From New Age to Christianity: One Seeker's Journey

I walked through every spiritual door I could find, including Eastern meditation, channeling, psychedelics, Hindu devotion, and Buddhist practice. Each path delivered something real. The real question was where those experiences were leading.

I write as a witness, not a prosecutor. I walked many paths, and I would not want anyone to judge me at any point along that road. I am testifying to where those paths led me and what finally brought rest.

The Paths I Walked

I do not say this as someone who dabbled. From early childhood I sensed something most people seemed to ignore. I practiced the three major Buddhist vehicles, or traditions: Theravada, Mahayana, and Vajrayana. I spent years trying to leave my body, collecting rare first editions on out-of-body experiences, adjusting my diet for spiritual sensitivity.

Then I went deeper. I married at an ancient Hindu temple. Brass idols sat in my home shrine. I completed thousands of mantra repetitions in single sessions. I stood in the inner sanctum of one of the world's most visited temples and felt the presence that devotees worship day and night. Something was there. Something responded.

I explored psychedelics: LSD, psilocybin, ayahuasca. They promised expanded consciousness. They shook me like a snow globe and rearranged my inner furniture. Some people land well on the other end. For me, they opened questions that only Scripture eventually answered.

What Responded

These paths shared a common thread: genuine spiritual encounter. Meditation produced altered states. Devotion produced palpable presence. Psychedelics shattered ordinary perception. Something responded. Powers I could not name made themselves known. Phenomena I could not explain away occurred.

My mother sensed what I could not. The house felt oppressive to her when she visited. One day, her Bible fell open to Deuteronomy 7:26, the passage warning about bringing cursed things into your house. The verse was marked in red. She never marks her Bible in red.

During her visits, when I was unaware, she began opening the cabinet holding the idols to pray against them. Years later, she told me what she experienced: the faces seemed to shift, the eyes seemed to blink. Whether this was spiritual reality or a mother's heightened perception in fervent prayer, I cannot say. What I know is that her intercession mattered.

The Breaking Point

The more I practiced, the worse my life became. I added mantra repetitions, hours of puja (Hindu worship rituals), and new layers of devotion. Life did not get better. It got worse. The pattern was clear: intense experiences came, but peace did not. Effort increased while our home grew heavier.

We could not keep serving entities that demanded endless devotion while giving us oppression in return. Something had to give.

My wife and I drove to a hiking path around several lakes. We found a bridge over a canal. I threw those heavy brass idols into the water, one by one. The relief was immediate and physical for both of us, as if something had released its grip. We finally understood who we had entered into relationship with.

I had called this warning primitive. Scripture had been right all along.

What Scripture Offered

When I finally opened Scripture and read it myself (instead of reading about it), I found what none of my seeking had revealed: a thread of truth running from Eden to eternity, preserved through persecution, and accessible to anyone willing to look.

I expected a tribal deity, a god of one culture claiming universal authority. I found the opposite. The God of the Bible was larger than anything I had encountered. The spiritual phenomena I had experienced fit inside His framework. Scripture names the powers, explains their origin, and warns where they lead.

What drew me was the offer Scripture made:

• One sacrifice, sufficient for all sin (Hebrews 10:12)
• One return, and God's promise of a world without death, sorrow, or pain (1 Corinthians 15:23-26; Revelation 21:1-4)
• One body, not a prison to escape but a temple to be resurrected, transformed, and glorified (1 Corinthians 15:44)
• A promised rest with the Creator who made us

The Sabbath anchors this framework. It memorializes a specific creation by a distinct Creator. The seventh day points backward to Eden and forward to eternity. It points toward the rest promised by the God who made us.

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