Demons, Deception, and Why Your Spiritual Practices Might Be Dangerous

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"Justine Alter" — a pseudonym — returns to chat with John Heers in a raw Heavy Things Lightly conversation you have to hear to believe.Justine worked for years as a professional psychic, deep in channeling, ceremonial magic, and occult community life. Baptized in 2018 and converted in 2019, she is now Orthodox and lives under obedience to her spiritual father. To stay clear of that past, she appears with no face on camera and a disguised voice.This episode was wrought with demonic activity from the start — dropped calls, wild volume swings, leaf-blowers outside the window — and that's fitting, because this is a conversation about demons, deception, and discernment.Justine shares why thinking "I'm doing a good work" can itself be delusion, why saints and psychics can look similar from the outside but are judged by completely different fruits, what remote viewing really is, why the government Stargate project worked after a fashion, and how Fr. Seraphim Rose, St. Daniel of Katounakia, St. Ignatius Brianchaninov in "The Arena", St. John Cassian in "The Philokalia Vol. 1", "My Elder Joseph the Hesychast", St. Seraphim of Sarov, St. John Maximovich, Sts. Cyprian and Justina, Elder Ephraim of Arizona, and St. Paisios helped pull her out.Her books discussed in this episode:- Outside of the World- How Could I Ever Convert to Orthodox Christianity? A Book for Psychics and People Addicted to Spiritual Stuff Buy her books here: https://www.newmartyrpress.com/booksChapters:00:00 Intro chaos03:15 Material atheism is dead04:02 Why she wrote06:45 Years as a working psychic09:00 Ceremonial magic after baptism11:09 Philokalia shock15:24 7 years in the Church16:40 The spiritual world has physics21:59 St. Daniel of Katounakia & St. Gregory of Sinai25:06 Fire-walking, hot coals, and martyrs27:17 Saints vs. occult bilocation30:10 The abbess who saw her in minutes34:08 Can we trust hagiography?39:46 Remote viewing, Stargate, and Men Who Stare at Goats42:00 Fr. Seraphim Rose lifeline46:47 Why psychics are receptive to demons48:22 The dark alley question — ignoring vs. acting on what you see51:19 True dreams that destroy you — St. John Cassian and Fr. Haralambos' axe54:55 Addicted to being right — ancestor recipes, jackets, and demon menus01:00:33 What is remote viewing?01:03:06 The Arena01:06:06 Why priests need the full story01:08:07 St. Paisios and seeing Elder Ephraim's photo as a psychic__🏷️ Sponsored by Conrad's Beef Jerky — loyalty not guara