My name is Anna. And my story is about how for many years I was engaged in self-destruction, but I called it self-development.
And it all started outrageously banal: school years, falling in love, the desire to get a loved one at any cost. A friend gave Natalia Stepanova a conspiracy book. In the 1990s, she was the girls' favorite author at our school. These books were quietly given out in the children's (!) Library. And there were so many tips, stories, conspiracies for all occasions in them, that it was hard not to fall into these networks.
My parents had no idea what I was doing, and I was a disciplined student of magic. She was engaged in witchcraft, not even disdaining "black magic", went to grandmothers, healers for help to enhance the effect. And the aspirations were low: to bewitch, get rid of rivals, give someone their illnesses, find out the answers to questions … But all this is now perceived as flowers, because the berries began later. The magic I did was primitive. She did not set high goals for herself, but I was growing up, and I wanted something more. I wanted to expand the boundaries of perception. And I got into a new network - Carlos Castaneda.
1. Castaneda
Castaneda came to me through my next of kin. They read him and forgot, but I took everything I could from him. I devoted eight years to this teaching. Heather Carlos. Speaking about God, he did not deny him, but reasoned that there is a more complex organization of the universe. But he mercilessly ridiculed the Eastern teachings, astrology, and other mystical attempts to find out the truth. He argued that they have no idea what they are talking about and that they will never be able to look beyond human perception. I liked this idea. And off we go.
Practicing everything that Castaneda, Taisha Abelar, Florinda Donner-Grau and his other students described, as well as the special gymnastics of Tansogrity, I reached the level of maditation when knowledge comes by itself. There is no longer the need to read or search for something. I easily went beyond the boundaries of ordinary consciousness, there were out-of-body travel, a colossal development of intuition. I became uninteresting to communicate with people, tk. I knew in advance what they would think and what they would say. Conversations lost their meaning. I felt cold indifference to my family. Impassivity itself was my goal, humanity kept me in the world of everyday life and was a kind of imprisonment, it was necessary to get rid of this fixed perception. As a result, this difficult, long, dangerous path led me to disaster.
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2. Disaster
In an altered state of consciousness, I have two "friends" - energetic entities. Our communication took place in a different reality, when my “I” was concentrated in the “subtle” body. By this time, without much effort, I was simply falling into such an unusual abyss, which resembled the visions of drug addicts. At the same time, I have always been fundamentally against rough uncontrolled "astral" exits, I have never taken drugs. But such methods were used by some of my friends, making various complex mixtures, boiling the South American liana "Ayahuasca", psilocybin mushrooms, etc.
Energetic entities could take any forms, but once I saw them, as I think, real. It's hard to describe, they are unlike anything else. Dense, black, hissing, vertical sticks, constantly changing size, and they looked at me with their whole "body". They are awful! Their appearance had nothing to do with the image of ghosts, spirits, evil spirits, whose description looks even somehow childish, funny.
It was not friendship between us. They fed on my strength, stuck to me and frightened me, their touches caused unbearable pain not only to the body, but also to the soul. I was in an electric chair, and there was no end to it. I had no one to ask for advice. I stopped sleeping, my strength was melting, the energy was zero (and I saved it with such greed).
At that time, I still did not draw parallels with Christianity. Good and evil did not exist for me, I proceeded from the concept of universal equality, i.e. there is nothing important, everything and everyone is the same, a person is also equal to any stone, no one matters. What we see with our eyes is not the whole reality, but only a small edge, and in order to put all the puzzles together, we needed freedom from our own insignificant personality, but together with it, kindness, love, mercy, compassion turned out to be superfluous. Therefore, in my views there was no room for dividing into evil and good. There were just other bizarre forms of life and not always belonging to our world, without a bodily shell. And the fact that I unwittingly became a donor for parasites was considered by me only as my own omission, mistake and loss of control over the situation. If someone told me then,that what I am doing is a sin, then I would think that this person is in complete ignorance and thinks in primitive concepts.
Well, then came the time of serious illnesses. The doctors confirmed that my health was in a deplorable state, my medical record became as thick as an encyclopedia. But no one knew the reason except me. I needed to do at least something to get rid of this scourge.
3. Attempts to cure
Naturally, the drugs didn't help. I continued my madness, trying subconscious programming from the books of Valery Sinelnikov. His methods and other similar ones (there are a lot of them) proceeded from the principle of positive thinking, but they closely echoed my long-forgotten conspiracies, whispers, spells of applied magic, in which Stepanova once ruled. The only difference was that innovations in every possible way avoided any associations with mysticism and witchcraft. The emphasis was on the subconscious. The conspiracies themselves were replaced by mental images, positive thought forms, but the essence has not changed. These techniques, promising the fulfillment of desires, personal development, health, are used by most people for the same base purposes: to marry an oligarch, have a lot of money, get younger, be lucky in a casino, etc. And most importantly,that special efforts were not required, there was no need to change life, to repent; all responsibility fell on the almighty "subconscious", which will do everything for us. Now this is a very common form of veiled magic, there are many seminars and trainings. It is almost impossible to see this as a danger to a person who thinks little. These methods did not help me much, rather I began to feel again like the center of the earth, and this was not compatible with my ideology.rather, I began to feel again like the center of the earth, and this was not compatible with my ideology.rather, I began to feel again like the center of the earth, and this was not compatible with my ideology.
For some time she was interested in neo-pagan trends, Vedic literature, listened to Trekhlebov's lectures. "Veles's Book" and "Russian Vedas" seemed to me absurd nonsense, a sort of "artifact", hastily fabricated. People dress in old Slavic outfits, jump over a fire, reinterpret history in their own way, talk about "reality" and "rule" and thoroughly powder their brains with subtle nationalist tricks. This path was not for me. I walked by.
I did not go to acupuncture for long, then I got acquainted with hatha yoga, she interested me. Yoga … a deep abyss. She became a daily participant in my struggle against myself. I got hold of a rare book on yoga. All instructors unanimously claim that this or that asana corrects various health disorders. But this nonsense intended for the stupid masses, because the goal of yoga is to achieve "enlightenment", liberation from the fetters of reason, and improving health is just a side effect. And the danger in this practice is much greater than one might imagine.
I cut off a slap in the face and from yoga, it finally undermined my health. With my diagnosis, which at that time had not yet been established, it was simply illegal for me to exercise excessively, so when I left classes, I acquired another inoperable ailment. Doctors were surprised how I managed to catch so many rare and incurable diseases at such a young age, but this did not surprise me, I explained everything by the loss of vitality, which was taken from me by force. It didn’t even occur to me that all my illnesses were the essence of the straitjacket that the Lord put on me, so that I would finally stop my demonic activities and start saving my dying soul.
And, of course, I didn’t miss the chance to be like a Holotropic Breathwork course, after which the energetic entities began to work on me with even greater fury. I decided to sum up all my "efforts".
4. Outcome
I lost the accumulated strength, only scraps of health remained, the mental state was equated with schizophrenia. I was even prescribed pills for this. Psychiatrists called my despondency depression, my nightmares and insomnia were also called some terrible word. When after some time I refused to take their medicines, because I was sure that spiritual ailments cannot be cured with pills, the doctors did not even resist. One young psychiatrist, who had known me for a long time, hinted that not in all cases psychiatry can determine what is wrong with a person and how to get rid of it, and they made a diagnosis, because they had to somehow name my condition.
By the age of 28, I had not acquired a family, children, a decent education, or a job. There was only a premonition of the approaching end, and so I wanted to speed up this moment myself. But for some reason it was scary …
5. Salvation
I no longer had the strength to look for something, try, a feeling of doom appeared, I just resigned myself that I would not last even more than a year. I begged for money from a friend and went to Diveevo to see Serafim Sarovsky, whom I learned about from a book given by my dad the day before. At that time I did not yet have fervent faith, but there was hope, I believed all the miracles described in the book about Father Seraphim.
She could not pray, fast, or repent, but she sincerely asked for help from the saint's reliquary. And, I feel that the lamp of faith has lit up in my soul. And it became so good and calm. The illnesses began to subside, but did not disappear. But on the other hand, an extraordinary lightness appeared in my soul, for the first time the feeling of loneliness receded. I read a lot of Orthodox literature and was endlessly surprised, realizing that this is where the Truth had to be sought. She was not hiding, she was not hiding, come, take any, know the grace and joy of communion with God. And all this was always near, the temple is not far from my home, now it has become my favorite place in the city, but before, like a blind person, I did not notice this treasure.
I couldn't stop praying, because the words of prayer are the brightest and purest words that ever came out of my mouth. And I'm still alive, like I was given a reprieve. No one can save a person except God, and there is no other truth in the universe, there is none in Buddhism, or in Krishnaism, or in shamanism, or in other mystical and esoteric teachings.
And those energetic entities, it turned out, cannot stand the sign of the cross and prayer. Now I understand that these are ordinary demons. The Gospel contains the golden words spoken by the Apostle Paul "If God is for us, then who is against us?"
If you describe my renunciation of the occult and cite as an example the Church means that I have since begun to resort to, then this story will repeat the stories of many other victims. I haven't come up with anything new. My first confession was cold, I did not feel repentance. It overwhelmed me after 3-4 months of regular attendance at services. Repentance came to me with such bitter tears. I gasped with spiritual pain, as if something had awakened in me.
I slowly began to realize that for many years I had lived in the most huge and malicious lie, my "impeccable" worldview crumbled like a house of cards. I read the Penitential Canon and cried, suffering did not let me go. I came and complained to the priest that the sins of which I had already confessed, with renewed strength pressed me to the ground. He replied that these wounds will bleed for a long time.
Oh, how hard I got rid of all the magical literature! My bookcase is half empty. But the hardest part was to say goodbye to Castaneda. The breakage was worse than that of drug addicts. I wanted to hide these thick books, touch the pages, breathe in the aroma of such a genius deception. And when I finally threw them away, then in stores I began to often come across these publications. The evil one did not want to let me go.
It took a whole year for this longing to be rooted out of my heart. Confession every week, communion, unction, daily reading of akathists and canons, prostrations and struggle with one's sins and passions. After all, in addition to the grave sin of witchcraft, I had many prodigal sins, which were also hard to get rid of. My sinful extinct soul began to recover very slowly. The Lord gave strength, and only thanks to this I began to feel joy, calmness, silence. All the same, I remained incapacitated, there were talks about giving me a disability, but for some reason they didn’t let me, and I still cannot work, because I’ve been on my feet for a week, and I don’t get out of bed for a week, I suffer from pain and other symptoms. But I believe that this time was given to me for prayers, for reading the patristic heritage, the Gospel, for building relationships with parents,who have been deprived of my love for so many years.
Once, in seventh grade, I was taking a Polaroid photo with a friend. But the picture upset me. I was dressed in a black fur coat, and on the floor of my chest in my photo there was a golden cross in the form of a well-defined glow, such a large, bright cross. I was very scared then, besides, my friend's mother said that this was a bad sign. Since then, I was convinced that I would not live long, that a cross was put on me, like some kind of curse. But now, remembering that unusual phenomenon from my childhood, I came to the conclusion that it was a sign that sooner or later, but I will make my choice - to be with Christ. And my cross turned out to be very heavy, but the Lord also carried His cross on Him. The cross is not a symbol of death, but a symbol of life, salvation. This is the way I had to go to figure out WHAT is Truth, and WHERE it is. Thank God for everything! God works in mysterious ways!