Our journey towards destiny started in the spring of 2016. Chelsea now four months pregnant was sitting next to me. The air was hot and full of terrible smells as Ruger our dog was getting sick in the back seat of a rented car. We were headed down to a conference called Hear the Watchmen hosted by Mike Kerr. It was going to be a gathering of many of the teachers, researchers, and hosts of programs I’d been listening to over the last few years who had helped inspire me to boldness in my faith. These were people who were willing to suffer the persecution of the world for the sake of the truth. It was these men like Henry Gruver, Steve Quayle, Timothy Alberino, Josh Tolley, L.A. Marzulli, and Zev Porat who had first lit the fuse of my understanding and helped me begin to understand the other world hiding all around us.

Chelsea and I knew it would likely be the last trip we would take before Naomi was born, so we made it count, staying a few days in an off-the-grid cabin in the desert before driving the rest of the way to Dallas. It would be the last week of my former life. Six days later I would drive back on those roads a new man.

The reality was that I was still battling those familiar strongholds and had been too ashamed to tell Chelsea. I went to this conference to get prayed for, to get freedom and hopefully restoration. I could not bear the shame and guilt of telling her I could not stop, so instead, I set my mind on healing and hoping it would come soon.

There was one man who would be there who I knew could speak to the dark parts of my soul, who could expose the wicked works of darkness to the light of redemption. He was an ordinary man whose extraordinary faith made him unafraid of the murderers, the witches or the warlocks, a man who was known by the Living God, who walked in authority and made the Enemy flee. His name was Russ Dizdar. For nearly 40 years he’d been reaching into the depths of darkness and snatching those whose bleeding hands were crying out for help. He had made his life’s mission to intercede for those trapped in The Underworld of ritual abuse, survivors of the occult practices and demonically charged bloodlines. His ministry, Shatter the Darkness, had been equipping believers with the tools of understanding they needed to face down the spiritual forces, which wage for the bodies, spirits, and souls of mankind. He was a man of courage. For more explosively pertinent resources from Russ Dizdar head over to shatterthedarkness.net

The first night of the conference I took notes in my blocky capitalized print waiting to have something change in me, but all I could feel was groaning from within my soul. There was an aching, a begging, and a longing to be free. At the end of his talk, he called out to those sitting in the audience: he called out for those who were in need of prayer, “to those who need God’s healing, deliverance and freedom.” Before the fears of men could stop me, I ran to the front of that conference room, tears streaming in torrents from my eyes and fell face first onto the carpet. I wept uncontrollably. I wept from the depths of sorrow so few can know. I wept as a man who was dying, a man who was three minutes from dead, a man who was crying out for someone, anyone, to save him. I was the wounded warrior on the battlefield trapped behind enemy lines, pierced through a dozen times begging for someone to bring me relief, bring me the remedy to the death in my veins and the lusts of my flesh. Through my sobs, snot, and moans, a voice was heard.

It was the voice of a warrior. Hidden behind his long hair, tattoos, and middle-aged features was a man of faith, passion, and humility. His name was Thomas Dunn. He stepped forward when Russ called him and saw me lying there in a heap, hands pressed to cover my face from the guilt of forgotten torments. Unable to talk to me standing up or kneeling, he chose to humble himself by joining me in my prostrated pose. He laid himself next to me on the floor and through the weeping I heard him ask, “What can I pray for you for?” I choked out, “Childhood sexual abuse and addictions.” I could not bear to open the doors of death hidden behind my throat. I let loose these five words and asked for help. The Helper was with us both, and He would answer those cries for relief.

It was not a dramatic moment. The heavens didn’t open; there was no light shining from above. He asked if he could place his hand on my shoulder and pray for me. I said yes, and that’s what he did. He prayed with practiced fervor, faith, and belief. He was an ordinary man with extraordinary willingness to stand in between the perishing and their graves. He was a warrior battling for a brother whom he didn’t know but knew he loved. On the floor of that room were two men who loved God with all their hearts waging a brutal war against The Radical, Intelligent Evil, which affected us all.

Thomas was faithful to pray for a stranger, a young man whom he’d never met, a man whose pregnant wife stood twenty yards away having no idea about the reality of who her husband was and what he’d done. He was a man whose soon to be born daughter was already being allocated to monsters who would seek to use her, exploit her like an IV bag dripping delicacies for devilish feasts. The man lying on the floor was desperate for rescue. I was a man who had become undone; a hangman’s thread held the essence of my shattered soul. I had nothing left to give that I wouldn’t surrender to my King. I would not leave there without a breakthrough, and He came to deliver me. He would do it by starting with a cursed black tree.

Throughout the entirety of my life, I had been plagued by this obsession of black withered trees. It was this tree I would go to in my dreams: a gathering place for monsters and men alike. It was my soul or a depiction I had of our cursed Family Tree. I was so fixated on it that I would draw and photograph these black trees over and over again. When I was 19, I’d nearly tattooed it on my body along with the shed skin of a snake named Apollo, and a curving yellow and red brick road littered with the masks of a dozen faces, none of which were my own.

While Tom prayed for me, I saw a vision in my mind of that enormous black tree standing tall over the fields of my heart. Then I saw a hand come and grab it by the base and rip it free. When it lifted, I felt a feeling come over me I had abandoned as lost. It wasn’t comfortable or sweet, but it was powerful; with a flooding of realization, I knew it was relief. It was freedom from shackles I’d never seen, from pains I’d long forgotten and memories that would require redemption.

Over our shoulders and on the stage, Russ prayed for the healing of minds, restoring of hearts, and deliverance to those in bondage. He concluded his prayer by talking about David and Goliath. David was a young man who charged out into the face of death with the Name of The Living God as his shield and buckler. Russ confronted the heart of darkness with courage and faith that caused the enemy to scatter like the coward he is. He called for the people who were gathered there to stand courageous and go out and seek and save the lost, be they the pimps who traffic girls on the corner or the demonized warlock cursing their house at night. He told everyone to go out and preach The Good News of Jesus The Christ, The Son of The Living God’s redemption to every creature. (Mark 16:15)

The night ended with Tom moving on to pray for others in need while Chelsea and I walked back to our hotel room where Ruger was waiting. Over the weekend I got to talk to Tom some more as he was there promoting a documentary that he and Jared Chrestman of Angry Son Media had just finished called Detestable, a Film about Satanic Ritual Abuse. Satanic Ritual Abuse is a broad term used to describe the ritualistic abuse that is done in the name of or to empower a spiritual entity, which is not limited explicitly to The Satan, but can include other deities like Asmodeus, Lucifer, Ishtar, The Queen of Heaven, The Beast, Gaia, Lilith, Cybele, other gods, demons, and fallen angels. The type of abuse is sophisticated, systemic, and methodical. Involving the physical, emotional, spiritual, and sexual abuse of individuals from the age of conception to the wheel chair bound elderly.

Satanic Ritual Abuse is the black blooded heart of The Kingdom of Darkness pumping its poisoned fuel into the bodies, souls, and spirits of mankind. The deviant practitioners of this wickedness perpetrate it most readily on children and most often on their Family members. Among many other things, the ritualistic abuse of children in this manner causes a very real, physical, emotional, and spiritual power to be released, which is then channeled and used by practitioners and spirits alike for various purposes and ends.

Thomas Dunn had been working with Russ Dizdar and Jared Chrestman to film and produce an exposé revealing the realities of this brutal world where Radical Intelligent Evil puts on flesh and tortures, maims, and murders the innocent in order to rule the hearts, minds, and bodies of mankind. They were bold and courageous men who were on a mission to expose the wicked works of darkness to the Redeeming Light of The Messiah. There were many people present seeking to proclaim the truth, but few were doing it in even this terrible area. To keep up with Tom and Jared’s ceaseless work check out their YouTube Channel at ThroughTheBlack.com

Just as the trip was wrapping up and the final session had closed, I went and asked a question to a panel of the speakers at the front of the room. After this, I went to talk to some new friends. While I was talking to them, a woman came up to me and handed me a book saying somewhat frantically that I needed to read it. Looking at it I saw that it was for the breaking of generational curses related explicitly to the renunciation of the oaths sworn in freemasonry and other oath taking societies and “brotherhoods.” Turning back to ask her a question, I couldn’t see her anywhere. I cannot tell you if that woman was a messenger of Yahweh, or just a woman who was being obedient to The Holy Spirit’s leading but that woman put in my hands the keys to deliverance that would finally set this shackled man free.