My Testimony: A Word for Satanists and Pagans

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I was raised in the church. I was a pastors child. Speaking in tongues and operating in the gifts of the spirit was normal for me. I had a falling out with the Church and Christianity around twelve years old due to a traumatic experience. I started questioning things. I started doing drugs at a very young age. Eventually, I sold them and was addicted to them, and any type of stimulation I could get my hands on. I was also exercising self-mutilation and attempting suicide regularly. I got into witchcraft around thirteen or fourteen. By fifteen I became a Satanist. A black witch and priestess. And I later became an official card carrying member of the Church of Satan.
 

The thing with God is when He gives us gifts He doesn't take them away. I read people's futures, told prophesies, astral projected, channeled into peoples dreams, cursed people, blessed people; you name it. I was very well versed in my faith and in my craft. And as a philosophy major, I had Satanism down to an exact science. I wasn’t playing around. I was a Satanic witch for about 6 years. I did many works of magic and I stood by my ground. I was greatly involved with black witchcraft studying it constantly and always trying to go deeper and deeper
 

I owned tons of books on Black Magick, Satanism of all types (though I was particularly fond of Anton LaVey as I was a card carrying member of the C.O.S. or the Church of Satan which he founded). I knew how to perform ancient Satanic rituals by memory, I studied alchemy, read Tarot, performed scrying, read palms, and did Romani magick. I did mental or astral readings without any tools involved and I also performed and studied  herbalism. I knew the names of all of the forms of Satan, various demons, etc. And daily, would sit in my altar chamber or the forest and perform rituals, tap into the spirit realm, astral project (or leave my body), and call to the different forms of Satan for power and relationship.
 

 Satanism holds to the belief that you are your own god and Satan is the spirit of this. The spirit of freedom, rebellion, power, magick, and creating one’s own reality. The name of the form of Satan Belial even means “without master."
 

This ancient earthly code was manifested in these forms of Satan which (I believed) when taken in, when understood, when practiced led a person to unlock the deeper realms of what it means to "be." This was reaching “God Head." I never believed that Satan was God directly, most Satanists don’t.  I believed I was god of my own reality and being Satan or this spirit which was the Baphomet, the Horned God,  was the unlocked form of a human. So in a sense, Satan was God to my sect of Satanists, but not in a theistic sort of way or so we thought.
 

I had seen and I had done many things as a Satanic Witch. I would say things and they would occur exactly as I said them. I would curse people word for word and watch it happen. I would tap so far into this spirit reality that I would see profound visions and watch every ritual, spell, every encounter unfold before my eyes. I was heavy into this witchcraft, to the point I was in love with it. This was my life. It was not just a side thing like for some who professed "Oh yeah, I’m a Wiccan, I wear heavy eyeliner and sometimes use a ouija board." No, I was serious. I was all in. I laughed at “white witches” because they were too afraid to put both feet in.
 

After I left Christianity as a teen due to those traumatic experiences, Satan drawing me away and having homosexual attraction, I started exploring magick around 13 years old. I tried Wicca or "white magick" and even Native American sorcery. But what got me really was when I was around fifteen when I cursed my brother for doing something to upset me in that moment. I said, “I curse you in the name of Satan that you will be hit by a moving vehicle!” The next day, he was hit by a car. He was injured and shocked himself and will testify to this as today he is alive and well. When I heard that this happened.. I was sold. That was it. I knew that this was real. I knew that if I said, “In the name of Satan …(blank) and believed it that it would happen. After this I knew what I wanted and who I wanted to be. I wanted what I saw happen, what I made happen through him at my belt and at my access at all times. I knew Wicca wasn’t it, I wanted all in. I wanted what this Satan had and what he had brought me with the snap of my finger. From then on, I dedicated my life as a Satanist, studied every form of witchcraft, black witchcraft, Satanism and built my world to exercise my abilities as a Satanic Witch.

I quit cutting myself around sixteen and my suicidal tendencies began to fade away when I started exploring psychedelic drugs. I was preoccupied with feeling "enlightened" that I did not see a need to do that to myself anymore. I eventually quit drugs completely at about 19 years old although I was still dealing at the time. I gave up pills around 17 on my own because I had overdosed too many times. I gave up alcohol at 18, acid around 18 (amongst other drugs like ecstasy, pcp, cocaine, mushrooms, and DMT) around 19, and then finally, marijuana. Marijuana was the hardest because I had smoked it every single day, all day from when I was in the 8th grade. I then asked myself, why can't I let this go?  I realized it was out of a fear to be without some kind of buffer to my inner pain. I started my journey of drugs young  because I wanted to destroy my conscience and numb my pain after that series of traumatic experiences. My Christian guilt combined with an already strong conscience and those events tormented me because I felt that they were all my fault. So, I did drugs to get rid of the feelings and to become numb.

Fast forward to when I was 19 and I slowly was yearning for freedom from these crutches and from my past pains. Even though I wasn't a Christian, I still felt God's conviction telling me I didn't want this stuff anymore, that I wanted to be free. Even in LaVey's work he expresses that drugs inhibit one's witchcraft and that really bothered me. I quit everything and yet I was still selling. I made crazy money and it was hard to let go of, even after being robbed, held hostage etc,. I was good at it and was selling several different things in vast amounts. One day I heard God tell me clearly, "you don't do this stuff yourself so why are you giving it to other people? These people need help and they're coming to you for it and you're giving them drugs instead. You're selling people death." This was a punch in my gut. I wasn't involved with Jesus but I always had a big heart and this was because of the call He put on my life. I stopped selling after this encounter. I detached from all my friends, the drug crowd, the culture, and went off the grid. Other than Satanism, I basically had become a decent, mature, law abiding citizen by the time I was 19. Mind you, even throughout all my horrific teen years filled with drugs and chaos, I managed to graduate at 16 and go to college for my Associates in Liberal Arts and maintain a 4.0. For this, I have to thank God's grace, my father and mother. They always instilled good work ethic and values in me and my father was a Ph.D, a scholar, and an author. He invested so much in me, so even though I lived like garbage I still (being very goal oriented) maintained my school and my work quite well). A lot of my self- esteem came from this as there was really no where else for it to come from. 

After I had totally separated from my old life and ways,  I was still debating Christians left and right at my university while furthering my covenant with Satan. I had put all my mental energy, regenerated memory, insight, and intellect into witchcraft, academia and weightlifting. I often made the Christians I encountered look stupid because I was able to use philosophical reasoning to back my Satanic ideology. I was (to be blunt) a force to be reckoned with. Nobody was changing my mind and I loved trying to destroy the faith of Christians.
 

I had experienced too much. I had seen too much. Experienced things people would only dream of. My covenant was strong and I am also a woman of my word. There was no going back. now, I knew the Bible. I knew the theology. I wasn’t stupid. It was bull crap to me. It wasn’t the Truth. I had manifested so much with Satanism. I had figured out the underlying patterns of nature and the Spirit World.
 

Now, Satanists as I explained, (at least my kind) believe in a God. We aren't atheists. But it's not really the Devil. It is oneself, which is also the cosmic force of all things. God in manifestation. Creator of our own reality, if you will. But Jesus ? You’ve got to be kidding me. I was no stranger to spiritual activity or the gifts of the spirit. I did this daily. I had a whole cosmological understanding of what God was, what I was, and how Satanism (which is actual more complex than people give it credit for) operated as an Objective Truth and not just a subjective truth.
 

One day, while I was attending my university for my Bachelors in Philosophy, I broke my arm squatting at the school’s gym. I snapped my humerus in several placed and stretched my radial nerve beyond repair. I went to the hospital and had to have surgery the next morning. The pain was worse than labor and I heard a voice say, “Look at you, you’re your own God?” I saw how vulnerable humans are when God takes His hand off of us. This didn't stop me. Mind you, there were a greater series of events like this. I smashed my car twice and even lost my engagement ring.
 

My father kept telling me, “you mess with the Devil and its going to get worse”. I thought, whatever old man, you're not stopping me. The doctors eventually said that my radial nerve could not be located. I wouldn’t be able to use my hand again or fingers most likely ever again even with the surgery offered for this type of radial nerve damage. Months went by and i was still paralyzed. One day (don’t ask me why), but I  quietly said to myself “Jesus if you heal my hand I will serve you." And I kid you not, the next day my flopped over hand, limp wrist and fingers moved. I was in shock but still in denial. From that day on my hand got stronger and stronger. Two weeks later I’m completely healed . I however, still did not  change; I still kept my witchcraft. I blew it off.  

I remember while at the university there were many evangelists who would preach in the Quad and often I either taunted them, debated them or oddly enough, became friends. Some of them were kind and I would even let them pray for me because my heart was not totally against the idea of someone's blessing; even if it was a Christian's. I remember I even made one friend in one of my philosophy courses who would get coffee with me and we would discuss Sartre and other philosophers. One day after  hearing my values and heart, he said, "you know, you don't sound or talk like a Satanist, you sound like a Christian." This absolutely boiled me with anger. But he was right, my heart had a call on it. I was raised with Christian values and God instilled in me a heart that was innocent and that loved people. I even loved figures like Saint Francis of Assisi who gave up everything to follow Christ and to live innocently serving others. My roots were in Jesus and the gifts He gave me were consecrated by Him. This person's statement made me so mad probably because some part deep within me knew that Jesus was the Son of God. That He had something planned for me that I was supposed to do. 

 I remember a campus evangelist would always talk to me, he was so kind and he wasn't pushy or judgmental. I think he was Korean and I sadly don't remember his name. He would always just sit down with me whenever I would be studying in different parts of the campus or eating lunch. He would always ask me how I was and then sometimes try to share the Gospel with me.

After I broke my arm he found me sitting in the Student Union two weeks after the accident all busted up, limp hand, bruised arm with a huge surgical scar from under the shoulder all the way down to the elbow, and with an absolutely broken spirit. He asked me what happened and I explained my situation and how my life was messed up now because of this. I remember him just sitting there with his head down beside me and an expression that was a sigh. He did not say anything, he just sat there and lamented with me. But it was like I could read what he was saying to me without him saying it. I could feel that I was not serving the Lord and I was watching all my life and potential go down the drain because I was living in opposition to Him. Sometimes silence speaks greater than words.
 

As soon as my broken humerus healed, I found out I was 5 weeks pregnant. I was engaged, but we weren’t really planning on marrying until I finished school. We were not financially ready for a child, my now husband didn't even have insurance and we were living paycheck to paycheck. I was also in the middle of working on my B A in philosophy and was going towards my Ph.D in Philosophy at the time. I wanted to be a professor of philosophy for graduate students and an author of philosophical theories.
 

So, I am freaking out at this point. I kept thinking how my dad was going to be furious with me and disappointed in me, that I would never finish school, and that my fiancé would probably leave me. I can’t do this…I just can’t do this. And mind you, even as a Satanist, I am and was very pro-life. Yet, I was still tempted by abortion in my mind upon finding out I was pregnant. It isn't an easy thing to process when you are terrified.  

My father told me (for he is a very spirit-filled and wise man), “don’t do witchcraft while you’re pregnant, it could harm the baby." In my head I thought, yeah, okay, whatever dude, I know you're wrong. But a teeeny tiny part of me was thinking, what if he is right? I thought, I will wait until after I have her to continue my witchcraft. I thought this because if there was even a 1 percent chance that he was right about this, I am not taking that chance because it's another life and not my own.
 

Pregnancy was odd and yet amazing. This period of no witchcraft gave me the time to reflect on my faith and all my life. By this time I was about 22 and I was experiencing freedom like I never had experienced before.
 

Satanists believe black and white need to exist for their opposite to exist. Evil isn’t evil, it's just an opposite and necessary force. God and the devil are one thing. Basically, it is a philosophy of duality. I began to think about abortion and I thought, how can there not be evil? There has to be because there is an evil in ripping apart and sucking out babies from their mothers. What about those who rape or murder or torture? All of these things destroyed the idea of  there being"no evil."
 

At this time I thought that God was not a hierarchy, but that God was an equal force of nature . "All is God." But then I thought to myself, logically speaking, is this really the case? God has to be above me. I’m not God and I did not manifest myself into being. I referenced Leibniz and considered that I am a contingent being and that God is a Necessary being. I asked myself, do we really need evil to have good? And answered myself, not necessarily, no. At this point in my life, I am just breaking down the entire philosophy of Satanism, of Anton LaVey, and I saw that there were some major logical flaws within it. 

There were also several times that God touched me during my pregnancy; but I always (even as a Satanist) had phenomenal experiences with God and the supernatural so I was having a hard time comprehending what was going on. However, I find that God uses whatever you’re involved in to speak to you I believe. I recall a time or two where the magick mushrooms would eat even told me to stop taking drugs. He even used my interest in the supernatural and in psychedelic drugs to reveal to me that I needed to be free from my addictions. But mainly, He used nature. There would be times I would just look at trees or birds bathing and I would weep uncontrollably at their innocence and beauty. He showed me His divinity that way. He would do this all time and in those moments, I would almost be separated or outside of Satanism and somewhere else with Him. But I didn’t know it. He would do that alot to me  during the pregnancy and even prior to it and I’d experience these breath taking, out of body moments of Gods presence through the experiences of nature.
 

I continued working, lifting, and going to classes while I was pregnant, even though it was hard. Finally, I had my baby. It was a beautiful and amazing and experience. She became my everything. I truly believe that she saved me  because if it wasn't for her conception, I would have never ceased doing magick. After she was born, I said, "Well maybe Im not a Satanist anymore. But I will always be a witch." I continued witchcraft, but was low-key kind of scared to call to any deities . So, I just called to the “All One” for I had to have something. It was all I knew for 6 years. I was a pagan in every sense of the word.
 

One day I was driving to the university and it hit me. I don’t know how to explain it, but I started hyper ventilating and I felt something  chasing me; but not in a frightening way. It was the Holy Spirit. I felt it all over me and I was thought to myself, "it’s God.. it’s Jesus, He is the one. I must confess it." I got out of my car, the church bells on campus were ringing that moment and calling me like His voice. I was all over the place . I cried in the hallway because I knew... I just knew it was Jesus. But the next day I blew it off. And went back where to where I was. I remember crying in that hallway feeling and thinking joy for I knew it was Him but also thinking I want to be free but I can't, I don't know how to confess it, I don't know how to leave all of this. There was a stronghold on me
 

Months had passed and I heard God say, "You come to me in private but deny me in public." Well, I am a very loyal creature. I did not like this. But I had this whole image . People knew me as this well-versed Satanist. People would come to me for spells and even wisdom and readings. My Instagram was used as a platform for Satanism. I recorded all of my rituals on there. All my followers were practically Satanists. I thought, I have no courage because I cannot just leave this title...this boast this...image, and the covenant I made to Satanism. I will look like a fraud. I will be hated and I’m not even sure if any of this is real anyways. For months I was at a stand still and absolutely tormented. I was too terrified to call to the forms of Satan and I was too terrified to even entertain the idea of getting out. I was a person of no faith and no spirituality and this was contradictory to my very being. I was absolutely miserable. I was a firm believer in all that was spiritual, I had to be immersed in what I knew to be God. Even as a Satanist I despised atheists and was one of the few in my classes debating the professors and students for the existence of God despite my religious status.
 

Someone asked me one day (for they knew I was a witch) what I believed was the truth and out of my mouth I stuttered and then said, "I believe that Jesus Christ..is the Son of God". This was the first time I spoke this aloud in maybe eight or nine years. Afterwards I thought to myself, well, that wasn’t so bad. But I still wasn’t sure. So I started looking into the Kabbalah.

So I said to myself, "I’ve never read the Kabbalah, maybe this could be for me." Mainly so because the Kabbalah is very syncretist, it is a blend of some esotericism with Judaism. So I read it this book on the subject, and I remember that it said that "there is a name that when said makes the heavens and the Earth shake."  And I am thinking, well, what is it?! And this sentence bolded out to me . It said, “YHWH” or Yahweh and I just couldn’t get it out of my mind. For weeks. I thought, yes! this may be my out.  Maybe I can be into Judaism or something.
 

By this time I was more distanced from my old ways and was thinking, "okay God (the one true God) I'm ready to try you, but I'm freaked out of making this leap." But it was so hard, I couldn't shed this identity. The devil used this to cripple me from moving. So I thought to myself, "yes! let’s try this 'Yahweh thing.'"
 

I would say the name here and there. I felt good when I did, a peace. I tried to incorporate it in my craft. Many witches do this, but I wasn’t like that before. I laughed at white witches or those who were ambiguous. I'm a very all or nothing person. You cant mix faiths like that. But here I am, giving it a go.
 

One day, I decided to get on youtube and play some Hebrew music ,why not? I loved Hindu and Turkish music and really any type of traditional music.  I remembered this album my dad played, it was a Hebrew album back from when I was "on fire" for Jesus as a little girl in my dad's church (he was also a pastor). I was laying hands on people, speaking in tongues, prophesying and even preaching at the age of eight back then. The first search option that pops up is that exact album. I am shocked but I play it  anyways. Instantly, I recognize the first song and I start to cry. I can’t control it, though. He’s here. The Holy Spirit is here. It’s over.
 

My title of Satanist shattered in the presence of the King. I felt a hole in the top of my head open up and shoot down to my feet. Im weeping. I felt the presence of God all over me. And I’ve seen stuff that would freak you out and amaze you in witchcraft… but never like this. I could never go back after this. Never. This had blown away every experience in any practice that I had even encountered. My heart absolutely knew that this was real and that this was Jesus. He had unlocked the combination to my heart and my soul confirmed it was Jesus because we know in our hearts when it is Him because our very being is made in His image. I remember my cat was rolling around on the floor like crazy near where my phone was (animals know who their maker is.) and I just sat in the presence of Jesus all night. The chains were broken that the Enemy had bound me with, I could finally see for the first time.
 

Days later, I texted a prophetess of the Lord that my father had raised up on behalf of a friend who wanted some help and prayer. But she texted back saying it was me who she needed to speak with. So she called me on the phone. She told me the devil had those traumatic events happen to me when I was young to try to destroy me because he knew I was meant to be a force in God’s army. She told me she saw me laying hands on people and breaking their chains. She saw me leading people and having people follow me to walk with Jesus. She said so many things and she had know idea about the encounter that I just had in my bedroom the other night. However, he’s the type of woman that can tell you what your'e thinking of, she’s very gifted in the prophetic.
 

After the phone call it was like I had woken up from a coma. I was awakened. I was brought right back to where I was when I was a little girl. Where I last left off. And I thought, “What the heck have I been doing? The most high God has a mission for me?! let's go!” I was on cloud 9. I felt like I had been in a coma for those 6 + years and that I was rejoined with my lost child self when Satan robbed my spirit from my identity. I listened to the whole album that night and just could not believe how long I had been gone and what all I had done 

The next day I burned all my Satanic stuff, my altar, my books; everything. My most prized items that I could never let go of. with my father. I took two huge sacks of all my stuff and together we went to the park's fire pit and burned them all, it was a Saturday. I remember his car was on and the song "Saturday in the Park" began to play singing the words "Saturday, in the park, you'd think it was the forth of july" as all the smoke filled the air and the flames burned. A huge ray of light even came down in the midst of that gloomy day before what we were burning. It was surreal. I remember. my father saying that the smell of the burning witchcraft items smelled like the way demons smell.  

Later that day I broke a cross pendant off of an old rosary and I put it on the chain that once held my beloved pentagram pendant and I wore it. I deleted all my pictures and ritual videos from  Instagram and I went out and told the world what He did for me. Two weeks from this day, I prayed for random people and helped lead four to Christ and still pray for people I see when God gives me a word. I was also blessed with the gift of visions. He shows me incredible visions and things of the Spirit that He uses for His glory. 

The day I burned my stuff my father saw a vision of me opening a golden book like metal snd opening it and God said to me, “I am giving you all of your dreams." Rainbows and stars came from the book and I began to eat the pages like the prophets ate the scrolls. The Lord then gave me a scepter and commanded I have spiritual jurisdiction. In that same moment I saw God bowing my head and placing a golden medal around my neck. As if I had won. Nothing compared to this feeling. It was the greatest day of my life. The closest feeling to what it felt like when I converted is your wedding day. And that doesn't even compare. 

When I finally took my first communion after my conversion, it had been many many many years. My good friend, who is a pastor invited me to her church for it.  I remember that I could barely make it down the aisle. 

I was hyperventilating and crying so much because the Spirit of God was upon me. I was experiencing the heavy power of His glory for who He really was. I was about to meet my Jesus. And I saw myself in the Spirit that moment walking down the aisle as the Bride of Christ ready to receive Him and be joined to Him forever. 

I will never forget it for the rest of my life. The day I walked down the aisle as the Bride of Christ and when my good friend broke bread for me. He had it all planned out for me. He Made it so special for me. As if to say, "Look, look what I have had for you all along. I've been waiting here for you here all these years."

We are all called to be the Bride of Christ and He has been waiting for us all before time had even begun.
 

I am so in love with Jesus and currently in the process of getting my Master’s of Divinity to hopefully one day be pastor. My passion for leading others to Christ overwhelms me. He was calling me. And I was the prodigal daughter that has come home. Christianity is the only religion with a salvific figure that gives us an answer of how to get to Heaven not by deeds but by grace. The only known revelation of God to man is in Jesus Christ. The only one to come to save us from our sins and to defeat death and sin through His resurrection. This is the only thing that actually keeps getting better. I know nothing else like it.

I remember after I gave my life to Jesus, I went to my university to pick up my cap and gown for graduation and I thought to myself, wouldn't it be crazy if I saw that Korean campus evangelist when I go to pick up my stuff? Well, I pulled in and parked my car and as soon as I got out I saw him in the parking lot. I couldn't believe it. It was almost like God was telling me "now go tell all those who sewed seeds in your heart what I have done." So I yelled across the parking lot, "hey! do you remember me!?" and he said my name in a form of a question and I said, "guess what!?" and he said, "what!?" and I screamed so loud with tears in my eyes "I FOUND JESUS!!!" I ran to him and hugged him and said,"Don't ever think what you do isn't doing anything because it is and it does. You preached to me when I was lost and now I found Jesus. thank you...thank you." 

I just wept and hugged him. He was stunned and did not even know what to say. I told him I was married and had a baby and he was just so happy for me. Then he said, "You have to engrain the Word of God within you. This is most important. You must memorize the Word as much as possible because this is the seed that God plants in your heart like when a man and a woman consummate. Through God's Word or His seed being planted in your heart, the Spirit then will dwell within you." At first I was thinking , okay but I was not sure why he had said this to me at this time. However, later in life it made so much sense to me because when we don't have the Word grounded in our hearts it becomes easy to get lost in the world and to become defeated when trials come our way or when the "honey moon stage "of our conversion is over. The Word is the sword that we wield agains the Enemy and it is our foundation when trials arise. Through this foundation we are not shaken. I then realized he was preparing me for the future as a Christian and establishing the foundation that I would need to survive as one. John Wesley's concern was not so much how to become a Christian but how to remain one.
 

My relationship with the Lord has grown so much and I experience Him daily. I’ve watched  Him move and when He comes over me, I just weep with joy, and an unexplainable feeling. When I even think back to my days as a Satanist, my heart was hard, broken, and longing. I just didn’t realize it. There were times that I would enter a church because someone would drag me there and I would hear the old hymns, or even one’s I never heard before, and they would start to make me cry.
I had no idea why I was overwhelmed with emotion and it would make me angry. I couldn’t even look at the lyrics on the projector at times because it would make a lump grow in my throat, my eyes fill with tears and just an unexplainable burst of emotion. This was because God was calling me.
 

Even as hard as my heart was, this would happen to me. I brushed it off. I tried to avoid churches aside from this because they disgusted me. What I didn’t realize was that this thing that would happen to me was the Holy Spirit. Often when we cry when in the presence of the Holy Spirit it is not like a regular shedding of tears for joy or even sadness. It is the shedding of tears from being healed. We cry because in those moments because God is sewing wounds of  brokenness within us when we are in His presence. That is what the Holy Spirit does. And that is what the Holy Spirit wants to do in every one of your lives. My goal is to help lead others to Christ and share His love in the same way that he shared it with me.
 

-Arianna Vairico
 

Photo info: Photos are of myself, the burning of my old altar, books, witchcraft accessories, and of my old altar .