Ep. 24: AVOID NEW AGE SPIRITUALITY w/ Marcia Montenegro

Andrew Marcus:

Hey, this is Andrew. Welcome to THE INDOUBT SHOW. We got a fantastic show for us today. We have Marcia Montenegro. She was in the New Age movement for 20 years, an astrologer for eight years. God completely changed her life, saved her, and now she’s on a mission to help people. Enjoy today as we hear her story. God bless. All right. Well, we have Marcia Montenegro here all the way from North Virginia, which is very specific. I know about Virginia. Well, I don’t, but I’ve been taught before the red light went on. But thank you so much for joining us. How are you today?

Marcia Montenegro:

I’m doing fine. Thank you for having me on your program. I’m really looking forward to discussing all these things with you.

Andrew Marcus:

Absolutely. I’m so excited. I’ve been counting down these days. This topic about horoscopes and astrology and Enneagram and all these different things is just growing and growing and growing, and it just obviously shows that people are hungry for something. We’re going to talk a little bit about the dangers of where they’re being fed and what they’re feeding themselves and how we need to feed ourselves on the truth and God’s word and Jesus and staying close to him. Before we dive into all those things, I would love first for our listeners, our viewers, to just hear more about who you are because you have a pretty incredible story of what God has saved you from. Tell us a little bit about your upbringing with New Age, astrology, all that stuff, and how God interjected and what that looked like in your story.

Marcia Montenegro:

Okay. I will try to do one of the shorter versions because I can do a quick two-minute thing, and I can do an hour. I will try to do it much less than that. I was in the New Age for about 20 years. I got into it slowly over a period of time. Really, my interest started in high school when I was very interested in what was called the powers of the mind, like telepathy and clairvoyance, and ESP was a popular term that was being used. People would just say ESP, and there was a lot going on of interest in that area. I was what-

Andrew Marcus:

Does ESP stand for?

Marcia Montenegro:

Extrasensory perception.

Andrew Marcus:

Okay.

Marcia Montenegro:

There was actually, I believe he’s a psychologist at Duke University who was conducting experiments on ESP. He would have playing cards the person couldn’t see, and he would pick a card and they would have to say what they thought it was, that kind of thing. He was doing this statistically and seeing how many, if there were people who would do better than chance. I don’t know how many people know about it now, but it was very famous for a while there, the Duke University experiments. I was very intrigued by it. I also was interested for whatever reason in astrology. I don’t know why, because nobody in my family ever even talked about it. I don’t know where that came from. I don’t think any of my friends were into it.

For some reason, I would read the horoscope column and I just was intrigued by the idea of the 12 zodiac signs and how everybody would be one of the 12 signs. I had that interest. I had interest in other religions other than Christianity. I had been going to Christian churches, we moved around a lot. It was a very varied experience. My father was an agnostic and my mother was a nominal Christian, a nominal Southern Baptist who did make me and my sister go to church. We did go to church, but the thing is, even though I went to church and I went to Sunday school, I never got it. I just never really understood it. To me, it was like nice stories or interesting stories and that Jesus was this really, really super nice guy and I never got it. I got very interested in other belief systems.

When I went to college, of course I was very busy doing what I needed to do in college, my college work. But, my interest in these areas continued and I had a few friends there who were interested in them. I had some paranormal experiences. I actually had one at age 11 that I think may have triggered my interest. This all went on without accelerating that much until after I got out of college. Then, I had more time, I did more reading. During college, on a break from college when I was at my grandmother’s house one day I thought that a dead person appeared to me. I was awake and this man in a uniform, a military uniform, and I don’t know what kind of military uniform it was, but he appeared to me and told me the day he died, then he just faded away.

That started an interest in me in contact with the dead. I was reading a lot of books on that. There was a man writing a lot of books then at the time named Hans Holzer who was investigating what we would call haunted places, haunted houses, haunted hospitals, whatever. He would go to these places and supposedly have encounters with the spirits of dead people. Anyway, this all just really consumed me. I did a lot of reading on that and my other interests continued. This all led over a period of time to me deciding to get actively involved in something. I was reading a lot on Hinduism too. This is where my interest in Eastern religion started and I started believing in reincarnation. Then, I went to a Tibetan Buddhist group. At this time I was living in Atlanta, Georgia.

I had gone to college in Florida and I had moved later to Atlanta. All of these things that happened that brought me into the new age and where I was active in the new age were in the city of Atlanta, Georgia. I was intrigued by the Tibetan Buddhism. I was reading the books, I was doing the meditation. I had been shown how to do the meditation, and I was going every week to this group and hearing lectures. So at this point, my worldview had really shifted quite a bit. I was adopting what I would say would be a new age/Eastern worldview of reality, which is very different from not only the Christian reality, but just the reality that an atheist or agnostic would have. I was very much into this kind of thing.

I eventually got into Zen Buddhism, and also during this time I took a course called Inner Light Consciousness. At the end of that course, we were introduced to what was called our spiritual master. A spiritual master was a disembodied being who was going to be your guide, your spiritual guide. This is what is popularly called a spirit guide. But, this particular group called it the Spiritual Master. I did meet my spiritual master during this guided meditation, and I felt his presence with me. From then on, things just really accelerated. I took psychic development classes, I started studying astrology. I took past life regression classes, I took numerology classes, I took a palm reading class. I was just really 100% into it. I was going to this place where they taught all of these things.

Of course, so there I met people, I met the teachers, I got to know psychics and mediums who were the teachers there and new age teachers. I was just soaking up all this stuff and doing a lot of reading and started a serious study of astrology and taking astrology classes. That led to me becoming certified and licensed by the city of Atlanta. The city of Atlanta is very unusual, it’s the only city in the country that does this kind of thing because a group of astrologers there had gone to the city council and they got this law, or at least a city law, that in order to practice as an astrologer in the city, you had to have a business license, but to qualify for it, you had to take an exam to prove you knew astrology. This was to keep out the con artists who don’t really know astrology, but try to get you to come in so they can tell you stuff.

The serious astrologists didn’t like this, and they said, “Look, we’ll prove that we know what we’re talking about.” That was set up. It was a seven hour exam and it was very difficult. Only about half the people who take it pass. I became licensed, I became a professional astrologer. I got involved with the Astrological Society, which was very, very active. I started getting clients and that led to my life as an astrologer. I was fully immersed in this astrology that I was doing as well as I would have psychic experiences and psychic visions when I was doing the charts for my clients. I was teaching astrology and I became president of the Astrological society there. I also was a chairperson of the Board of Astrology Examiners that formulates and grades the exam. I was also writing for new age and astrological magazines, and I was on the Speaker’s bureau. I was going around Atlanta speaking to different groups like Parents Without Partners, the Lions Club. Both of them had me as a speaker. I spoke to some other groups.

My whole worldview was that God was an energy, and we all come from an energy, we’re all connected by this one energy and that we’ll all go back to God after living many lives. We have to spiritually advance through many, many lives for a long time before we can basically leave this plane of existence and go be part of God. That was my worldview. I completely believed I would have another life and that I had had previous lives. I was very hostile to Christianity because I thought Christians were narrow-minded and that they were told what to believe, that they were on a lower spiritual path, and they were not aware of who they really were and what potential they really had. I just felt they were in this very limited world.

I didn’t want to hear anything about Christianity at all. What happened was, and without going into all the details of it, God intervened in my life and over a period of time was drawing me to Christ, although I was not aware that was what was happening. All I knew is that I had this obsessive desire to go to a church. I call it a compulsion. I actually resisted this for several months. Then, I finally went to a church. At the beginning of the service, they had a procession down the aisle. At the front of the aisle was a young boy carrying across. As he walked by me, I felt this what I call a waterfall of love falling on me and washing through me. I knew this was from God. I knew this was from a personal God. I knew this was from a personal God and that he was telling me he loved me.

This was very, very real. It was so real. It shocked me. Tears were coming down my face. It had nothing to do with the music or the church or the people there. I knew this was from God. But, the thing is I didn’t believe in a personal God. Something was happening to me that I didn’t even believe in.

Andrew Marcus:

Wow.

Marcia Montenegro:

It sounds so bizarre, but this is exactly how it happened. So I ended up going back to that church every Sunday, and I was still into my new age worldview. People that I met there and found out I was an astrologer, some of them wanted my business card. I thought I could get some clients. I thought, “Oh, here’s a whole new source of clients.”

Andrew Marcus:

Oh my goodness.

Marcia Montenegro:

I was just kind of intrigued by it all. Then not too long after that first Sunday when that happened, I started getting an impression that God did not like astrology. It was not in anything I heard at the church, it was just this impression. I was very uncomfortable with it so I ignored it. Then that pretty soon became an impression God wanted me to stop doing astrology. There’s a lot of things that happened around that I’m going to skip over but it ended up with me actually giving astrology up the night before Thanksgiving. Now, when I went into the church and felt that waterfall of love, that was Labor Day weekend. Now it’s the night before Thanksgiving. It’s about, what is that, two and a half months or something later, and I actually give astrology up.

Now, I was not a Christian, and so it was a very strange time because I had to tell my clients I wouldn’t be doing … See I had new clients, but then they would come back and get updates, or they would come back and get compatibility or relationship charts done with their husband, wife, girlfriend, boyfriend, or even with their children. I would see clients repeatedly, it wasn’t just a one-time thing. I had a lot of clients and I had to tell them I wasn’t doing it anymore. I really didn’t know why. All I knew was that somehow astrology had separated me from God. That’s what I told them. If they asked me and they would say, “Well, how? How does it do that?” And I said, “I don’t know.” Because I don’t know.

What happened was I started reading scripture and a few days before Christmas, as I was reading an account in Matthew 8, God just opened my eyes and I saw who Jesus was. I realized I had been on the wrong spiritual path my whole life, that I had been going against God, that I didn’t really know who Jesus was. The Jesus I believed in was not the real Jesus. I realized that if I had died before then I would’ve gone to hell. All of that, I realized in a very, probably a nanosecond or something. I just turned my life over to Christ. I knew I was a new person. After that, there’s a lot of things that happened. I was kind of at sea because there a lot of the people at the church I was going to didn’t understand. They didn’t understand why I gave astrology up.

Andrew Marcus:

Would the people at the church think that astrology was fine?

Marcia Montenegro:

Yeah.

Andrew Marcus:

Wow. Okay. That’s interesting too.

Marcia Montenegro:

Yeah. They didn’t understand what was wrong with it. Now some people there, now of course I didn’t know everybody. I just knew some people. Of those people, some of the people may have thought astrology was wrong, but maybe didn’t say anything to me. I don’t know. Because the only people that I knew whose ideas I knew on astrology were the people who thought it was okay. They’re the only people I heard from. I wasn’t get really getting any support for what I did, except from the rector. The rector of that church, actually I went to him the night before Thanksgiving and told him what was going on and he started reading me passages from the Old Testament about divination, but I didn’t understand why he was reading them. When it finished, all I knew is that that was confirmation I should give astrology up and I told him that. I think he saw what was going on, but he very didn’t come at me like a ton of bricks. He just read from scripture, which I think was the best thing to do.

Andrew Marcus:

That’s amazing. Yeah.

Marcia Montenegro:

The whole story is just, to me, I look back on it and I obviously did nothing. This was nothing. I feel like God practically dragged me into that church because I resisted it for so long. And I resisted giving astrology up too. I didn’t want to give astrology up. After that, my life, of course, completely changed. Eventually my son and I moved up to this area when I was still a very new Christian. When we moved up here, I’d only been a Christian about nine months.

I came up here as a very new believer, had to start trying to find a church. That’s a whole other thing. I eventually did end up at a good church. I’m still a member of that church. I joined as a, I wasn’t a brand new believer, but I was a young believer. I was very young in Christ. I’m really grateful the Lord led me to a good solid church.

Andrew Marcus:

Praise God.

Marcia Montenegro:

Where I learned the Bible and got good messages and good exegesis of scripture and was surrounded by real believers. Anyway, it was quite a journey. I did find out, I can’t leave this out. I found out a few months after I became a Christian at this office, I was working because one of my clients hired me to work in this office to give him behind the scenes information on the employees based on their birth data. That’s why I was there. Nobody else knew that. I didn’t think his secretary knew that.

There was a Christian man in that office, and he was praying for me with a young adult fellowship at his church when he found out I was an astrologer. He prayed for me and he befriended me, but he never preached at me. All he would do would ask me questions. He would say things like, “What do you think about music today? Do you have concerns about this? What do you think of that?” I really liked people asking my opinion. I would be like, “Oh, well, let me tell you what I think.” He was just this very nice kind of quiet, humble guy. Meanwhile, behind the scenes, he’s praying for me with his young adult fellowship.

Andrew Marcus:

Wow.

Marcia Montenegro:

All of that stuff that happened was they were praying for me during all that stuff when I was going to the church and everything, they were praying. I didn’t find out though until four months later he told me. I think it’s because of something I said that he told me, I don’t know if he would’ve told me otherwise. That really blew me away. I think that my story shows first of all, that God can reach anybody no matter how hardened and hostile they are to Christ. Number two, when you feel led to pray for somebody, don’t give up. Even if it looks really bad, this person is never going to be a Christian. You know? It can just look like a hopeless case. If you feel led to pray or you really feel burdened for that person, just keep praying because you have no idea what God’s doing behind the scenes. You just have no idea.

Andrew Marcus:

Yeah. That’s huge. Even bringing his whole young adults fellowship group to join him. That’s amazing. Also just the power of scripture, how it was scripture that changed your life. Do you remember the specific passage in Matthew 8 that really just-

Marcia Montenegro:

Oh yes.

Andrew Marcus:

What was it?

Marcia Montenegro:

Oh yes, I know it really, really well. Well, I can’t remember the verses now. I think it’s 23, 22, 24. It’s where Jesus is on the boat and he’s asleep and a storm comes up and the disciples are scared and they wake him up and he rebukes the sea and the wind. It’s in Mark 4 and Luke 8, I believe, but I was reading Matthew chapter 8. It’s a little longer, I think in Mark I think it might be a little longer passage. One of them is longer but I was reading the Matthew passage, and it’s good, of course, to read all three of them. I like to read all of it because then you got the full perspective.

Andrew Marcus:

Totally.

Marcia Montenegro:

That was the passage. I was reading it, and something about it just gripped me. I read it again and I’m like, “Well, let me read that again.” So I read it again and I was like, I just couldn’t let go of it. I must have read it three or four times. It’s while I was reading that last time that I saw that God opened my eyes, it’s while I was reading that passage.

Andrew Marcus:

Wow.

Marcia Montenegro:

It was like Jesus, he completely controls the sea and the wind. He stops the storm immediately. Then he says, “Where is your faith?” He’s kind of rebuking them in a gentle way like, “You still don’t get who I am, do you?” Or you haven’t really come to believe it. And the whole thing, Jesus’ manner, it wasn’t just his power over nature, but it was his manner with the disciples. I don’t know. There was something about it that just really got me. That was it.

Andrew Marcus:

Wow. It’s so beautiful. It’s just a reminder for our listeners, just the power of scripture and how we should read it over and over again. Every time it does something different, and how that just literally changed the trajectory of your entire life.

Marcia Montenegro:

Right. Because scripture is God’s living Word.

Andrew Marcus:

Yeah.

Marcia Montenegro:

It’s more than just words on a page in other books.

Andrew Marcus:

Yeah.

Marcia Montenegro:

God uses His Holy Spirit inspired words, and the Holy Spirit will work through those words if it’s God’s will. If you’re not a believer, other people have been saved reading scripture. If you’re a believer, you are also transformed reading scripture and grow closer to the Lord because it’s just His word.

Andrew Marcus:

Beautiful. I love it. It’s very important. I love it. It’s such a good reminder for our listeners, the power of scripture, the power of prayer, praying with your young adults group for people. What a beautiful story. Now you’re on a mission. Life has changed for you.

Marcia Montenegro:

Yes.

Andrew Marcus:

Tell us about your ministry, what you’re doing. Then I have some questions about Enneagram, other things and maybe you’ve seen some similarities with the Enneagram and what you’ve seen in the New Age movement. What are you doing now?

Marcia Montenegro:

Well, I have a full-time ministry, Christian Answers For The New Age. I have been in it, it’s going to make me sound really old, since 1998. 1998, that’s 25 years. I can’t believe it.

Andrew Marcus:

That’s amazing.

Marcia Montenegro:

I actually started part-time in 1994.

Andrew Marcus:

Okay.

Marcia Montenegro:

I was doing it part-time first. I was working full-time. I was a single mother and I was working. I would go to conferences. I’d use vacation time to go speak at conferences or go speak at churches if I had to use vacation time. Then through, it’s another story how God impressed on me I needed to go full-time. Also, my missions pastor had suggested it, and some people at my church were saying, when are you going to do this full time? I was resisting it as usual. I was like, “Oh, no, I can’t do this full time.” But God had other plans.

I ended up full-time with a mission agency, fellowship International Mission in Allentown, Pennsylvania. I am technically a missionary, I’m a missionary. The two purposes of my ministry are number one, to educate Christians about the new age and the occult, so they can be more discerning and also so they can witness to people in the new age and the occult. Then the other one is to do outreach to people in the new age and the occult, and tried to share the truth of Christ with them. Those are the two areas of my ministry, what my ministry is about. I’ve done that through a lot of speaking, a lot of programs like this, a lot of writing two books, and I guess that’s in my website.

Andrew Marcus:

Amazing. I feel like now more than ever, we need to help young people just be aware of this reality. Like we talked about, a lot of young people are hungry, and they’re just going to the wrong places for food.

Marcia Montenegro:

They really are. Yeah. It’s gotten so huge out there, Wicca and witchcraft, like the TikTok witches, I’m very aware of that. Astrology’s getting more popular. There’s this spirituality that’s exploding, but it’s not spirituality from God.

Andrew Marcus:

Yeah. Then that means we know who it’s from.

Marcia Montenegro:

Yes, exactly. It’s a counterfeit to the real thing.

Andrew Marcus:

Yeah. That’s exactly right. Yeah. That’s so true. Thank you so much for your time. We really appreciate just hearing your story, hearing God’s grace in your life. For those who are listening, you can tune in a few weeks, we’ll have part two where we dive into the Enneagram, astrology, horoscope, see the similarities, the differences, the dangers. But we hope you enjoy the show. If you want, you could also go to YouTube and watch the whole thing in its entirety. God bless you so much. Have a great day.

Hey, thanks so much for joining us today. For more great content, check out THE INDOUBT SHOW on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Music, or wherever you stream your podcasts. We hope you enjoyed it today. Feel free to check out indoubt.ca. We have some great resources available to you. Have an awesome day.