Escaping the Relentless Grip of New Age Darkness
Guest: Johanna Wilson
Raised in a household where faith was a cornerstone, Johanna faced a pivotal moment in her early life when her parents' divorce challenged her beliefs and set her on a path of exploration. This quest for understanding propelled her into a deep dive into the history and philosophies outside traditional Christianity, leading her to explore the esoteric and occult. However, Johanna's story is a testament to the saying that sometimes we must wander far to find our way home. After years of exploration and a series of life-altering experiences, she found herself at a crossroads, confronted with the realisation that the answers she sought might have been within reach all along. It was in this moment of surrender, of pausing and seeking guidance beyond herself, that she rediscovered her faith in God. Johanna's return to Christianity was not merely a return to familiar ground but a journey into the heart of her faith, enriched by her experiences and trials. She found solace and strength in the practices of the Greek Orthodox Church, which offered her a historical and spiritual continuity that resonated with her deeply.
Here’s a summary of this week’s story:
In a time where the appeal of new-age belief systems poses as insight, Johanna Wilson’s quest demonstrates the resilience of an established faith in combating the potential for confusion that new-age ideas can bring. This larger story is one of personal growth, redemption and the need we all share for a real spiritual experience and the snares of a self-focused belief system. Johanna’s time lost to the attraction of Wicca and the occult, and her return to the traditional fold of the Orthodox church, is one that clearly resonates with many struggling with similar spiritual doubts today.
Transformation Through Crisis
It’s a story that’s been heard before, a tale as old as time: crisis comes before transformation. In Johanna’s case, her fall from grace was more than just a fall, it was part of her journey out. It seems that often, when we reach a place of brokenness we realise that we really aren’t in control, or even visible to the world around us. It’s then, in our vulnerability, that we can start to look for help and guidance, and ultimately find the kind of lasting peace that only Christ can bring.
The Dangers of Self-Centered Spirituality
In a world so focused on self-improvement and individualism, Johanna’s story is a cautionary one. The New Age movement, with its emphasis on self-focus and the pursuit of personal enlightenment, often leads individuals down a path of isolation and spiritual darkness. But Johanna’s experience is an example of what can happen when we start to believe that lie. The time she spent trapped in this belief, and her return to the reassuring paradoxes of Orthodox Christian thought, show that in chasing after personal enlightenment, we might well be wandering further into oblivion.
The Illusion of Control
One of the main things that she learned in all of this was that control was an illusion. And once she found herself in a position of despair, there was nothing else she could do but relinquish her need to be in control. It was then that she was able to place all of her trust in God, and once that trust was set in place, she began to feel peace again. This act of surrender, far from being a submission to fate, is a powerful affirmation of faith—a faith that restores peace, offers clarity, and redefines our understanding of power and purpose.
In sharing her story, Johanna not only sheds light on the pitfalls of new age ideologies but also reaffirms the enduring beauty and truth found in ancient faith.
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Sadaf Beynon: [00:00:00] Hey there and welcome to What's the Story. We're an inquisitive bunch of hosts on a mission to uncover stories about faith and courage from everyday people. In doing that, we get the privilege of chatting with amazing guests and have the opportunity to delve into their faith journey, the hurdles they ve overcome, and the life lessons they ve learned along the way.
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Crowd Church provides a digital sanctuary, a safe space to explore the Christian faith where you can engage in meaningful conversations rather than just simply spectating. So whether you're new to the Christian faith or in search of a new church family, visit [00:01:00] crowd. church. And if you have any questions, just drop them an email to hello at crowd.
church. They would love to connect with you. And now, let's meet your host and our special guest for today.
Matt Edmundson: I'm here with Joanna Wilson, all the way from the Pacific Northwest, now it's fair to say, Joanna, that we have met before, only digitally.
In a very similar format, you were on one of our other podcasts and you came on and you shared your story and I was like, man, we need to get you on on this one on what's the story. Cause I was so intrigued by your story and we're going to get into that a little bit. You'll find out listeners why I'm certainly intrigued, but you're involved in business.
You live in the Pacific Northwest, you do all kinds of cool things. You're a big fan on bringing faith into work. You've got some. Sort of volunteer work, which is close to your heart, and it seems you have a dog called Kingsley, which gets mentioned everywhere which I remember from the previous podcast.
Joanna, great to have you on the show. Thank you for doing this.
Johanna Wilson: Yeah. [00:02:00] Thank you so much, Matt. It's very good to be back.
Matt Edmundson: Yeah. It's good to catch up again. Very good to catch up. And how is Kingsley? How's the dog?
Johanna Wilson: He's doing well. Yeah, living his best life. And I think he's gone through a couple of tennis balls this week.
Matt Edmundson: You just got them on repeat order on subscription from Amazon or something. I do.
Johanna Wilson: I have a big bag. I buy a big bag of them every month. Six months or so. .
Matt Edmundson: That's awesome. What kind of, I don't think I asked you this actually on the podcast before, but what kind of dog is Kingsley? What's the breed? Oh,
Johanna Wilson: he's a boxer lab mix.
Oh, wow. Yeah, so he has that kind of friendly lab, likes to chase goat fetch type thing. . Then the boxers, they have this thing similar to pit bulls where they like to burrow their face in you. You just want to be close to you. So it's a good
Matt Edmundson: mix. It's a good mix. That's fantastic.
That's fantastic [00:03:00] It's it is an unusual mix of dog and I can picture him in my head actually beautiful color. What color do we have? What color is he?
Johanna Wilson: Yeah, you can search online at the Boxador and it'll give you the varying shades, but he's a brindle brown black stripy
Matt Edmundson: Yeah That was the image I had in my head, the sort of the brown box, okay, I'm good.
Yeah, we could talk about Kingsley all day, but it's not a dog about, it's not a dog, it's not a podcast about dogs. So tell us a little bit about yourself.
Johanna Wilson: Yes. So I I grew up in Northern California and currently live in the Pacific Northwest. Near Portland, Oregon, and was raised the child of two Protestant ministers we were in the assemblies of God denomination and and then I went on my own journey after that for quite a while.
And that led to a lot of things a lot of life experiences and [00:04:00] eventually landed me in Oregon where a lot of my family is now. In the world of business and startup companies. And I've always been, I think one of the gifts that God gave me as a child was just loving business. And I was always starting little companies and I always knew I was always good at organizing people.
And so thankfully he, that kind of ripened into fruition in my mid thirties. And yeah, so continuing with that and I'm just passionate about helping people with their businesses and, always trying to figure out, like, how can I bring God to work with me?
Matt Edmundson: I'm still, it's funny because I've been doing business for, I don't know how long.
I think I started business when Noah was around, but same question in my head God, how do I bring you into business? It's interesting, actually, you're up in Portland last year or up near Portland. Last year I went up to that part of the world for the [00:05:00] first time. And I went to Astoria where they filmed the Goonies and in fact on the yeah, it's great.
We, there's this really great story when we went to that house there, cause I was a child of the eighties, right? So I wanted to go see all the Goonies stuff and the house that was up there in Oregon. And I was like I really wanted to go see it and so the friends I was staying with, we went up to the house.
As I was, we, as we were walking up the driveway, the guy that just literally bought that house, because it had never been sold since a movie was made and he'd bought it like a few months earlier off the lady, the original owner. He was coming out of the house and we just got talking to him, he invited us in, I spent two and a half hours just going around that house, just chatting with him.
He came on the podcast that you were on, Push To Be More, Behman Zakeri is his name. Really fascinating story, lovely guy, just, really fascinating. So I have very good memories of that part of the world.
Johanna Wilson: Oh, very cool. Yes, the Goonies house is a staple. Tourist attraction here and people in Oregon are very proud of
Matt Edmundson: it.
No, they [00:06:00] aren't totally. And it was great to meet him and yeah, just a big,
Johanna Wilson: right. And that was why he bought
Matt Edmundson: it or, Oh, totally. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Totally. The reason why he bought it. And He's just so passionate about getting that house back to where it was in the movie because it looks a little bit different now and all this anyway, I'll let you listen to his story.
Just really great guy. Beynon and just loved it. Loved it. Loved it. So lots of good memories of being in that part of the world. Very beautiful, actually. A lot like England, whether, we were talking about this before we hit record, right? The weather, it's just as in England, it's just very odd.
Johanna Wilson: Yes, I my husband is very into British football, and that was how I learned how rainy England was, and I was like, it's just like Oregon. If we ever move there, it'll be a easy transition, I think.
Matt Edmundson: Yeah, no doubt. Just bring your wellies, you'll be fine. What football team is he is he a big fan of, do you know?
[00:07:00] Arsenal. Oh okay, this interview's now over. What's that? We're just, we're not going to talk anymore. Oh!
It's funny because I live in Liverpool, here in England, and I'm The reason I came to Liverpool was purely because of the football team. I came to school here, to the university here, back in 92, and I chose the university just because I was a Liverpool fan. Not because the school was good, not because the course was good, but just because I was a Liverpool fan, right?
And the church that I got stuck into here in Liverpool for the longest time, the pastor, there was two pastors in our church. One of them was an Everton fan, which is one of the rival teams here in the city. And then the church was handed on. We had a new pastor and he was a Liverpool fan, which was great.
Now he is just in the process of handing it on to another guy who is an Arsenal fan. So I'm not talking to our new church pastor anymore.
Johanna Wilson: Yeah, I had no idea how serious football was until I met [00:08:00] my husband and now I understand it, but he one of his best friends is from Liverpool and lives here and is a Liverpool fan.
So they just don't talk. When there's games, when there's games,
Matt Edmundson: probably a good idea. We don't talk to the teens. It's very funny. It is interesting how passionate it is. So yeah, great. Paul you lived there with your husband and your dog and you've, you said you grew up in this Protestant house.
Your parents were in the AOG, the Assemblies of God which is like a church denomination for those of you who might not know. But obviously you've had your own journey. So if I fast, if we sit where we are and just look back over the past, however many, years you've been living, I'm not going to ask you, because that would be rude, but do you know what I mean, how many years you've been living?
What, out of all the stuff that you've gone through, and we're going to get into it a little bit, what's your one message? What's the sort of the thing that God's taught you throughout this whole journey?
Johanna Wilson: I think that. [00:09:00] God is in control of everything. We are in control of nothing. And that humility, if we can, as, as much as we can be in that place of humility towards God the better off we will be.
Yeah.
Matt Edmundson: That's a really interesting thing. I. It's, I was having this very interesting conversation with someone the other day in terms of control, and his big thing was he just lost control of his life, and I was like, okay, I'm quite curious to, to understand why you thought you were in control of it in the first place, right?
I'm just and to try and understand what you thought you were in control of and I think it's interesting how. I was talking to my wife about this in terms of control, that in my mind, and tell me what you think, in my mind, the one thing that I have control over is how I choose to respond to something.
Do you see what I mean? I've got a choice, and I can make a decision at [00:10:00] that point in life, and the Bible says, I've set before you death and life, blessing and curses, therefore choose. These are the options, the choice is yours, Matt. And that's really about, that's really about it. So how do you reconcile that then?
Because you're in business, right? And so a lot of what you do is about making right decisions and so on and so forth. So how do you balance that? You're in control of nothing, God's in control of everything, yet I still need to work every day as a Yeah,
Johanna Wilson: I definitely do believe that God can use and does use work as a means towards working out your salvation and, that's up to Him to figure out how that's going to happen, but obviously we need to be able to hear Him, so hear what He's trying to tell us to do, and that's the part that. I really, I think I struggle with the most that I'm really working on [00:11:00] trying to get better at is doing the things every day that allow, that condition my soul in a way and my mind and my body. In a way that will allow me to actually hear God because I've got all these like layers of gunk on me from not praying from, if I don't go to, if I'm not going to church not struggling to get better at the things I know I'm bad at as a.
pertains to what God wants. When I'm not doing those things, and I think we all know when we're slacking off on something, it's like, it allows a layer of gunk to temporarily form where it's you can't hear quite as well. And it's, I really look at it like working out, like we're going to fail at Our attempt to reach God over and over again, because we're human.
And I do that every day. It's I, sometimes I don't pray. In the routine that I like to have, I like to try [00:12:00] to pray at least twice a day for 10 minutes, morning, 10 minutes. , and when I'm skipping those, or if I'm like focusing on what's going on in the world or like the news or all things that are constantly trying to grab our attention.
I feel less connected to God and I really can't hear him as well. But I know that because I'm human, like that's going to happen. I'm going to keep falling down and that's just a perpetual thing that's going to happen until I die. But I have to keep struggling to get back up. And reinstate those routines and reinstate those things that I know really those actions that get me closer to being able to hear God and closer to God himself.
And so as far as work goes or business to be doing those things first to really hear what he's telling me. But when I'm at work. I really just do my best to try to remember to apply what I've learned from God [00:13:00] every single day. When you have that coworker that, or that person that you disagree with on something or somebody that might be difficult to work with, like those are all tests from God.
For me to be working out my salvation and be refining my soul, to become more Christ the opportunities present themselves every day.
Matt Edmundson: They certainly do. Yeah, they certainly do. I'm loving listening to you. I'm curious if I if that's your one message that, you are not in control, God's in control, how did you learn that?
What happened, for that to become the main thing that you've learned? Because it sounds like maybe that wasn't a straightforward or easy lesson to learn, or maybe it was, I don't know, but I'm curious what's the story behind that.
Johanna Wilson: Yeah I think that I really I spent a lot of years after my parents.
So I'll back up a little bit, but my parents were pastors for most of my childhood, and then they [00:14:00] divorced when I was fifth or sixth grade. So 10, 10 years old or so. Wow. And when that happened my family obviously went through very heavy trauma from all of that happening in. I think from that trauma, I coping mechanism was trying to be in control.
Like I couldn't control what happened to my family. And so I would do like little behaviors to try to control My reality around me, just like little silly habits or feeling, I think feeling, feelings of despair are a symptom of trying to be in control or thinking you need to be feeling out of control.
And so I remember feeling that a lot. And that kind of led me to my teen years and into my twenties. And I forgot about. The church and I forgot about God years [00:15:00] and got very interested in like other types of spiritualities. And I had spent a lot of time asking questions about Christianity specifically in the, sort of the philosophies that I was taught as a child.
And I come from a family of philosophers, so we pick apart everything from a logical perspective. So I, I remember doing that and just feeling like nothing made any sense. And like the church that I was raised in didn't really have the answers to satisfy my questions. And so I came to the conclusion that I just needed to move on from that.
And started exploring other types of spiritualities and of all different kinds and moved into my twenties essentially turning into a very like new age Wiccan type of thinking person. And I ended up just very enveloped in the world of the occult and [00:16:00] new age thinking and with mainly Wicca, I think, AKA Satanism or Luciferianism, although a lot of people practice Wicca, don't realize that they are in like the first level of Satanism because they don't.
Maybe they haven't, they don't know about Satanism or they're not deep enough in it to know what the levels are. It is a baby level of entering that world. And the new age serves as a trap door that drops you into it. So it's like going on a slide of the new age type thinking and then you land a heavier things.
But all of that, turned my life upside down, but I thought it was the way it was supposed to be. I thought it was good, even though it was bad. It was my the Inverse, like what is up is down. Yeah. Thinking in my head and some things happened during that time that catapulted me out of there.
Everything's eventually fell apart, everything crumbled [00:17:00] and I was forced to start my life all over again. The catalyst being the ending of a relationship that I was in and the ending of that relationship with this person who was also a heavy practicer of Wiccan and Pagan traditions.
Very into this together. And so it not only was at the end of a relationship, but it would felt like a breaking away from that lifestyle. And it was all very shocking to me. I lost my job because my job was intertwined and all of that. I lost my income. I lost my person.
I thought was my soulmate. I lost my, the place where I lived. I had to move away. And my entire sense of identity was completely shattered psychologically. So I. I felt like I didn't know who I was anymore it was like everything had crumbled and I had to learn about what cognitive dissonance is, what Stockholm Syndrome is things that, people [00:18:00] go through if they've been groomed or brainwashed and end up getting out of that, like kind of what happens to your brain.
Because it splits a little bit. Or rather it's splitting when you're in those situation, but in situations, but when you come out of it it's you don't know what reality is anymore. You don't know who you are, what reality is. And it feels very scary. So I was in that place and I ended up moving in with my mom for a while to get my bearings straight and I remember basically I went from a place of, having plenty of money, having a nice place to live, not really needing to worry about any of that stuff.
Although I was very tortured spiritually at the time to basically sleeping on the floor. At my mother's house just, and I remember just not even like wanting a bed, I just wanted to sleep on the floor. I didn't want any luxuries. I just needed things to be as simple as [00:19:00] possible because I couldn't process.
Any complications. , huh and so I slept on a mat on a, in a sleeping bag on my mom's floor for probably six months. And at around that same time, I just realized that, was absolutely no way I was going to be able to figure out how to make things okay. How to be able to figure out reality because it was so shattered.
I had no bearings. And it could have also been like a mental crisis in a way which I think are often a result of spiritual crises. And so I, and I remember like making a pact with God And I had, at that time I had received some signs, like I, God had been sending me signals like through really weird avenues, like driving and like on the radio, I would just hear things I would hear songs or a [00:20:00] message or I would see things that just clicked with me in a really intense way.
And I really felt like they were coming from God and it felt like God was telling me. Actually, everything you believed was wrong. I'm here, and everything you believed was wrong. Wow. And so I could hear that, but I didn't really know what that meant. And but I knew God was real again.
Like I had, he had come back into my scope of vision probably due to the fact that I was in the depths of despair and I was like at my lowest at a very low point where you have no choice, but to be humble. Like you can't have visions of grandeur and. Goals and plans and I'm going to do this and, life is all about this and creating your own narrative.
You can't do that when you're in the place where I was. It's just, it's such a desolate, flat landscape of nothing and you can't fill [00:21:00] it. I don't know how to explain it. So I remember. Feeling and like telling God okay, God, you know what? I give up. Like I am so exhausted. I don't know.
I don't know what to do. I don't know what that was. I don't know what's coming next. But I know that first of all, I don't trust myself to plan it, so I'm not going to plan it. Second of all I know that I, I can't and it's not up to me. And third, I'm too tired. I don't have the strength.
I don't have the strength or the energy to try to create anything. Yeah. I'm going to do, God, is I am going to stop. I'm going to take a step back. I'm just going to go get a job at a restaurant and be a waitress for a while. And I'm not, and I'm going to go to church and I'm not going to think about anything.
I'm not going to try to figure anything out. I'm not going to try to plan my life. I'm not going to think about the future and worry about the future. I am just going to go to work and [00:22:00] serve people food. I'm going to go to church on Sundays and I have no expectations or plans for myself other than.
I'm going to church to get spiritual protection from this dark craziness that I just left that still felt stuck to me. Yeah. And that's it. And I'm just going to wait for you. And I don't know what, I don't know what's going to happen after that. So love ya. I didn't say love ya, but I don't think I really knew how to love God yet at that point.
But And so that's what I did. I just gave up control completely. And that was really hard for me because . I've always been very like, worried and frantic about money. Like I always, I've always felt like, 'cause my mother really struggled with finances when my parents divorced, right? So my whole life I've always been like, oh gosh, do I have enough money?
And so where I came from, I had enough money. Now I'm in a place where I don't have a lot of money. I have [00:23:00] no money actually. And I'm getting a job that really doesn't pay any money, very much money. It's like barely enough to live. And so being okay with that and accepting that and just letting go of all the material things as well.
No, you don't need this. You don't need that. You need food and a roof over your head. And you need to go to church and that is all you need. And wow. So starting there it was really interesting and amazing. Cause over the next nine months that's all I did. I just, I went to work, I lived a really simple life.
I got rid of all the complicated aspects that I had built up around myself previously, both materially success wise, money wise. people wise, just everything and went to church on Sundays. I wasn't baptized yet. I was just going to church cause I knew that going to church made me feel better. And when I walked out of those doors, I could feel a really stark contrast.
And I, it's, I think it's always been this way, [00:24:00] but between what it feels like inside of a church when you're in there, and then you walk out the doors. And that shift in energy, it's you can feel that darkness that you're walking into when you walk out of church. And I knew that I needed to have a cloak of spiritual protection cloaked over me every Sunday so I could keep that on throughout the week as I was walking around.
And so that, that was all I really did for about nine months. And through that time, I I was able to. I think maybe it was quiet enough that I was able to learn more about God again and get reacquainted with Christ and with God. From a bit of a different perspective than I had growing up not too much, but in what was for me a deeper baptism, it was like a deeper connection and the things that I was able to learn [00:25:00] through my church about just the life of Christ and how much that relates to how we live today.
And I was able to get all my questions answered that I didn't get answered as a teenager in a way that was amazing. And interestingly enough a lot of the things I went through when I was in the occult . My church and like the teachings of the church really highlighted a lot of those things and address them in a way that I had never experienced before.
And. It just like it connected all the puzzle pieces together and I was just like, Oh my gosh, like I've spent all these years like searching and searching. I've been reading, the ancient secret teachings of all ages and studying all of these, different ancient cults and these ways of thinking that all claim to have some sort of secret spiritual knowledge of the inner workings of the universe that will enlighten you.
And [00:26:00] all it, all I ever ended up doing was spinning in circles. It keeps you in an endless spiral. And the spiral is a common symbol in the occult, which is funny because that's all it is. It's just a spiral. You don't get anywhere. Yeah. You're just
Matt Edmundson: stuck in a spiral.
Johanna Wilson: Yeah.
Matt Edmundson: That's, I thank you for sharing it.
It's fascinating listening to you talk because that's not my experience in life. I wasn't involved in that and I've got lots of questions, Joanna, if I may. What you just talked about in terms of, learning about the fact that God was in control by saying, my questions weren't answered in the church when I was in my teenage years, but they were answered after I'd been through.
What questions were would they be, what were some of the things that you needed to get answered? Yeah,
Johanna Wilson: so I I wanted to know where, who wrote all the books of the Bible and why. I wanted to know how the Bible was assembled in the first place and why, and how it was decided that each book would go into the Bible.
[00:27:00] Because I grew up very focused on the Protestant side of Christianity focuses very heavily on scripture. Scripture is like the center of the universe. And, and I think that was why the Bible was my initial focus was like what, where did this scripture come from? Because I grew up believing it, that it just, the pages just flew together and that God like divinely just assembled everything.
And there were no humans involved and it just appeared. Even though obviously John wrote the Gospel of John and Paul, the book, Paul is full of Paul's letters to the Corinthians and Ephesians and all of those things. But I didn't know any of that. I just, I had a very like I didn't have a very robust understanding of this, of the scriptures from a historical perspective.
I knew what they said and I knew what the Protestant church talked about they meant, but I became very interested in the history and what, how, who is responsible for this? Yeah. And and that led me [00:28:00] to researching things like the lost books of the Bible and the Council of Nicaea was like a topic I discovered in the library when I was 14.
And I was like, Oh, there was a council of. Faithful people that got together that basically, decided a lot of things about Christianity that influenced how Christianity is today. . So those were like the first two things. And I remember asking just questions about those things to the people that I knew.
In my church and, or, with my father and my mother and they were my main teachers and they didn't know anything about any of that stuff either. And and they'd both been to Bible college. It's like not all Bible colleges really get deep into those things necessarily.
So I just thought how come you don't know about these things, but other people do. And. It just really confused me, not having those and when I entered the Greek Orthodox Church it was all there and it was like, [00:29:00] just mind blowing how, so the Greek Orthodox Church and many Orthodox churches essentially have started with the churches that Paul founded and some of the other apostles.
Some of those churches that Paul founded. Our still exists today and our living churches, living Orthodox churches. And so the Orthodox faith having that connection to the apostles and those first churches that were founded had a really strong, to preserve the original thinking and teachings of the original churches that were founded by the apostles right after Jesus died.
And they actually have done that and essentially really haven't changed anything in their manner of worship. In their the way that they pray in a lot of the different traditions that were alive and happening in the very, very first Christian [00:30:00] churches in the century after Christ died are actually like almost the same today, 2000 years later in modern Orthodox churches, which haven't modernized because they have wanted to preserve that.
And they've also been these sort of guardians of history where these councils that happened and all of the books, the original manuscripts of the books of the Bible were guarded by them as well. And they, took great care to ensure that the books that were chosen to go into the Bible .
The kind of the final collection of books that are read were completely in line with what Christ preached and what Christ taught his apostles and the traditions and the concepts that he relayed to them when he was here. If one person there didn't agree, they wouldn't leave and they would sit there and they would all pray together.
Until there was a unanimous consensus over a certain [00:31:00] topic, over a certain interpretation or how the church should move forward with what it believes about itself and how it wants to exist. And same thing with the books of the Bible same process. And then another example would be some of the desert fathers, the post apostle, like some of the generations of apostles and monks and as desert ascetics, people that would go out to live in the desert and pray for their whole life to try to become closer to God.
Some of those people have some really interesting writings and thoughts on just like how, what Christ wanted us to do and so and then the what they call the Church Fathers, which are people like St. John Chrysostom or Gregory, I'm gonna butcher his name. I don't want to say it incorrectly.
There's two or three kind of main People [00:32:00] who really helped, like I said, to guide the church forward from the year 100 moving forward and keeping it in line with with what was taught by Jesus at that time, because there were a lot of cultural influences at the time that, that really shaped, the way Jesus spoke like why he used certain phrases, why he and although they're, they extend into eternity, like they're, they can cross every generation, but it helps to understand at the time, like what the culture was.
And and so just learning more about those things really helped me to understand that actually, no, some people do know the answers to my questions. It just wasn't my church and that's okay. I was able to get some of those more historical answers about where everything came from and how it ended up the way it is today.
And also because of the, that church's dedication to the preservation of the original [00:33:00] mindset. And in Greek, the word is phronema. It's it's a mind, it's the mindset of the church. And some people have a different phronema than others, a different sort of understanding of reality. It's like when you're having a conversation with them.
You're not really having the same conversation, you don't really, because your minds are shaped in a different way and so learning also about how so Augustine was a good example of where The interpretation of the original message of Christ started to get a little bit skewed and not necessarily by any fault of his own, but mainly because he didn't really speak very good Greek.
And so a lot of his sort of interpretations of the Greek Bible were not completely accurate. They didn't have the same mindset that the original Christians had tried to preserve for that whole time. And he was very heavily influenced by philosophical thinkers like Socrates some of those [00:34:00] people at that time that were very intellectual thinkers.
And they were offering these philosophies and conceptions of reality that were based on logic, not mysticism or the heart just very logic based ways of thinking about things. And so Augustine ended up doing a little bit of a pivot, taking Christianity on a logical pivot, more towards intellectualizing the spirituality.
And that's how Roman Catholicism was born was through that sort of intellectualized thinking and this, it turned into a very. A system of very heavy legalism. It's there are a lot of legalistic sort of ways of thinking a little bit more black and white. Everything is in an intellectual debate of right and of truth or not truth and right and wrong.
And it's like an argument rather than let's pray and try to hear God. And so the, I think that, learning about how that manifestation of Christianity [00:35:00] caused some, a lot of issues for people who ended up breaking away from Roman Catholicism through, the Reformation and Lutheranism and Calvinism creating Protestantism because they didn't really like what was going on.
Certain things in the Roman Catholic Church. And so it's then another pivot happened. And I think in the process, some of the his, some of the importance of of history got lost and so I think that's why, like my parents didn't really. Know how to answer my questions.
Yeah. About things. But when I went to the Greek church, they were like, oh yeah, it's this, yeah. This is what happened. Because they were the ones who were, they were there, and they like, it's a part of their tradition, so that was really helpful for me because, and I also, I think for a lot of youth who may be questioning Christianity and they're looking at it from a logical, philosophical perspective.
If God is omnipresent or omnipotent, then why would he have me even be born if he knows I'm going to go to hell? [00:36:00] Like questions like that, those are hard questions to answer for pastors and for parents. And those are the questions that kids ask. And, kids are now are out in the world going to school and just, they're surrounded by a lot of very anti Christian ideas and things that challenge what these, what they've been taught, what the Christian children have been taught.
And I would venture to say that more often than not, those kids are really going to struggle to have conversations with those people who are challenging their beliefs because. It's from, like I said, it really helps to understand the history because, it's actually very different than what the perception is that I think mainstream secularism has of Christianity today, which is more oh Christians don't practice what they preach.
So why should we listen to them or, Christians are hypocrites or Christians are this, or they're [00:37:00] that, or they're hateful bigots for one reason or another because they're looking at it from an outside perspective, but they're looking at it from a very Western perspective. And here in the West, it's we've all become very intellectualized and we use our logic to make sense of things like.
We've largely forgotten how to think with our hearts, which is what Christ was doing. Christ was trying to teach people to live in art, live in their hearts, not in their heads. But we live in our heads out here most of the time
Matt Edmundson: It's interesting. It'd be really fascinating actually to to actually look at the differences between Western Christianity and something like the Greek Orthodox Church, because they're going to be stock and they're going to be plenty, aren't they, in terms of the things that we have created ourselves as tradition.
And I, the. The Greek Orthodox Church and the Assemblies of God are quite, they're different, right? They are on the different in in some respects, I dare say there'll be crossover, in [00:38:00] some respects I dare say there'll be differences, but I'm I'm fascinated by the whole thing.
I'm very aware of time as well, John. I don't want to take too much of your time, but if I can ask you when you're in the occult, you talked about things that obviously happened. I think that You thought it was good, but it was upside down and you use this phrase tortured spiritually. You were tortured spiritually.
You realized this when you came out. What sort of things, help me to understand, to recognize when other people are going through something, or maybe somebody listening to this show is in a similar environment, and it's that kind of, what are some of the tell tale signs, what are some of the things that you, now looking back, go, I should have realized this, but at the time I thought it was right.
Johanna Wilson: So I think the most important one is the emphasis on focusing on the self. Anything that encourages you to focus on yourself even self esteem this like idea, this mainstream idea of self [00:39:00] esteem it can be very dangerous and is actually at the root of a lot of very dark teachings that people, a lot of people don't know about.
But they all encourage you to focus on yourself. To a point of self obsessed, you're so obsessed with improving yourself, but it turns into a self obsession and it closes your eyes off to everything around you that you actually should be paying attention to. So I think that would be the first thing because.
It's God, I don't think God wants us to focus on ourselves in any way other than, that we want to be closer to him, yeah, so a lot of different faiths and things that are associated with the occult encourage you to be selfish in a lot of ways. And a lot of the you'll see a lot of quote unquote gods and different spirits and things that are in some different religions and also in a lot of occult types of spirituality, [00:40:00] these entities and these beings you, when you hear their stories that are written and you hear what they're all about and like how you're supposed to interact with them, it all ends up either you're having to do something for them or they're trying to condition you to become like them.
I now believe that all of those things are simply fallen angels that are real manifestations of fallen angels or, demonic forces, but they shroud themselves in these cloaks of glamour of they can make themselves look any way they want. They can appear any way they want to, and they can look like they're good.
But if you feel like there's chaos in your life, if you feel like there's turmoil in your life and you don't know how to make it better, like you, you're probably connected to something that is infusing that into your life or the practices that you're engaging in are actually, like creating that chaos in that turmoil.
And you need to [00:41:00] change something about your. What you're doing every day, to get closer to God. Yeah. So because God is peace and not that nothing bad is ever going to happen, but it's like the idea is that when a bad thing happens, we still have peace. Because you're so close to God that we still have peace even when the terrible things are happening.
Matt Edmundson: No, it's fascinating listening to you talk. I, because often say this at Crowd, it doesn't say in the Bible, it doesn't, the Bible never talks about self help or self improvement. It doesn't talk about self-esteem. It says don't think of yourself more highly than you ought to. It's an interesting thing, isn't it?
And I've, in some respects, I've seen Christians take that too far the other way, but it, this fixation on self, I would, I don't know. Again, maybe because I've not been in it, I don't know if I'd have put it at the doorways why is the road to destruction, isn't it? It's this sort of focus on self is taking you down this pathway, which is [00:42:00] ultimately what you entered upon and went quite far into.
But you're right, it's that. I can't remember a society that was as narcissistic, and is so determined and focused on self at the moment. Even the word offense, we use words like, oh, that offends me. Or you're, committing some kind of violence towards me with an opinion that you have.
How dare you? You know this, it's all about self, isn't it? And it's quite an interesting one. I, I suppose being through or having gone through what you've gone through and ended up where you are. How do you look at current society? How do you look at what's going on? I mean you mentioned before we hit the record button that you don't actually, you're not on social media and I'm curious is this all sort of interlinked with that?
Johanna Wilson: For me in the sense it is that social media is. Because it's so dopamine heavy when you're using it, it's like you're getting those hits of dopamine to your brain, like you're getting a literal drug when you're [00:43:00] using it and it becomes so addicting it consumes so much of your time.
And that time, like suddenly no one has time anymore. It's Oh my gosh, I don't have time to do anything. I feel like that really started when social media got bigger, like Facebook and Instagram and all those things, because our time is being sucked away by devices and screens. And unfortunately now it's just a part of the general workplace.
It's we all have to use that to communicate if we want to communicate in the world. But that's why I don't have it is because the more I have it, the less time I'm going to have to come closer to God and to be doing what God wants me to do. And yeah, but it's definitely, and not to mention all the things that are on social media, which are very.
It's a spiral, it's a spiral focusing on how do I look, what do I have, what, and like pride, vanity, what do other people [00:44:00] have, envy, like all these things that really drag our souls down. Like we just stick our head into this little pool of here, suck my soul out every time you get on social media.
So I just think, as much as we can avoid that, the better obviously it can be used for good too, but I think you have to be really disciplined and really strong, because that dopamine drug is involved we can't kid ourselves that we, again, are in control, because,
Matt Edmundson: yeah, that's a really interesting point, yeah, that's fascinating.
I've thoroughly enjoyed talking to you, Joanna, and I feel like I've got so many more questions to ask, but I'm aware of time. If people want to connect with you, if they want to reach out, if they want to maybe ask you some questions what's the best way to do that?
Johanna Wilson: Yeah they can search my my first and last name on LinkedIn and send me a message on LinkedIn.
And that's basically the only form of social media that I do have. [00:45:00] So the business, I even have to be careful with that. So yeah,
Matt Edmundson: yeah, no I'm with you. I'm with you. Joanna, listen, thank you so much for coming on to what's the story. It's been an absolute treat talking to you and just I just thank you for being so open and just telling us your story and and bringing that to light and it can't have been easy, but it's good that you've come through it, and I've got lots of notes lots to think about.
So thank you.
Johanna Wilson: Awesome. Thank you so much, Matt. I really appreciate it.
Sadaf Beynon: And just like that, we've reached the end of another fascinating conversation. Crowd Church is a digital church, a community, a space to explore the Christian faith, and a place where you can contribute and grow. To find out more, check out www. crowd. church. And don't forget to subscribe to What's The Story on your favorite podcast app.
We've got a whole lot of inspiring stories coming your way, and we really don't want you to miss any of them. What's the Story is the production [00:46:00] of Crowd Church. Our fantastic team is made up of Anna Kettle, Matt Edmundson, Tanya Hutsuliak, and myself, Sadaf Beynon. We work behind the scenes to bring these stories to life.
Our theme song is the creative work of Josh Edmundson. If you're interested in the transcript or show notes, head over to our website, whatsastorypodcast. com and sign up for our weekly newsletters to get all this goodness delivered straight to your inbox. So that's all from us this week. Thank you so much for joining us and we'll catch you in the next episode.
Bye for now.