What would you do if you discovered your blood is valuable to both of them? A mysterious 10,year-old structure buried deep under the ice in the coldest place on Earth. A secret research facility using advanced technology developed by Nazi scientists. Cryptic messages. Out of Christian love he and his wife invited a young lady who was demon possessed and the member of an active satanic network into their home.
They prayed the sinner's prayer with her. Interstellar antiquities dealer Alex Benedict and his assistant Chase Kolpath travel to the most remote of human worlds and uncover a secret connected to a decades-old political upheaval-a secret that somebody desperately wants hidden.
Satan prowls around, ready to pounce on our every weakness, fill us with fear, and destroy our intimate relationship with Christ. But we are not defenseless. We have weapons of warfare enabling us to be spiritually aggressive and face the devil head on. Rather than lose ground in our faith,. Hell is ready to unleash fury against every follower of Jesus.
Yet many believers live in denial, letting the enemy steal their blessings, destroy. As a teenager she was convicted and put all games. Today, so many lives are destroyed by addiction, isolation, torment, and darkness.
Project Nimrod is close to success. A dire warning, Beware the Devil's Cauldron, catapults Ethan Freeman into another life-threatening journey full of action and adventure.
Recovering from ensuring the Light Gate protecting the Angelic Prison known as the Abyss remains closed, he faces even more powerful enemies. A Portal has been opened to an alternate dimension.
A parallel universe. But the scientists intending to use it to achieve god-like powers have no idea the evil they've unleashed. Ethan must stop Project Nimrod. If the former Special Forces Ranger fails, humanity will suffer at the hands of unimaginable evil as an ancient conspiracy unfolds. If you like epic battles, angels and demons, and supernatural conspiracy thrillers full of suspense and mystery then you'll love the riveting sequel to Infernal Gates.
Can Ethan count on the Archangel Michael to help him again? Will the only remaining Guardian survive? Scroll up and click Read Now or Buy Now to find out. For seventeen years, Elaine served her master, Satan, with total commitment.
Then she met Dr. Rebecca Brown, who served her master, Jesus Christ, with equal commitment. Elaine, one of the top witches in the U. Brown, who stood against her alone.
In the titanic life-and-death struggle that followed, Dr. Brown nearly lost her life. Elaine, finding a power and love greater than anything Satan could give her, left Satan and totally committed her life to Jesus Christ. This is an honest, in-depth account of Satan's activities today.
You'll see how to: Recognize and combat the many satanists who regularly infiltrate and destroy Christian churches. Recognize and combat satanic attacks.
Recognize those serving Satan, and bring them to Jesus Christ. Today, so many lives are destroyed by addiction, isolation, torment, and darkness. What can the average believer do to fight back? Discover how how to: Identify gateways that the devil may use to enter your life. Expose Jezebel and Delilah Spirits—the destroyers of the church.
Fight back against every power of darkness through the power of the Holy Spirit. Featuring practical strategies and stronghold-demolishing prayers, Exposing the Enemy is a must-read for every believer. Being delivered and set free from sin and bondage does not mean that the enemy now considers you off limits. He will surely attempt--again and again--to wrap those old chains back around you.
Focusing on key strategies from Scripture, ex-satanic high priest John Ramirez teaches you how to shore up your defenses in Christ after winning a battle, and how to put your life back in order. Ramirez uses his own experiences to reveal principles for growing in your faith and in Holy Spirit power so that, when the next attack comes, you are stronger, wiser and more knowledgeable.
Beads of sweat broke out on my forehead, and a strange mix of terror and excitement swelled within me. At five minutes to midnight, the high tata priest stood in front of me and started chanting some words, spelling out the contract that was about to take place.
He chose me to go first. Taking a one- edged razor, he cut into my flesh. As my blood ran, I knew the contract was being initiated. Out of the seventeen initiates that night, the devil chose only me to be initiated as tata, the calling of a high priest.
The godfather cut a pentagram into the flesh of my right arm, distinguishing me from the others. The priests boasted about how seldom one is singled out for the calling of tata, and I held my head high: I had the mark of the beast on my body. It was still dark out and very quiet, but I could tell from the single small window in the basement that dawn would come soon. The face that stared back at me was the face of a new person, a new man. The black eyes that gazed from the reflection were eyes I had never seen before: I had been born into Palo Mayombe to be a Palero tata—a high priest.
Chapter 1 Beginnings My blood boiling with rage, I walked into a bar and scanned the smoky room for my father, knowing he had to be here. Where else would he be when he was not at home or driving his gypsy cab? And there he was, just as I expected—sitting on a barstool, leaning in close to a woman with dark hair in a tight blouse.
He was smiling and laughing, and I knew thoughts of my mother were far from his mind. A movement across the room caught my eye. Even from this distance I could feel a thick vibe of jealousy and anger radiating from him. The strange man reached inside his coat, and in that moment I realized what he was about to do—what I had secretly wanted somebody to do for a long time: kill my father.
Two shots rang out, and as my father slumped to the wooden floor, the stranger crossed the room to pump the rest of the bullets in the barrel into his cold, vile heart. Just a little. Then his firstborn son would not have spent so many days and nights of his young life wishing his father was dead and finally seeing it come true. A dream.
I looked over at my brothers, snoring softly through the uproar of the South Bronx streets outside our dingy apartment window. The room was freezing as usual, but I was used to it. Unable to sleep, I crossed to the window and peered out. A couple of neighborhood thugs huddled over a trashcan fire on the corner, and a second police car roared down the street, its sirens chasing after the first one that had awakened me from the cruel dream. How did I get here? I wondered.
I was born in Puerto Rico but grew up in the Bronx as the oldest of four sons. As a child, I would fold my arms on an open windowsill on one of the upper floors of our apartment building and look out at the trash-cluttered sea of concrete, glass, and brick buildings. I had an artistic soul, even as a boy, but for miles into the horizon I saw no art or beauty. All I saw was an ocean of ugliness. Goodhearted by nature, I was a spirited child who did my best to help my mother and brothers out.
It was something every growing boy needed. I longed for a dad to participate in my life, to say he was proud of me and that he loved me. It was something I never got. Instead my absentee father had countless women on the side, bar fights, and drunken rages. His insane exploits ensnared him and saddened us deeply. His careless, cruel behavior toward my mother and our family became more horrible with each passing year.
I would go from being a kind boy to being a very angry one. As time went on, my feelings and outlook on the world festered with the bitterness I felt. Eventually my once-kind heart turned stone cold. The very next year she gave birth to my brother Julio. We stayed in Rio Piedras, Puerto Rico, for one year until my parents and both sides of their families came to the United States. Upon arriving in America, in rapid succession my brothers George and Eustaquio Jr. But the challenges grew deeper.
As I got older I realized our family had not been prepared for the realities of living in New York. This was supposed to be the start of a better life in the most promising city in the world—New York.
Manhattan was the island that was so close, yet from where we lived in the South Bronx, it seemed a world away. It often felt like we were trapped in a time warp. We lived in an apartment prison with invisible bars that caged us in an endless, living nightmare. The reality in which we lived seemed like a bad dream. My father, who was supposed to take the lead, instead was constantly running out of the home and out of our lives. He was missing in action for most of our lives. My dad was a young and handsome man with piercing eyes and thick black hair.
What do you mean? No—all they ever want is a dollar so they can go buy candy. Bitterness and hatred churned in my heart. I knew that a reply of any kind was useless.
And then my father would make his way to the living room, fall out on the sofa in a drunken stupor, and go to sleep.
Often the next morning, although we were his own family, he seemed so detached, like his mind was elsewhere. It was as if he needed to be treated more like visiting royalty than a father, and we all tiptoed around and tried our best to please him and make him part of our lives. My mother probably wanted to tell him news of her last few days or weeks. My brothers and I were bursting to share our baseball victories or basketball stories or talk about what happened in or after school.
But more often than not we just ate in relative silence, afraid to say much of anything. At other times it seemed more like a brick wall that we could never break through where he kept his emotions walled in, never expressing any real joy or love for us. I saw other boys with their fathers going to the park, hitting a ball, playing catch, talking about sports. Those fathers would talk enthusiastically with them, pat them on the back, and walk along with their sons, sharing a good laugh.
He seemed to go out of his way to discourage my brothers and me, to criticize us and talk to us in a condescending tone. We were never good enough to make him happy. I hated who he was, and I was even ashamed to tell others he was my dad. The picture was either distorted or ugly or strangely blank. He left no template for me to pour myself into, no image for me to model myself after. He frequently made promises, and like fools we let our hopes get high. What do you say to that, huh? He had run out of our lives once again, to be missing for days or weeks on end.
Mom was the backbone of the family. With four children at a very young age, it was difficult for her to do things and move around from place to place. Since my mother was poorly educated and had no work experience outside the home, we depended on public assistance, food stamps, and whatever help my mother could get.
Everything ran out after only a week or two, but we tried to make the best of it. From time to time my father would give her twenty dollars to buy food for the week. Even back then, that was not enough. But at times it was much worse than that. Once I walked into the kitchen and stopped cold, staring in amazement at the five dollars he had left on the counter for food and other neces s ities. Five dollars!
For his wife and family of four growing boys! My mother used the basics—rice, beans, and potatoes—to stretch everything. But even with her creative and good cooking, five dollars was just a bad joke. What my father had left for us to survive on was more of an insult than a help.
That was one of the many ways he humiliated my mother and controlled the family, by leaving us in lack. Where Are You, God? Like so many others, my father was involved in espiritismo spiritualism and appealed to his gods in a darkened room with strange rituals, chanting, and candles.
To him it was just a cultural thing. One afternoon toward dusk I walked down the hall of our apartment and heard my father chanting in the bedroom he shared with my mother. Tiptoeing to the door, I peeked through the crack and saw him before a makeshift altar glowing with candles.
The sight of my father chanting to his favorite saint, whom he called San Lazaro St. Lazarus , both frightened and fascinated me.
He often sent me with five dollars to the nearby botanica, a potion store, to buy an orange candle and flowers for San Lazaro, whom he probably loved more than his own kids.
I was on a mission, dashing through cars in heavy traffic, my hands tightly gripped on the money. As I ran into the botanica, I hoped and prayed they would have what my dad sent me to buy. Why did He allow my brothers and me to hurt at the hands of our own father—not to mention the anguish my mother endured?
I pushed the thoughts aside as quickly as they came. It was too painful to dwell on what the answer might be. One afternoon I went down the block to play in the schoolyard, but to my surprise I heard loud music emanating from it. Curious to see what all the commotion was about, I drew nearer and saw a large red tent with a church service going on underneath.
Somebody was playing a keyboard, and a choir swayed at the back of the tent as they belted out songs about Jesus. For a while I stood at a distance, touched by the music and stirred up in my heart. While the choir sang, a man came around off the stage and touched people on the forehead randomly.
Whenever he touched them, they fell to the ground onto their backs, as if going to sleep. They looked so peaceful lying there, and suddenly I wanted the same thing to happen to me. I felt a love there that was indescribable. As if on cue, the man leading the event started moving in my direction.
My pulse quickened. One by one he touched people in the crowd near me, the closest one being a man standing right next to me. The man fell out on his back, and I could see the blessing on him—that something special I longed for too. I looked up expectantly, waiting for the minister to touch me, but he had passed me by, moving to another section of the crowd instead. I left that event feeling heartbroken, unwanted, and unloved.
My Father, My Enemy Most nights my father came home already roaring drunk and enflamed by rage. For no reason at all, or any feeble excuse, he would beat my mother. My brothers and I cowered in our rooms, trembling with fear.
One night the sound of my mother screaming pulled me out of a deep sleep. I leaped from the top bunk bed where I slept and stumbled down the hallway, my stomach churning in knots. As I approached the kitchen, the sound of shattering glass exploded in the air. My mother sobbed as she tried to serve him the dinner she spent all afternoon cooking.
Suddenly a reheated meal of beans, rice, tomatoes, chicken, and plantains went airborne as he slammed his dinner plate against the wall. He grabbed her by the hair and began to beat her mercilessly. At one point during his pounding, my mother— literally knocked out of her shoes by him—managed to break away and run barefoot in terror down the hall into their bedroom. She struggled to lock the door in a futile effort to escape him.
He lunged after her and broke down the door, and her screams grew louder as the beating continued. Though I was still a young boy, I knew I had to rescue her. I hit the floor hard in a broken heap, feeling physically and emotionally hurt, angry, and powerless as he continued to beat my mother. Shaking with fear and anger, I crawled back into my bunk bed and tried to go to sleep. In just three hours I would have to wake up, get dressed, and go to school as if nothing had happened.
I would have to show a brave face to the world, pretending that my home life was not the living hell it truly was. That night as I examined my bruises and thought about the injuries my mother must have too, my hatred for my father grew stronger. It was that night I first wished my father was dead. Chapter 2 The Burnt-Out Bronx Instead of getting better, life stumbled on with violent scenes repeating themselves as if on a demented loop, spiraling further and further down in our circular, hellish way of life.
No one who lived in the other boroughs was rushing to visit anyone in the Bronx back then. It was like a ravaged war zone. In one apartment building, thirty families filled the dingy, cramped living spaces, but because the building was so rundown, many families moved out, leaving only three families—including ours.
This building had no hot water or heat in the winter, and some nights my brothers and I slept in our clothes, bundled in our sweaters, coats, scarves, and gloves just to stay warm throughout the night. We huddled in our rooms, the air so cold it felt almost like camping outdoors, with icy blasts of air coming from our mouths as we tried to get some sleep.
I glanced over at the clock—the faint glow of the hour hand ticked off the hours. I stared out the window at the cold night, the light from the corner streetlamp shining into our bedroom window. Gangs ruled the different neighborhoods of the Bronx, and ours was no different. A gang called the New York Reapers patrolled the streets and alleyways we called home, and in a strange paternalistic way they took care of the neighborhood residents—saving their blood-thirst for any rival gang members foolish enough to try to come onto their turf.
His pimped-out Chevy Nova idled at the curb, the exhaust pipes rumbling. I glanced up from my task of filling two buckets with water from the fire hydrant. Once full, my brother Julio and I would stagger up five flights to our apartment, which had no running water, and return to make the same trip six or seven more times until there was enough water for the evening.
I pretended not to hear him. I looked him straight in the eyes, a flat expression on my face. You hear me? I nodded and went back to my chore, but I could feel my heart pump faster. Rumbles were frightening, no doubt about it. But they were also exciting. As soon as the Nova roared around the corner, I shouted to Julio. Tell Mom, George, and Eustaquio! His eyes widened. What time? A weird, almost tangible vibe ran up and down the streets of the neighborhood.
Like an electric current, news of the rumble spread. Mothers did last-minute shopping at the battered storefront shops along Deli Avenue and th Street.
Little kids playing by the street jittered in a crazy hop-skip dance, and horns blared from cars, as if signaling the coming showdown between the rival gangs. My brothers and I leaned on our open bedroom windowsill like we had ringside seats to a championship prize fight.
In every direction we could see, people hung out their windows like we did. The only thing missing was the popcorn and Coke. A murmur of voices zigzagged across the streets and alleyways, now strangely empty except for the rats that scurried along behind the line of overstuffed garbage cans. As if on cue, the Reapers took up their posts along the streets, inside alleyways, and up on the rooftops of the buildings, toting bats, chains, knives, machetes, guns, and trashcans full of bricks.
The Reapers came out like savage animals, and suddenly the streets below us churned with bodies and blood and the screams of broken men. Confined to a one-block radius, the rumble roared on, and my brothers and I watched fascinated from five stories high. Close to five hundred gang members tore up the street below, jumping all over the cars, thrashing rival members, and firing gunshots into the night.
Others were laid out in the street —the ones who might not make it home tonight or live to see another day. Not a cop was in sight. The police both feared and respected the gangs and had a sixth sense about when a rumble was going down. After an hour or so of brutality—their bloodlust spent for the night—the victorious Reapers celebrated, standing on the street corners drinking beer and whooping.
An eerie quiet returned to the neighborhood, the only sound coming from the flap-flap of denim jackets hanging on the lampposts.
My brothers and I crawled into bed and tried to sleep, our hearts pumping adrenaline—a natural internal protection against the cold on winter nights. We kids did too.
Even if you tried to avoid it, it found you. The tough kids—the thugs in the neighborhood—always tested news kids on the block, and since we moved around so much, my brothers and I constantly had to prove our mettle.
These were the walking time bombs, the lowlifes in the neighborhood who wanted to get their way all the time, so they beat up on the weaker kids. I stood up to them but tried to play it cool, not wanting to become a thug like them. I sized up the competition. Jose I could take, and maybe one or two more—but six against one were bad odds. Jose felt my hesitation and smiled a slow, devious grin.
Is John good enough to be one of us? I knew Jose wanted me to steal some candy bars, potato chips, and maybe a few canned drinks for them. Either I did it or I would be labeled a sucker. Jose took his pocketknife out of his jacket and pretended to clean his fingernails, making sure I saw the shiny silver of the blade.
Yo, are you down with us or are you a punk? I wanted to finish school, not go to jail with these lowlifes, but my thoughts were saying one thing and my mouth was saying another. They kept after you till you did it.
I never got caught—I stole ice cream from the ice box, potato chips from the rack, sodas from the refrigerator. Sometimes he caught me staring at him and made a funny face in return, as if to say, Hey, boys will be boys. Hatred churned in my gut, a hatred honed to a razor- edge by his years of neglect and abuse.
Maybe our home life would be normal. Walking on Eggshells In spite of our miserable existence, my brothers and I looked up to our mother as our hero. She did the very best with everything, and she did whatever she could for us. Soon he began demanding things, taking valuables and money from us. I walked around holding my breath as soon as he left, afraid to relax. Things began to fall apart even more financially.
We lived in the slum apartment buildings for what seemed like an eternity because it took my mother years to save up enough money for us to move out. Her worried face saddened my brothers and me; we knew she wanted the best for us but could not give it. But we were rich in the love she gave us. In spite of everything, we could count on just one thing—our mother loved us. Yet she seemed strangely bound to our tormentor, my father, and powerless to do anything about it.
Once in a while my dad bought things for us, and then months would pass before he bought anything substantial again. The end of the year and the holidays especially were a tough time in our home.
When school started in September, it was the first strain of the end of the year on our meager household budget. My brothers and I had no choice but to wear the same clothes and coats from the year before because there was no money to buy new things.
We loved the masquerade nature of it, getting to be a superhero, cowboy, Count Dracula, werewolf, or ghost for a night. It was fun going from house to house to collect bags of candy apples and fruit, chocolate bars, and candy corn. Some years all four of us were decked out in our Halloween glory, and other years only two of us got real costumes due to the slim household budget. For the two of us left out, my mom compensated by painting our faces, transforming us into ghouls and devils from the neck up.
I had just looked in the bathroom mirror one last time and grinned at my reflection—my eyes, painted black as coal, even freaked me out a little. He kept tripping on his long black vampire costume and sounded muffled through the plastic mask that covered his face.
Even the hookers that worked the street corners traded their usual miniskirts and fishnet stockings for provocative Halloween costumes like cats and Playboy bunnies. We met up with some of our friends and headed for an apartment building rumored to have the best candy in the neighborhood. The door to the apartment was open, and white smoke poured from the dark room beyond. Our creaking footsteps on the landing signaled whoever lived there, and she flew out at us dressed like a witch, screaming and cackling into the hallway.
We shrieked and laughed, enjoying the good Halloween scare, then held our bags out for the candy she offered. I went back to her door four times that night. My fascination with the dark, mysterious nature of the underworld gained a foothold that year, and the supernatural seemed to step out to meet me. Years later, as a warlock and high priest of Santeria, I would look back on this time of adolescence and realize my spiritual eyes were being unlocked for the very first time. One night, after playing down the street with my friends, I came into our building and headed for the stairwell.
Our apartment was located on the third floor, and as I rounded the corner at the first landing, a strange, dwarfish woman with a distorted cartoon-like head popped out from behind the second-story stairwell.
She looked human, but her head was impossibly large—all I saw was this freakish head popping out, a clown smile on her face. My heart froze in my chest and I lunged back to the first floor.
After waiting ten minutes, I tried again. The woman looked very young, with long black hair and pale white skin. I had never seen anyone like her in our building before, and a sick feeling in my gut told me something was not right. She was not right. Desperate to get home, I ran back to the main lobby to see if anyone was going upstairs so I could walk up with them and make it past the dreaded second- story stairwell.
It took me an hour to finally make it home; in the end I walked upstairs with another resident of the building, and of course the dwarf lady never showed up.
Back and forth she went, in quick succession, and as she glided by she would turn her head and smile as if taunting me. Terrified, I ran into the kitchen. She turned from the stove and looked at me. There are lots of ladies in this neighborhood. A worried look framed her face, and I knew she realized that whatever I had seen impacted me greatly.
I peeked around the edge of the curtain. By the time she glanced out, the gliding lady had floated out of sight, leaving only a flash of red behind. One day weeks later I ran outside to meet a friend in the vacant lot beside our apartment building, and we fell into a rock-throwing competition, seeing who could score the most hits at a window on the sixth-story building across the street.
I bent down to see what it was and saw a beaded Indian necklace with bright colors lying on the ground. I stuffed it in my pocket before Tommy could see because I knew he would try to take the necklace from me. In that same instant I heard someone call my name, and it sounded like my mother. But my mother never called me.
Years later I realized what I heard was a familiar spirit—a principality that roamed the air. When I went into our building, I kissed the necklace and put it around my neck. This is going to protect you was the immediate thought that came to my mind.
A few years later, when I took my first steps into witchcraft, my main spirit protector was an Indian chief that called itself Tawata. John Ramirez is one in a million who made it out. John Ramirez is a sought-out speaker by many who want to hear of his involvement in the highest levels of the occult and how he got out.
He speaks at churches, schools, rallies, and conferences-both secular and Christian-and. Short-link Link Embed. Share from cover. Share from page:. More magazines by this user. Close Flag as Inappropriate.
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