Ron

“I was a Jewish Buddhist shaman-wannabe burnout who had spent years invoking spirits — and then God himself showed up in a field in Indiana and I recognized him from when I was a kid.”

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What they struggled with

Drug addiction Alcohol addiction Occult involvement Demonic oppression Spiritual warfare (post-conversion)

False refuges

Drugs New age Searching for love

What this story reveals about God

Relentless pursuit Patience Father's heart Restorer Unconditional love Shepherd's heart

Religious background

Judaism Buddhism New Age / spirituality Atheism

Main testimony theme

Secondary theme

Deliverance and freedom

How they came to faith

Supernatural encounter Relational influence

Content advisory

Before you watch

This testimony moves through Jewish upbringing, years of Buddhist and Shamanic practice, drug use, and genuine occult contact before arriving at one of the most vivid and specific descriptions of a Holy Spirit encounter you will hear — including what it felt like to stand before the holiness of God and then be undone by his joy. No graphic violence or abuse, but the spiritual warfare content is detailed and the conversion encounter is intense.

What this story teaches

People who end up in New Age and occult practices are often the most spiritually sensitive — they are genuinely seeking something real. The enemy exploits that hunger with counterfeits. God can use even those counterfeit encounters as breadcrumbs that eventually lead a person home.

How God moved

God was pursuing Ron from childhood — planting a vision of people Ron would one day meet, preserving a memory of his presence that Ron spent decades trying to find again, and orchestrating a cross carved in a church chair to match a vision Ron had years before. He is not offended by the mess or the detours. He waited through Buddhism, Shamanism, drugs, and the road, and when Ron finally said the words — even with attitude — God showed up and made it real.

Go Deeper

If you're a new age kid watching and you have night terrors, paralysis, you got demons talking to you, you're hopeless, suicidal, depressed — call on Jesus, and especially if you don't believe in him, or you think you're unworthy, you're especially the one he will show up for in a huge way. And also by the way if you're watching this and you've never done any of this craziness, you ain't missing nothing — if you have a good life you can ask him into your life and have as much of an encounter if not more than me, because it is the hunger of the heart that counts with God. You're seeking something real. With Jesus he doesn't promise you to walk on water or levitate — what he does promise is that if you seek him he'll seek you and he'll change your heart, and you don't have to do ayahuasca or a chant or a ceremony, he will do it in relationship, and the restlessness that you feel in your heart will be satisfied, the emptiness will be filled. It's not about being perfect when you show up, it's about just showing up as a mess — like going to a hospital, you don't go there when you're good, you go there when you're jacked up. You go to Jesus at your worst. Forgive others, forgive yourself, and when all this fails don't quit — find real people around you, get yourself a Bible, stay out of the Book of Revelation, go to Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, go to the words of Jesus, he's a simple guy, you're gonna like him.

People who end up in New Age and occult practices are often the most spiritually sensitive — they are genuinely seeking something real. The enemy exploits that hunger with counterfeits. God can use even those counterfeit encounters as breadcrumbs that eventually lead a person home.

What you can take from this

If you have been seeking spiritual experience through practices outside of Jesus, this week try what Ron calls the Pepsi challenge: say out loud, 'Jesus, if you're real, show up' — and mean it. The hunger that drove you to seek is the same hunger he put there.

Counterfeit spirituality

Ron's genuine childhood hunger for God was redirected through Zen Buddhism, Lakota Shamanism, Reiki, Ouija boards, and New Age practices — each offering real spiritual experiences that mimicked the presence he had known as a child but were counterfeits leading him away from Jesus.

Spirit of fear

A spirit of fear hit Ron's life when a drug dealer friend made a veiled threat. He described it as a spirit of fear that drove him into isolation and made him prepare to die as a teenager — which then opened the door to Eastern mysticism as a coping mechanism.

Unnamed entity

Spirits transferred through Reiki laying on of hands caused flash migraines Ron had attributed to drug damage for years. After conversion he recognized them as spirits, commanded them to leave, and they departed — his eye that had been shooting sideways also straightened.

Progressive entrapment

After saying the salvation prayer, every demon Ron had invited in resisted — he described squirrels going on in his head, misery, dryness, and feeling unclean. The enemy tried to steal the seed through sustained spiritual and emotional pressure in the weeks following his surrender.

1

All right fine, Jesus forgive me, be my Lord and Savior — blah blah blah. I said it with real attitude but I said the words.

2

I took a Buddhist mantra and made it Christian: thank you Jesus, thank you Lord, love you Jesus, love you Lord, praise you Jesus, praise you Lord, glory hallelujah — and I said it underneath my breath all day long even though I hated doing it.

3

I went up for prayer at church — everyone goes up for prayer, let me see what this is all about. Absolutely nothing happened at the altar.

4

In my mind all I said is: you guys, I don't like you, you can go now, don't come back. It was just an act of will in my own heart.

Ron wandered far from the presence he knew as a child, spent years in false refuges, and returned to find the Father running to meet him with overwhelming love.

Ron was encountered by God suddenly and overwhelmingly while working alone outdoors, resulting in immediate, undeniable conversion and physical effects.

Ron's encounter included being filled with the Spirit, uncontrollable laughter and joy, and a sense of entering realms beyond ordinary experience — echoing Pentecost.

Ron's Christian Walk

Mind restored after years of drug-induced burnout — went from unable to hold a thought to having coherent conversations. Eye that had been shooting sideways straightened. Delivered from 11 years of smoking two and a half packs of Marlboro Reds daily. Left the drug world, held steady employment, and built a stable life.

He's taken me from a burnout who couldn't hold a thought in a bucket to having fairly decent conversations.

cigarette addiction — two and a half packs of Marlboro Reds daily for eleven years, gone within two and a half weeks through a sweet grape taste on the tongue; also the Reiki spirits causing flash migraines and a deviated eye, removed at a single moment of personal renunciation

I got delivered from the smoking — that was to be honest one of the hardest drugs I ever had to give up. The spirits from the Reiki that were causing flash migraines — I told them I don't like you, you can go now, don't come back, and they split. My eye which had been shooting over to the left got straightened up.

Prayer

The power of Prayer — festival vendor and friend stood in the gap for Ron.

Jennifer, a tie-dye vendor Ron met at a hippie music festival in summer 1999, shared the gospel with him repeatedly across multiple shows over several months — going to the Old Testament and Psalms to present Jesus in a way that didn't offend his Jewish sensibilities, answering his objections, and modelling a personal relationship with Jesus that was visibly real. She also brought Ron and the whole ragtag group to Tabernacle of Praise church in Muncie, Indiana. Her single most decisive act was a throwaway line: 'I believe in reincarnation — why don't you give your heart to Jesus this lifetime, and if it doesn't work out you can go back to Buddha.' That one sentence, offered in friendship, was what Ron said yes to.

Is today your day?

Yes — I'm Ready

Absolutely, He will.

You don't have to figure everything out right now.

You don't need to have all the answers.

If something stirred in your heart while you were watching or reading — that's not nothing.

That is the Holy Spirit gently knocking on the door of your heart.

Stay right here. There's no rush. The Spirit doesn't pressure or hurry.

Watch another video. Read a little more. Take your time.

When you're ready — even if “ready” just means a little curious — Jesus is ready to meet you.

You don't have to clean up your life first.

You don't have to pass any test.

You only need to say a simple “yes” to Him.

He will take care of the rest.

“So I say to you: Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.”

Luke 11:9

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