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Ali Stuckey
We are playing a replay episode of a very popular episode of Relatable today because the Relatable team is traveling to a very fun location to have a special exclusive interview with Nicole Shanahan. You'll remember that name because she was RFKJR's running mate when he was running for President. She recently had a conversion experience. She shared about her conversion to Christianity and her baptism on social media a few weeks ago and I knew I had to try to talk to her. She was gracious enough to meet with us and that episode will be out tomorrow. Until then, enjoy this replay of Relatable Jack Marino Chen came out of the occult and met Christ and her testimony from the time she was a child and feeling like she was connected to these transcendent entities that she thought were aliens and into the new age and then into the occult and then out of that very dark world and into the light of the Gospel. You are going to be so encouraged by the details of her story and just reminded of the power of Jesus to save us from absolutely anything. You are never too far gone and Jack's testimony is such a good example of that powerful truth. Today's episode of Relatable is brought to you by friends at Good ranchers. Go to good ranchers.com use code ALI at checkout. That's good ranchers.com code ALLY Jack, thanks so much for joining us. If you could tell everyone who you are.
Jack Marino Chen
Well my name is Jack and I grew up thinking I was a Christian, was sexually abused as a child that left me very confused in a lot of ways and suppressing that and then I had a supernatural experience with what I originally thought were angels but then later learned about aliens and really grasped onto that as an identity and found an escape from stuffing down the abuse in these supernatural experiences. And then that led to escaping myself through alcohol, drugs, self harm and I ended up getting in very unhealthy relationships, abusive relationships and was introduced more to New age ideology. In high school I read the book the Secret which opened my eyes to the law of Attraction and it was very an exciting thought that I could control my reality and another bad relationship led me deeper into the new age until when that crumbled down and I really had to be alone with myself. I just thought I really need to get control and I started being influenced by these entities believing that I was led. One thing led to another led to another until I joined an occult order called the golden dawn where we practiced ritual magic in a freemason lodge and it was there that Jesus Christ met me in that darkness and saved me. And I've been sober now for coming up. Or seven years, actually. Wow. Seven years. And I'm married. And it's been amazing that I never thought that I would smile or laugh again in the deep darkness that I was in. And the Lord has completely redeemed my life.
Ali Stuckey
Okay, let's back up to the beginning. You said that you thought that you were a Christian when you were growing up. And so what was the religious belief of your parents?
Jack Marino Chen
Well, we thought. I thought that we were Christians, kind of like, you're American. You're just born into it. And so I went to a Methodist preschool. I don't remember hearing the Gospel, but then again, I was very young.
Ali Stuckey
Yeah.
Jack Marino Chen
And my idea of Jesus was someone that you imagine when you're afraid. Just a picture of a man that I would imagine. So I really didn't understand what it meant to be a Christian, but really thought that I was. And the sexual abuse happened at a very young age, and I really stuffed it down and didn't want anyone to find out about it.
Ali Stuckey
Was this a family member? Yes. Okay. And how old were you?
Jack Marino Chen
It's hard to say. My earliest memories are of the abuse, but for sure when I was five, it can be.
Ali Stuckey
I'm so sorry.
Jack Marino Chen
Thank you.
Ali Stuckey
That's so, so young. I mean, any age, it's tragic and a nightmare, but when you're five years old, you don't even have the words, the mentality to wrap your mind around what's happening. And of course, you don't have the power to defend yourself either.
Jack Marino Chen
Right. And I definitely experience that in. And when I was around seven, the person who abused me was caught abusing a toddler and was sent away. And I just told myself, if I never think about this again, I can just believe my lie that this didn't happen. I was so afraid of being caught or it being found out. I didn't have the mental wherewithal really, to understand what had happened. And I felt a lot of guilt and shame.
Ali Stuckey
You thought it was kind of your fault?
Jack Marino Chen
Exactly.
Ali Stuckey
Did you talk to your parents about it?
Jack Marino Chen
No, I just totally denied it, said nothing ever happened, and really thought if I believed that enough, I could create my own reality. You know, the Disney fairy tale, kind of. I can make my dreams come true, and if I believe this, I could make that happen.
Ali Stuckey
It was your way of escape.
Jack Marino Chen
Exactly. Yeah. And it was around that same age of seven that I first had that supernatural experience, just seeing lights in the sky. That felt very not just like lights, but these familiar, personal, powerful presences. And my only way of understanding that was, oh, they must be angels. But then to learn about aliens, I. I think I really latched onto that because I believe that they saw me, they knew me, they accepted me, and they knew what had happened to me.
Ali Stuckey
And so you were outside.
Jack Marino Chen
Yes.
Ali Stuckey
And it was just one moment where you were outside and you looked up and you saw these lights. You thought, these are angels communicating with me, letting me know that I'm okay and that they know what has happened to me.
Jack Marino Chen
Yes. I was looking out over a canyon and. And it was just. It's kind of hard to put in words, but it felt so powerful. Like the most powerful thing I'd experienced.
Ali Stuckey
Like out of body experience, almost.
Jack Marino Chen
Yes. And I really. I truly made that my identity because it was so exciting for me and I felt special to them. And so I. I held on to that experience. And ones that I continued having that were similar then, this fascination with aliens.
Ali Stuckey
Yeah.
Jack Marino Chen
Throughout my life.
Ali Stuckey
So you said that you were seven at this time and that became your identity and that then you learned about aliens. So tell me what that looked like at such a young age. How did that become your identity?
Jack Marino Chen
That's a great question. I really started enjoying kind of being different, and I started feeling like I was more influenced towards the more devious things, things that I knew were wrong. There was a lot of confusion that comes with childhood sexual abuse. I gravitated towards friends who I later learned were also being abused in many cases. But I started teaching my friends and they'd teach me what was happening with them sexually. And so there was just so much guilt and shame and anger and things stuck, pushed down that these escapes, these powerful moments of experience as that child gave me something to hope in, to look forward to. And that very small amount that I knew about Christianity, I started giving away to embrace a worldview that had a place for these beings who were. I was special to them is what I received from that. And, and that. That meant something so much to me in a world where I felt like no one really knew who I was.
Ali Stuckey
And you had access to the Internet at this point, were you using the Internet to try to figure out what these powers were in your life?
Jack Marino Chen
Yeah, I didn't really get access to the Internet until later on, but once I did, definitely the more really it was reading things or hearing other people talk about UFOs or gray aliens that would kind of give me the little bit here and there that I latched on to with Those experiences.
Ali Stuckey
Yeah. And when did you learn about aliens? And how did you come to feel that these lights that you had interacted with or that you felt like you interacted with were aliens, at least according to your belief then?
Jack Marino Chen
Yeah, I. It was a family member who was also very influenced with the UFO idea that I was very close to. And so it just kind of made sense to me. Like something clicked that the whole angel thing was just a vague idea, the only context that I had for it. But the idea of aliens visiting and there's this mystery behind it and it's alluring and exciting, really drew me in.
Ali Stuckey
Okay. And talk a little bit more about how that became your identity and kind of grew to be such a dominant part of your life when you were, I'm guessing, preteen teenage years.
Jack Marino Chen
I just really thought I was special to them, and so I would kind of seek out those experiences. I made my own Ouija boards, really wanting to have more contact with these beings again, which I really thought were my friends. Other people had imaginary friends. I didn't get that because with these beings I felt like they were actual experience. Yes. And I would try to have imaginary friends, but it was just different. So to me, these were my friends who saw me, who knew me, who loved me. And so growing up again, I continued trying to escape myself. I had developed an eating disorder in eighth grade. I was self harming. I was just really becoming devious. I really was. And when I got to high school, I wanted to fit in with people. I really just kept making other things my idol. I truly didn't know who I was inside. I didn't. The truth is, like, I didn't know who God was. I didn't know that in that pain of my abuse and what was going on and the confusion and the things that I was doing, that there was a good God that I could run to. And that Jesus isn't just someone to imagine, but that he is this perfect Savior who went to the cross and he was tempted as. As I am. And he was tempted as we are, yet without sin. And that on the cross he died bearing God's wrath. And. And my sin in my place died, rose again, and now is ascended to the right hand of God as the one mediator between God and man. Like, I had no understanding that there was a savior that I could go to, that I could run to, that I could cast my anxieties on because he cares for me. There was no one to go to. I thought I was afraid of anyone finding out who I was so these beings knowing me, in addition to escaping myself through any means possible and even in idolatrous, very confused friendships. And then I realized that if I didn't start drinking and doing drugs, I would lose those friendships because that's what they were doing. I forgot to mention that my dad, who was very close to my mom, separated from him when I was five because he had a meth addiction and an alcohol addiction. And so it was unsafe for us to be with him. And so that was very hard for me.
Ali Stuckey
A lot of turbulence and a lot of confusion about who you were, who was your caretaker, like, who really cared about you, and you're just trying to find your identity. So it kind of. I mean, it makes sense to me that a child as young as seven would latch on to something that they feel is a power bigger than them and that is steady and sees them as special because that's how you wanted to feel, and you wanted to feel known without having to tell the people around you because of the guilt that you felt like you bore. You talked about trying to communicate to these entities through, like a Ouija board. What other ways were you trying to communicate to them and have a relationship with them?
Jack Marino Chen
Yeah, it was really. When I got older, it was more. When I was young, I was kind of afraid at some points. It felt like they were visiting me. I wasn't doing a whole lot of reaching out to them. But in high school, starting to take on these more New Age beliefs without knowing that that was what it was with the book the Secret and Law of Attraction and, oh, the universe is so big. Wow, this is really making sense for what I've experienced and diving into that. And then once I. I was in a relationship that was very confusing. I believed this person was my twin flame, actually more than my twin flame. He taught me that we lived hundreds of lives and in. We were each other and that in some of them, we sadly were sent on different quests, but we were the same being ultimately.
Ali Stuckey
Yeah. And so is this teenage years or early twenties?
Jack Marino Chen
This is late teens.
Ali Stuckey
Okay.
Jack Marino Chen
Yes. And that relationship was very painful. But all that to say, being more introduced to these New Age ideologies. I started using now the drugs I was specifically taking to contact these entities. I was getting into psychedelic drugs to do that. I was going into trances using binaural beats.
Ali Stuckey
What's that?
Jack Marino Chen
It's kind of like these different frequencies or ways that you can trigger your mind allegedly to go into altered states of consciousness, similar to a guided meditation, but just to try to already get your mind somewhere else. And again, this was very alluring to me because it was escaping myself now in much more powerful ways.
Ali Stuckey
You've talked about before that some of the friendships that you had had with, I believe they're mostly girls. Right. As a young person, that they were also being sexually abused. And you felt from an early age that you also had to be sexual and that it caused a lot of sexual confusion in your life, which really plays a part in this escapism and seeking to have communication with the other side. Can you talk about some of that confusion about your own identity?
Jack Marino Chen
Yeah, I. I was really. Shame was such a huge part. Shame and guilt. I felt so much shame and so much guilt. And there is some confusion around, like, what is true, what is sexual orientation confusion, what is just lust, what is. And in my case, I think especially later on, there was just a general depravity and misunderstanding about what sexuality is. But there I would go through these friendships and just really hope that I'd never be found out.
Ali Stuckey
That you had been sexually abused or.
Jack Marino Chen
Sexually abused and that there had been sexual things going on in these friendships. Yeah, there was so much shame in that. And I had a friendship where the person who I saw as a friend, but there had been that intimacy, for lack of better words, started having feelings for me and that this is a girl. This is a girl. And there's a lot of fear that. That. That being public would then expose everything else. Yeah, exactly. Not just the one thing, but everything that I. You know, then people will really see me. And that was terrifying to think about. And so that confusion and just pushing it down, really just confusion about sexuality and altogether, who I am as. As a person was driving those confusions. Yeah.
Ali Stuckey
I mean, your first introduction to sexuality was so disordered.
Jack Marino Chen
Right.
Ali Stuckey
And I mean, there's a lot of data out there that the earlier a child is introduced to sex, inappropriate, like inappropriately like that, the more likely they are to be confused down the line about sexuality, attractions, lust. I mean, disorder kind of breeds disorder. Sin can breed sin. And it's interesting that even though you didn't grow up in a traditional Christian home, that you still had this feeling that this is not right. Things are messed up inside of me. You weren't seeking the savior to save you from those things yet, but you were seeking some kind of salvation from them.
Jack Marino Chen
Yes. And I think there was just this real false gospel being preached to me, although I wouldn't have seen it then through these beings that was like, you are special. You have A purpose. And you can be, you know, liberated from this because we have this plan for you was really enticing and exciting, and I think that's why I found so much identity in it.
Ali Stuckey
Yeah. So you mentioned that you kind of got into the New Age, the Secret, the Law of Attraction. Not everyone knows that book, the Secret. I mean, it's very famous or maybe infamous. Tell us a little bit about what that is and what revelations you felt that you had when you were reading that. I think in your early 20s.
Jack Marino Chen
I actually read this in high school.
Ali Stuckey
In high school. Okay, so was it right around that time of that really unhealthy relationship with the twin flame guy?
Jack Marino Chen
This was one relationship before that and more. Yeah. In a different abusive relationship. But when I read that, it talks about, basically, you can make your dreams come true. You can your thoughts create your reality. Guess what? You actually have the power to create whatever life you want. And you are the most important being in the universe because you can manifest whatever life you want. And. But it was very packaged, like Barnes and Noble, and not Barnes and Noble now, but packaged in a way that it was palatable for many people. It didn't appear occultic, it didn't appear at New Age. It was kind of self empowerment. And this is great. And I really saw it that way. It was interesting looking back, seeing on the first page now it says as above, so below the emerald tablets of Thoth, who later in my story is the entity that I was following that got me. Or that I believed was the entity that I was following that got me deep, deep into the occult. It's pure darkness and it's just hidden on the front page. But again, it's sold as this very glittery, beautiful girl boss. You can create your own life. Isn't that great?
Ali Stuckey
Yes. Oh, my goodness. Okay. So that's how that started. Law of Attraction. Basically, you attract what you are, you attract what you say. You can manifest your success by just declaring it. And did you believe that at the time?
Jack Marino Chen
I did. Which is interesting, because when you. When it doesn't work, it's your fault because you. You must have thought a negative thought somewhere along the line. So it really does become this thing that puts you in bondage. But it sounded very freeing that, hey, I really don't like my life. I mean, there were good parts of it, but generally I didn't. And I can actually make my life be whatever it is because I have the power to be my own God and create my own reality.
Ali Stuckey
It really goes back to Genesis and Just promising that the power of knowing the difference between, you know, the. The knowledge of good and evil eating from that tree will give Eve godlike powers that will free her and then obviously led to bondage. Um, so you got into this relationship with someone who said that you were Twin Flames, and you kind of already explained it, but basically what that means that there is, like, this internal flame between you and this other person that was always meant to be. It was eternal, as you said, like, lived a lot of different lives. And it really doesn't matter if my understanding is correct, if like. Like Twin Flames could be married to different people, but they're just in the wrong relationship. And if you meet, you have to get together, because it is almost this external, powerful, transcendent force that is pulling you together.
Jack Marino Chen
Yeah, you're like a soul tie. Yes. Yeah, you're exactly right. That's how it's explained. And really what I believed. And it. It was so ultimately, I had. I made this man my God. Like, he became my religion, teaching me about the New Age. I believed that we were each other. The first time that I saw him, I felt that same familiar feeling that I saw that I felt when I first saw those entities. And so it was this deep connection of. In a world of a lot of darkness and pain. In my world. It was like, here's this person with color and with answers and with beautiful things to say that I hadn't heard before. And I really dove into that until I. I became just a follower of him, and he started to teach me. It's with him that I started trying psychedelic drugs, getting more. And we went to New Age festivals similar to Burning man, but on smaller scales where we're. I'm learning more about sexual liberation and polyamory and all these different New Age ideas and practices, like charging my crystals in the moonlight and. And I, again, having. No. Not knowing who I was, finding my identity in this new thing that promised me power to create my own reality. And ultimately, because I was serving this person so much to work off karma and become closer together.
Ali Stuckey
Yeah. And sorry to back up a little bit, because I believe this was the previous relationship, but I'm interested in how this played a role. The person that you had dated before this, that was also an abusive relationship. He was Native American. And with that, I'm guessing there came, you know, a set of beliefs that he had that also influenced kind of your paganism and your belief in the New age. Is that right?
Jack Marino Chen
Yes. Um, yeah. My main quote, unquote, good memories of. With him that weren't violent were staying up all night on drugs on the reservation, talking about aliens and ancestors and elements and just different things that I was learning and being taught. And again, I still. What's amazing is I still would have said I was a Christian. Even in high school, through drug abuse, alcohol abuse, living for myself, living in sin, I would have said I was a Christian because I really didn't know what that meant. And if someone said. If someone confronted me, which by God's grace, a couple people did, I would have thought, you don't. You can't judge my heart. You don't know me. But in this relationship, I still would have said I was a Christian. But the reality was I never knew Christ. But also the little truth that I did know, I was giving more and more away to embrace these ideas that, you know, it's judgmental to not embrace this new Native American idea because they, you know, maybe they were here first or just starting to think that maybe everything's right. I just need to look at it.
Ali Stuckey
The right way and tell me how you kind of graduated, if that's even the right word, or got into what is the occult. Because the occult and the New Age aren't necessarily the same things. Right. If you're able to explain that.
Jack Marino Chen
Yeah. I personally would say that the occult is where the New Age roots are. If you follow the New Age, you'll find the occult. And when the relationship with this twin quote, unquote, twin flame ended, it was very awful.
Ali Stuckey
I'm sure you felt like your whole self was wrapped up in this person.
Jack Marino Chen
Yes, yes. And I had just moved to Hollywood and gotten a studio apartment to be closer to him. And then I got the call that it was over, but he was coming back for me. And I was left with, in it.
Ali Stuckey
Like, a spiritual sense or like. Like, I'm breaking up with you, but because we're twin flames, we'll find our way back to each other kind of thing.
Jack Marino Chen
Yes, it was very confusing. And it was. It was both the spiritual and the physical. I'm coming back for you. Just need to make something of myself. You should, you know, keep doing drugs to wait for me so that it'll pass faster and just these. These things. But I really believed them to the extent that now that I'm married, I. To be honest, or I guess I should say to be completely vulnerable, it was really hard for me to take that step because there was still this lie that I'd harbored for years, like, he's coming back for me. So There was a lot of.
Ali Stuckey
It was hard for you to take the step of marriage because, you know, Satan had just embedded that twin flame idea in your mind. Wow, that's such. Such bondage.
Jack Marino Chen
Yes. And so graduating when it did end being. I mean, I really snapped, which I already was pretty deep in it, but I snapped thinking at this time my dad was homeless, on the streets in la, and when it would rain, it would just destroy me thinking about him. Because I was his responsible party. And there's a lot of pain and this isn't working, by God's grace. When I was in the new age and at these festivals, you know, there would be tantra, yoga tents, and basically like pagan orgy kind of things going on. And the idea that you need to embrace your sexual liberation, sexual freedom. And there were just some things that I couldn't do. There was a restraint there that I just felt so wrong to me that I couldn't do it. And that made me really upset because I thought that my Christian dogma. Christian dogma was holding me back from being truly free and truly liberated. So I'd be so upset with myself that I couldn't be who my twin flame wanted me to be or who I thought I would fit in more with these people if I could be. But when the relationship ended, I. I just thought, I need to. Ultimately, I. I wanted to sear my conscience. I wanted to push it all down and just go in and find where the real power was. Because manifesting my reality wasn't working out so well. And so that really looked like me locking myself in the studio apartment, using drugs, spending all of my time researching whatever I was led to in that twin flame relationship. I had really believed that these entities wanted to see through my eyes. Not thinking of that as possession, just thinking. You know, I've known these entities, they're my friends. They're so familiar throughout childhood, and I'm just special. And they just want to use my body and see through my eyes. And wow, it's interesting because if you had just dropped in there, it sounds so clearly bad, but having been my whole life kind of working up to this, it didn't. It just made the next logical step made sense. Um, and so diving into all that, then now just diving into it more, I got into something called lucid dreaming, where I was practicing waking up in my dreams so that I could control my dreams and go on these astral planes and meet my spirit guides and learn more knowledge. And something called by yourself? Mostly, yes. I was very isolated, would have A hard time having conversations with people. I was not in my right mind at all. Yeah. Something called. I'm so sorry.
Ali Stuckey
No, go ahead, go ahead.
Jack Marino Chen
Something called astral projection, also doing similar kind of things. And I also was led to this entity called Thoth and something called the Emerald Tablets of Thoth. And I'd strung a clothesline across my studio apartment and painted the words on it. And I was just so obsessed trying to find the secret knowledge and the next key to unlock the powers to the universe.
Ali Stuckey
And you said that these entities that you still thought were aliens at this point, they wanted to see through your eyes. You felt like they were telling you that.
Jack Marino Chen
Yeah.
Ali Stuckey
And did that, like, did that happen? Like, did you ever have a moment.
Jack Marino Chen
Where you felt like, okay, they're in fleeting moments. I think that sometimes, especially in meditative states, I would feel more connected with them in that way. But there was, as I got deeper and deeper in. Into it. I remember looking at my eyes in the mirror, like, just meeting my gaze and just my blood running cold with fear of, like, I do not recognize whatever is behind my eyes. Eyes that's not me. But still thinking, I need to go into the darkness and shine the light of knowledge. And all these words that I'd learned to feel the fear and do it anyway. So I kept pressing on in that. And, yeah, there were. I started channeling. I would write things like, I'm an alien watching through the eyes of a girl. And just very dark things. Really getting more and more depraved as well.
Ali Stuckey
Yeah. And then what led you into the occult?
Jack Marino Chen
I continued. It was. It's kind of strange, but it was like every. The next thing would glow, physically glow, because I was so out of my mind. I didn't know it was physical reality. And what was just me seeing things, you know, that weren't really there. And so things would glow. I was walking down the street and I saw a Freemason lodge, and that glowed. So that got me more into the Masonic text, Kabbalistic texts.
Ali Stuckey
And I don't know. We. I don't really know what Freemason is or what Masonic texts are. So can you give us just a brief explainer?
Jack Marino Chen
Yeah. So Freemasonry, I. I get a lot of pushback when I talk about Freemasonry because Freemasonry is for men. They do have other orders that I actually reached out to this Freemason lodge. I think they would call themselves more of a fraternity, like a brotherhood, but it is a secret society. Ultimately, I think that it has A lot to do with idolatry and Gnosticism, but secret society. And when I reached out to them, they recommended me to the Eastern Star, which is their order for women that also goes into very secret, secret teachings there. But the order that I ended up getting involved in, called the golden dawn, was started by three master Masons and brought a lot of Masonic ideas and symbolism because Freemasonry can be very ritualistic and theatrical. Also brought in Rosicrucianism, which is another philosophy kind of taking. It's an esoteric philosophy. So I've heard it said that what Rosicrucians kind of think about or use as a philosophy, the golden dawn would practice. And so I ended up being led to the golden dawn, which took a lot of really. I ended up being led there because I saw these tarot cards that were glowing and they ended up being the Thoth Tarot deck by a man named Aleister Crowley. And he's known as the most wicked man to have ever lived. He is. He actually popularized a lot of wicked things here in America. But like.
Ali Stuckey
Like what?
Jack Marino Chen
Well, bringing the occult over here, but Aleister Crowley's form of magic and was so gross. A lot to do with the belief that sexual fluids have more magical power.
Ali Stuckey
So is this sex magic?
Jack Marino Chen
This would be. But he would even take that to the nth degree, including children. Very, very awful things that are said about him.
Ali Stuckey
And he brought that here to the United States.
Jack Marino Chen
Yeah. At least popularized it. Yeah. And I believe he was on The Beatles cover, Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. And he was very pushed by the music industry at one point.
Ali Stuckey
So Aleister Crowley, you said that's his name. You saw these Tarot cards or Tarot cards. Where did you see them?
Jack Marino Chen
I was just at a metaphysical shop.
Ali Stuckey
Okay. You saw them, you felt like they started glowing, as you said. You thought that these entities were kind of showing you the direction to go, the things to buy, what to focus on, based on glowing. You. You saw the Freemasonry lodge, which was glowing. So you felt like, okay, I gotta go that direction. That's how you found the golden dawn occult. One thing led to another. And then you found these tarot cards which you said were Tarot cards of Thoth, which was the entity that was at the beginning of that secret book, right?
Jack Marino Chen
Yes. It feels like one of those weird like.
Ali Stuckey
No. Yeah, but I'm just making sure that everyone has it kind of mapped because, yeah, Satan uses these things and pieces them together and kind of like an upside down of what can Be like a beautiful testimony of redemption is also like a testimony of, of darkness for those that he's trying to lead astray. And so that's how all of those pieces kind of came together. So you're in this metaphysical shop, you see these tarot cards, you feel like they're glowing. They're created by this very, very evil, pedophilic, sexually predatory, so called magician, Aleister Crowley. You buy the tarot cards?
Jack Marino Chen
Yes.
Ali Stuckey
And then what happens from there?
Jack Marino Chen
Yeah, I just spent almost all of my time trying to take the images into my psyche, trying to really take this tarot deck in and started dreaming about them, started practicing tarot. And from that deck and the Alistair Crowley information is how I learned about the golden dawn, really how I got introduced and felt. That definitely played a big part in me feeling like this was the next step, was joining this Golden Dawn. And Aleister Crowley was in the golden dawn, the original Golden Dawn. And so I, I really thought, okay, this is the most wicked man to ever live. I, I tried to make my own justifications of what is good and what is evil and trying to say, well, I was going to join the Eastern Star. I have family members that were involved in freemasonry and that was one of the things they're involved in. So that sounds good. But their symbol is of an upside down pentagram, so that's bad. But the golden dawn has a cross symbol, at least a cross involved in the symbol. So that must be good.
Ali Stuckey
But I kept just, Interesting.
Jack Marino Chen
Yes. Thinking that, that I, I just, it took me a while and a lot of back and forth before really reaching out. And I, there was an order in my area. The original golden dawn ended a long time ago. But now there are people who have orders. And I was living in LA at the time that had an order where they practiced the same magical system and so reached out to them and a man asked me to meet him at a coffee shop in Silver Lake. And when we started talking, everything that he was saying to me was exactly what I'd been led to. From astrology, Kabbalah, the Egyptian deities, Tarot, all these things was exactly what I had been being led to. So it was like, wow, this man's speaking my language. I can actually have a conversation with this person. And I was really excited. And the words like you were called to this were used. So it just, it felt like I was about to get in on the secret club that my alien entities, my friends, had been preparing me for.
Ali Stuckey
What were some other things that he was saying that resonated with you.
Jack Marino Chen
It was really the way that he spoke in a very, like, deep, esoteric way, talking about the great work. I had been practicing alchemy, which has to do with the great work. Let's.
Ali Stuckey
The great work.
Jack Marino Chen
It's kind of what they call the work of. Of being in this magical order. You're. You're doing the great work. Alchemy is also called the great work. And it has a lot to do with something called transmuting, where you're taking gross matter and it's being transmuted to gold, but more in a. Your soul allegedly, is going from being on this lower level to you go through transmutation until you become basically gold.
Ali Stuckey
It's like demonic sanctification.
Jack Marino Chen
Yes. Yes. Okay. And so it was really exciting for someone to. To be talking about the things that I so deeply believed was my next step.
Ali Stuckey
This. So this is the moment that you felt, finally, all that I've been working toward, that I've been listening to, all of the. Even the drugs that I've been doing, the painting in my apartment that has led me to this moment. It felt like divine providence.
Jack Marino Chen
Yes.
Ali Stuckey
And so what happened from there?
Jack Marino Chen
I was asked to go to a Freemason lodge to be initiated, and I was so excited. And I remember I was listening to the soundtrack for Fantasmic on the way there because I felt like all the sorcery and the themes in Disney, I finally understood what they meant and I was going to go live it out for real, though. And, like, I truly wasn't afraid. I was just excited. And they had me. Yeah. When I got there, there was a woman on the top of the stairs waiting for me in a full black robe with a hood. And did that scare you at all.
Ali Stuckey
Or were you kind of used to that kind of imagery?
Jack Marino Chen
Yeah, I was. It made sense, given all the things I'd been studying and pouring my life into. I wasn't working at the time, other than, you know, doordash here and there. I was being supported by my family. So all my time went into obsessively studying these things. So it just made sense. And I was put in a room. I was also put in a black robe. I had to wear red socks. And I was told not so much to pray, but to meditate, to prepare myself for this. For this ritual and the ritual itself. I was hoodwinked, so I couldn't see. And it was very dark. A lot of it had to do with taking John 1:5 out of context. The idea that you're Going into the darkness to shine the light of knowledge in it, the secret knowledge. A lot of symbolism to do with duality, darkness and light and ancient Egyptian hermeticism. And there was a sword put to my neck, swearing that I would never share what I learned. A lot of scary, very scary. I didn't think it was scary at the time.
Ali Stuckey
You thought it was sacred?
Jack Marino Chen
Yes.
Ali Stuckey
Thought it was serious?
Jack Marino Chen
Yes. And I'd also been in a sorority where they're, you know, they're similar like theatrics and don't tell anyone. So I remember telling one of them, like, oh, I'm not scared of. I went through something similar but to me, again, it made sense. There was a heaviness to it. Like it felt like you're saying sacred, but yeah. So I was initiated. I took a lot of pride in thinking that I was again special, had been called to this. And I continued going to the Masonic lodge to do, to practice, to learn. And there was a time where we spent like 12 hour days for a couple days, all just doing invocation rituals, sigils, learning hermetic magic. And I would have still said I was a Christian, which is amazing. I would bow down to a golden idol before entering this room. I would. These invocations of these demonic entities were bowing my face down before golden idols. And we'd take communion. It makes me emotional, but we'd take communion, or they call it Eucharist to Osiris, who's an Egyptian deity with bread and wine. And I, I thought I was getting closer to Christ because that's what we were told. We would use the name Jesus Christ, but Jesus was someone that you become, someone that you attain to. I just thought I had a deeper understanding of what it meant to be Christian. But I was worshiping demons and I was becoming more and more depraved sexually and in every other way. My gender or not my gender, but my sexual identity. I got involved in sex magic which really came with it. The, my belief which is taught that the height of sexual, you know, pleasure is a more powerful time to manifest. So it was still the law of attraction. It's just if you go down to its core how the original teaching is more so to practice it just absolutely wicked.
Ali Stuckey
I. Are they like orgies with people of all different kinds of genders?
Jack Marino Chen
I, I personally didn't partake in, in, in them with other people, but in my own, in my own practice. Right. Was practicing that.
Ali Stuckey
So because the thought is that like orgasm gives you greater access to the supernatural and you can more effectively manifest.
Jack Marino Chen
Yes.
Ali Stuckey
What you want.
Jack Marino Chen
Yeah, it's seen as a very powerful energy that at that point, if you hold in your mind the thing that you're trying to manifest, that that moment is the most powerful moment to manifest that also, I, I was very unhealthy from the drug use and all that, so I didn't personally have a cycle, but I really wanted to because the idea of menstrual blood is seen as powerful. Powerful for releasing and powerful blood in general, powerful for magical practices. So when I see people doing things like abortion rituals or releasing, you know, seeing it as a, as a practice, as a something magical, it makes sense with the lies that I was believing back then, which is so upsetting. But when you really get into the occult and you see like the belief system regarding blood, regarding sexual things, regarding duality and fluidity, and none of what I'm seeing in the culture is surprising.
Ali Stuckey
Talk a little bit more about that abortion ritual because shockingly, I saw a post by Cosmopolitan on Instagram that was basically talking about abortion like a satanic ritual. And yeah, we have it up right there. Satanic abortion ceremony. We've actually seen the satanic temple try to carve out exceptions in states that have passed pro life legislation, carve out exceptions for religious freedom for them to say, while it is part of our religious freedom to sacrifice basically unborn babies. And so you're saying that that whole thing doesn't surprise you because they see blood as powerful.
Jack Marino Chen
Right.
Ali Stuckey
And also, I guess, child sacrifice. So is that something you saw and experienced?
Jack Marino Chen
Yeah, it was more something that I, I believed and saw in terms of what I was learning and more as a philosophy. I didn't get to the point where it was being practiced, but if it had started to praise God that I was saved before then, but if it had started to, it would have made sense to me. It. Yeah. Based on what I was fully believing and thought was good. I didn't think it was wrong. I thought it was good. That's. That can be so disturbing about this is I, I thought it was good that you're, you know, you are God of your own body and you're. Why would you let a man tell you that there's something wrong with using your own blood for magical practices or using, Using your body autonomously was seen as a way to conduct magic and, and it was also glorified that, you know, we're going back to our pagan roots and just this scene almost hand in hand with woman empowerment, self empowerment, ultimately, again, making yourself out to be God.
Ali Stuckey
Yeah. And it just reminds me that it is once again a subversion, a perversion of what Jesus said. Because Jesus spilled his own blood, he gave his own flesh as a sacrifice once and for all. That covers our sin. But the occult is saying you have to spill your blood blood, you have to give your body to make a sacrifice to whatever deity it is. And in that you will receive the power to be your own God. Yes. So it's this kind of, as you said, self deification and self worship and being your own savior, which we hear that language a lot in non occult spaces and very like beautiful female empowerment spaces. We hear that from people like Glennon Doyle, we hear that from people like Rachel Hollis, we hear that from people like Brene Brown, all these beautiful, blonde, wealthy, successful women who seem to at least in some cases have these great relationships that whether they're saying those words or not, they are saying the same message that you can get what you want by loving yourself enough. And by being your own leader, being your own God, following your heart, you can basically manifest the life that you want. And if you love yourself enough, it will unlock all of these inner powers that you have inside to manifest good things. Is that a parallel that you see in the mainstream?
Jack Marino Chen
Yes, absolutely. And knowing where it comes from is so disturbing because. Well one, you know where it comes from. It goes back to Genesis 3. It is that lie that you know you can be your own God. And, and for me, learning the knowledge of both good and evil, your eyes will be opened and you'll become like God. And also to what you're saying again, the teaching was Jesus is a type to become. It diminishes Jesus, it cuts away his deity or that he's preeminent, or the truth about who he is. And instead it's self empowerment. And even whether it's your blood or someone else's blood again stripping from the Bible that it has power. And so much of what we were doing in that freemason ritual room was taking the Bible like we would during rituals, use like a Psalm, Psalm 51, I believe, but in Latin or Kabbalah and Gematria basically says, you know the Bible. Yes, but you have to read it in a code. And the Hebrew letters have numerical value. And it's all this secret. The Bible becomes secret knowledge and doing banishing rituals, saying the names of God like the Hebrew names of God and the Lord's Prayer to perform occult rituals, trying to take as though also the ritual room was set up like the Tabernacle So it's like taking from the Bible and trying to suck power for me. Like I want to make my own will be done. There's power here. And then totally perverting the Bible again to make you God. It's truly Luciferianism at heart and was so entrapping because thinking, no, we are using the Bible and learning the names of God and Hebrew and all these things. I am a Christian, I just have the secret knowledge that you don't. And so again, if you would have, I would have talked about Jesus, God, the Bible, being a Christian. But my definitions of all those terms and the way that I was practicing it was opposed to God and completely different.
Ali Stuckey
Talk about Christ consciousness.
Jack Marino Chen
Yes, that, yeah, that goes into the same idea that word tends to be more with the new age. But the idea that Christ is like this consciousness, like almost that he had he attained this level of consciousness that you can too and step into that power. And almost the idea of as Christians was you can be if you just are as he is and ascend to that level. And a lot of the time it has to do with your higher power and awakening. But usually those awakening ways are very new age, very Eastern and again cutting away at who Jesus is. He's no longer the Savior you are because you can be him, which is a total lie and could have never saved me. I was getting deeper and deeper into, yeah, darkness.
Ali Stuckey
Yes. And I've seen people who would say that they're Christians, but then I see that language of Christ consciousness or becoming Christ, not becoming like Christ, but taking on becoming the mind of Christ, which really doesn't mean following after his words in scripture. It really means, as you said, becoming a little God and attaining to the highest form of humanity or even transcending that. How did you get out of the occult and come to Christ?
Jack Marino Chen
Yeah, well, I was deep into practicing that. It was my whole life. And I. I just had moments of realizing how depraved I was. There's a moment where I. I looked in the mirror again and I heard this voice saying it's crazy how evil becomes you. But it was this voice that was not my own. And it was very upsetting to say the least. But I had thought this might be evil. What I'm doing, I don't really know, but I can just go back to doing what's right later. Like I thought there's a difference between doing something that might be evil and being evil. But it was in that moment I realized like who I am inside, like constantly doing evil Things like, there's. This is way worse than I thought. And again, in the order we were practicing things that involved the Bible. And I just read the Bhagavad Gita, which is a Hindu text as it is, which is a very, very long, basically their scripture with commentary. So I was very prideful thinking I read that I might as well read the Bible. It's just another. It's just another one of sacred texts. And there must be something to it, because that's what we're using here. And I read that you can tell a tree by its fruit. I probably was in Matthew 7, and I didn't really know what that meant, but I knew. It pierced me that the fruit of the people in this order, including me, but even the highest up in the order, they're just as depraved as me. They're taking cigarette breaks. Not like that has anything to do with salvation. But if they can control the universe, why are they addicted to cigarettes? Just little things that didn't quite add up. And also, just knowing that they're just as broken as me kind of gave me pause. And then another thing was, I read in 2nd Corinthians 11:14 that Satan masquerades as an angel of light. And I kept thinking, how can this be bad? It's light work or making excuses. But when I read that, I realized, no, Satan is behind this. I. I always felt that deep down, but I wanted to find out for myself. I. I didn't mention this, but I had these abduction experiences. Well, one abduction experience, multiple contact experiences. And the abduction was the first time that I thought, maybe these are evil, very scary things. So that there had been that little bit of doubt that made me think maybe evil was behind this. And reading that verse again pierced my heart, where I realized, no, Satan is behind what I'm doing. But I was still so prideful that I didn't turn from what I was doing. And then one night, I remembered Genesis 3. I. I just remembered that the lie, the lie in the garden was that if you eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, your eyes will be opened and you'll be like God, knowing good and evil. And I just knew that Satan is behind this. It led to the fall. It wasn't actually a good thing, and it's leading to a great fall in my life. I was so lost. But still I didn't turn. I just thought, I don't know who I am apart from this. Like, I. I don't know who I am. This is all that I know. So I just kept going. And then one night in my studio apartment, it was just like any other night. And I was walking across and I was spiritually attacked, which would happen. And I fell to my knees and it broke. Felt like my soul was being sucked out into just utter darkness, and I had no control over it. And I cried out, jesus Christ, save me. And. And I meant it. And in that moment, just like that, I felt the peace that I'd been longing for my entire life. And I knew that it was the God of the Bible, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, who. Who saved me, who delivered me from that attack, and that it was not hard for him, all that darkness that I was tied up in, that I thought I would never escape, it was not hard for him to deliver me from. And I was shaking because I realized if the God of the Bible is real, which he is, then he says that sorcery is an abomination and divination. All these practices that I'm doing. This is scary. So I got out my Bible and I started reading it, still thinking I had the secret knowledge. But it didn't matter, because as I was reading it, it was like I was being filled, like I was actually eating. Whereas every other thing that I read it would leave me hungrier and emptier. And I would keep searching and searching and searching, always learning, never coming to the knowledge of the truth. But with this, it was like satisfying me. And I just kept reading it and reading it and really to learn, to learn that God is holy. I didn't understand that. I thought God, I could be God. God was just like me. But that God has given me every good thing that I've ever had. And yet I have sinned against this holy God. Truly, in my case, it's very clear for me to see that I sinned, but that I'd sinned against God and that there's a just punishment for sin. I really. I did in a sense, have a sense of impending doom, like fear, but learning that the. The punishment for sin is just. And it is a very real place called hell. But that God is love and that he sent Jesus Christ, not me, not someone that you can be, but Jesus Christ, God incarnate, coming to earth, living a perfect life that I clearly did not live, even though he was tempted as I was, and then going to the cross, despising the shame, being beaten, mocked, scourged and crucified, and then dying on that cross, and that on that cross he bore my sin like this me bowing down to those golden idols, me living this lifestyle. He bore that in my place, and that he bore God's wrath for that in my place. And that he died and rose again as a one meteor eater between God and man. And reading that Jesus is the way, the truth and the life, and no one comes to the Father except through Him. I'd been trying to find all these back doors. None of them worked. But that when I repented of my sin and turned from my rebellion against this God who again has given me every good thing that I've ever received and put my faith in Christ alone for my salvation, that I could be washed white as snow, that reality was stunning to me because I knew that I was dirty and to be made a new creation in Christ. That there's no condemnation in Christ, that you're born again. The reality of that was so, I mean, beyond amazing to me. And then I just kept reading it. I locked myself away. I realized for the first time I could get sober. I'd been addicted for many, many, many years. Thought I would die an addict. I just got sober. I knew that the Lord was with me. He was with me and spoke to me through His Word and I could run to him in prayer. And then, yeah, I've just been following him. And I'm truly amazed at who God truly is, which is so. He is so much better than I could have never been God. I could have never saved myself. I could have never pulled myself up by the bootstraps. But God truly saved me and has given me new life in him and healed me from so, so many things.
Ali Stuckey
And so you left the occult.
Jack Marino Chen
Yeah.
Ali Stuckey
And you started going to church. Tell us about one of the first churches that you walked into. And you realized, if I remember correctly, that this was actually not a church.
Jack Marino Chen
Oh, yes.
Ali Stuckey
That she wanted to end up at. And it's interesting to me that you had that discernment.
Jack Marino Chen
Oh, yeah. Um, well, I was really hungry and I had. I'd been reading the Word for a while and listening to some sermons before actually taking that step of, of going to a church. And I was living in Hollywood at the time, right in the center of Hollywood and the closest church to me. I just thought, oh, I'll go. All churches are probably the same. It was a Methodist church, and I mean, it was a female pastor. And all that she talked about was like, how they were going to get more LBGTQ rights in the church. They were going to fight for all these causes. And it just felt like this town hall like, social justice meeting. And I was. I was starving. Like, I. It took so much for me to walk to that church and to be met with that. I was so confused on, like, what. What was that? Just deeply confused. So praise God that I found this other church where the pastor. It was a very, very small church. It was a plant. And the pastor and his wife so graciously sat with me and walked me through Scripture, and I had a really hard time with different doctrines, and they just walked me through it and were patient with me. And God really used that to. To grow me as I was involved in that local body.
Ali Stuckey
Wow, that's amazing. And also that the Holy Spirit obviously convicted you away from that. And such a good. Like, such a good reminder for us that, like, people are walking into our churches hungry for the word of God.
Jack Marino Chen
Yes.
Ali Stuckey
Hungry for the gospel, and we need to give that. How did you meet your husband?
Jack Marino Chen
We met him at my church, and we actually both moved from California at almost the exact same time. We were on the worship team together. And it was. It's kind of a hilarious story of a lot of friendship and awkwardness and. But it's just been so cool how God has used him and used his love for the Lord and his. Just the way he selflessly serves me and points me to Scripture and washes me with the water of the Word. I learned God has taught me so much about what love is, especially romantic love through my husband there, you know, there's. God uses this marriage in many ways to sanctify me because, you know, childhood sexual abuse, a lifetime of sin, abusive relationships. I'm coming in with so much baggage. And God has been so kind to use this relationship to point me to the character of God and to show me the way that he has designed love to be between a man and a woman and those different roles. And I'm just so blessed and thankful to be able to walk this out with him by my side.
Ali Stuckey
Yes. That is so beautiful. Thank you so much for sharing your testimony. And if people want to hear more from you, you talk a lot about the differences between the New Age and Christianity, how people need to be on the lookout for that in culture and also within subsets of the church or even people who call themselves Christians using manifestation. Name it and claim it. You talk a lot about all of that. If people want to hear more about that from you, where can they go?
Jack Marino Chen
Yeah, you can Find me on YouTube, Jack Marino Chen, and the same as on Instagram. And then I also have a podcast with Doreen Virtue and Jen Niza called New Age to New Heart, which is on YouTube as well as Spotify and Apple.
Ali Stuckey
Okay. Thank you so much for joining us and for the courage to share your testimony. I know it's going to encourage so many people. Thank you.
Jack Marino Chen
Thank you so much for having me.
Podcast Information:
In this compelling replay episode of Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey, host Allie Beth converses with Jack Marino Chen, an ex-occult practitioner who shares her harrowing journey from the dark underbelly of Los Angeles's sex cults and blood offerings to a life redeemed through Christianity. The episode delves deep into Jack's past experiences with abuse, her entanglement with New Age ideologies, and her ultimate conversion to faith, providing listeners with a powerful testimony of transformation and hope.
Jack Marino Chen opens up about her tumultuous childhood, marked by confusion and trauma. Growing up in a family she believed was Christian, Jack's early understanding of faith was superficial.
At the age of five, Jack endured sexual abuse by a family member, an experience that left her grappling with guilt and shame. By seven, the perpetrator was apprehended, but the scars of abuse led Jack to deny the trauma, creating a fabricated reality to escape her pain.
Jack details her gradual descent into the occult and New Age beliefs as a means of coping with her past. Initially seeking solace in supernatural experiences, she believed she was connected to powerful entities, which she later identified as aliens.
Her fascination led her to create Ouija boards and engage in practices like lucid dreaming and astral projection, further distancing herself from traditional Christian teachings.
Jack became involved with the Golden Dawn, an occult order where she engaged in ritual magic, sex magic, and other esoteric practices. Her involvement deepened amidst abusive relationships and substance abuse, painting a grim picture of her life before conversion.
Despite her deep immersion in occult practices, Jack experienced moments of self-awareness and spiritual conflict. Reading scriptures like 2 Corinthians 11:14 and Genesis 3 sparked doubt about the true nature of her beliefs and practices.
A pivotal moment occurred during a spiritual attack where Jack felt her soul being pulled into darkness. In desperation, she cried out to Jesus Christ for salvation, leading to an overwhelming sense of peace and realization of God's love and grace.
Post-conversion, Jack shares her journey toward sobriety and rebuilding her life grounded in Christian faith. She describes the challenges of leaving the occult, overcoming addiction, and finding genuine community within the church.
Jack recounts her initial experience with church, contrasting a disillusioning visit to a Methodist church with a more authentic encounter at a small church led by a pastor and his wife who patiently guided her through Scripture.
Throughout the conversation, Jack emphasizes the deceptive nature of New Age philosophies and how they parallel mainstream empowerment messages. She warns against the subtle infiltration of occult ideologies within various cultural and religious contexts, urging listeners to seek truth in authentic Christian teachings.
Jack draws parallels between contemporary empowerment movements and occult practices, highlighting the underlying motives of self-deification and autonomy away from divine sovereignty.
Jack Marino Chen's testimony serves as a potent reminder of the transformative power of faith and the enduring human spirit's capacity to overcome even the darkest of pasts. Her story underscores the importance of discernment, genuine community, and unwavering belief in divine redemption.
Allie Beth Stuckey concludes the episode by expressing gratitude for Jack's courage in sharing her story, anticipating that her testimony will resonate and encourage many listeners seeking similar redemption.
Listeners interested in Jack Marino Chen's continued discussions on the intersection of New Age beliefs and Christianity can find her content on various platforms:
Note: This summary captures the essence of the podcast episode, highlighting Jack Marino Chen's personal journey from trauma and occult involvement to her spiritual rebirth in Christianity. The inclusion of direct quotes with timestamps provides authenticity and allows listeners to reference specific moments within the episode.