{"id":2514,"date":"2025-07-28T14:41:04","date_gmt":"2025-07-28T13:41:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thechristian.ng\/?p=2514"},"modified":"2025-07-28T14:41:04","modified_gmt":"2025-07-28T13:41:04","slug":"ex-satanist-was-performing-satanic-ritual-then-jesus-showed-up","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thechristian.ng\/?p=2514","title":{"rendered":"Ex-Satanist Was Performing Satanic Ritual \u2026 Then Jesus Showed Up \u201c"},"content":{"rendered":"

 <\/p>\n

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Former Satanist<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

E<\/strong>x-Satanist Riaan Swiegelaar\u2019s journey out of the occult and into the Christian faith captivated the world when his story first\u00a0went viral<\/a>\u00a0in 2022.<\/p>\n

Swiegelaar has since shared details of what he says was a radical encounter with Jesus \u2014 an exchange that led him out of Satanism and into biblical belief.<\/p>\n

He remarkably went from a person who denied Jesus\u2019 existence to a man now trying to help others steeped in the occult. And it all started with the love of a stranger.<\/p>\n

A few years ago, a Christian woman who heard Swiegelaar speak on the radio about his rejection of Jesus came up to the then-Satanist and hugged him, an action that left him stunned and planted a seed in his heart.<\/p>\n

\u201cA few days after that, I was supposed to perform \u2026 a Satanic ritual \u2026 to check in on whether the Antichrist has been born yet or not,\u201d he told Billy Hallowell and Jen Lilley on the\u00a0\u201cInto the Supernatural\u201d podcast<\/a>. \u201cBecause of my background, at the time, was in the occult as a professional practitioner and somebody who actively practiced rituals even before I got involved in Satanism, they thought it a good idea to appoint me to do the ritual.\u201d<\/p>\n

As Swiegelaar was preparing for the strange rite, he said something supernatural happened.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I got to lighting the second candle, the whole room where I was doing this suddenly lit up as if there was a spotlight shown into the room,\u201d he said. \u201cMy initial thought actually was that I\u2019m either being pranked or I\u2019m being watched by someone.\u201d<\/p>\n

But when he turned around, Swiegelaar was stunned by what he observed.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs I turned around \u2026 Jesus was standing there,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd, again, I didn\u2019t know that this was Jesus. So I asked Him, \u2018Who are you?’\u201d<\/p>\n

Swiegelaar said Jesus identified himself, but Swiegelaar rejected the notion and proclaimed he didn\u2019t even believe Christ existed. He knew in those moments that the apparition \u201cwasn\u2019t a person,\u201d yet he was perplexed as to what \u2014 or who \u2014 was standing before him.<\/p>\n

\u201cRemember, in Satanism there is a lot of\u2026 involvement of invoking demons and working with demons,\u201d he said. \u201cSo, demons always appear in a certain way to occultists and people practicing.\u201d<\/p>\n

But when Swiegelaar asked Jesus to prove who He was, something else happened that left him reeling: he was immediately hit with an inordinate amount of love.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I said to Him, \u2018You\u2019ll have to prove it,\u2019 he flooded me with so much love \u2014 and because of that lady [who hugged me days before] I recognized that love, because, you see, she had Christ inside her,\u201d he said. \u201cSo I immediately recognized that like this is real, and I remember I actually fell to my knees because I couldn\u2019t stay standing up.\u201d<\/p>\n

Swiegelaar said the experience lasted no more than a minute or two, but the impact was deeply profound. He said it was as though the \u201cwhole world went quiet.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI just sat on the floor in that quietness and that feeling of love,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Everything Swiegelaar thought he knew was suddenly obliterated. He realized he had been happy by the world\u2019s standards but that suddenly wasn\u2019t enough.<\/p>\n

\u201cI just didn\u2019t realize that I had a Christ-sized hole in my heart,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Swiegelaar, who was deeply impacted by the interaction, started on a path toward rejecting the Satanism he was helping lead and decided to embrace the Christian faith \u2014 a paradigm shift that transformed everything.<\/p>\n

\u201cI had to go through a 10-month deliverance period,\u201d he said. \u201cBecause I was so involved in the occult and so involved Satanism, I went through nine sessions over a 10-month period of deliverance.\u201d<\/p>\n

Swiegelaar eventually found spiritual freedom. Now, he is sharing his faith and helping others exit Satanism and find true hope in the Christian faith.<\/p>\n

This story was culled<\/a> from Faithwire newspaper.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

  Ex-Satanist Riaan Swiegelaar\u2019s journey out of the occult and into the Christian faith captivated the world when his story first\u00a0went viral\u00a0in 2022. Swiegelaar has since shared details of what he says was a radical encounter with Jesus \u2014 an exchange that led him out of Satanism and into biblical belief. He remarkably went from […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"source_name":"","source_url":"","via_name":"","via_url":"","override":[{"template":"1","single_blog_custom":"","parallax":"1","layout":"right-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"top","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_share_counter":"1","show_view_counter":"1","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author":"1","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_category":"1","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","show_prev_next_post":"1","show_popup_post":"1","number_popup_post":"1"}],"image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending"},"jnews_primary_category":{"id":""},"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,9,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2514","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-international","category-news","category-uncategorized"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thechristian.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2514","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thechristian.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thechristian.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thechristian.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thechristian.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2514"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thechristian.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2514\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2515,"href":"https:\/\/thechristian.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2514\/revisions\/2515"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thechristian.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2514"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thechristian.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2514"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thechristian.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2514"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}