Moira Noonan: My Conversion Story

Moira Noonan left Catholicism for the New Age in the early 1970s after suffering a crippling accident for which her faith seemed to have no answers. She went on to serve as a minister in the Church of Religious Science for 20 years, mastering such disciplines as clairvoyance, hypnotherapy, spiritual healing, and past-life regression. Her tumultuous life at the time, and her subsequent return to her original faith after a series of powerful inner experiences, are the subjects of this absorbing account of spiritual quest and rebirth. Noonan's story has been an inspiration to thousands of people who have begun to feel the inadequacy of New Age-inspired road maps to enlightenment. Her knowledge of that world is unusually thorough and grounded in experience, and she approaches it in a constructive, upbeat manner, making her story all the more compelling. -goodreads.com

Source: Christendom Awake - My earliest memories of Catholicism was my mother saying that she sent us (my brothers and sisters) to Catholic School so the nuns could raise us because they did a better job than she did. The first school I went to was in Detroit for kindergarten, a Sacred Heart Convent School in the order of St. Madeline Sophie. By the time I was in third grade we had moved from Detroit to New Jersey where I had attended public school due to lack of a Catholic School in that area. By eight grade I was sent away to boarding school in Philadelphia called Eden Hall, the Sacred Heart Convent, when I was in tenth grade the school suffered a fire and burnt down.

I was transferred to a secular college-prep boarding school called MacDuffie School for Girls. This transition placed a real damper on my faith journey. This non-Catholic environment started me out on the dangerous path into the New Age World. One of my teachers, in her twenties, had befriended me and many of the girls at the school both during and after school hours. She had studied in India and had a strong belief in the Hindu Religion, she was also engaged to a Hindu who was a professor at Princeton University. He wore the traditional dress of a turban and came to visit her at our boarding school on a regularly basis. We attended many different Indian concerts including Ravi Shankar and became more fascinated with the mystery of the Indian Culture and religion.

By the time I had graduated high school in (1970) I was convinced I needed to be enlightened, go to India and find my Guru, "my living teacher to show me the way to God". After graduation I decided to attend college in Colorado, and attend both the University of Denver and Colorado University. I had always had the idea that one day I would go to India, the seed of this new belief system had been planted into me.

It is a common belief among New-Agers that follow Gurus that a Gurus needs to be alive in order to help you. So on the college campus I attended, I was highly influenced by the Rashneesh movement. This movement really took off and their Guru eventually moved from India to the West Coast in the U.S. to be with all of the young followers. The college campus had meditation classes and groups which were always promoting a Guru.

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By my junior year of college I had transferred to the University of Washington in Seattle and decided to do a semester abroad and attended college in Avignon France. While I was in France I travelled to Greece and Turkey and thought I'd just take a train to India because I didn't feel the need to finish college. The concept of being enlightened had overpowered my need to finish my education. The Lord had different plans for my life, he used my grandmother to track me down. She convinced me to come home and finish school so I graduated College in 1974 from the University of Washington. During this time the media and top celebrities such as the Beatles, were off visiting their Gurus, so my influence within the Hindu and Eastern Religion continued. The seed of this new belief system I had received during high school actually developed enough to brainwash me into believing I needed to find a living Gurus to find enlightenment.

Another aspect of my New Age journey was falling prey to the feminist movement and the attitude that woman were nothing without a career. So I had again put India on the back shelf to enter the career path, to become a successful publisher. I became solely focused on my work, and had no time for spiritually matters. By the age of twenty eight I had accomplished my goal of being a publisher and was working in Hawaii with Visitor Publication Inc.. By thirty I'd had been in a major auto accident in the company car. The accident left me serious disabled and I could not work or even drive, and was left in constant pain. Searching for a way to relieve the pain I turned back to the Hindu Religion and without realizing it until later, I like to say; my insurance company paid for me to become future brainwashed in the New Age. My insurance company within the state of Hawaii sent me Dr. Norman Shelly's Pain and Rehabilitation Clinic in La Crosse, Wisconsin, which was one of the first model pain clinics in the country. The pain clinic has since moved to Menninger's Clinic in the Midwest. The main training in this clinic was autogenic, which is a combination of hypnosis and New Thought philosophy of beliefs. The New Thought belief comes from the Science of the Mind, created by Dr. Ernest Holmes, Theosophy Society and Mary Baker Eddy, who was the founder of the Christian Science Religion. During my stay at the pain clinic, the patients were placed under subliminal mode to alter the brain waves of thinking, while feeding the brain messages of a new value and belief system. A mind over matter way to become pain free, "If you believe you have no pain, then you have no pain." The staff at the clinic actually verbally put down any form of suffering, and virtue in suffering. No redemptive suffering or that the suffering you are experiencing could be from God, but only a result of your own guilt. The concept of salvation was self endured, "If you wanted to be saved, healed or pain free you better do it yourself." There was no room for Christian Values or concepts. This describes the New Age trinity of Me, Myself and I. These auto-suggestions went on daily, hourly for the duration of my stay. I stayed at the pain clinic for about a month. When I finally left the clinic they gave me books and tapes to take home so I could stay on the autogenic system in order to stay pain free, and to keep this "New Thought" in my mind to support my new way of thinking.

After my experiences within the clinic, I decided to join New Age Churches. The main goal at the time was to give light to the Church of Religious Science, and Unity Churches, these churches are now international in most cities within the United States. I ended up joining the ministry training program at the North County Church of Religious Science in Encinitas, CA and spent four years learning under a former Catholic minister where the brainwashing continued in depth until I truly had a new belief system.

I also was a prayer practitioner at the Seaside Church of Religious Science in Del Mar, CA. Having been in pain, I was drawn to the New Age healing arts and became certified as a Reiki healer and master trainer and was certified in Hands of Light training by Barbara Brennar, School of Healing. This led to desire to learn more about the psychic world — the healing arts aren't about using the Holy Spirit. So I went for psychic training classes at the Teaching of the Inner Christ in Lemon grove CA, to learn counterfeit gifts such as clairvoyant, clairsentient, and clairaudient and to be more connected with fallen spirits and spirit guides. During the prayer practitioner work at the churches, we assisted people to "manifest" their desires, using God more like a Genie who grants you wishes, than a loving creator who we should submit our will to. The essence of the New Age teachings is to manifest into human experience what they consider to be the divine will because they think that we are all "gods". A basic denial of original sin and the same lie that Satan gave to Eve in the Garden of Eden. Only now the idea is promoted with more sophisticated brainwashing programs.

Prayer practitioner work led to healing work and training in counselling for me. In 1989 I became a certified Ericksonian Hypotherapist. The emphasis was on part of life regression therapy and future life. One of the hardest beliefs to be rid of from the New Age is the belief in reincarnation. There is such bondage in that belief system. Dr. Milton Erickson designed this type of therapy using N.L.P or (Neurolinguistic programming.) I received my N.L.P. training at Robbins Research Int. In San Diego by Anthony (Tony) Robbins, Tony Robbins is a master hypnotist. I became further immersed in the world of hypnosis and it became for me a complete reprogramming of my mind and a serious loss of personal will power.

The beginning of my conversion started in 1990. I was in Hawaii at the Ericksonian therapy seminar and at one point I was in the lounge between classes reading an article about the New Age leader and teacher Sandra Ray's trip to Medjugorje in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Sandra's aim in going was to visit "Mother Mary." She says she was even invited by the priest at St. James Church to be in the room with the visionaries darning the apparition. Her experience there gave her the insight to start the goddess movement which is very big within the New Age. She believed she witnessed the heaven goddess, "Mother Mary", coming down to meet the earth goddess, Gaia. While I was sitting there reading this article what really struck me was that I knew our Lady was definitely not a goddess. So I thank the Sacred Heart nuns of my early childhood that some truth had stuck with me. When I returned home to San Diego I happened to be in Long's Drug Store and found a Life Magazine with a picture of a statue of our Lady on the cover and the title "Do you believe in Miracles"? So I bought that as a follow-up to the New Age magazine that I had been reading while I was in Hawaii. Time magazine had a truer version of Mary and encouraged me to look deeper into her. The key person who the Lord brought into my life to help me fully commit my life to Christ and our Blessed Mother was Beverly Nelson, a Lay Missionary of Charity in the order of Mother Theresa. As a result of Beverly's encouragement I also joined the Lay Missionary's of Charity and became active within the order. I also joined R.C.I.A, at St. Francis Parish in Vista, CA. and became a sponsor for many of my New Age friends to become Catholic within the church. Including a former New Age doctor, my former New Age professor, a top New Age musician, personal friends who have been in New Age for over thirty year and my ex-husband, all of these people were adults between the ages of thirty five and fifty. They are glad for their new-found faith in Christ. My daughter, has also had all of her sacraments within the Catholic Faith, and is a practicing Young Adult.

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