Doreen Virtue, a former best-selling New Age author, joined Jennifer Nizza on her “Ex-Psychic Saved” podcast to discuss her conversion to Christianity. Virtue had grown up as a Christian Scientist before moving on to New Age beliefs. She achieved success writing over 50 books for the New Age publisher, Hay House, as well as developing angel cards and other New Age material. That changed in 2017 when she began reading the Old Testament and came upon Deuteronomy 18:10-12, which forbids practices of divination, witchcraft, fortunetelling and many other practices that are associated with New Age philosophy. “I really thought I was a Christian doing God’s work,” she told Nizza. “I had no idea that I was an abomination to God by doing and teaching divination until 2017 when I read Deuteronomy 18:10-12, and I was floored when it says there that anyone who does these things… is detestable [and an] abomination to God.” Virtue was later baptized and began publicly denouncing her New Age work. “I’m devastated that some people may be in Hell now because they were following my work. It’s heartbreaking every day to realize my old work’s out there and what I did,” she said. 

In an op-ed for Christianity Today last year, Virtue warned Christians about falling into occult practices. She stated that her first pitfall was “cherry-picking” the Scriptures. “I was taught to ignore the ‘negative’ parts of the Bible, such as the fall of humanity and the crucifixion of Jesus. To the extent that we studied Scripture, we only cherry-picked verses or read them out of context. So I was ripe for the Devil’s deception,” she wrote. In 2015, she heard a sermon by Alistair Begg, which warned against false teachers. “God used Begg’s sermon to convict me for the first time in my life. His words pierced my stony heart, and I felt ashamed of my false teachings. When I got home, I told my husband, Michael, that I wanted to start attending a real Christian church. He readily agreed.” She identified the reliance on tarot cards as a lack of trust in God’s providence and that she had been trying to control her own life. 

Speaking to Nizza, she pushed back against new-age practices, including the use of angel cards, which are meant to connect the user with angelic beings to receive guidance. Virtue noted the demonic influence behind such cards. “The trouble is that these angel cards and other divination methods, they do work to a degree, and they …. can predict the future to a degree. But it’s a future that’s dangerous and … very often I would follow it, and I would get divorced, or I would be away from my children doing things that were sinful.” 

Nizza herself was a former psychic and New Age practitioner who has warned against the dangers of New Age practices. Last month, she spoke to Billy Hallowell to warn against the demonic connections of yoga. “Yoga is a Hindu spiritual practice, and the word ‘yoga’ is rooted in Sanskrit. It means ‘to yoke to’ or ‘to unite with’ what they’re doing. They have deliberate postures that are paying tribute, honor, and worship to their false gods, and they have over 330,000,000 false gods, which are demons, and they’re honoring them with these postures,” she stated. You can watch more about Nizza and Virtue on the “Ex-Psychic Saved” podcast.