One Soul’s Escape From Satanism to Catholicism
In 2011, at an Easter Vigil in a simple parish church in New York
State, a number of souls were received into the Catholic Church. As it
does every year, the ceremony moved from the darkness surrounding the Paschal
Fire through the many readings from the Old and New Testament to the
proclamation of the triumph of the Resurrection – reminding all present that the
long reign of Sin and Death has finally ended. On that night, those adults
becoming Catholics made their baptismal promises. They accepted the Truths of
the Faith. They rejected Satan and all his works and all his empty promises.
It is right and fitting that they did so, but for one among them it had an
even greater significance than for the others present that night. Previously, he
had been part of a witch’s coven. For many years, he had practiced its
blasphemous rites, and seen things that he maintains could only have come from
Hell as that is whence he had summoned them.
Of course, Fred Wolff had not always been a Satanist. In fact, he was born,
in 1956, into a New York Jewish family. His family was not overtly religious.
Nevertheless, the boy attended the local synagogue and Hebrew School, and then
duly made his Bar Mitzvah. He left the practise of his faith when aged
16-year-old. A year later he had his first introduction to the Occult.
A friend brought him to meet his cousin. This cousin happened to run an
Occult bookshop in Wolff’s hometown. There, the youth met men who were witches;
soon he was happily being inducted into Wicca. Wicca pretends to be magic of the
sort that harms no one. Looking back, Wolff sees it was harming him,
and more worryingly opening the channel to another deeper, more dangerous,
encounter with evil.
On one level, Wolff’s life appeared normal. In 1977, he joined the Air Force
and was duly posted to different parts of the country. On another level, his
life was anything but normal. In these different postings with the military, he
would be connected to Occult groups that were present wherever he was stationed.
In his own words, such covens are ‘widespread’ – true then, no doubt, even more
so today.
One encounter proved too much, though, and showed where this was ultimately
leading. Wolff was posted to California. A man approached him. As he did so, he
noticed that the man carried a leather case with a Pentagram upon it. This
symbol of devil worship proved to be portentous, for the man was a Satanist. He
invited Wolff to his first Black Mass.
It took place in San Francisco and left the airman traumatised. He had never
experienced anything like it before, despite the many Wicca ceremonies in which
he had taken part. What he does remember of that ‘mass’ was that the chief
‘celebrant’ of its blasphemy was a defrocked Catholic priest.
Here is not the place to recount the vile things witnessed that night as the
Holy Mass was perverted into a sacrilege. What Wolff remembers clearly is that
he was aghast while attending it. But, no matter how frightened he felt of what
was taking place before his eyes, there seemed to be another power, albeit an
invisible one, holding him there, preventing his leaving.
After his discharge from the air force, in 1981, Wolff returned to civilian
life. He also returned to the practise of his pagan ways. Soon he was the High
Priest, so called, of his local coven on Long Island. And, so it remained, and
would have done so, had not a figure from his past reappeared in the winter of
1982. That person was one of the people whom he had met at the Occult bookshop
all those years previously, and who, subsequently, had introduced him to Wicca.
He came with a curious request.
The man was convinced that he had found the ritual and invocations to conjure
up a demon. He asked if Wolff wanted to participate in what he was about to
attempt. More out of curiosity than anything, Wolff agreed; however, what was
about to take place was to change both men’s lives.
A so-called ‘circle of protection’ was marked upon the floor. His friend told
him that as long as they stayed within the circle’s confines they would be
‘safe’. The chanting of the long incantations began. Little did either of them
know of the power of evil and that Satan and his demons have one goal: to
destroy all those with whom they come into contact, ‘friend’ or foe. And yet,
the ritual continued.
As it did so, from the corner of the darkened room, a figure began to appear.
As it came into the light, Wolff remembers it was the most beautiful woman he
had ever seen, with a beauty that was captivating. She beckoned to him to leave
the circle. Somehow, motivated by fear more than anything else, he managed not
to move. It was just as well for within seconds the figure had changed from
beautiful to that of a hideous shape. In fact, he was later to say that it was
the most horrible thing he had ever set eyes on. But, by then, he says, the
‘real show’ had just begun.
The very walls around the two men appeared to melt. And with that, came the
most suffocating and awful smell – a sulphuric smell. Today, Wolff realises that
he was being given his very own glimpse of Hell. Now, he says that when he hears
of people who say that Hell doesn’t exist, he knows they are wrong – he has seen
it, smelt it even.
And, with the coming of Hell, so too arrived one of its occupants as the
summoned demon now made an entry.
The reaction on seeing this shape was one of fear, a paralysing fear. The
demon looked straight at the two men and then laughed at them, asking if they
thought the circle would really keep them safe? Before any answer was uttered,
Wolff’s companion was lifted from the floor and thrown against an adjacent wall
approximately 15 feet away. At this, Wolff could take no more and fled
horror-struck through the house before locking himself in a room.
How long he hid there, he still has no idea. What he does know, in
retrospect, is that if the Hand of the Almighty had not sheltered him that night
he is convinced that he would now be dead. Of this, he is certain.
His companion did not fare so well, however. When Wolff emerged and returned
to the room where the ritual had taken place, he found him lying on the floor,
foaming at the mouth. A police and ambulance were soon in attendance. The police
did not believe Wolff’s story that he had just ‘happened by’ and found his
friend in this state; but there was no overt evidence of violence or drug use
and so the police let it go. Eventually, his friend was taken to a psychiatric
institution on Long Island. He was to die there from self-inflicted wounds some
years later.
Wolff had now seen too much. He wanted out. At last, he sensed the danger he
was in. The next day, he told the other members of the coven of this desire to
leave. They started to threaten him: no one was going anywhere; somehow, he
managed to get away from them and ran to his car parked outside. But try as he
might, the car wouldn’t start. And as he was sitting there, turning the
ignition, suddenly, out of the building from which he had just fled, there
appeared two witches. In the rear-view mirror, he could see that they had
spotted his car. He watched as they seemed to cast a spell at Wolff and his
vehicle. The next moment all he remembers was that the windows of his car blew
out.
It was then the car started, and, seconds later, a dazed Wolff sped off into
the night …
The following day when he went to get the glass repaired, the men doing so
commended him for doing a ‘good job’. He did not understand what they meant. So
they explained that obviously he had cleaned the inside of the car from all the
broken glass. The only thing was, he hadn’t. To this day, Wolff is sure that
something, or someone, had protected him from the force of the blast so as the
shattering glass had been deflected away from him. He thinks this could only
have occurred through the protection of his guardian angel.
At Wolff’s then work place, there was a Christian who had often tried to
speak to him about Christianity. Wolff had never been interested. Now, when he
met the man, he begged him to take him to church. Days later, at a Baptist
church, watched by his surprised work colleague, Wolff accepted Our Lord as his
Saviour. As he was to say later, after the night of that infernal ritual, he
knew he needed a saviour; and, perhaps more importantly, he knew from what he
was being saved.
The years that followed were far from easy. He got married, but the marriage
broke down; he suffered from depression. His church attendance was sporadic. He
had no firm adherence to any of the many Protestant groups he attended. There
was a constant theme running through these groups though. It was a fear of
Catholicism, often dressed up in arguments against or negative comments about
the Church. Paradoxically, these polemics had the opposite effect on Wolff. He
began to read books by authors such as Scott Hahn, Patrick Madrid and other
Catholic apologists. The more he read, the more a shape formed in his
consciousness, but one wholly unlike the hideous figure of that dreadful night
many years ago. This was an altogether different one, and one whose beauty was
true, for it was the Bride of Christ, His Church.
Now, at last, at that Easter Vigil in 2011, in a church dedicated to her who
crushes the head of the serpent, Wolff attended a Holy Mass instead of the
counterfeit he had witnessed in the past, and, having confessed all, received
his Saviour in Holy Communion, and, with it, the peace and joy that casts out
all fear.
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