Today we share with you the testimony of Zita Michielin, a former fortune teller and practitioner of New Age occult practices, hoping it will open the eyes of all those who naively judge occult practices as harmless. She found herself an improvised fortune teller almost by accident, but then her curiosity and search for meaning pushed her farther and farther until she almost got lost.
I was struck by these words of Zita, who in the program Vade Retro hosted by David Murgia on Italian Catholic television station TV2000, confessed with courage and generosity her sins and weaknesses in order to help others: “Beware, because the devil gives you his hand but then steals your arm. He steals from you, deceives you, makes you see things as beautiful that are not truly beautiful. These dark entities want you on their side (…)”
Improvised fortune teller
Zita was working at a call center that offered a variety of services, when one day she was told that there was a person on the phone who wanted to have her cards read. Zita had never done it before, but she improvised to be a fortune teller. Here is her story:
I absolutely didn’t want to do it because I didn’t know (how to use tarot cards), I wasn’t a fortune teller, I didn’t know anything about the occult. I was simply in the dark about everything. It just so happened that they put the call through to me anyway because there was no other woman there to answer it. And I find myself with a deck of cards in front of me that I don’t know how to use, I find myself with a female voice on the phone convinced that she had a fortune teller on the other end of the line, and I took this deck of cards I threw it in the table and I started talking, saying things, whatever came to me, describing the images I was seeing (…) this was my baptism (… in using) tarot cards.
Not only tarot cards
She was shocked and frightened when the person on the phone asked her how it was possible that she knew so much about her. She was also pervaded with a great curiosity: she wanted to know more about this occult world, so she began to inquire and study even at night.
After this experience I became curious (…) and I bought myself a deck of tarot cards. Inside there was a little book with the information to learn about them (…) So I started with tarot cards, then tried everything that fell into my hands or I could find, to find answers to an inner hunger I had. I was never religious. I never went to church; I had no knowledge beyond catechism when I was little. (…) I was searching because when you have this hunger (…) you need something more, and wherever you find it, if you don’t already have something in your hand (…) you go for it.
In-house fortune teller
Interest in her services grew to the point that Zita decided to open a private pay line in her home to read tarot cards. Thus, through questions and suggestions from clients, she discovered an esoteric world previously unknown to her. With her work, she was convinced that she was doing good, helping those most in need; she felt useful and good:
I had gotten to the point where I didn’t use the cards anymore, and I could sense the person by the tone of voice, the timbre … Certain answers came to me spontaneously, it was as if I got inside the people and saw their situation. So the urge I felt was always to lift the person up. I was so convinced that I was doing good…
She was convinced that she was helping people
Many people suffering in soul and body came to her, whom Zita, through what she believed had become her magical powers, believed to heal. Although her sense of power expanded more and more, her heart, nevertheless, found no peace. She was full of restlessness so she clung to anything that could give her an illusion of security:
After this experience I sought answers everywhere. I started with crystals, the study of energy, the study of chakras (…) I joined scientology, I did yoga, all those things that allowed me to expand a side of me I didn’t know. I would receive people at home, pass a hand near the person to feel their energy, feel where they had pain without them telling me, feel where something would happen to them on a physical level even in the future (…) I would sense things. I was very convinced that all this allowed me to help people. I got into anything that expanded my knowledge.
A sentence from the Gospel
One day during a home session, a sentence came to Zita like a “bomb” in her head and she uttered a passage from the Gospel that she had not read or heard since she was a child: “It’s not what goes into the mouth makes a man unclean, but what comes out of the mouth makes a man unclean.”
From fortune teller to believer
Jesus’ words rumbled inside her, shaking her, and something began to change. Zita got rid of all the occult tools she had accumulated; she felt the need to get rid of them in order to free herself. God’s grace opened her eyes:
(…) I understood that if you don’t go through pure love, if you don’t go directly to the source – a God who is not the God of the New Age, where I am God, but you go directly to the Father, to Jesus Christ – if you don’t go directly there, what comes to you can be anything. When I understood this I threw everything away: tarot cards, pendulum, crystals. I threw everything away. I understood that even evil can do miracles; it had convinced me that I was doing good (…) and I didn’t realize that it was not me who was controlling this power (…)
Free at last
The physical and psychological malaise that oppressed her disappeared. She felt light, and rediscovered herself a creature watched over and loved by the Lord:
In my house the light bulbs no longer burst (this used to happen). There had always been an atmosphere of tension. I had experienced chronic weariness, an inner heaviness, I was not free. Today I feel like flying (….) I didn’t understand the power behind prayer, the immediate relationship with God the Creator. You realize that he’s always there, he has always been near. He doesn’t keep me from making mistakes, however He watches over me. I look at my life and now I see that he has always been there, even though I did not realize it. (…) He brought me to His Light that I did not even imagine existed.
A heartfelt apology
The gratitude she feels today goes hand in hand with contrition for all the evil she has done. Her sincere repentance and sorrow lead her to pray to God for the people she “hurt,” and to ask for forgiveness: “I was in danger and also endangered those who came to me for cards. Who knows how much pain and hurt I may have done to people on a spiritual level. I’m asking God to help people I thought I had helped and maybe on a spiritual level I did them harm. I apologize.”
And today we celebrate...