Laura Maxwell was plagued by evil spirits for much of her early life. But her interest in the supernatural would ultimately lead her to faith in Jesus
As a child, the supernatural interested me. My mother was a medium and was very much into spiritualism, New Age and seeking after spirits. I was attracted simply because of the media and a lot of children’s books and TV programmes to do with ghost stories. If Harry Potter had been around then I would have loved that type of book.
One day my mum was in the park walking the dogs and a medium approached her and said he could tell she had potential. He invited her to the spiritualist church. So we would go and there would be seances. The mediums would go into trances and say they had dead people with them who they had managed to bring through. They were supposed to be our dead relatives and they would give messages to the audience. I don’t think any mediums are charlatans or are using guesswork. It’s extremely accurate. Spirits do know a lot of information.
Every now and then I thought it might be dangerous and I would get a bit frightened, but the mediums would brush it off by saying: ‘It’s a hazard of the job. Sometimes mischievous spirits will come through, but most of the time good spirits will come through.’
Strange phenomena
Things seemed to go all right for years, but eventually we started to hear rumours from the various spiritualist churches that mediums would run into difficulties and would no longer be able to control their spirits. The spirits would come through against their will, start to control them and put them into a trance at any time.
What Hollywood would describe as ‘poltergeist experiences’ began to happen in our home. Furniture was moving and my mother and I were being terrorised. Electrical appliances would work even though they weren’t plugged into the socket and things like that, which can’t be explained scientifically.
I feared I would end up in a psychiatric hospital
My mother was thrown about. We went shopping and I literally saw her being picked up and thrown onto the bonnet of a car. One day she was cooking in the kitchen and the spirits took her over against her will, forced her into a trance and the whole kitchen went up in flames. We used to be kept up all night with these phenomena and it was terrifying and stressful. It was becoming a horrendous nightmare for us.
The phenomena were getting worse and worse. My mum and I went to the library and looked in encyclopaedias, calling out for help from different gods and entities. None of that helped; in fact, things got worse. We were at our wits’ end. My mother went to the doctor and asked for sleeping pills because the spirits were keeping her up at night. Tragically, the doctor didn’t believe my mother’s story, diagnosed her as schizophrenic and admitted her to a psychiatric ward.
I was heading for depression and I could well have ended up like my mum. She was released from the psychiatric ward but a worse tragedy hit. Back home she was again tormented by spirits. To my utter shock and dismay, she committed suicide. I feared I would also end up in a psychiatric hospital. My life was going downhill.
I met a Christian lady at university and we became friends. I shared what had happened. She told me about Jesus and the Bible. I didn’t believe her at first because we had been taught to believe that Jesus was just a psychic and healer. We had been told that the Bible was fraudulent.
She told me a Christian prophet was coming to a church she knew. That was the hook the Holy Spirit used to draw me along. I was fascinated by prophecies and predictions, so that was what attracted me.
I went along and loved it! I felt there was a presence there that I hadn’t felt before, and it was beautiful. People were singing and praying in tongues, and that really fascinated me. They were also praying for healing. That really attracted me because I thought there was something supernatural going on and yet they weren’t using spirits. So I went home with a lot of questions.
When I got home that night, the spirits I knew were furious that I had been to the Christian church. It was horrendous; I thought they were going to kill me. I didn’t ask Jesus into my life that night but I did shout the name of Jesus and the attacks stopped and the spirits left. I kept thinking of a Romany lady who came around once a year to read my palm. I couldn’t understand why she was on my mind.
The next morning the doorbell rang, and lo and behold it was the Romany lady! But rather than wanting to read my palms or my fortunes, as she normally would do, she surprised me by saying, ‘I’ve become born again. I’m not using psychic powers anymore and the Lord has sent me to tell you where you were last night was the right place.’ It was that day that I asked Jesus into my life.
Transformation
My whole life changed. My whole mindset changed. I got help and the demons masquerading as spirits were cast out of our home in Jesus’ name. That was 20 years ago. Since then, not once has a spirit appeared to me pretending to be a dead relative or spirit guide.
I meet Christians all the time who are ex-psychics, ex-mediums, ex-pagans and ex-witches. They all say the same thing: they discovered their so-called dead relatives or spirit guides were actually demons, and at the name of Jesus Christ these demons left.
Instead of being fearful of the supernatural because of what I experienced, Christ has enabled me to help people going through that and even cleanse their homes in the name of Jesus. He has changed me and given me boldness. I don’t fear things like that now. Now I can help others with his love and bring people to faith; even people who have come out of Satanism. Jesus has done a work of transformation in my life.
Laura Maxwell was speaking to Lucinda Van Der Hart. For more information about Laura, visit yourspiritualquest.wordpress.com
