new pair of reading glasses that took far too long to arrive. When I finally got them, I had to face the fact that I didn’t really want to touch the subject at all. Knowing John’s sanity and faithfulness pushed me to open the the book. I’m reading it now and grateful. I will share more thoughts in the future. I’m encouraged by this review:

• IVF is Not the Way: The False Promises of Artificial Procreation — Well done, Stacy Transancos! This book is a much needed resource in a time when even many clergy are confused about IVF. I pray that it reaches many hands and hearts and helps facilitate understanding and renewal. Very nicely organized with fullness of Catholic teaching and an appropriate tenderness for those who find themselves struggling with infertility.

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If you’ve made it this far in reading, thank you. Thank you for taking time from your day to join me in thinking and praying on these things. Thank you for loving your families and working hard at your jobs and doing the hard unseen things. These few minutes that you’ve spent here are valuable because your life is valuable, and I pray that the Holy Spirit will work in some way through our interaction here to bring about healing in your life and the ones you love.

God is so good. Thanks be to God.

Melody

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