In 1973 I lived in Seattle Washington, sharing an apartment with a number of men associated with the Navigators, an evangelistic organization. I was going to North Seattle Alliance church every Sunday. I was going to various charismatic groups occasionally, to supplement what I was getting at my church.

When one charismatic service was over one night a fellow next to me struck up a conversation with me. I felt an aversion to him, maybe something about his strange mannerisms and the look in his eye, I thought. Suddenly he said, "Here, let me pray for you", and laid a hand on my shoulder before I had a chance to respond. To be polite and avoid a scene, I let him. I was relieved when he was done. I didn't feel averse to him any more, though.

He and I went to other meetings in the charismatic circuit together. Occasionally he would impolitely lay hands on people like he had with me. He even visited my church and laid hands on the associate pastor, Rev. Shellrude, after the service. He came over to my apartment and socialized with my apartment mates, laying hands on a couple of them.

I started feeling a general malaise. When I sought the Lord, I started getting false prophecy and bad guidance. So were my apartment mates who had let this fellow pray for them. This profoundly bothered us, of course. We started having doubts about the charismatic teachings.

I came down with a very strong lust for the wife of the head of the Navigators in town. Now this alarmed me, because it was completely out of character for me, and I feared its intensity could perhaps become overpowering. I went to a crowded Navigator meeting one night and passed this woman in a doorway. I played stone-faced, and was completely shocked when in passing, she gave me the biggest come-on smile I had ever seen. Dread filled my heart. I could probably control my own compulsion, but if she actively pursued me, all was lost! Evidently, satan was working on both sides.

One night at 2 A.M. I was awakened by a loud throbbing noise like a base drum. It was coming from the wall right next to my bed. I padded around to the bedroom which shared that wall and looked in. The three men in there were soundly sleeping. Suddenly the wall throbbed again. That eliminated pranksters. I studied the wall. It was between a concrete floor and ceiling, and butted up against a concrete stairwell. There was no plumbing or wiring in that wall. There had been no sudden changes in temperature. The only conclusion left was that it was a poltergeist.

I quietly commanded the poltergeist to leave in the name of Jesus Christ. The wall immediately throbbed again. "Well," I said to myself, recalling my occult background, "there has to be someone in here who is a center of occult phenomenon, someone with an unclean spirit. And since I can't cast it out, it has to be me." I went back to bed, quietly told the wall to shut up, and went back to sleep.

The next morning, my roommate and the men from the other room were denying pounding on the wall, blaming the other. Being young men, they chalked it up as a stupid practical joke. I wasn't going to freak them out with the truth.

First thing the next morning I went to the nearest Logos book store and browsed what they had on unclean spirits. The best book I could find at the time was called Christian Counseling and Occultism by Kurt Koch. It said to 1. rule out mental disorders; 2. get confessed up; 3. renounce the devil & everything he stands for; 4. rededication to Christ; and 5. command Satan to leave in the name of Jesus Christ.

As soon as I had done this a dark blanket was lifted off of me and I was in the daylight again. Oh, the peace and joy of God's presence again! All inappropriate passion for the head Nav's wife was entirely gone after the deliverance, like it had never been.

God then showed me what Satan had intended for me, to be chased down the street by the head of the Navigators with a meat cleaver in his hand. A scandal to wreck the ministry and besmurch the cause of Christ. Wouldn't the press have had fun with that!

Two hours after I was delivered, this fake charismatic suddenly called me up. I hadn't talked with him for two weeks. He wanted to come over and pray for me. He had never asked to do that before. I invited him over, since I had already figured out what the score was.

When he came over he immediately said, "Let's pray together." I agreed, so we sat on the sofa and bowed our heads. The Lord said, "Look out!" I swung my arm up and knocked his hand aside that was about to land on my shoulder. My turn. I laid a hand on his shoulder and demanded Satan to come out of him in the name of Jesus.

He turned white and started gulping. After a moment of inner turmoil he settled down and relaxed. He had an innocent look in his eyes that I had never seen before.

Remembering the book, I advised him that he had better start confessing his sins, to close any back doors into his soul. (Through our accepting Satan's tempting advice we indirectly submit ourselves to Satan.) Instead, he told me how he had come to be infected.

His mother had had to go to work to make ends meet. She left her son in a daycare center. Unknown to his mother, the operator of the daycare was a full-fledged witch. She practiced hexes on the children left in her care, including this boy. For twenty years he had been led by the spirit to lay hands on people in churches, conferring unclean spirits, ruining the lives of saints.

His brother came over to the apartment half way through his explanation and was astonished. This fellow had never told anyone these things before. He had always worried the family with his behavior, but they never knew why he did them -- until now.

This fellow called me a month later because his car had broken down and he needed help. He was normal but subdued. I never saw him again since I moved shortly thereafter.

"Coincidentally", the head of the Navigators decided to have a purge of the charismatics from the organization, starting with me. I moved to Santa Barbara. My biggest regret was that I didn't take this ex-fake charismatic to all the meetings he had gone to and deliver all the people he had laid hands on. I heard later that many of the people he had laid hands on wandered away from the faith.
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At one church, the priest took me aside and asked me, "I have a strange thing happen.  Every Sunday morning, I'm all pumped with putting on the service.  When the music starts and we start processing to the front I'm all charged up.  But when I get close to the front, I feel like I got hit by a ton of bricks.  I can barely climb up the steps to my place on the stage.  After two hymns, I suddenly come around and enjoy the rest of the service.  What do you make of it?"

I told him, "When you pass the Van Kleeks on the third row from the front, they cast curses in your back.  Ten minutes into the service, when the late comers have arrived, I offer deliverance, prayer and blessing for everyone in the service.  That's what's happening."

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I had an elderly couple join a church I already was a member of.  The husband was snarky but also told jokes.  The wife was a sincere Christian as far as I could tell.  The husband attended our Sunday School class.  He was always sarcastic and derogatory over whatever the Sunday School message was.  But he tipped his hand when one day he brought in a stack of decrepit Bibles as a gift to the church.  The Bibles were charmed with curses.

I didn't say anything.  I drove the demons off the Bibles.  I offered deliverance for him, his family and his properties.  Two Sundays later, he got all huffy over nothing and left the church, taking his Christian wife with him.