One80 Podcast, Episode 53
Doreen Virtue, Deceived No More
This is a transcript of a One80 Podcast that may veer from the original audio found here. https://one80podcast.com/listen/
Doreen Virtue: But I was at the peak of my career. When I was saved, I had no reason to leave. I thought this was it. People told me that I was helping them. People would come up to me and cry and say, oh, you’re a goddess. You’re an angel. God sent you, they would give me stories about how my books had healed them. such deception, so many layers of deception, and it was only through God’s grace and mercy that my eyes were opened.
Margaret Ereneta: Doreen Virtue was the top selling new age author. She. I didn’t realize she was receiving deception from the enemy. And selling it. Celebrities were flacking to her palatial, Hawaii ranch to get readings and her speaking engagements all over the world we’re consistently sold out. But at the height of her career, Doreen was suddenly brought to her knees after reading. Reading Deuteronomy 18. Suddenly she was deceived no more. Welcome to doreen’s 180.
Ryan Henry: Well we have an amazing guest today on our show. Doreen Virtue is here to tell an incredible story of a true. 180 and uh, it’s gonna be amazing. Doreen, welcome to the podcast. We’re super happy to have you today.
Doreen Virtue: Thank you so much for having me on.
Ryan Henry: Doreen an incredible author, but there’s just so much to your story and I’m excited to to jump into it. But before we start, our listeners know the drill, we have to have a random question. So are you ready for it?
Doreen Virtue: I think so.
Ryan Henry: All right, well here we go. So tell us about, something that you would be willing to stay up, all night to do.
Doreen Virtue: probably to watch or listen to a sermon of one of my favorite pastors. that’s usually what I do at night yeah. and then after that, my husband and I together, we listen to a book of the Bible on audio Bible every night.
Ryan Henry: Do you really? That’s amazing. That’s a great way to end the
Doreen Virtue: Yes. It, gives us a sense of peace,
Ryan Henry: I love that. okay, so let’s jump in.
So let’s go back to the very, very beginning, Where did you grow up? What was life like?
Doreen Virtue: I grew up in Southern California and I was born in 1958, so I’m 65 right now. the world was different in 19, the sixties. it was kind of like a Christian world. I mean, I remember everybody on our neighborhood went to church. We had one Jewish family went to synagogue, but the neighborhood was vacant Sunday morning, and, all the shops were closed.
On Sundays, you could not even get gas.
Ryan Henry: hmm. Wow.
Doreen Virtue: Well, you drove to church, that was it. And then you would go to your grandmother’s house for lunch. It was, Truly a Lord’s day. And we went to church twice a week. but the trouble was, it was a false gospel church.
It was the Christian Science Church, made by this false prophetess named Mary Baker Eddy in the 18 hundreds. And I was a fourth generation Christian scientist. My mom was, the pastor of the church, she was at the pulpit.
Ryan Henry: Oh, wow. Okay.
Doreen Virtue: she was a Christian science practitioner with an office downtown, doing the kind of Christian science prayers and such.
and so, and then on Wednesday nights we would have a testimonial meeting where people would stand up and they would give glory to Mary Baker Eddy instead of God, and they would tell about their healings and so that was the confusing part for me growing up was here we read the Bible every week.
Ryan Henry: Yeah. Yeah.
Doreen Virtue: things seem to work like my mom would pray over my brother and I, if we would skin our knees with our bicycles, or we’d get sick, or even if the washing machine stopped working or the car broke down, she would pray over these things and, everything would be fine. we’d have healings and every Wednesday night we would hear.
People with their testimonials of amazing healing. So I had no reason to believe that I was off the path.
my whole life I thought I was a Christian, but what I didn’t know is I wasn’t saved and I was following a false Jesus. Because the Christian Science Jesus it’s arianism. He is a created being, who is a good role model for us.
he’s not the son of God who came to die in our place. In fact, the Christian scientist, just like the new age I got into later, both say that because God is perfect, therefore we’re perfect, and that sin is an illusion. Hell is just a, pr scheme of the Roman Catholic Church to get money and control they would say the Bible is corrupt.
There’s missing books. You know, all that stuff you hear today. I grew up with that. And so it is absolutely a miracle that I’m sitting here with you today as a born again believer who absolutely knows that Jesus is the son of God who really did die for our sin. That the Bible really is God’s inerrant God-breathed book.
It’s amazing because that is not what I thought 10 years ago. I was just saved in 2017.
Ryan Henry: my goodness.
Doreen Virtue: It’s recent,
Ryan Henry: Oh, oh my gosh. This just gets me so much more excited to hear about all that you went through. So, What do you think was going on when your mom is praying and you guys are seeing things happening? What do you think was happening?
Doreen Virtue: I think the devil’s a really good counterfeiter as we see in Exodus, in the Pharaoh’s court, and so I think he hooks people in with false healings to get you to stay on the, broad path.
Ryan Henry: Hmm. that makes a lot of sense. Okay, so you’re growing up in this, you’re going to, um, Christian Science did you have siblings?
Doreen Virtue: my brother. Yeah. And so it was the two of us, and we were all in. We would go to the, summer camp. Uh, we were part of the youth group, the Sunday school. I was a member of the mother church outta Boston. We were all in as Christian science as you can be.
Ryan Henry: okay. what was your personal view of God at that time?
Doreen Virtue: they said God was mind. So it’s very much like the Egyptian Hermetics think that God is just thought like a giant brain almost, wisdom only and love. but love was never defined. and so there was no personal relationship with God or even with Jesus. I didn’t know Jesus. The only beings that I felt like I could connect with, which was wrong, were angels.
And that’s what led me off the path into New Age. I wanted some relationship. I was always very spiritual. even as a child, I wanted to know what happens when you die? and I would go to the Christian Science reading room looking for books.
That would answer my questions. And, the Christian scientists are gnostics who think that there’s no such thing as matter or, any kind of death is an illusion. they think that Genesis three was just a myth that you don’t pay attention to. So I had all these questions that no one seemed to be able to answer, and so I started looking in, occultic and metaphysical books to try and find answers and. They didn’t answer all that time. The answers were in the Bible sitting on my shelf.
Ryan Henry: My Mm-hmm. Yeah. at that time, you weren’t, I’m assuming, getting directly, led to the Bible by your family to get these answers. You just were left searching.
Doreen Virtue: Right, exactly. the Christian Science, the big church in Boston every week gives you scripture to read. But it’s one verse here and one verse there and one verse here, and then a corroborating verse from the official book called Science and Health with Key to the Scripture by Mary Baker Eddy.
So we would read all these verses outta context. Cherry picked and They were like, how they have now, you have to be a positive thinker in the new age, like the law of attraction. It was like that. You had to only read the verses that were quote positive and, so knocking it, the door will be open asking that should be given just kind of these positive affirmation.
Outta context verses that’s how I grew up reading the Bible. and it was also the King James only, which as a child, I had a really hard time with the old English. When I started reading the New King James Bible as an adult, that really started to lead me outta deception.
Ryan Henry: wow. so only reading the positive things out of the Bible. why is that a dangerous thing?
Doreen Virtue: Well, because the gospel has bad news that we’re all sinners, and that’s why we need Jesus. We all deserve death. The wages of sin our death. Romans 3 23 said, every one of us is a sinner and so you have to go into the bad news to get the good news that Jesus died in our place, took the wrath that we all deserve and died for our sins.
Ryan Henry: Hmm, that’s good.
so your view of God, you’ve had a lot of questions growing up, and not finding many answers. as far as your upbringing, was there anything particularly difficult about it? Would you say you had a, a
Doreen Virtue: Mm-hmm. Well, my parents were fine. My, dad he should have been the spiritual leader. Like the Bible says that husbands are supposed to be, he was raised Presbyterian and actually when my mom and dad went to get married, the Presbyterian minister would not marry them because my mom was a Christian scientist and he knew they were unequally yoked.
So at that point, it would’ve been so nice if Dad said, you know what, I’m gonna be the man and we’re gonna be raising our kids Presbyterian. my whole life would’ve been different, but of course, God’s in charge and,
Ryan Henry: Yeah.
Doreen Virtue: he’s sovereign over this. But it’s a lesson that men really do need to be the spiritual leaders of.
That’s God’s creation order. So yeah, I had a, normal kind of middle class, 1960s upbringing. It really was like you saw in some of the sixties shows, like, Leave It to Beaver, a cool time in America. I have to say that I have some nostalgia about it.
Before the seventies made everything just cuckoo. So, the thing was that I think because of the demonic nature of the false teaching of Christian science, I had a lot of, visions as a child and I saw things that. No one else could see, and I didn’t understand them. And I would ask Mom about them and she would say, it’s my imagination.
But I was really seeing things and then I just decided it was my guardian angels. But it was demons taking advantage of, an oppressed little girl. and I really think that’s what led me into the new age later in life.
Ryan Henry: Yeah. So how did you wind up, a leading author on, books regarding the, new age and how did you go from this Christian scientist little girl? To the new age.
Doreen Virtue: I think I was trying to figure myself out. I had all these questions. So I went to Chapman University and I earned a BA and an MA in counseling psychology, and I became a psychotherapist and I started writing books about psychotherapy. My clinical specialty was eating disorders, so my books were all on eating and such and then, I got invited to speak at a MINDBODY spirit festival called The Whole Life Expo. We used to go to Chicago to Roseville every year. I’m so sorry to everyone who’s in Chicago. I repent and apologize for bringing Deception, and that’s where I got introduced to New Age because in between the speakers, I would walk around the Convention center floor where there was different booths with different vendors selling very exotic new age. Things they would demonstrate chakra clearing and they had crystals and they had yoga demonstrations. And it all seemed so exotic and exciting. And, and so I started to try those things and researched them, and then I found out that, they worked.
Again, it’s that whole deception of the devil where things seem to work to a point, like, the sorcerers in Pharaoh’s court. and so then I started teaching about what I was learning and writing about it, and that’s how I just gradually became a new age author.
And I was prolific too. I was writing like seven books a year and, then I got into tarot cards at one of these events and, and they scared me. I was always afraid of witchcraft and the. Darkest a cult and tarot. So I threw out the cards that had the pentagrams and the devils and such, and I just used a little bit of cards and then I thought, because of a dream I had with my grandmother, which
I thought, she told me to get involved with researching. Pythagoras, which led me to numerology, which led me to the tarot. and the bottom line was I went to my publisher and I said, you know what? I really wanna create a deck of, cards with angels on them instead of these devils and pentagrams.
and so I started creating Angel Tarot cards and they became wildly popular the minute they were published. And they seem to work again, the new age. That’s the number one argument people have when they push back on my conversion. but this works. Yeah, it seems to work, but at what cost?
Ryan Henry: Yeah. And that’s, that’s really, that’s a very good point because just because it works doesn’t mean it’s good. In your book, you talk about the dream that you had where you thought your grandmother was giving you direction.
Can you just share a little bit about that and how do you test knowing, is this. Something from God. Is this not from God? Was it really my grandma? What was your experience and how would you help somebody navigate through an experience like that?
Doreen Virtue: Absolutely. well, I had these visions since I was a child and. I would also have visions of people that were deceased around other people. So real demonic visions. And I would give, pretty much mediumship, necromancy, sessions for people and then I would teach them mediumship. so that part I’m really ashamed of, but that was my life back then and it was part of my salvation story.
Ryan Henry: What is that? When you say mediumship, necro man, could you explain that for us?
Doreen Virtue: Well, it’s when you talk to someone and you get a message from the other side, from a deceased loved one. I actually wrote a column for years in a women’s magazine called Women’s World that you can see at the checkout stand at the grocery store. And women’s world had a column that I wrote called My Guardian Angel.
And it was all stories of people who’d lost a loved one who said they were getting messages from a bird or a butterfly or a rainbow or a song on the radio. And that was the kind of work I was doing was. Writing about that and teaching that. and so when I, I had this dream and it seemed so real. And my grandmother Pearl, who had died years before was in this dream and she was showing me things like this beautiful home and oceanfront home and these beautiful things.
And she’s like, would you like this? And I said, sure, grandma. And she said, well then if you want this, you have to study Pythagoras. So I started studying him. That led me to numerology, which led me to, understand Toro and how it worked and, it was a really dark path.
I didn’t have the boundaries of the Bible to show me that you need to test the spirits first. John four tells us that if that spirit does not confess Jesus biblically Now he was talking to the gnostics who said that Jesus was just a spirit, didn’t come in the flesh, but it has a. Application to us all that if the spirit that you’re talking to or that someone is bringing through who says they’re a medium, if that spirit doesn’t point you to the biblical Jesus, run the other way.
That is a demon pretending to be, in my case, was pretending to be my grandma. It’s so realistic. It seems like they have details,
but it’s, demons. The Bible Hebrews says that, uh, it’s appointed for a man to die once. Then face judgment. We don’t come around and hang out with our family after we die.
To be absent from the bodies, to be present from the Lord, like the thief on the cross. Jesus said, today you’ll be with my in paradise. But those who are not saved in Jesus, we know that they’re faced judgment, which is tragic. It’s why we share the gospel and so this dream pointed me in this direction, that got me even deeper into metaphysics and, new age.
But what happened was that because I studied Pythagoras and I made all these angel cards, Which were not Angel, they were demon cards. I ended up buying that house that I saw in the dream.
Ryan Henry: Mm-hmm.
Doreen Virtue: It seemed, it seemed to work. Yes, seemed to work. And pretty soon I was on Oprah. I was on, the View, I was on CNN I was on all the very left-wing shows.
I was left-wing. I was pro-life. Which was made me kind of a freak in the new age, but I was very woke, very inclusive. Love is love and, I was left of Hillary Clinton.
Ryan Henry: Huh. Oh my goodness. Wow. Wow.
Doreen Virtue: I was, whole different person back then without a biblical worldview. And if you don’t have a biblical worldview, you have no guardrails. You just follow your heart, follow your dreams, and that is as Jeremiah 17 nine says, the heart is deceitful and wicked.
Ryan Henry: Yeah. okay, so you have this dream. It really kind of does truly start to lead you down this path. what are you thinking and feeling as you’re going down this path? I mean, what are your thoughts about God? Are they evolving? Are they changing? Are you starting to throw him out the window?
How did things ev evolve
Doreen Virtue: well, it makes me wanna cry to think back how I saw God back then because it’s so blasphemous. I saw him almost like a genie. Almost like Santa Claus, like a wish grantor. and I saw the angels the same way. I didn’t know Jesus, so I really wouldn’t talk with him, but I would ask for favors all the time through the quote angels who were really demons and they would bring me basically anything I wanted.
And pretty soon my husband and I were living in Hawaii on a 50 acre ranch. On the big island and living the high life, we were being flown around the world. First class, I’m talking Emirates, the really fancy first class. We were staying in Ritz Carlton and I was shopping on Fifth Avenue, New York and Herod’s in London and, just being spoiled and movie stars and rock stars were coming to me for readings coming to our house and, I was doing phone consults with them. I had standing room only sold out workshops everywhere, they said I was monetarily the top selling author in the new age. At that time when I was saved, and this is God’s infinite wisdom because if my career was going down, people could say, oh, she just wants relevance.
But I was at the peak of my career. When I was saved, I had no reason to leave. I thought this was it. People told me that I was helping them. People would come up to me and cry and say, oh, you’re a goddess. You’re an angel. God sent you, they would give me stories about how my books had healed them.
Such deception, so many layers of deception, and it was only through God’s grace and mercy that my eyes were opened.
Ryan Henry: And here I am talking to you.
One thing I find is tricky, and maybe you could shed some light on this, is when people think of Angels and light and all these things, they automatically just go, oh, it’s all good.
What’s so wrong about angels? Can you talk to us a little bit about, things that you’ve experienced, what you’ve learned as, as to why it’s maybe not all, flowers, and roses and all that,
Doreen Virtue: Yeah. Yeah. Well, as long as you behave and obey the, demons will, as second Corinthians 1114 says, the Satan masquerades is an angel of light
and masquerades really, really well. I, really thought I was talking with God’s angels. I was convinced. I was getting messages and I was having real experiences that I was writing down in all these books.
And talking to people at my workshops, I’d give them messages from an archangel or a guardian angel not knowing it was a demon talking because they seemed so loving. It seemed so, exactly accurate too. they would tell me things about people’s careers, the names of their deceased, loved ones I knew, things I couldn’t have known from, strangers I’d never met before, and.
It was a deception because they never pointed anybody to Jesus. The real Jesus. They never pointed anyone to go to church or read the Bible. In fact, they would say the opposite. they would say, Jesus is an ascended master. He is just like us. You is one of the gang. They would say, the Bible’s Corrupt. Don’t listen to it.
Ryan Henry: you’re saying that these angels would actually say this to you?
Doreen Virtue: Yeah. Yeah.
Through me. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And that you don’t, you don’t need church because those people are asleep to the truth and we’re the awakened ones. You need to awaken other people. So yeah, it was very demonic and this whole time I thought that I. I was, especially anointed, to listen to angels.
And I then I became very narcissistic, prideful, puffed up,
Ryan Henry: Hmm.
Doreen Virtue: Paul talks about in Colossians, puffed up with the messages of angels and then I started to think that every thought I had was from God. I needed to be humbled. I was really humbled when I was saved and I needed it ’cause I was a walking pride machine at one point.
Ryan Henry: Would you ever refer to yourself as like a self-made, prophetess type
Doreen Virtue: I didn’t use that language. I called myself a psychic at that time. but after I was saved for a little minute before I really started to study the Bible and became more sanctified, I wanted to become a Christian prophetess. I thought, well, I can just transfer this skill to go to Bethel Redding and be on their stage.
And so it was only by the grace of God that I got on that plan.
Ryan Henry: Wow. That very interesting. why would you say just that it’s not as simple as a transfer from one thing to the next?
Doreen Virtue: okay, so lemme just back up and say, after I was saved, I went to seminary and got a master’s degree in Biblical and Theological Studies from Western Seminary. These books behind me were the books I used in seminary. I’ve read most of them. And we had to do a paper on every book of the bible, a big paper.
And so I studied all the biblical prophets And none of them were like the psychics that I was like, or that these psychics I’ve seen, The prophets in the Bible were very unpopular to the point of being killed often, because they were saying the same thing.
They would say, repent and return to God’s covenant. The modern prophets or psychics are all about stroking your ego. you, you’re gonna meet your soulmate. you were born for just a time like this. they always throw that Esther four, four quote in there. you’re going to be a amazing person.
Just the, they don’t talk like biblical prophets at all. And Deuteronomy 18 says that if you get one thing wrong as a prophet, you are not speaking for God. and I didn’t get everything right as a psychic. I probably had maybe a 75% rate
Ryan Henry: Hmm. yeah. yeah.
Okay, so, so to somebody who has never been in, involved with, the new age movement, in a intentional way, because I think it’s very easy to. make a little room for it. Take us to maybe a time where you can kind of explain something that you’ve, experienced or, what is it like,
Doreen Virtue:
Well, it’s, it’s all trying to be your own God. they admit that in the new age, you’re trying to be your own goddess if you’re a woman. and so I. It’s really trying to glorify yourself. That’s the big reason why New Age and Christianity can never blend, because as you know, Christianity’s purpose is to glorify God.
and in the new age, you start with a broken person. Most people in the new age have come from a background of abuse or some sort of trauma, and so in psychology you would say they have low self-esteem, and so new age offers to prop you up and so you do a lot of. Methods they give you so much homework to do every single day, with promises that you’ll get enlightened if you just do this, and this. Lots of methods, very expensive, very time consuming, and. Then if you don’t get there, it’s your fault because you’ve had a negative thought because the new age says that your thoughts create their reality. Unlike Christianity, who creates reality? God.
But the new age thinks that your thoughts create your reality. So if you have positive thoughts, you create a positive reality. You make vision boards, which are not biblical no matter what.
Someone twists, Habakkuk tutu, don’t listen to them. Vision boards are occultic. you use yoga. You do all these things to make yourself peaceful, which you can’t have peace without. Jesus.
That’s, it’s the bottom line. And so most new ages will say, well, I love Jesus too. And you’d be wise to have a conversation with them, to ask them who they think Jesus is, and they’ll tell you, he’s an ascended master who’s a good person, who’s now in the sky helping us.
And he is just like Buddha. and that’s how a new age thinks of Jesus. They’re following the false Christ. They’re told there’s no such thing as sin or hell or, any kind of judgment that God is only love. And so the devil has Teflon proofed new ages against the gospel. I mean, we have to hear the gospel.
Faith comes by hearing. Uh, but when a new major hears the gospel, Until God saves them. Like second Corinthians says, when he lifts the veil, until that time, the new age sees the gospel as unnecessary negativity that he’s afraid of because he thinks that will make him manifest or attract negativity.
Ryan Henry: Hmm
Doreen Virtue: So they shut down when they hear the gospel,
Ryan Henry: hmm.
Doreen Virtue: they still need to hear it.
Ryan Henry: Yeah. That’s good advice there because you could easily be like, well, if it’s gonna shut them down anyway, then what’s the point? But obviously, somehow you’re here.
Doreen Virtue: Well, God’s word does not return void is what happens.
Ryan Henry: That’s right. so your, top seller, you have 50 acres in Hawaii?
Living the dream. you have the house that your grandma, showed you in the dream, and you’re married. At this point right now, was your husband, if you don’t mind me asking, was he into New Age as well?
Doreen Virtue: He was He was on stage with me playing the new age meditation music, doing psychic readings from stage. he was idolizing Archangel Michael. He had Archangel Michael statues and jewelry.
Ryan Henry: are you, both out,
Doreen Virtue: Yes. Oh yeah. We were saved at the same time by God’s grace.
Ryan Henry: how did we get there?
Doreen Virtue: it’s only God. if you had asked me a year before you’re gonna be a born again Christian, I would’ve laughed, I would’ve said, first of all, I am a Christian, but not those born againsts. I thought the born Agains were all judgmental and fear-based and guilt based. This was not my life plan at all.
What happened was, because I saw myself as a Christian, I would listen to Christian radio all the time through my life. in the nineties, I was really into Chuck Smith and Calvary Chapel Radio. I listened to that every day. I don’t know why I didn’t go to Calvary Chapel.
Church, but whatever.
That’s God’s plan. And so then January of 2015, I was listening to Christian Satellite Network in Hawaii and Alistair Begg came on. Alistair Begg is a pastor out of Ohio with a Scottish accent that’s charming and I’d listened to him before, but this time he was giving a sermon on two Timothy four that says in the end times people will want their itching ears tickled by false teachers.
And he described a false teacher, and it was like he was describing me and I went home. It was the first time I remember consciously the Holy Spirit convicting me. So I went home and I said to Michael, I really want us to start going to church if we could.
Not a new age church, but a, a real church. We didn’t know what denomination to go to, so we went to all these different churches. And a lot of them, were teaching things that are very not biblical, but at one of the churches, January of 2017, it was just like second Corinthians, God lifted the veil and I understood that Jesus really is the son of God who really did die for our sins, and that the Bible really is God’s word.
I had a vision at the same time, but I now know that that was not real. it was spiritual warfare from my old past, but I understood the gospel, but I had a missing part. I still didn’t see myself as a sinner. And it took until September with me reading the Bible until I got to Deuteronomy 18, 10 through 12 where God is speaking through Moses to the Israelites before they crossed the Jordan River and telling them, don’t be like the Canaanites don’t use mediumship.
I was using don’t interpret omens, which I was doing, don’t do divination, which I was doing. And, and then the kicker that broke me and finally God used to save me was it said that anyone who does these things is a detestable, abomination to God.
Ryan Henry: Hmm.
Doreen Virtue: I, I couldn’t believe that because I thought that I was doing God’s work helping people.
But when I read that, that’s when I finally got the missing piece of the gospel that I was a sinner. And the, full weight of what I had done just, and here I was 58 or 59 years old, just bore on me that I had, been deceived and I had passed that deception along too. My books were printed in 38 languages, and I had this burden.
I, I have to tell the whole world I was wrong. and then my books and cards were licensed and published by publishers around the world, how do I get these books off the market? So I went online and I told people, please burn my books. Don’t read them, don’t buy them. I’m so sorry. They’re demons.
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Doreen Virtue: And then the new ages just started coming after me saying I was fear-based and I had spiritual warfare palpable for the first time that I ever could. Remember, so I had to deal with that and everyone seemed like they were mad at me. I got fired from my publisher. We had to give back the ranch, and we were caring for my parents who had to figure out a way to.
Move somewhere. Uh, we gave refunds for the first two years to people who were mad and, so it was just this big upheaval and the Christian community was looking at me going, I don’t think she’s really saved. Which I was saved, but I was not a instant theologian, you I was a senior citizen trying, trying to figure out this new life, new heart.
Ryan Henry: you had a, a decent amount of life under your belt. it’s hard I think as you get older because you feel like you’ve figured everything out. and so that’s just amazing.
Doreen Virtue: what it taught me was to lean on God Proverbs three verse five through six, are my life verses to trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding. I had to learn that lesson before then. I trusted my heart. I trusted my dreams. I trusted the cards or astrology.
Finally, I had to learn how to trust God and praise the Lord. He’s helped me with that.
Ryan Henry: Oh my goodness. so here you are. At any point are you thinking, why am I doing this? Because everything I know is being just uprooted and thrown out.
You lost a mansion, you have all these people mad at you. You’re going through spiritual warfare. Did you ever think about maybe I should just stick with what I was doing?
Doreen Virtue: Not one moment.
Ryan Henry: Wow.
Doreen Virtue: No, I just prayed for God to give me strength and boldness and my husband was going through the same thing. And, you know, we had each other and there was some, Christians who came to our aid and us discipleship and support and praise the Lord.
We landed in a really good church where we’re under, the authority of a solid pastor who goes line by line through the Bible
Ryan Henry: Hmm.
If I understand correctly, The biblical truth that you started to understand that brought about change was that you were a sinner.
There’s a need for you to know the gospel and to have a savior. Is that, would you say?
Doreen Virtue: That’s right. That was the missing piece. All those years I’d heard the gospel because again, I grew up in the sixties. They used to have, really solid pastors on tv. They would share the gospel. you can look up Billy Graham. He was on Johnny Carson sharing the gospel when I was growing up.
You had the peanuts cartoon, jolly Brown and Linus sharing the, the story of Luke. So the gospel was all around in America I’d heard the gospel and I just didn’t resonate with it in fact, one of the early churches that Michael and I went to, we would take communion We shouldn’t have because we weren’t saved, but they offer it to us and we would say the sinner’s prayer.
But in my head I was thinking, well, you might be a sinner, but I’m not.
Ryan Henry: my brother Ken, he was saved 20 years before I was,
Doreen Virtue: and he had been praying for me, he and his men’s group. Had been praying for me all those years. He had sent me some Ray Comfort videos like, Hell’s Best Kept Secret and I’d watched it. I had also, listened to the whole Bible on cassette.
So it was there. I just didn’t know I was a sinner that one missing part until I read Deuteronomy 18, 10 through 12 and it was not just me reading that, that was definitely the Holy Spirit.
Ryan Henry: Yeah, I was gonna say, do you think it would’ve been the same effect if someone who said, Doreen, you’re a sinner,
Doreen Virtue: They did say that,
Ryan Henry: and that it just rolled off you?
Doreen Virtue: I would say in my head, I would say that might be true for you, but not for me.
Ryan Henry: Mm-hmm. Wow.
Doreen Virtue: Yeah, no, I, I I did not resonate with that at all because in Christian science, you land on Genesis 1 26 where we’re made in God’s image and likeness and you say, well, God’s not sinful, I’m in his image and likeness.
Therefore, I’m not sinful.
That’s how I was raised.
Ryan Henry: Wow.
I don’t know. Would you say there was a moment where you’re like, okay, Jesus, I’m all in.
Doreen Virtue: that moment I read Deuteronomy18,
Ryan Henry: what I realized I didn’t know what I was doing.
Doreen Virtue: and it was, literally one of these, Jesus, take the wheel, take my life. And I was on my knees crying, saying, I didn’t know.
Please forgive me. Please forgive everyone I’ve influenced. please, take over my life because I obviously don’t know what I’m doing. ’cause everything that I thought was right was wrong.
Ryan Henry: Oh my goodness. Just like that.
Doreen Virtue: Just like that It was a real road to Damascus moment. Yeah,
Ryan Henry: my goodness. What did you feel in that moment as you’re offering up these prayers?
Doreen Virtue: desperation. complete shock to realize the truth.
Ryan Henry: hmm.
Doreen Virtue: the whole thing has been like going to another planet or another country, and Jesus gives us a new life. And to have a new life at age 59 by that point.
It’s been quite a sanctification process, especially in the public eye.
Ryan Henry: Yeah. I can’t even imagine. so here you are, you know, you come to Christ. Now what you’ve got, potentially millions of or thousands, I don’t know what it was, of people who follow you, who read your materials, could you talk to us about the, after coming to Christ?
Doreen Virtue: Well, I’ve always been really transparent. I’d never have held back. I think that’s one of the reasons that I was. Appreciated in the new age So I was doing weekly, videos on YouTube, and so I simply, My next weekly video, I told them what happened, and I had at that point, between January, 2017 and September when I was saved, I was trying to blend Christianity with New Age.
and I knew that Jesus was the answer. I just didn’t know how, like I knew he was the son of God, but I didn’t know he was the creator. I hadn’t read Colossians one yet, or John one even. And so I didn’t know Jesus. it was flip flopping, kind of this nether world.
And then Deuteronomy 18 is what God used to open my eyes, and that’s when I was saved. And that’s when the spiritual warfare started.
it was intense. I, it was palpable. I could feel dark presence and I couldn’t sleep. It was just like I was being attacked.
Ryan Henry: So interesting. ’cause you were steeped in dark presence. But it’s like all of a sudden when you’re trying to get out, that’s when they start get really caring,
Doreen Virtue: and so I didn’t know what to do. So I, got involved with really hokey deliverance ministries. unbiblical and trying to find relief. The only thing that finally worked, I. Was to start playing audios of the Bible in the house. And so, my husband and I just play audios of the Bible and it’s part of the armor of God to be in the Bible and to be in God’s word.
Ryan Henry: You can’t eliminate spiritual warfare. Mm-hmm.
Doreen Virtue: but it really has helped us to live in a way that we can sleep at night and. Things are managed now.
Ryan Henry: Yeah. Wow. Okay, so, all the spiritual warfare is happening, and so do you feel like the word of God was kind of your road,
out through all the fire and the criticism? what kept you going?
Doreen Virtue: Well, it was the strength of Christ. I couldn’t have done it on my own, but partly also, when you get to be a senior citizen, you stop caring so much what people think about you.
Ryan Henry: So I’ve heard,
Doreen Virtue: Yeah. and so all I care about is am I being biblical or not? Am I offending God?
Yes or no? if someone criticizes me and they have a legitimate criticism that I’ve said something that’s not biblical, I want to know that. I want to learn, I, I want to have a teachable heart,
but if they’re, yeah, if they’re criticizing me because they’re offended, then I’m saying a gospel or calling out false teachings like Ephesians five 11 commands us, then I don’t care.
I mean, I’ll try to say truth in love and be gracious, but if you’re offended by a biblical truth, I’ll pray for you, but I’m not going to water it down to try to asate your feelings.
Ryan Henry: Right. Yeah. did your husband come to the Lord at the same time?
Doreen Virtue: Mm-hmm. Yeah, we were both going to church together. We were both doing bible study together. he was not as deeply into the new age as I was. And back in January, 2015 when I’d heard Alistair Begg talk about false teachers, and I realized I. I was one. I changed my work a lot after that.
I said to Michael at that point, I think I wanna quit the new age. And he said, do it. And I said, well, how, our sons were employees. We had all these employees, we had workshops, how can I quit? And he is just like, quit. So he was very supportive from before I was willing to leave the new age.
Ryan Henry: That’s really neat. Wow. So after coming to the Lord, what started changing personally for you? Well, did you notice that there was changes in your character? would you say that the sin that you were really steeped in would be really the sin of pride?
Doreen Virtue: Yeah, the sin of pride, selfishness, for
Ryan Henry: Yeah. Yeah. how did that start to change?
Doreen Virtue: Uh, it had to, all of a sudden our income dropped off the cliff. We had to move. I was taking care of my elderly parents with medical issues. and people were really mad at me. I mean, we were getting letters that were so hateful and. Just shocking from this new age community that a week before had said they loved me and I was a goddess, and now all of a sudden just the rudest language.
and they’re going after my children as well. At that point,
I was shocked at how peaceful I was through it, because before then I was always chasing peace through yoga classes, through affirmations and eastern meditation. I would get peace temporarily.
but I was in the, eye of the storm, the eye of the hurricane through all this trial.
there’s things that really bother me and hurt me.
Ryan Henry: Hmm. That’s also hard.
Doreen Virtue: yeah, it’s heartbreaking . But, other than that, my biggest burden is my, old work is still out there and so I’m on social media every day talking to people who are confused by my conversion, trying to share the gospel with them and, tell them that these materials do not really work even though they seem to, I’m pretty bold cause we don’t have time to waste, I went to a lot of churches that were sugarcoating the gospel and I needed someone to be really clear with me.
Ryan Henry: So you find yourself talking to a lot of people now. you try to make yourself fairly accessible.
Doreen Virtue: Yeah, I answer letters on Instagram every day. there’s hundreds of them, and it’s just me, so it I can’t get to everyone as fast as I’d like, but every day I, yeah, every day I’m answering letters, from people, mostly women. if there’s a man who wants to talk, I have a couple of, uh, brothers in Christ who are pastors who, I send them to,
Ryan Henry: Wow. Are you finding others coming out of the new age?
Doreen Virtue: Oh yeah, there’s a mass exodus outta the new age.
Ryan Henry: That’s amazing. Praise the Lord. you were talking about how, early on, didn’t consider yourself like a, you wouldn’t say witch or witchcraft, but you thought the things that you were doing were good and to help people.
What is the difference between. That is there a difference? is it only a difference of the person’s mind, between, entering into witchcraft versus somebody who’s doing tarot card readings?
Doreen Virtue: Yeah, it’s a pretty blurred line if there is any, witches maybe are more leaning toward using nature. For spells and doing conscious spells. and don’t mind that they’re working with demons. where in the new age you don’t even believe in demons. There’s no talk about demons. you only talk about positive and negative.
Dark and light. So these euphemism, so you would say that negative energy
Ryan Henry: Hmm.
Doreen Virtue: and where in witchcraft you’d probably call on a demon to get your way.
Ryan Henry: Wow. So it’s much more blatant
Although they really do all kind of fall under the same umbrella of unbiblical, how real was it for you when you were in it?
Doreen Virtue: yeah. It’s a hundred percent real. The experiences were real. the results were real. I. I would do vision boards and affirmations and new age prayers, which are not prayers of the righteous at all. and I would get what I’d ask for, I would get the car, I was very successful from a worldly standpoint, but inside I was empty and I was seeking, I was always seeking the truth.
I was seeking peace. I was seeking happiness. Even though I seemed to have everything, I had all these so-called friends. I had health, I had family, really successful career, the home in Hawaii. and yet was not happy. I was not peaceful.
Ryan Henry: Yeah. Wow. Wow. I’m sure that Especially focusing on the positive all the time that people couldn’t really see into
Doreen Virtue: No, it’s very superficial. In the new age, you’re not allowed to talk about your problems, so all of your relationships are at arm’s length
and it’s very fake. It’s, oh, I love you, love you, love you, love you, love you, love you. inside you might be dying, but you can’t tell anybody because that would be viewed as negative, and you’d be bringing everyone down, and then they’d say that it’s your fault that you helped, to manifest a negative experience.
Ryan Henry: It’s really sounds very much just like a trap, just
Doreen Virtue: Oh, it’s a big trap and the promises are lies. The devil’s the author of Lies, of course, and and so the new age promises that you’ll have health, you’ll have wealth, you’ll have a soulmate life purpose. all your dreams will come true. Just read this book. Just go to this seminar just. do all these things that list of items you have to do for the new age, but you never get your wishes in the sense of fulfillment.
Like I had the trappings, but inside I was an empty shell. I.
Ryan Henry: What would you say to somebody who said, well, I just like, I want to get into zodiac signs and,that’s it’s harmless. it’s not gonna hurt anything. What would you say to them about that?
Doreen Virtue: Yeah, and a lot of people twist scripture to justify these sins because of course they say the magi were astrologers. It doesn’t say that. It says that they were magicians. The Magi does not mean we can do astrology.
I used to believe that the astrology can seem harmless, especially when you just call it, oh, it’s just my horoscope in this woman’s magazine. I’m just gonna glance at this and see what’s up for this month.
But see, they’re all doorways. And once you get into the doorway, you want more, it’s insatiable. And so what happens is you stop trusting in the Lord. You want to predict and control the future
And new age it’s like Genesis three when the serpent said you can be like God. New age is exactly like that, right?
You can have secret wisdom, you can have insight that nobody else has ’cause you’re special.
Ryan Henry: And is all that secret wisdom revolving around things on the earth, like situations with other people’s lives that kind of elevates you to put you in a place of power because you know things and a lot of these things are actually true because it’s revealed by demonic principalities. Like is that the secret wisdom that you’re talking about?
Or were there extra things about the universe and all the things that would be revealed?
Doreen Virtue: both. so you would, think, okay, I’m gonna know what’s under the capstone of the pyramids in Egypt. I’m gonna know where the Ark of the Covenant is, and it’s all unbiblical about the ark. and then I’m also gonna know about the pleidian, and I’m gonna know about, Life after death and reincarnation.
And so the new age, appropriates from different cultures like Hinduism, native American Spirituality, Buddhism, and Roman Catholicism is big in the new age and just kind of tries to blend all those, thought processes together. And, it’s all with the end purpose of granting your wishes.
Ryan Henry: Yeah. Granting your wishes and it sounds like a huge pursuit of knowledge, which, in itself to know is not automatically bad, but it’s the replacing of God. The need for God.
That’s just really interesting what you say about that, that pursuit of knowledge and how that could be really appealing for somebody.
Who feels like out of control in their life, who feels like things are spiraling, in a direction they don’t want to go. And so the new age seems to be for them to kind of control, grab, hold situation, be able to know, predict.
it just is very interesting in how, it seems like there’s just a lot of warfare even embedded into that to get you to believe the lie.
Doreen Virtue: Oh, absolutely.
Ryan Henry: Wow. Well, it’s a miracle that you’re here
Doreen Virtue: It is.
Ryan Henry: it’s a miracle that we’re talking.
Doreen Virtue: Yeah, yeah, yeah. It’s, it’s a whole new life. A new world. and then to have Michael and I have a Jesus centered me. We got remarried after we were saved too.
Yeah, a Christian wedding and just to have a Jesus centered, Bible centered life, in our marriage is just, praise the Lord.
Ryan Henry: What do you love the most about Jesus?
Doreen Virtue: just what he was willing to do for us.
John three 16 just says it all. just the story of him coming to Earth and God.
Ryan Henry: Hmm.
Doreen Virtue: trying to tell the truth to people who don’t wanna hear it. just for him to be willing to suffer the amount of suffering he must have gone through
because he was the only sinless person who could take our punishment that we all deserve. it’s just the greatest story ever told.
Ryan Henry: Were any of the, idols or gods or spirits that you. Would engage with early on? Would any of them do such a thing?
Doreen Virtue: No, There’s stories about, the elephant headed. Deity, Ganesha and Hinduism. He is big in the yoga community and it’s all about what can they do for you. and so that guy was supposed to be the overcomer of obstacles and supposedly he got his head chopped off and his, his mother couldn’t find any kind of head to put on him.
So she found an baby elephant and put that head on him, So there was kind of the sacrificial stories like that, but nothing like, Jesus’s, earthly life and his death and his resurrection.
Ryan Henry: Which is documented.
Doreen Virtue: Yeah. It documented many people, right?
Ryan Henry: real history, not just fantasies
Doreen Virtue: right.
Ryan Henry: passed on down. And that’s the difference. Wow. So amazing.
Doreen Virtue: Isn’t it?
Every day I wake up and I’m just thank you, Lord for saving me. Just thank you. I I didn’t deserve it. I was an enemy of God. I didn’t know I was an enemy of God, but I was, and. He and his mercy and grace just reached down and said, here you go. And just
Ryan Henry: Yeah.
Doreen Virtue: veil.
Ryan Henry: Wow,
Doreen Virtue: there’s a part of me I wish I’d been raised Christian, anyone listening who’s raised Christian, you’re so blessed. but God in his mercy, he’s using me because I can talk to new agers, because I’m a former insider. I know the language. I know how they think, and so he is using me in that way so I can see his, plan and I trust him.
Ryan Henry: are there people who are engaged with the new age that really target Christians or target specific people regarding things?
Doreen Virtue: well, I’ll tell you that this is what I’ve learned is whatever anyone believes they evangelize. so new ages do evangelism. New angels wouldn’t even be caught dead in a born again Christian Church. Yeah. ’cause it’s too negative.
Ryan Henry: This is our final question here, andI’ve just loved talking to youand I, I really appreciate you like, shedding light on this.
If you could speak to the Doreen. Who is steeped into the new age, and people are saying, you’re a sinner. You need this, and it’s bouncing off of you ’cause you had no compass for that. If you could tell her one thing or a couple of things, what would you say?
Doreen Virtue: I would tell her to read the Bible. Because that was really what God used to save me. And I’m so sad when I read the surveys of Bible reading practices of American adults,the latest survey in 2022 by Ligonier and lifeway showed that only 10% I. People read the Bible daily and most, the majority only read the Bible once or twice a year.
it’s such a shame because there’s these faithful brothers and sisters in Christ who died for us to have the Bible,
they suffered terribly. They’re burned at the stake for us, and we are so blessed. And who knows with politics as they’re going, we may not have the Bible in the future.
It may be illegal. So we need to take advantage of that. this is God breathed. This is
God speaking to us. You want God to speak a word to you. It’s in the Bible and it’s hard to understand at first, and it’s offensive at first, but The way I felt like it was doing to me when I first read the Bible was like a meat tenderizer to my heart.
It was like I needed to have my heart softened and I got
this new heart. and I, needed to understand. And so I used study bibles. There’s a lot of good study bibles out there. So I’ll read every morning since I’ve been saved. I read the Bible and then read the commentary on it and pray on it, and it’s such a wonderful way to start the day and people are missing out who are not doing that.
one of the things that surprised me after I was saved was how much new age, like a Mind-body, spirit festival that I would see at professing Christian churches. but there are things that they’re doing that were exactly like I was doing in the new age, like calling on spirit guides and putting a bubble of purple light protection around someone instead of praying for God’s protection.
And, one of the prophets there. he talks about animal spirit guides, which is shamanism in New Age. and the things that I see on some of these churches that are more concerned, it seems like with entertainment. And almost shock value. It really concerns me because people need to be in God’s word.
That’s what God used to save me And if we’re just mucking around with entertainment and ego stroking, false prophecy, that’s a waste of time. that’s not gonna save anybody.
Ryan Henry: Yeah. Yeah. That’s such a good word. Wow. this has been amazing, Doreen. I really appreciate it. could you tell us the name of your book?
Doreen Virtue: Well, it’s called Deceived No More. But I wanna give a little preamble to that because, what happened was that a year after I was saved, an editor of Thomas Nelson Publishers came to me and said, we want to publish your testimony. And I. In retrospect, you know how Paul went away for three years after he was saved to Arabia?
he talks about that in Galatians. I, stayed in the public eye because my products were still out there and I wanted to warn people, but it was probably pridefulness too and just habit. I was just stayed in the public eye. It should have. Wait until I finished seminary before writing the book.
Most of the book I still stand by, but there’s a couple things in there that make me cringe. So I’ve updated the Kindle version as much as I can. so read the Kindle version only. and mostly if you’re gonna spend time reading the book, Choose the Bible. I’d rather have people read the Bible if they have five minutes to read instead of my book.
That’s where the Holy Spirit’s gonna speak to you.
Ryan Henry: wow, wow. Well that’s, very encouraging. but to somebody who is, maybe coming out of the new age, I’m sure they would find a lot of encouragement and truth in that as well. So yeah. thank you so much for being with us on 180.
What an amazing story. And praise God.
Doreen Virtue: Praise the Lord. All glory to God.
Ryan Henry: Yes, absolutely. Well, you be blessed. It has been so wonderful.
Thank you so much. Have a great day.
Doreen Virtue: Thank you. I appreciate your time. God bless everyone who’s listening.
Ryan Henry: Yes, thank you.
Margaret Ereneta: Please enjoy blind tony’s Poem today inspired by Doreen’s story
Blind Tony: Satan’s a liar, a robber, a thief trying to create unbelief. And even though he’s portrayed in the Bible as a lion seeking whom he may devour, he was defeated at the cross and stripped of all power. Now he uses lies and deception day after day, trying to manipulate us into turning away from God’s word.
And the truth, even offering us counterfeit proof. Surrounding us with teachers teaching lies and myths. While trying to convince us that they possess spiritual gifts. Scripture says that they would fool even the elect if it was possible. But it’s not. And also improbable. Because God wants us to be sober and vigilant.
And not to let our guards down. Because lies and deception clearly abound. We need to raise ourselves a rack and hold our heads high. We’ll understand it better by and by.