‘I was deep in the occult. The love of Jesus rescued me’

I didn’t grow up in a Christian home. In fact, my dad was really anti-church. All I knew about Christianity came from doing the nativity play in primary school. Once, we were given a little red book of the Psalms at school. When my dad found out what it was, he threw it across the room. At that point, I thought: OK, we don’t do God in this house. I wasn’t really that bothered, to be honest.

Ever since I was small, I’ve always been able to ‘see’ things. When I was two years old, I pointed to a sink plunger, and described my birth in detail to my mum, saying that a doctor had put one on my head and pulled me out. Once, at a family party, I ran into the toilet crying, upset that a neighbour had cancer. My mum tried to reassure me that he didn’t – but shortly after, we found out that he did. 

I always felt like a bit of a weird kid who didn’t fit in. As I got older, I started to learn about the supernatural. My mum’s side of the family are all a bit ‘witchy’, so that was quite normalised for me. I began to learn tarot, psychic readings, basic spells – nothing heavy at first. I did a spell to protect me from the bullies at school – and two of them left the following week! I thought: This is great! This stuff really works.

Over time, it became my business, and I was very successful at it. But as I became more involved, things began to get dark. I became very anxious – which I’d not experienced before. My relationship was really difficult, and I was angry all the time. As I got into deeper and deeper magic, things got worse and worse. I was sick all the time, and my daughters were in and out of hospital. The doctors couldn’t work out what was wrong with them. I became convinced that I was going to die, and that they would too. It affected our relationship, because I couldn’t see the point in getting close to them if they wouldn’t be there anymore.

Love beyond measure

Throughout this time, my mother-in-law, who is a Christian, would come round to help me with the children. She would always love and care for us so well, even when things were difficult, or we’d row. I’d often ask her: “Why do you keep coming back?” And she’d just say: “Because I love you.” I thought: That’s not normal. But I guess it really was the love of Christ that got through to me in the end.

One day, she said: “Jess, Jesus is after you. He loves you so much.” As soon as she spoke the name of Jesus, it was like a high-pitched noise screaming in my ears. I put my hands over my ears and ran out into the garden. I looked up and a cloud of flies were swarming round the light; there were loads of them and it felt really ominous. She followed me outside and began to pray. The flies suddenly cleared and the noise stopped. I knew something strange had happened.

That night, I was doing magic, and I saw a figure approach me from across the room; it was shimmering, like heat off the tarmac. I spoke to spirits all the time, so I wasn’t alarmed. I asked it who it was and what it wanted. It just said: “I am.” But it didn’t ask anything of me, which was unusual.

The next day, I put the TV on for my kids, and Prince of Egypt was on. I was cleaning up when suddenly it got to the part where Moses saw the burning bush, and God said to Moses: “I am who I am” [see Exodus 3:14]. The hairs on my arms stood up. I suddenly thought: Did I see God last night? My mother-in-law phoned me later that same day and asked if anything had happened. She said she’d been praying and felt God tell her that something had broken in the spirit realm. 

Seeing clearly

When I became a Christian three and a half years ago, I didn’t stop witchcraft immediately – it was my business for one thing, and I was the main earner in our household. My mother-in-law said: “Jess, you can’t serve two masters.” I said: “OK…so if God is one master, who is the other?” I then had to ask God to show me what was really going on. What I saw was horrifying.

Once, when a spirit guide came to me looking like my brother, I asked it to reveal its true form in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth. It disintegrated before me into this hideous, black smoky thing. When I was reading tarot cards, I saw curses dancing off the cards. I threw them away, and the next day, the death card was somehow wedged in my back door! 

I suddenly thought: Did I see God last night?

My mother-in-law came round and we prayed for God to show us anything in the house that was not of God. Suddenly, a large crystal that I used for spells flew across the room! If I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes, I would never have believed it. 

Since becoming a Christian, I have lost my business, most of my family and most of my old friends. My old coven has placed curses on me, and I know I should have died on multiple occasions. I’ve struggled to find a Christian community that I fit into, as I didn’t grow up in that world. Some people don’t know how to handle me, or even doubt that I’ve really left witchcraft behind. But I know that God has fast-tracked my spiritual journey for a reason.

I share my story of leaving witchcraft for Jesus on my Instagram page, @crafttochrist, which has almost half a million followers now. At the last count, I think around 7,500 people have followed me out of witchcraft. I don’t know what will come next on my journey, but I am trusting God to open the right doors for me. I believe God is asking me to show other people His love, just like my mother-in-law did for me.  

Jessica Murray was speaking to Emma Fowle