Blurry Creatures - EP: 345 Unmasking the Religious Spirit with Angela Scafidi

Episode Date: July 29, 2025

In this deeply moving Blurry Creatures episode, we sit down with Angela Scafidi, a former astrologer, tarot reader, Reiki practitioner, yoga teacher, and New Age influencer who now shares her story through a Biblical lens. Angela takes us on her journey—from dabbling in occult practices and spiritualism in hopes of comfort and identity, to a moment of raw surrender on her kitchen floor when she cried out, “Jesus, save me,” and experienced a supernatural breakthrough that changed everything  She recounts how what felt like spiritual growth—astrology, crystals, spirit guides, tarot, and meditation—was deception, pointing to what she now understands as counterfeit spirituality tethered to familiar and demonic spirits. In candid, thought‑provoking conversation, Angela dives into the “spirit of religion”—the spirit of legalism and dogma that can grip churches and undermine genuine intimacy with God—and contrasts it with the true freedom found in Jesus Christ. She explains how different spiritual entities are portrayed in Scripture, from the Holy Spirit to religious spirits, familiar spirits, and demonic deceptions that masquerade as divine guidance. Through her testimony, Angela offers compassion and clarity for anyone wrestling with New Age beliefs or lingering spiritual confusion. She calls listeners into a life grounded not in shifting beliefs or subjective truths, but in the objective, liberating truth of Christ. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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it all goes back to the fallen chair. And the problem with the modern day church, they have a very truncated view of the supernatural. This backdrop that's just pregnant with all kinds of meaning. with this Mount Herman event. And this guy defects from the kingdom. That's a big deal. All right, we're back here in the blurry basement. We're 80s kids.

We have a 90s kid in the studio here today, Lou. Yeah, there's 90s kids to listen. Yeah. 2,000 kids, you know, all the kids. She might not know everything in this blurry basement we have here, but welcome to the podcast. Thank you. Angela Scafidi, did I say that right?

Yes, you did. up and coming with a YouTube channel that's blowing up and your own podcast, Heaven and Healing. And obviously, coming out of the ex-new age, we've had over the years more personal emails from women who've come out of the new age who email us. Yeah. Us two dummies for some reason. Ask us questions. We're like, what is going on here?

But they have come on our show specifically and sort of told their testimony. We do a lot of members episodes with that stuff because it's so heavy. Yeah. And I'm sure your story will get into that. But you posted a video on Instagram about the spirit of religion and then we were kind of messaging back and forth. You should come in, do an episode on this. But welcome to the podcast. And if you've listened to our show, you know, we ask everybody, what are your thoughts on Bigfoot? Yeah, I told my husband. I was like, you know, they're going to ask me about Bigfoot, right? So, yeah, I believe in Bigfoot. It's funny because like when I was into New Age and just like the occult and that world,

I would always be the person to say I'm not, you know, religious, but I'm very spiritual. And I was really into this particular podcast, which is basically the secular version of yours. And they would talk about Bigfoot. They would talk about like, you know, the Denver airport, like just conspiracies like that. So I've always been into these sorts of conversations. just knowing that there's like something deeper there. But then when I got saved, it's like I like shut all that down and I'm just like, nope, none of that's real.

It can't be real. But, you know, it's because I had that religious spirit that we're going to talk about today. Yeah. But then over time, you know, you get to know the Holy Spirit. And I kind of recognize that what I had been doing was I had like these blinders on to the supernatural and to more of these like, you know, outlandish concepts like this. because I was just traumatized from what I experienced in the demonic that I couldn't even like have a conversation and be open to anything like this. So yeah, I was actually introduced to your show.

And at first I was like, oh, I don't know about that. And then a couple months later started to listen to it. And I'm like, oh, this is really cool. Because again, it was like the, it was like the Christian version of like stuff that I used to listen to. And so this was around like when I started to recognize that for every, you know, like demonic offering, there's a godly. authentic of something. And I'm not saying like Bigfoot is like the godly authentic, but what I'm saying is like the conversations around the supernatural. It belongs to those who are born again. So I'm glad that you guys do what you do. And I honor you with that because it's really brave,

I think, in the Christian sphere to actually take on these sorts of conversations and this kind of dialogue, which is so odd because we worship a God who is spirit. Yeah. And yet a lot of Christians, like, don't want to go there and talk about anything supernatural, you know, so. Yes, I believe in a big foot. I'm glad you said that, though, Angela, because I think one of the things that we, some of the things that we get sent to us has to do, and we, when we cover things

that obviously have been co-opted or, or commandeered by the new age, like things like frequencies and things that have to do with healing and things that have. to do with, you know, even things like we talked to pre-roll about like the idea of astrology. And we actually have encountered some people in our space that have come out of astrology. And they always have a very hard time embracing the supernatural aspects of our faith because I feel like the pendulum swings so far the other way once they've come out of, you know, tarot card reading. Yeah, but there's like, you know, signs in the heavens all over the scriptures. Yeah. You know, I mean, the star of Bethlehem.

Come on. know, and following a star through the, you know, the wilderness and, well, a light, I guess. Or in the tabernacle, right, is all built on the cardinal directions. We actually went through that with Doug Van Dorn talking about how the ancient especially were very in tune with the skies. And they actually coordinated not only the megaliths and things they built with the skies, but, you know, those that were loyal to Yahweh also had, they had the constellations out there. There was the lion and the eagle and there was the man.

And these were actually meant to be markers in the sky. And they understood it to be that God had given these markers to us. And then, of course, that's then twisted and co-opted as enemy does, right? It's the counterfeiting. But I can understand why you would swing hard back the other way, because if you have that personality to get way into becoming a practicing witch, and then you swing back to Christianity, you're going to almost want to go straight Amish, right? Basically.

That's basically. There's a lot of voices in that space too, Angela, that are like, especially I've come up to like the things like the teachings of Dr. Michael Heiser, for example. There's some big names we won't talk about on the show or give them sort of that. Yeah, people are afraid of of conversations. Right. What's more your story, though, like maybe to give our listeners sort of a backstory of where, kind of where you started and where you came to the point where you did get saved and your perspective.

It's a very long story, but like to make it as short as I can. you know, I believe this might be going way too hard too fast, but I believe that when you're like baptized into particular churches and institutions, you're like kind of baptized into the religious spirit. And so I was a cradle Catholic, but I was not really raised in that. It was just like kind of something that we did on Easter and Christmas and maybe a Sunday if like my mom felt like it kind of thing. And I went to Catholic school, but it was never like a strong foundation in our family or in our lives. And I never knew Jesus loved me.

I had never heard that he died for my sins. He was just like on a crucifix above like the classroom kind of thing. And so that's just like the backgrounds. It never registered that there was any correlation when I got into spirituality later in life. My grandmom died and she was my best friend. We were like on a cruise ship in the middle of the ocean. It's the worst thing that could have happened. Like the worst place you could possibly be when you hear someone's dead.

Yeah. Because then we had to get to Bermuda and then fly home. It was this whole thing. But that's what opened the door for me was like, I really want to maintain this connection with her in the afterlife. And so I went to a medium. And then the medium just knew everything. The medium said that she herself was also a Catholic.

And she was working with the archangels and she was working with God. And she had this deck of angel cards, these oracle cards that I pulled. And it was like a spot on message from my grandma. So I thought. And that was just like the first domino of many, you know, then it was the crystals and the rakey and the yoga and the chakras and just everything like 10 years of it. Astrology was like my major thing toward the end especially because it's like I had done all this other stuff for so long. And you kind of just keep getting more and more like the spiritual buffet when you're in the new age because things only work until they don't sort of sort of thing. And astrology was like the thing that I felt like, wow, all the suffering that I continue to go through is justified through my birth chart.

It's justified through the zodiac and through my horoscope. And I just fell in love with it. And I always say I was like a dark evangelist. I used to have a podcast actually for astrology where I would give like full moon, new moon reports. I used to say, we're walking each other home on the self-healing journey. And that was my whole, that was my whole schick. And it got to a point in 2021, the end of the year where I'm just like at the end of myself. I'm doing this stuff for a decade.

Again, it's only working till it doesn't. It's like band-aids on gunshot wounds and still bleeding out at the end of the day. And I was 27 at the time, still feeling emotionally the way I did when I was 17, like self-harm and depression and suicide ideation. And my soul just, you know, deep calls out to deep. It says in Psalms, I've just said, Jesus save me. It's just like this last ditch effort. And I mean, overnight, I was delivered from depression, anxiety, and intrusive thoughts. Those were the first three things that he just completely removed it.

Wow. And I knew there was something to it. So like those three words did more than the 10 years of New Age ever did. So, you know, Jesus is clearly real and he clearly saves. But I wasn't, I really did not consider myself born again when I look at this in hindsight because I was not, he was not lord to me. I didn't have any concept of sin or why the cross was necessary. I just knew that I wasn't depressed anymore. And so he was kind of like in the tool belt of New Ageism at this point.

And I was incorporating God and Jesus rhetoric in my full moon reports for the next three months. And then as I shared with you, then I asked our mutual Frank King Cat. I asked him about astrology because I was hungry for the truth at this point. I am reading the Bible at this point. So the swords get, you know, the swords starting to cut through. and I ask him, is astrology really, like, demonic the way you say it is? And he just sends me back. He doesn't send me his opinion.

He doesn't try to, like, break it down apologetically. He's like, hey, I want you to read Isaiah 47. So it's Isaiah 4713 where it just essentially says, like, God's rebuking the Babylonians. Like, you know, let your astrologers come before you, let them save you. They can't. They can't even save themselves. They're just going to burn in their own fire. Sometimes it feels like when you get that phone bill

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And I felt him literally like enter my heart and like completely just like change the infrastructure, like, in a split second. And it was just all this revelation, like, oh, I'm a sinner. What I've been doing is completely demonic. I've been deceived this whole time thinking I know Jesus, thinking I know God, thinking I know the universe. And I had such good intentions all those years. I would have never called myself a witch, but that's what I was. And that was the day I gave myself over to the Lord, the way he gave himself over for me on the cross. And yeah, I haven't looked back. But, you know, there's a lot, you know, the sanctification process is a lot. Yeah.

So. Well, it's hard because, like, you know, you see like Russell Brands kind of gone through his own. Yeah. And the first people to kind of yell at them were Christians. But it's like, you don't just wake up the next day and suddenly get it all. Yes. And know how to be a Christian. Yeah.

You know. Would you say the spirit of religion is the same was there in the beginning and then still sticking around and trying to get you, okay, well, I got you go this way. Yeah. Now I'm going to get you to go this way. way. Yeah. Because some of the exorcists and the people who deal with deliverance say that just because you're a Christian doesn't mean these these other entities can influence and, yeah, and oppress you. Yeah. Absolutely can. Yeah. And I think a lot of Christians debate that. But it seems though, like you run into certain people like, there is a specific spirit that knows your weak, like the spirit

of Jezebel if you have a hard time with like control and that can take over you. And you manipulate. people, but that's different than like a spirit of lust. Right. So can you speak to that a little bit? Yeah, absolutely. So the religious spirit actually came with me from New Age. Because when you break it down, everything about New Age, which by the way, that's just an umbrella term.

A lot of people will say, like, New Age isn't new and it's not. It started in the garden. But the structures, the practices, the framework, the ideologies, they all claim, like, open-mindedness and just like free speech. spirit, but it's not. It's entirely dogmatic in its own way. There are structures to follow. There are very legalistic attributes and practices to take after, like, for example, you know, if we're doing a moon's circle, which is something that I used to participate in, we were a coven. Again, I would have never called myself that, but we were a coven. We would meet every full or new moon. But we had to do a

very detailed kind of, um, ritual before the ritual where you would have to cleanse the space. You would have to like put a pillar of light in every corner of the room and invite the angels in. We say we. It's just random. Me and my old friends. Okay. So, you know, it's like this very rigid, structured, um, ritual and the, even the ideologies, like it's all works based. It's entirely you climbing your way to God, climbing your way to ascension and the universe in your higher self. So you have the yoga practice at 7 a.m. And don't forget to get your crystals out first. And don't forget to have like a new crystal grid at the start of every month. And like, sage your house a certain way. Make sure you say these prayers a certain way before you sage. And very legalistic, though at the time I thought I was like

the most free spirited person walking the planet. And so when I kind of, when the Lord really like revealed this spirit of religion to me, just how prominent it is, especially with ex new agers, I can see like this like compare and contrast chart in my head almost of like this for that. It's the same thing. And it literally just followed me. So what I say is that, you know, the devil, if he can't have your eternity anymore, he's going to take your effectiveness. So now I'm a Christian. I started, I never expected it, but my testimony started going viral immediately. Yeah. Like immediately. And, you know, what I see the devil's assignment for me at that point was like, well, you know, she's going to, too many people are going to hear this testimony and know about the new age. I'm going to lose that at their eternity.

So now what I have to do with her is lure her into just like religiosity and legalism and judgment and dryness, like completely quench the spirit. He basically got me all intellectual. And there was no relationship to the Holy Spirit when I first got saved. Because when I would look back in hindsight and just realize the deception I was in, it terrified me because I really thought I was a good person. I thought I was doing the right thing. I was trying to help people. I would do Reiki on them.

And I was a yoga teacher. I really wanted to help people. Like that was my heart of hearts. I wanted people to be healed. to be healthy and to be whole and to know themselves because that's always what I thought was, you know, you're the one you're looking for all along and lead people into pseudo-salvation. And so at the end of the day when I'm like, wow, that was demonic. That was all demonic.

I subconsciously like put up these walls of I don't want anything to do with anything that looks even remotely spiritual. So right away I'm hearing, you know, from other people that came out of New Age like, me who now have big platforms I'm hearing from them. Oh, new age, I'm sorry, deliverance is demonic. And the gifts of the Holy Spirit are not for today. And all this stuff is making sense in my head. And they're saying that when you see people doing deliverance and when you see healings, it's all demonic. Like they're accessing the same kundalini spirit that you used to when you did yoga. And then they're putting up like side by side comparisons. And I'm like, oh my gosh, it is the same thing. And so I just shut that off immediately.

I'm like, no, this is, all of this is too much. And so a year goes by, I get water baptized. And it was like, again, another overnight thing where, you know, I wasn't, it's not to say that I was like suffering because again, I was not depressed anymore. I was not anxious anymore. I was not having these intrusive thoughts anymore. But there were some things I still struggled with, like addiction wise. Like I was still smoking weed and I still struggled with an eating disorder. So after, and I was just always just told by other Christians, that's just like the thorn in your flesh.

you're just going to have to, that's your cross to carry. And I'm like, no, Jesus actually carried those things for me. It's like, now I carry the cross of persecution, but, you know, after I got water baptized, it's like everything changed. And I had new eyes to see. And I mean, the conversation of baptism is like a whole other, a whole other thing. But something really happens in the spirit when you are water baptized that, you know, First Peter talks a lot about it, how it's for the clinton.

cleansing of your conscience. It's not the thing. It saves you from, it saves you in the realm of your soul. It's not a Holy Spirit thing. It's like, yeah, if I would have died, I still want to go into heaven, but it's not a heaven or hell thing. It's like, this is in the realm of the soul and that's where demons are. And so it was like almost like it got flooded out of me. And I started reaching out to- We've had a lot of people email us actually and say they had almost felt like a deliverance type scenario when they got baptized. Yeah. Well, the old school was is that you, after your, after your baptism, you got,

went through deliverance. That's actually how they used to do it. That's really how it should be. Yeah. You know, um, we see people like coming up out of the water like, woo. And like, that's great. But man, that's like the time to really go after that stuff. Um, me, we do it, you know, my ministry is not just online.

Like I, I, I, I don't just talk about this. Like, I do this because I, you know, the, you know, the, devil counterfeited, even my heart for people, and now I want to help people through Christ the right way. So when we do baptisms, we're always going through that process. Like we're renouncing and, you know, not that it's an incantation, but there's just something about that verbal, you know, declaration of like coming out of agreement with something. So we're calling out Jezebel, we're calling out the spirit of religion. We're calling out like lust and these spirits that are common in Christian lives, death, the spirit of death. And a lot of times what you see is like,

go down and they come out of the water screaming, like they're manifesting immediately. Yeah. So, yeah, I really think that's the way it should be. Listen, there's a video that was going on the internet too that was just that. Someone was, one got baptized, came out and she was like, I mean, completely manifesting. Yeah. We just experienced that because she had a background with Freemasonry, not herself, but her dad. And so it was that spirit of religion, actually.

That was the thing. Let me ask a question about your story quickly, though, because I think what you're saying is, I want people to listen to this because this is what. this is so common. I know you hammer this home too, but for some people that come out of the new age, once they are saved, there is this almost dryness of like everything is rejected that's supernatural. And we were talking pre-roll, we were saying, like, we have a very supernatural faith. We hammer this in a show all the time. Like, we've got crazy stuff, right? We have an incarnate Christ. We have an immaculate conception. We have a resurrected Jesus. We have talking donkeys and giants.

and it's demons being cast out of the man at the tombs and into pigs. Flying snakes. You have all these very supernatural stuff. But for a lot of folks, once they've left this place where they're swimming in it and they're really living in it and they get saved, they come to this place where they reject all that wholesale, everything, right? It becomes like maybe a true cessationist in a lot of ways, right?

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this is pertinent. Or even identify it. Or yeah, both. Maybe both. I don't think I would have called myself that, but it's the kind of thing like in hindsight, I know what it's called now. I, yeah, so after the baptism, something shook loose in me and I started to hear people out because I would get comments from people here and there like, you know, you should go through deliverance. Like, I can kind of discern that you still have X, Y, Z spirit. And I'm like, no, thank you. The, you know, the cross is enough for me. And, you know, it's just like that kind of stuff that you say, it's like an inverted pride that like masquerades is humility sort of thing just because I didn't have the complete context of really the scriptures and this, like, distinction between

spirit, soul, and body. So that was my mindset. But, you know, scripture's so clear that God exalts the humble. So it's just like when I got saved, like I had to humble myself and just like get on my knees and just cry out and like, if I'm wrong about this, if I have demons, please, I don't want them. I would like them gone. So can you show me something? And, you know, it was then that I suddenly had this, this like openness to be able to watch videos and to be able to read the scriptures. I have a really close friend. She sat with me and showed me the scriptures. And it was one of those things where it's like the words were coming out of the page and I never experienced that before

and I'm like, how have, I've read the New Testament many times through and I feel like I've never read this before. Yeah. And she prayed deliverance over me. We were at Franklin Factory actually. I was like in the parking lot at like 10 o'clock at night. Best place for deliverance, yeah. Just having demons cast out of me.

And that night I went home and I threw out my, my weed. I threw out all the paraphernalia and I haven't touched it since. And it's not like the kind of thing where I have to like stop myself. It's like, she cast a spirit of addiction. out of me and it was gone. And so that was like really eye-opening for me to be like, wow, that was real. Whatever I experienced was real. And it wasn't new age because it was Jesus. And the fruit of it to follow, you know, I sit here and I tell you like two and a half years later, like, I'm still clean from that. I don't struggle with that. That's the fruit of testimony

and of like, you know, walking with the Lord and like walking in holiness and the things that he calls us to do. What made you say yes to that though? Like to yes to getting sort of an exorcism in the in the factory parking lot? Yeah. Why do you say yes? I mean, if you said you were so, what changed? Well, it was just the baptism was sort of the shucking off of things? It really was.

Yeah, I can't explain it in words. It was just, I was all of a sudden willing. And I do think it has a lot to do with pride is like my heart posture really did start to shift where I didn't think I knew it all. And like, of course I didn't. and I was a year saved. Right. But I was listening to people again that just I thought they knew. And so what God started to show me in that time was, you know, you're not developing a relationship with my Holy Spirit. You're developing a relationship to like these people's interpretations that

they have through a religious spirit and through their trauma of the past. Yeah. And now that's like infiltrated the intimacy that I want to have with you. And I'm just so grateful that he revealed that to me so early on. on. And you know what's funny is like when I first came to the faith, like I said, my testimony blew up right away. But I had never experienced like persecution, which is part of the thing we were talking about before we rolled. Like, oh, everyone's a Christian. Everyone loves me. Everyone's my best friend. I actually experienced that to begin with when I would have considered myself

like more reformed and cessationist, whatever. No one had really anything bad to say about me. You know, there were a couple comments here and there about like the way I dressed because it took my wardrobe a second to catch up kind of thing. But for the most part, it was just like open arms. Thank God, like for your salvation. But as soon as I started talking about my deliverance, soon as I started like, oh, guys, like I prayed in tongues. It's the coolest thing. Oh, she is so deceived. Like, oh, you can't listen to her. She does not deserve a platform. So then I started experiencing the persecution. But it was only when I had been more free than I've ever been in Christ. And it just continues to, that's just the ongoing theme. So you think a lot,

a big portion of the church has the spirit of religion over them. Yeah, 100%. I think it's completely intentional. When I read the gospels, that seems like what's happening. It's like people think God is angry and you have the religious right that think God is mad at them. So they're following all the rules like you were saying. Yeah. And then you have the people that have shame and they don't want to go near Jesus either. So it seems like we, as human beings, we get pushed to one side. You don't have to work my way to God and have to be perfect, or I'm too, or God hates me, and I don't want to have anything to do with him. And, and, and, but there's this, like, middle road that Jesus seems to speak to us, like, what do you, who do you say that I am? And we have to kind of rethink,

wait a minute, like, maybe my view of God is, I don't believe God loves me. Like, maybe that is a big part of becoming a Christian. It's like, accepting, oh, God does love me. And I don't have to do anything specifically. Yeah. I don't know. Yeah. I mean, there's so many directions. we could take this honestly because it's very multifaceted. Yeah. But at the end of the day, like, you know, people are going to hear us say religious spirit and that's actually going to trigger a religious spirit that they have because they're going to be like, I don't see that in the Bible.

Where does it say the spirit of religion? And it's like, well, okay, first of all, spirits are identified by their function. Even the Holy Spirit is, you know. So it's not like this is just this named thing. It's a, it's a demonic entity that we identify through its function. of what you said, shaming people, condemning people, getting them into performance-based, like, pharicidical kind of mindsets, and really, like, robbing, robbing us from understanding grace, which I think is, like, the central issue of it all is, you don't, like, you really

can't wrap your mind around the grace of God and of Jesus Christ. And what that does is, is it puts you into, like, the, I have to climb a ladder sort of thing, or I have to be a certain way. And then on the other end of that, like, less, less about like the physicality, but more of like the spirituality side is you don't understand the grace of having his Holy Spirit, like what he's actually empowered us to do through that grace, like the things that we can do, not because of who we are, but because his grace is so amazing that he's like, go cast out demons, go raise the dead, go heal the sick. And we can't understand how. that can be for us, you know? So I just see that as like the crux of like the assignment of the

religious spirit. Like I said, if you can't have eternity, I'm going to have the efficiency, the effectiveness of your of your walk. And I think it's, I have a really major heart for this, particularly with what I came out of because a lot of folks in new age. So you know, the Bible says the gifts are without repentance. So it's like your gift to consult spirits when you're a medium, you have a gift of discerning of spirits. Obviously, they're not like a dead loved one. They're demons. But like you have a gift there. Like, you know, astrology, there's a prophetic gift there. And so the devil will counterfeit your gifts that God has given you. And now you're saved. And he's like convinced you that that stuff isn't for today, that it was closed when the Bible closed.

So now you're not effective for the kingdom. You're just like on YouTube talking about how everyone's false. Yeah. And you're not talking about Jesus. There's so many people that build a channel yelling at everybody else instead of creating content that helps. I think it's an easy way to build a platform these days. It is. Yeah.

And just I'm a black and white voice and I'm going to bring on everything I don't like. And everyone's sort of like is almost like rallying an echo chamber in the comments of just attacking people. I just did a quick search of different. spirits just to kind of give us some context of in the Bible. You have familiar spirits, lying spirits, spirit of jealousy. Infirmity. Like a familiar spirit is like, like you said, you were talking about earlier, a spirit interpreting a dead person or gives you occult knowledge, lying spirit, deceives through falsehood. And that's, and there's Bible verses always connecting to these. Spirit of jealousy, spirit of heaviness, spirit of infirmity,

deaf and dumb spirit. You know, we, we saw people having like, having mutely. and deafness in the New Testament, unclean spirits, spirit of bondage, spirit of the Antichrist, Spirit of the world, seducing spirits. And this is all you can, you know, in the Bible, you can. Right. And so it's like, I think we have,

what we found on our show is there's many different types of cryptids. There's many different types of big foot creatures. And there's this hierarchy of creatures. And so I was thinking about how a big part of why these things can prey on Christians when I wanted to do this episode was, we don't have any knowledge of it. We don't know these things exist.

So we're set up. They can come in and attack us if we have more awareness. We perish for the lack of knowledge. Yeah. So just to give some context there of, and these are all things we've talked about loosely on our show. Sometimes we have a specific episode dedicated to it. I think you made a great point too.

I think that like a lot of Christians, a lot of people, we live in this 30-second consumption culture. And a lot of people are actually looking to other people to tell them what the, Bible says. And even if it's blurry creatures, we don't want that. Like, we want you guys to open the Bible and read the Bible. As you say here, we talk about spirits. And it's all in the biblical thing. So in the biblical context, in the biblical canon, it's all in there. And you can pull it up. Nate just pulled it up online. That's what it says, right?

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when there's not enough people dig into the Bible to see what it actually says. Now, it's great to be, I'm not taking me wrong when people are listening. Absolutely, Biblical you're supposed to be disciples. And that's part of what we do. Yeah, absolutely. It's meant to do after our salvation is to be disciples. However, I think we do ourselves a great disservice if we decide to listen to talking heads instead of opening our Bible and seeing what it actually says about our realities. What do you think the ultimate goal of the spirit of religion is to do to a person once they become saved? Yeah. Well, let me back up a second because I do want to say to that point that obviously, I know this isn't your heart either.

Like, we're not sitting here condemning people for this like, you know, falling into this deception. I always say the nature of deception is you don't, you're not like keen to the fact you're being deceived. These people that we're speaking of and who I used to be, it's actually coming from a person. place of you want to be obedient. Like, you don't want to be deceived again. You recognize in hindsight how disgusting you were and like how depraved you were and the things you were doing against a holy God through witchcraft and leading so many people astray that you're like, I just want to do the right thing. So what I say is that the devil, the devil capitalizes on your trauma to lead you into new age. And then once you're saved, he will capitalize on your trauma of the new age.

Interesting. To get you into just religion. and works and just intellect and not really develop intimacy with the Holy Spirit because you're so jaded from your spiritual life before. It's interesting because Bob Larson, when he was on the show, talked about a refusal to get any sort of counseling or help to deal with your trauma, to identify maybe there's a spirit there that you need deliverance from. So almost stay ignorant. You don't want to ask for anyone's help, but that counseling could, and dealing with

some of your trauma can help you actually find more freedom and deliverance from things. Anyway, that was just something he said casually. I was like, that's interesting. And I thought with the grace thing, too, Angela, is like, the Bible says it's his kindness that leads us to repentance, right? That's part of the grace is God's kindness to us, to undeservedly so, undeservedly so to be extended to grace. And that from that we are supposed to be led to repentance, which is a big part of humility, right, is to be, is to identify those things within us. that we're like, man, I'm bad at X, Y, Z. I sin here.

And I'm drawing a line and I'm moving away. And I feel like that part of, and we talked about humility on the show from time of time. Yeah. I feel like that part of a lot of Christendom is missing, right? It's quite the opposite. What Nate was saying is that the voices now are yelling, they're rebuking, they're tearing down. And they're doing it from a spirit of pride of religion, really. like I am a position to tell everybody they're wrong.

It's cancel culture. I mean, really. Yeah. It's a Christian version of cancel culture. Yeah. Yeah. But I'd agree that it does come from that same spirit of religion that wants to, that doesn't, like he just said, understand grace.

And so to answer your question from before, like, what is the goal? Well, I think it's twofold. It's one, if we as Christians aren't operating in the gifts God has for us, if we're not fulfilling the great commission through, you know, things that Jesus told us to be doing, then we have taken on what it says, you know, we have a form of godliness, but we deny the power thereof. So there's no power. You know, Jesus even says in terms of deliverance, if I cast out demons by the finger of God, then the kingdom of God has come upon you. So if there's a bunch of Christians out here that are like, you don't need deliverance.

That's not for a Christian. If we're never seeing deliverance happen, then we're never seeing the kingdom of God. And so now people outside the church, and see, this is why I mentioned that I was brought up Catholic and in that kind of religious. institution is because I never in my life would have considered going to church or going to Jesus or going to the Bible to appease any of that, like, that I felt of like, I want to like awaken the spiritualism within me. But we all have that because we're made in the image and likeness of God. He is a spirit. He's the one that gave us the breath of life that gave us a spirit that animates our soul. And so we all have that like desire to be spiritual. That's not like a dirty word.

It's not like a thing that we need to be shaming. But the point is I never knew that the kingdom of God was accessible. And so now what I'm getting at is people on the outside of Christianity, they don't see that happening with us. But what do they see? They see Reiki and they see astrology. They see this power in witchcraft because that's the only place that they think it's available because the church isn't doing it. Even though it belongs to us. Spirituality belongs to a body.

born again believer, it does not belong to the devil. It does not belong to the Reiki practitioner. That's like all illegal and counterfeit access to the spirit realm. It's ours. Like the whole spirit realm belongs to us because it belongs to him. And back to his grace, it's what his grace is what empowers us to go through the door. It says in John 1010, like if you go through the door, like that's, you know, that's where the shepherd is. But when you're going in through the window, Oh, like you're a thief and a robber. And that's all I was doing a new age. That's all any of us are doing a new age.

But are you kind of the same goal? Do you have the same, sort of the same goal in mind of like? Oh, that's a good question. You know, and how do you know? What's the difference? Right. Well, that's a good question. That's something that I had to, like, wrestle with.

And I think, like, the more mature you become in Christ, like, which I needed to do. And like, we all need to do every day. I think, like, sometimes we think, like, glory to glory is like blessing to blessing. but I think it's more like conforming to his image more every day. Yeah. If you're like in this life to like chase after like spiritual highs, then like that's the wrong thing. And you're going to be the one that he says depart from me. I never knew you.

Like he's very clear about that. Like you can cast out all the demons you want. But if you don't have intimacy with him, then he doesn't know you. So what I think is like the difference is, you know, it says he's very clear. like if woe to you that like seek out signs. But then he also says that signs and wonders follow those who believe. So when you're following after Jesus, I think this other stuff is like just a byproduct of that life of knowing him and of following after him and of really knowing his Holy Spirit

and hearing from his Holy Spirit and abiding because then that abounds. But if you're following after the signs and wonders and just kind of using Jesus as a byproduct, I think that's like the danger that yeah even Christians fall into but like you were saying throw the baby out with the bathwater same thing happens here like we see people that yeah they misuse the gifts they abuse the name of Christ and then that is like the only framework that people have of any like supernatural happenings in the church so then they're like oh it's all bad but it's it's not it's just that the devil will just I mean he's just after he's after us he's after the world he's after those that God loves. I think that juxtaposition is so important. Just to reiterate, not to follow after those things, but in fact, the way it's supposed to work is that if you have an intimate relationship with Christ and you're walking with him, those things follow you.

Yeah. And I think that's just want to hammer that home. Yeah, amen. There are a lot of folks that want to follow, and they want to attain these things. They want to, they want to prophesy. They want to see healings and those kind of things. And I think the trap is always. to chase those things.

And instead, Jesus says that if we chase him, those things then follow, which is such an interesting because it is the opposite of the new age, right? The new age, allure is chasing those things. Exactly. And you said this right at the beginning. Yeah, you're like, I wanted to see people healed. I wanted to help people. And so you're chasing after these things.

You want that power. You want that. Right. Yeah, absolutely. That's why I said that New Age started in the garden because it's like that same knowledge and power. You can be like God. It's interesting.

It's called the new age, too. That's a whole other time, like an idea, but it's like the, the oldest of all deceptions is, is rebranded and marketed to us as new age. So do we use the spirit of religion to keep ourselves out of an intimate relationship with God? Is that ultimately? Yes. Yes, because, you know, the spirit of religion, when we say that it can be an actual spirit, a demonic entity that is influencing you, not possessing you, but influencing you, or it can just be like a countenance, like a stronghold, you know. I, I wouldn't necessarily make the claim that every single Pharisee was possessed by this religious spirit, but they had this like countenance that they grew up in and this structure and this like, this heart posture kind of thing. So, but yes, I do, I do believe that is, that is the case is that it keeps us really from the Holy Spirit as part of like our relationship with like the totality of who God is. Yeah, it's interesting because like ultimately it comes back. to that humility. It always seems to come back to like, if I don't humble myself at any point in this process, there are things that can take over and influence me. And then I do start to think that I

have this power. I think the same temptation that you are, people have in the new age is like, people come to me for answers. People come for me for influence. People come from me for, you know, I'm a leader in this space. Same thing happens in the church. Yeah. You know, that you get this platform then all of a sudden everyone's like approaching you and being like what do I do you know and then it goes to your head and I think that's when these spirits can come in and be like oh you're you're actually a big deal you know kind of a big deal yeah yeah and people know you people know you yeah especially when when a lot of them are are operating still like with that that kind of like even if they're not aware of it yeah they still have this like shame and guilt from the past yeah that they feel like they have to over correct what they did before and now like like like teach and preach in a certain way and like of a certain doctrine. Yeah. And I, I've just really been noticing more and more. And it's like I don't want to notice it because I don't, I don't like talking about this religious spirit thing. I don't like, I don't like bringing it up, especially in the context of. You're not having a wonderful time right now.

Just kidding. But, you know, it's uncomfortable for the flesh, especially to bring up things like Catholicism and Orthodoxy. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I do have friends that are in those spheres, but I've noticed that, you know, some people that I know that have just grown up in the church, but have never had an encounter with the Holy Spirit, I've never seen the demonstration. Yeah. Go there. Or a lot of people that I'm not talking like just two or three. I'm talking like I've seen a lot of people that get saved from New Age and then they go into Catholicism if they've never had deliverance. Huh.

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Start comparing hundreds of sites with kayak and get your trip right. Kayak, got that right. Which, and I would say also this isn't just a Catholic orthodox thing. There are a ton of evangelical, you know, mainstream churches that are void of... You can go into... to like holy Pentecostalism where you're like condemned for wearing pants. Like I'm wearing jeans right now.

They would say I'm not going to heaven. Like so yeah, it's not just like these particular two like branches or institutions. It's like everywhere. And even like we're saying like the cessationism thing. Like they're not Orthodox or Catholic, but that's a whole, that's its own tier. It can go anywhere that religious spirit. What is a difference in a person who you think has come out of the religious spirit versus someone who's a Christian or Catholic?

or just hasn't been fully been set free, you think. Yeah. So I do want to say that like I'm not perfect by any means and like I don't have all the answers. And there's still I know I've been delivered from that actual spirit, but there has been this like unveiling that I've been through with the Lord the past like six months where he has taken me deeper into understanding his grace. And so now it's at the point where that spirit is gone. but he's been like pulling down those strongholds of like, oh, if like I'm not a perfect Christian that day. Like I've lost favor or like those kinds of things of showing me that's complete nonsense. That he doesn't go anywhere and like his grace never just like vanishes.

It's like a parent with a child in so many ways. And I feel like that's a big part of why we do have families is to learn that aspect of God. Yeah. He's not going to just piece out, take off. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Exactly. And you don't have to like earn your way back to his love. Like that's the thing. Yeah. It's been really beautiful the more that he's like been showing me about that. Yeah. But I'd say it's evident when you see like ex new ages for and I just use that because it's easy for me to use because I walked it and I did it. Like I'm guilty of being the ex new ageer who's like, oh, you know, our server had a nose ring. They claimed Christ. but they had a nose ring. So I think they're just a little bit lukewarm.

So like calling everybody lukewarm is usually like a symptom, I would say, of like the religious spirit because it's the kind of thing where it's like, you should probably take the log out of your own eye first. Again, lack of grace, right? Your religious spirit would, you know, idolize, I would say, like traditions over transformation. And I'm not, again, trying to call out a particular, facet, but, you know, like the Orthodox group will always elevate what their church fathers

were doing before they talk about what God the father's doing and say, like, if you're not following X, Y, Z, niche, like, whatever you've been through with the Lord doesn't matter. And of course, like, we're not here to say your experience is the parameter of truth, because, like, if your experience does not align with scripture, then we reject that. But it's like we serve an experiential God at the end of the day, you know. Yeah. And he is a relational God and relationship is experienced through encounter. Well, we talk about that a lot on the show and like Heiser brought it up too, that there was a framework of understanding.

Love Heiser, by the way. Yeah. But like, you know, the biblical writers had prerequisite knowledge of things outside of scripture to help write scripture. Yep. They did have experiences with God. They did know what angels were. They did have these spiritual, a spiritual, supernatural, supernatural framework. to help them, right?

And we don't know. Like, there's no book on angels. We don't know what these things are. We know they're a character, but we don't know. We don't have any idea what that is. But they did. Who told them? How did they know?

And I think that freaks out certain types of Christians. And they almost makes, I hate to say, but they almost make scripture an idol to where God can't talk to them directly. They can't. All logos and no rom. Yeah. But that's, I don't know where the, I don't, that's a whole. That's a hard one. That's a whole podcast.

Like I said, there's so many different like avenues you can take this, this conversation. I think the problem is that everybody institutionally wants to draw the lines where they want to draw them, which is why we have so many different denominations in the church and so much splintering of the kingdom of here, the Christendom, the kingdom, because people do decide where they think those lines are. And then if you don't believe that, then you're out or you got to go somewhere else, right? And I guess part of that is my question, like, is for you and your journey. Yeah. And this, like, how did you come out the other side and what did that look like as far as,

I know you touched on this a little bit, but like breaking free from that. Yeah, because you have a unique perspective. And I would say the perspective is that like in the new age you're free, you're sort of, as though it's rigid, you're like you feel like you're swimming in all this freedom, spiritual freedom, right? And that can be a scary thing because you want to have guidelines. Or even identify. I just think identifying these things is so hard to do. You know, like when it comes to like a sighting of something, some people will be like,

I had all this activity on my property, all this weird stuff happening, and all of a sudden, I see this thing. And I'm like, oh, that's the thing that's been causing all these problems. Like, how do you identify a spirit in your life even? Probably by asking God, first of all, you know, I keep thinking about, you know, we're talking about how he exalts the humble, but like the flip side of that scripture is that he resists the proud. And I just keep thinking about that as we're having this conversation because for you to like really read that and what that means, it means he will literally, he will not meet you. He will not like meet you there when you are proud. He will literally resist you. Like you can't gain this like awareness of something that you are literally resisting because he's going to resist back.

You need to like just like lay yourself before him and just be like, okay, where am I wrong? Like what do you need to show me? I need you to guide me. Like I need you to be the metric of what's wrong or right in my life. I need you to expose where the darkness is. Like I need your light to come in right now. But if you're like, I have all the answers. I know, I know, I know, I know based on like what I know.

then he's going to resist that. So for me coming out of it, that's really, I think that's what the whole thing was contingent on, was I was just willing to be wrong and to backpedal on the things that I had already been starting to kind of like preach about online about like, you can't have a demon and you can't prophesy. I had to like backpedal and like kind of publicly be like, hey, I was wrong about that. So just the willingness to just like, be like, hey, Lord, you know better than me. Yeah. And so if I'm wrong, then, you know, please show me.

But as far as identifying spirits in your own life, I would say that some ways that if you have like intrusive thoughts all the time, that's probably a spirit. if you have nightmares all the time or you're attacked in your sleep all the time, that's probably a spirit. Like if there are aspects, like for me, it was like the marijuana thing. It was and someone listening will like know what I'm talking about. It doesn't matter what you do to crucify your flesh because sometimes I think we can use that as sort of a gaslighting thing for people's struggle. Like you just need to crucify your flesh better. Like that's what people were saying to me with the weed. Like you're not doing a good enough job, which is such a religion thing.

like, oh, I'm not working hard enough to crucify my flesh. There's just like a thing that you cannot crucify. Because you can't crucify a demon. You have to cast it out. So once it's gone, then that thing, like, even if the temptation will rise, you can actually apply that scripture now. Like, no, I'm going to shut that down immediately. But if there's like certain things like that where you literally feel like you can't,

like I'm telling you, like I was literally going into the trash can to get weed that I would throw away. And then after that addiction spirit came out, I threw it away and I didn't go back for it and I didn't want to. Um, so those are probably like for me, like the most three telltale signs is like intrusive thoughts, um, demonic encounters in your sleep and just at night in general. And then like, it's just this inability to exercise the fruit that you know you have because God's not a liar and his spirit actually lives inside of you. And I think that was a big part of reason why blurry creatures went in more theological rabbit trails because I think originally it was just let's have a Christian perspective

on like in the paranormal stuff and some of these conversations just interesting to me and Bigfoot stories were interesting for a long time like what is this thing. But then I think a big part of what I felt like we stumbled into was creating awareness of all the stuff. Yeah. And that is, you know, like G. I. Joe, like knowing is half the battle, right? Back to the 80s. Anyway, but that's what Blurry does. It's like we're not experts.

And Luke and I are, we're an interesting combo because we care a lot, but we're more on the empathetic side of things. So we bring people on, we try to like have a relationship with them on the show versus let's bring on the know-it-all and just yell at people. And so we make a lot of mistakes because we're leading with that more empathy of the conversation than I'm the smartest guy in the room. And so people come on the show and say the most wacky stuff because we're like, we're giving you a platform, but we're not saying we agree with everything that, you know, if. And so that's an interesting part that we find ourselves in. But I think it's just how we're wired. Yeah. And we've dealt with a lot of the type A's and the.

narcissistic type of people that we've made friends with or we've had to work through those relationships and cast them out of our own lives. And we oftentimes just feel like we're managing relationships more than we are like managing information. But that's a whole other side. That's what Jesus was all about was about relationships. And so I think also that kind of ties back into what you were talking about about like discipleship and stuff. I think that that is another problem for people that come out of new age is like you don't you get disciples through the internet instead of like face to face like this like you don't have people sitting with you going through the Bible with you and it's because like in new age you have this like um lone wolf mentality and then that kind of

translates once you get saved into like I can still be a lone wolf I'm just listening to the holy spirit right um but Jesus was all about really relationships and he was all about intimacy and he was all about like correction and he was all about like the body that's why we're a body right like if if i were to cut my hand off and it falls off like it's gonna not function so that's like the same thing with us is like the body of christ like if we're cut off from discipleship and and relationship and community and fellowship like we're not going to function the way that we're supposed to. Yeah.

I've got a question just sort of it dawned on me as we're talking that we've talked about this in the show a couple times, Nate. But since this is your story as well, like, Angela, why do you think that it feels at at least from where we're sitting, having not been a new age? The new age has been such a draw for women, especially. We've talked to a few women like yourself that have come out and were either called themselves full-blown witches, we're doing readings. you know, the whole gamut Riki, the whole thing,

but it feels predominantly female in a lot of the way. I mean, there are, I'm not, as broad brush, there are a lot of, probably a lot of dudes that, you don't offend me, but you will offend some people by saying that. But it feels that way, at least from our experience, I think that, it just feels like there's a marketing campaign, if you will, that's, that's targeting women and drawing women into, into wishcraft, into these things.

Just to your perspective, people can be mad at me about that, but this is just sort of my observation. biblical though like he the serpent went to e first i mean he just i think it's because um you know like i always say the devil counterfeits everything he's you know his emo biblically is a steel kill destroy so women we are created to be like submissive and we are created to be nurturers and we are just you know i would say men are more logical and women are more emotional and women are more emotional and lead with our with our fields. So I think that's kind of what it is.

It's like he capitalizes on those aspects of who God designed us to be and just like perverts it. Yeah. So like, you know, the submissive thing. Like you're being, you're submitting to source in New Age. Like you're submitting to like the hidden knowledge. You're submitting to spirit. You're submitting to just. basically your higher self.

I mean, there's so many different, there's so much jargon with New Age, but that's what it's about. Like your feelings, your feelings are your highest metric of truth kind of thing, submitting to your truth. And then nurturing, like you're, you know, again, I wanted to help people.

You're nurturing that, like, I'm making the world a better place. I'm making myself better. I'm like nurturing my own soul. And then emotionalism. I mean, everything in the new age is contingent on and your like emotions

and what you can gain and what you need to unpack and what you need to do and you it's so egocentric it's just all about you it is like a completely you religion um what's what I said right do without will

yeah that's what it is so I think that just like yeah I mean I've known men that have come from new age as well but yeah I do think it's a predominantly women thing because it like appeals to like those those aspects of us that God created for a kingdom purpose but the devil will use it for darkness. Oh it's always kind of true. Well it seems like a different spirit would attack men obviously. Yeah. You know, we outline many. Um, get them distracted somewhere else. Obviously, I think that depending on where you lean your vulnerability. And I, you know, I mean, put on the, uh, the breastplate of righteousness, the helmet of truth. You know, all these things,

it's like we have to protect ourselves from, what are we protecting ourselves from? You know, and it seems like the more we dive into this podcast and talk about things, there's a lot. There's a lot of stuff, you know. Yeah. There's a lot of entities.

There's a whole hierarchy of understanding of the spiritual realm, you know. Yeah. But for some reason, I mean, it's good for us in our podcast that people don't talk about these things because it's given us like a whole world to explore and talk about, but the church is sort of more.

interested in and just talking about moral, I think, things. And it is like the story of heaven and hell, the fight that we're in between, you know. And just like over the years, we've realized that like there's certain topics that are just taboo. They won't talk about it. And we, because we're a podcast and it's just us, everything's welcome. And I don't want to talk about us a lot in this podcast. I'm just saying I know that the type of attacks that you get and we get are similar. And sometimes when you're trying to uncover something, Joe Frank and Franco came on our podcast.

And he said something I'll never forget. He said, you know, like trying to learn the truth, you're going to make a lot of mistakes. Yeah. And when you, and like anybody, like a scientist, trying to figure out how to help people. You can make mistakes. It's like human beings aren't, there's no road to perfection. We're not going to do this perfectly. No one in the Old Testament was like following God,

perfectly and there wasn't mistakes. And I think that we're just trying to, I think you're trying to help people. We're trying to help people. And it's interesting to see the Christians are the first to come out, guns blazing, yelling at all the comments. I mean, we see people canceled all the time. People have been on our show get canceled. And then people go, you can't platform this person ever again. And it's like, we had a conversation with someone, a year and a half ago, two years ago, what are we supposed to do? Like, it's interesting how Christians are often the first to throw the stone. Yeah.

In a story that they think that they know better than anybody else. Yeah. But anyway. I've encountered a lot of it for sure. It's sad. It's sad. But it also makes me like grieved to think about like one of my worldly friends, like going to my comment section and like seeing Christians yell at each other. And I'm like, dude, like this is the impression you're going to give.

Like I look crazy enough talking about demons. Now you've got to be fighting in my comments to turn people off. Like, you know. So, yeah. Let me speak, I'll ask you, though. Like, I mean, we kind of chronicled your story here, and then we've weaved in this topic of the spirit of religion. But for you having come really having, for all kinds of purposes, having a ministry

for the new age, if you will, right? Yeah. And then having flipped that, right? And now having a ministry for the kingdom. Like, what has that been like for, like, and what kind of hope are you seeing? What kind of things are you seeing having really just done the reciprocal, sort of the antithesis, if you will, of what you were doing before. Yeah.

But doing it, you know, doing it for the kingdom. Yeah. Well, personally, I mean, like, my life is completely different in, like, the best of ways. Like, I'm not chasing healing constantly. And, you know, of course, like, the hamster wheel you get caught on in the new age is the counterfeit for the sanctification process, which is ongoing for all of us. But, like, to actually have, again, this is personal, but, like, to actually have, you know, have joy and to actually have peace.

To have a sound mind is just I never, I couldn't imagine it. And, you know, when I turned 30 last year, I'm about to turn 31 on June 2nd. When I turned 30 last year, it was a really emotional birthday for me because I remember thinking when I was 27, oh my gosh, I'm going to be 30. I can't imagine like turning 30 and still feeling like this. Like I was just emotionally stunted, but I'm not even stunted, just deteriorating actually. And so to just have to know that he really is the way the truth in the life and to be walking this path and to be in relationship with like the true living God. To say I'm grateful is an understatement.

And then to see what he's done. And you know, because this is something I get accused of is that like I'm just a grifter. My astrology podcast never took off the way I wanted it to. I found the niche that everyone's, and I'm not saying that some people don't do that, but, you know, I, I never, I never wanted this. Like when I, and I did want that before, I want it to be like the coolest astrologer girl in the world. I wanted everyone to know my name and think I was like one of the gurus I used to follow. But when I made, I made my last episode on my old podcast and I was like, hey, I was wrong about everything. I'm sorry that I like led you guys astray and I taught you the wrong thing. And I taught you the wrong thing. like I'm getting rid of all this stuff. I never expected. All I knew was that I needed, I had a responsibility now because I had blood on my hands for real.

And I had a responsibility to tell people the truth. And I was like, I'm going to start another podcast and it's going to expose this deception, this demonic deception. And that's what it started out to be. But God has evolved it so quickly and just elevated it because I think it's important. first of all, because the occult is huge. And what I've seen within the last year, of course, like he always knows and his plan is always in place. I didn't know this at the time, but what I've seen him do and kind of like assign me to is like not just ex-Newagers, but also Christians to help them understand the supernatural.

Yeah. As again, like an inheritance in Christ. Like, again, we're not chasing miracles, but, like, miracles are not demonic. Deliverance is not demonic. The gifts of the spirit are not demonic and, like, helping them understand that as someone with the backdrop, because everyone else with my backdrop is preaching the exact opposite thing. So just, like, reclaiming what belongs to the born again, basically, is like a bigger picture aside from just, because it's not all about exposing the darkness, which, like, so many experiences are all about.

It's about revealing the light. That's the point. I preach Christ crucified. That's what Paul said. I preach nothing but Christ crucified. And that's the goal. And what that means in its totality beyond just getting a ticket to heaven, right? Let's go. So I some days, like me and my husband talk about, I don't, I'm sure you guys can relate sometimes. It's just like, or maybe you can't. I shouldn't speak for you. But it's like, this is so much. Like this, like the warfare and like the burden of it is heavy sometimes. And it's like, you know, the comments are stupid. Like the messages are stupid. Like the backlash is stupid. Yeah, if ego is, if you're involved, and if it's your ego that pushed you into this space, you eventually will have to defend every single comment. Yeah. And you'll implode.

Oh, yeah. But if your heart is to actually, like, you feel like you're on a mission to expose some of these things, it's going to feel like a burden. Yeah. But you keep going because you find a new reason to keep going. And that's really, like, I lay it on the altar every damn. Like, if you don't want me to do this, I'll stop. But he wants me to keep doing it. And then, you know, the fruit has been the testament.

Like, you know, even videos I've put out two years ago, interviews I've done two years ago. People message me like, I throw out my tarot cards. Like, I gave my life to Jesus. And then even Christians, like I've been a Christian 20 years. I just got deliverance. And I've never felt like this before. So it's just to see. And it has nothing to do with me.

It's not like the Angela show. It's just like what God is doing. Because he always, like from Genesis to Revelation, he always uses his people to fulfill this plan. I do feel like that was the thing that I noticed about your content. There was a spirit of humility there that often when we do the show of bringing people on, you don't have a lot of time to do thousands of hours of research and just looking for just little samples of humility to help go. Okay, we could have a good conversation. And I appreciate that about you.

And I know that it's a long process to understand what you get yourself into. Sometimes you start talking about Bigfoot and you're like, we did not ask for being these conversations. but if this is what God wants to platform, then we should be okay with that. We should be, and I think we were a little, in the beginning it was a little different because some people were coming on and having very theological stuff. I'm like, we just wanted to talk about creatures, you know, and it took a hard turn. And I had another question for you.

Do you think that we're talking about relationship and intimacy that Satan finds these types of women before they give their life to Christ because they, he knows they're going to have a deeper relationship with God. So he gives him the new age. Well, I don't know that Satan can like tell the beginning from the end like God. I don't think he can. But I think that sometimes he might be able to like read the seed. That makes sense. This girl's hungry for truth. That was me. He's hungry for truth. Hungry for God. I was. we got to like pull all the punches to make sure that never happens kind of thing so um it's like recruit the X-Men right like she's got a gift i'm gonna try to get her on the bad team yeah

it seems like they yeah a spirit would know like okay this is especially if it's a generational thing like if you have like a lineage of like psychic mediums or something then the devil knows obviously there's a gift there that he does not want to be utilized for the kingdom so we have to keep this like these generations in like as much bondage as possible. And bondage, by the way, does not always look like chains. You know, the devil will, he doesn't like just give you a chain. And he's like, here, here you go. Like, wrap yourself up, please. I always say he gives you like links that like look like freedom. And then before you know it, you're just like wrapped up in something you don't even know.

But because people don't realize that they're going deeper and deeper down like this rabbit trail of darkness. they think that it's all light and love, but it's 2 Corinthians 1114 love. Yeah. So. Do you think these spirits are like a, you know, like,

like, like a character that existed in like the Nephilim era or... Probably. And like, is just lingering and pester, like just a pest and... Yeah, probably. I think demons are ancient, so, yeah.

Well, it's just interesting that they have like, You know, you've got the... I like to speak Latin. They do that. It's just like condiments of like, oh, this is the mustard. This is the ketchup one. You know what I mean? It's like this, it's like, it's just so bizarre, I think, to a lot of Christians

because they're like, I think when we have these conversations, internally, they're like, this is wacky. Yeah. Like there aren't these different types of, and they go back to the black and white. Yeah. Very. I always ask, well, where'd all the demons go? Yeah.

But they, but they, having personalities, and it's, attacking you in specific ways. But it's, like I said, it's in the scriptures. It's there. We also like what you said, though, and it resonated with the idea that, like, you you want to keep doing this as long as God wants to keep using you to do that. I think that's kind of where Nate and I are with this and not to do that. But I think, and you might be listening, and it's the same thing with your ministry,

wherever that is, if it's at work or in a church, is that, I think if your heart is really that God uses you as he used all the characters in the Bible with all their flaws, but for his purposes, and that's really your heart, that God's going to do that. And I think to your point, too, I think, like, for us, we feel the same heaviness. I think there's, like,

it feels like there's a ton of warfare, and this is a supernatural show, so we'll talk about that, but I think there's a ton of warfare over folks that are rolling back the darkness, shining light on these things, to see Ephesians 5, right? It's like, it's this, you know,

to expose the things, the darkness, not to participate in them. That's the, the paraphrase of it. But the idea is, is it the enemy in the kingdom of darkness doesn't want that. I think we've ever sit in the same chair with you. I think for us, we do the same thing. We want a guy to use this as long as he wants to use it.

If it's tomorrow, he says I'm done and he's done tomorrow. But in our hope, and again, with all these shows, is that people listen to these weird conversations, these conversations about the supernatural and the things unknown. And within that, they hear the message of the gospel, the message of freedom, as you said. The true freedom, right, is being set free in Christ. And what would you tell those people that,

come in your comments section and attack other people. What would your message be to those people? If I'm biting in the spirit, it would be just, you know, when I do respond to stuff like that, I will just say, like, often I delete them because, again, like, bystanders don't need to be seeing it. So I mostly will delete stuff like that to just, like, protect the integrity, not of me, but like the message that I'm praying is reaching people. But if I ever feel like led to respond, it's just like, hey, like, honestly, like,

I love you. And like, I just pray that you would take this. Something I say a lot is like, you've got to take things out of the comment section into the prayer closet. Like, I would try to encourage you, like, like, just get out of your flesh. Honestly, like, go seek the Lord on this issue. Like, go be humble about this issue. and be willing to be wrong.

Like, are you, are you, like, all up in your feels? Are you, are you triggered by something you went through or, like, a narrative of the way you think God should be? Or, like, is it just making you really uncomfortable? Because something that I just, man, discomfort is not discernment. And I think that a lot of these conversations make people uncomfortable. So they're like, oh, my discernment tells me the blurry creatures guys. They're just off.

Or, like, oh, something about deliverance. my discernment is just like it's like if you're uncomfortable that's not the same thing as discernment that can be a myriad of things that can be another religious I'm sorry another spiritual influence like the religious spirit that you need deliverance from that can be a stronghold of something you grew up with and so it's just like something that you believe in your mind is conformed to the world still and you need to be transformed by a mind renewal it can be something that I don't know happen to you as a child that has now framed how you see things and you're not willing to like kind of heal from that. And so you use it as like a narrative to now illustrate how you see everything

else. So I just think like people need to just be willing to honestly take a second, take a breath, put your phone down and like go pray. I mean seriously, like what better thing can we do than seek the Lord when we're feeling kind of like up in arms about something? I love that. Your discomfort is not your discernment. I think we see the same thing. It's like, we'll have pieces of content release where people will say, oh my gosh, it's just, this is the Holy Spirit inspired, this fed my soul.

And three comments down and said, oh, I have my discernment went off and this is totally wrong. Right. You can't hold these two things to, somebody's wrong here. Right. You know, and I think, you know, we've kind of framed this too. Like I think in our spaces, and I would say yours as well, when you bump up against people's paradigms, there's always a visceral reaction to that.

Because people construct, we do the same thing. Everyone constructs this sort of these walls around where they are comfortable with as far as reality. And when something bumps into that or tries to go through that, a lot of times we humans will have a visceral reaction to that. And I think we need to be careful. It's sort of back to the original conversation.

The spirit of religion likes us to have a visceral reaction to things that make us uncomfortable because we want a rigid structure for an unmeasurable, you know, uncontainable God. And I think that is a source of a lot of, you know, a lot of problems within the church.

It's weird in a space. It's just weird. The story's weird and that's okay. You know, that's how it says, it's strange, it's important. And it's not always that way, but, you know, a lot of people have had a strange experience.

And that's when they start listening. to our show. And a lot of people have had, you know, they've, I can't tell you many emails we get for people. I've been abducted. I have been messed with by UFOs, aliens, entities. Not only do my Christian friends not believe that, they don't even think it's real. They don't, my pastor almost laughed at me about it. And so we don't know what it is, but it seems to be it's a thing, right? And it's happening. And I think that blurry creatures creates a space and what you do creates a space for people to come to you and be like, nobody else is willing to actually like have this conversation with me. And a big portion of the church is just unable to help people who are really looking for answers.

And then they end up, if you're a lot of abductees will say, I got into the new age to find what? healing from abductions. So no Christian's going to help them. They get into the new age because this thing's happening. It's exactly what I was speaking to earlier. I think that's the goal. That's the enemy's goal. Not,

it's why he's like tried his best to, because he knows he's absolutely hopeless against the Holy Spirit. So he does his best to quench the Holy Spirit in those that believe. So then what are we left with? We're just left with dryness, even though Jesus is the living water, you know? Yeah.

And then, yeah, people can't have really hard conversations that defy, like, what our intellect and, like, what our reason and what our comfortability are appealed to. And so they go into the occult where all that stuff is more than welcome. What are some of the messages that you've gotten that really, like, changed? your life, the things that people have said to you because of what you're doing. I get really touched by, see this like makes me cry, I get really touched by messages from like parents that are like, my teenager loves to listen to you. Um, this little girl, we did a ministry event a couple weeks ago and this little girl, she was like 11, literally like almost knocked me over. She ran out of nowhere and just hugged me. And I was like, it just like caught me off guard.

And the mom's like, I'm so sorry. She just loves you. And like, so, so, because growing up is like a girl who was always bullied and like always searching and always you know i had like role models to look up to like taylor swift and that really did not get me anywhere except in deeper bondage um so to to be considered like a role model for like a younger woman is so humbling to me and it's just because first of all it's not even about me like the fact that i'm the role model it's the fact that they're looking to me because they like Jesus. And that just brings me so much peace. I'm like, you're like 17, 18 year old likes to listen to my podcast, is following after Jesus. I can't even imagine how different my

life would be if I was 17 and 18 and had Jesus then. So those are my favorite kinds of, that's my favorite kind of feedback is to hear from like younger generations that they're being really impacted by the message. Because that's really who it's for. God's always about genealogies and generations, right? So it's never about like what we're doing. doing now. It's about what he wants to do later with those that we're raising up. That's good word. Yeah, I think it's important. I think there are a lot of younger women right now who need that. And I don't think that I'm always surprised at females listen to our show, to be honest. Sometimes it's kind of like a dude party. But we do have great movie references

though. Yeah. Which is good. But it's surprisingly 50-50. And I think that there are a lot of younger girls, particularly you see like things like Taylor Swift and her movement. Yeah. We get those videos all the time. We don't know what to do with a lot of that content. So it's cool that you're there to fill that space because we don't really- Oh, I've filled it. I've done like three, four-hour videos about Taylor Swift before.

But yeah, we're not, I mean, that's not really like what we do. But we do feel like we get a lot of that content. It's hard to know what to do with that. Like, I think we're, our lane is to try and bring more. legitimacy to the paranormal things that people are experiencing and going through and then they can find a particular lane of healing. Because people ask us, like, what do I do? I think my kid needs, you know, deliverance and it's kind of wild that we'll get those messages. We're like, we need some blurry deliverance ministers on the ground. We got a couple here in Franklin.

But, you know, it's, it's cool that you have that posture of humility and you feel like we feel. just like people that just started talking about stuff. And then now people think you're an expert, but you're like, I'm not an expert. I just like, I like your attitude. I think it's great. I think it's needed. And I feel like it's a great space to speak to young women

because the amount of emails like Luke said, we get from women, it's we don't know what to do with it. We're like, this is wild, you know. I just think there's a full-fledged agenda, especially on young girls, like these girls, like you go to Barnes & Nuff. Noble or you read these, the magazines for tweens and it's like all, it's all like whitewashed introduction to witchcraft stuff.

And it's out in the open. And so, yeah, it affirmates that thing. Your work is in your ministry is so important. And we're grateful to have you here in the basement and hang to listen to your story. And, you know, I love these conversations because I know they're going to touch people and impact people that are listening. And I know it's broad, too. It's hard because we were talking about big ideas and we both have media channels and the things

that we get trying to encourage Christians, hopefully, that's the spirit of the conversation. Amen. You know? And I had one last question for you, before we wrapped up. What do you think it means to sin against the spirit? Because that is something that's always confused me. Like, I don't really understand that concept very well. I think I have an idea.

Yeah. But I think it goes along in line with the Pharisees of the day. Yeah. And they had, I think they had the spirit of religion. Yeah. 100% to the point where they were so blinded by it that they were attacking anything and everything. They had, they could touch Jesus and they said, they called him like a devil. They said that he was operating through the demonic.

And when you read that passage where he says the only unforgivable sin is blaspheming the Holy Spirit, It's really interesting because he's actually casting out a demon when that happens. And they say, you know, it's by the devil you do that. And he says, no, like a house divided against itself cannot stand. So he's saying like what you just witnessed. Because again, when you cross reference to him saying the kingdom of God has come upon you when I cast out a demon, so he's casting out a demon. That's the kingdom of God coming upon them. And they're over here saying this is the work of the devil.

So they're saying that what the Holy Spirit is doing here is the work of the devil. And now I'm not saying that every single time someone has like a question about deliverance, they're blaspheming the Holy Spirit or whatever. Yeah. But I would say that like we should be careful when we are constantly like criticizing deliverance, criticizing prophecy, whatever, like because what if that is the Holy Spirit? you know? Yeah. And so I also think it's layered too in regard to just like outright denying

like just outright denying salvation. You have full knowledge this is the son of God. Yeah. This is the power of the kingdom of heaven. This is the power of the Holy Spirit and you're saying no. Yeah. So I think that's probably like the the big crux of it but it's just interesting to observe in the context of that particular passage what is happening. Yeah. Given the conversation that's always going on online about that very topic. Very interesting, yeah. Yeah, because we can sin against the Son of God like most of the disciples did, but there

was still forgiveness there. But it's a different thing when you are actively in sort of like in the presence of God and you say no, like you're not actually God. It's an interesting answer. I like that answer because I feel like it's a difficult conversation. I feel like it goes in line with what we were talking about today. tell our listeners where they can check you out, follow you, and write nice comments in your comments. So I'm on Heaven and Healing podcast on YouTube. You can also find it on Apple and Spotify, the audios, but we're not too great with keeping up with uploading them. So YouTube is like the primary. I do live streams every Thursday at 6 p.m. Central. And then I'm on Instagram. Other than that, Angela Marie Scafidi, and that's really it. I go on TikTok just to live.

like post and then leave. I don't like going on TikTok, but like I do it just because they're like, you should, you got to get on there for the younger ones. Like, okay. Because there's so much like witchcraft on TikTok. So I'm there, but I don't use it. We'll have to talk about that another time. Witch talk. Episode.

The next episode, everyone. Well, yeah, thank you so much for coming in here. Absolutely. Thanks for having me. Stay encouraged. I know that it's like sometimes when you're in, look and I have each other and sometimes you're probably all. alone. You know, like we do a lot of calls and be like, this is wacky, you know, this is just a wacky thing to have started. And I think some people who have more of the like ego, it's like it fuels

them. And if you don't, it almost discourages you. So you kind of need help. So feel the encouragement today from us. Like we know the journey you're on is a weird and wild one, but it's needed and important and like your humility and just trying to figure it out like we are so yeah thanks i just love jesus so i'm glad you guys do too yeah yeah that's all the matter of the day that it is it's really all that this is so yeah thanks for having me yeah no problem yeah