Surviving the Snare of the Occult

“She was someone who I trusted, someone who I became confortable being around,’” Aleacha says of her friend, Lorona. “She spoke to me and she said, ‘Aleacha, I want to tell you something. And she said ‘I’m involved in the occult.’”

Aleacha was 13 years old when she met Lorona, a schoolteacher who told Aleacha she had psychic powers. “She said ‘I’ve seen the gift in you, and that’s one of the reasons why I was drawn to you. I was attracted to you, and I believe that I can help advance this gift.’”

At the time, Aleacha was living in Jamaica, where her parents raised in church.  In fact, just months before, she had given her life to Christ. “It was really genuine,” Aleacha says. “I was really excited because I knew for a fact that if I had died at that time, I was in the right place, or right standing.  And I just began to spread the good news that I was now a Christian. I was now serving God.”

At first Aleacha was wary of Lorona, but there was also something intriguing about her new friend. “I began to think that if she was a witch, or if she practiced those things, maybe she was a good person,” Aleacha says. “Maybe she was a good witch. I began to think about all the shows that I saw on television. I began to more deny, be in denial, as to what she really was.”

Little by little she introduced Aleacha into the occult – using tarot cards, meeting spirit guides, and summoning spirits. “There was one evening, I decided I was going to summons a demon,” says Aleacha. “Suddenly I felt a jerk. And the only thing I remembered after that was walking down the streets, in the traffic. A couple neighbors were there. They were saying all sorts of stuff like maybe it was drugs and she was on drugs and this thing was driving her out of her mind.”

As she delved more into the occult, Aleacha enjoyed the sense of control she felt it gave her. “I wanted to have that recognition, I wanted to be known, and become one of the world’s powerful witches. I wanted to do what I wanted to do, and no one telling me what to do.

Aleacha moved to the Bahamas to delve deeper into occult practices. she also became an angry and vengeful woman, ready to cast a spell on anyone who crossed her. “At the time I always believed, that no one would do anything to me and get away with it. I would have to get you back, and it would have to be worse that what you did to me. I had this vengeance in me and I felt as if though I had to be my own God.”

By her early twenties, Aleacha was a well known witch, making great money reading fortunes for conventioneers.  Then one evening Aleacha had a ‘visitor.’

“I was coming from Paradise Island,” she recalls. “That night I did one of the biggest readings of my entire life. I think I read for almost 1500 persons. As I was driving over the bridge, it felt as though someone else was in the car with me and I began to look over my shoulders, look in the mirror, to make sure that no one else is in the car. And I began to think to myself, ‘I wonder if I picked up a spirit that was over there.’ That night, when I got home, I felt as if though I was dumb. I felt like I couldn’t talk. And I lay in the bed that night and I could not sleep. But I felt like I could not get up out of bed to open the door, and I could not open my mouth to say, ‘Hey, I’m in here.’”

Aleacha began to feel pressure on her chest that felt like a heart attack. “I began to think to myself, ‘I’m gonna die.’ Only in the movies, when I watch the movies, when someone is going to die, their entire life begins to flash across their face just like this,” she remembers. “And so, I began to say, ‘If I die, I don't want to die like this.’”

For the first time since she was thirteen, Aleacha prayed to God. “I said, ‘God, if you spare me, If you give me one more chance I will serve you. I want to change my life; I want to turn things around. I promise you that I will serve you for the rest of my life and I will tell others about you and about what you did for me. “

The presence left. Afterwards Aleacha called Lorona to tell her she was through, and started reading her bible and praying daily. One Sunday she went to church.

“The message that Sunday morning was ‘Starting Over Again,’ Aleacha says. “As the pastor began to preach that Sunday, I began to cry. I felt as thought I could not stop crying, and I cried the entire service. Everything was just coming to me: the things that I did, the persons who I may have hurt, maybe physically, maybe mentally, maybe persons who I shut out of my life, persons who I’ve hurt by my words.”

When Aleacha got home, Lorona was waiting for her. “She began to say, ‘What are you doing? These Christians have you brainwashed. What are you thinking? What are you doing?’ And I got so bold and I said,  ‘Get out of my house! I don’t want to see you in my house anymore,” Aleacha recalls. “I took all the cards, the room cards, the tarot cards, the angel cards, all the cards that I had, and I just began to take them out one by one, and I began to drop them in the fire, and I lit them on fire right there. And when the fire was over, I just fell to my knees and I began to cry out to God. I said ‘God, this is it. There’s no turning back now. You know, I’ve made up in my mind that 100% I’m going all the way. ’It ends tonight. It’s all gone. There's nothing else that I have in my house that represented the occult. There’s nothing that I had in my house that represented the kingdom of darkness,” Aleacha says. “I started to surround myself with persons who were more, you know, into God and persons who were Christians. They began to counsel me, to do deliverance sessions with me. And it caused me to grow spiritually. I began to grow in the things of God and in God.

Aleacha was recently married and became an ordained minister. She continues to grow in her faith and loves to share her story with others, to help them avoid the snare of the occult. “God saved me for a reason,” she says. “Now, I’m bold in Christ. I speak boldly for the Kingdom of God. He’s a God that delivers. He’s a God that sets free. He’s a forgiving God. He’s a loving God. You know, many persons thought that there was no turning around for me. He could do it for you. He could turn things around. There could be transformation in your life. Just as how God has done it for me, He will be able to do it for you.”