Christian Author Tells How God Took Her Back From Witchcraft
A feeling of being abandoned by God and a curiosity about the pagan religion of Wicca led her to a 10-year life immersed in witchcraft, says a first-time Christian author. S.A. (Seleah Ally) Tower said she wants to share her story in order for others to learn how she escaped a very dark period in her life.
Tower told The Christian Post that her book, Taken from the Night – A Witches Encounter with God, is meant to tell her spiritual journey from first being a doubtful Christian, then to a witch, and later to a born-again believer in Jesus as authentically as possible. She wants the book and her testimony to help others who have experienced the same struggles in the spiritual realm.
"I grew up in a traditional Christian household. My parents took us to church. We went to Sunday school and vacation Bible school. We learned about how to be good and walk in a godly way," Tower explained. "The only thing is that in my youth, as I was growing up, although I heard all the Bible stories about Jesus it was like He was far away. He was like somewhere in the universe and we were down here on earth."
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When asked about whether she considered herself a Christian before becoming a Wiccan follower she answered, "[Christianity] was more of a religious belief that was instilled in me from my family and I followed a certain way of living, but I didn't realize that I could actually have a relationship with God until much later."
In her twenties, she heard from a friend about how it was possible to have a real connection with God through Jesus and decided to accept Him into her heart.
"I became one of those zealous, born-again Christians that are on fire, ready to save the world," Tower said. Later, she met her husband at a church they both attended and began to raise a family.
"I went into my marriage and my Christian walk with God and all I wanted to do was to glorify God. That was my focus and my goal, but what happened was that after I was married then hope soon began to be shattered," she said. "It was a marriage that was very dysfunctional. Little by little it became worse and worse."
In explaining how she became a witch, she said she was in a desperate state of mind.
"I was praying and fasting, but I just didn't see that God was working in my life. I came to a point where I actually felt that God had abandoned me. I began to doubt His word for my life.
"I just grew weary of trying to do good and have the perfect marriage. It came to a point where I fell flat on my face and cried out to God, but I felt like He had left me," she described.
"It was at that point – and it was not like I decided that's it, I'm going to walk away from God or that I had any interest in Wicca – I had all these things happening and I came to a point of desperation."
Tower said she then picked up a book that had been lying on the couple's shelf about a man who delved into witchcraft, but later left a group of people who believed in the pagan traditions of witches because he felt they had abandoned him. He then had a renewed faith in Christianity, she explained.
The contents of the book then led her to look further into the occult. She began to go to the library to read books on the subject.
"Everything inside of me said don't go research, don't go look any further, don't look into this, but I started to think the little thoughts that come into your head which [went like] 'if you are not receiving the blessings of God why would you be concerned that you would be cursed because obviously you are not receiving them,'" she said.
At first, Wicca was not particularly alluring to her, Tower insisted.
"It wasn't so much that Wicca itself allured me to begin with, it was the situation that I was in that sent me searching for something. It was the twisted Word of God really," she said.
However, later, there was some attraction to the pagan religion, partially because of its claim to empowering women.
"It was the books on Wicca that I felt attracted to because it spoke of harmony and peace, and living where all life around you is sacred, where women were thought of very highly and encouraged to take charge of their lives," Tower said.
Her 10-year experience in witchcraft that began in 1989 came to an end through divine intervention, she said.
"It came to a point where it felt like God had intervened and literally came down and took me back."
In addition to the book, her testimony and insightful revelations in the spiritual realm have been told on several Christian radio programs.
Tower said she shied away from writing a typical book on the subject of witchcraft that might paint a stereotypical picture of gory sacrifices and "what the Bible says about it."
"To someone who is wavering or looking into Christianity a little bit, not yet 100 percent sure, those types of books can be very frustrating," she said. She explained that when she was moving away from witchcraft she was looking for stories about someone who had just left the cult.
"I just wanted to hear the facts of what happened," she said.
She wrote the book, which at first was simply a therapeutic exercise for her, to help churches go beyond perpetuating the stereotypes of witchcraft. She also wanted to help people involved in witchcraft with "a book that they pick up and actually read, which is that it tells a story that's real."
Thirdly, she hopes the book will be read by people who are not following any religious beliefs – "people who just in general would like to read a good book and see what God did through my story."
Ultimately, she would like people to see "what God is really like and what His love will do," she said.
"Everybody has a testimony and the important thing is to speak it in truth and love," she added. "There's somebody out there who needs to hear what you've been through and that's walking through a similar situation."
On the Web: TakenFromtheNight.com
