Illumination!

When I came into the tea-room, I was surprised to find it almost empty. The room was well furnished with tables and chairs, tablecloths, candles, and baked goods. A nice young woman with short, red hair and freckles gave me a cup of tea.
     I looked around, undecided what to do. At the end of the room two elderly people were sitting, but for today, I had been dealing with enough older people for one day! I remained standing near the young woman, but said nothing.
   
Just at that moment a young man of my age came in. He saw the woman behind the counter and shouted joyfully, "Ah, Silke, good to see you!" She gave him a pleasant smile and said: "Uli, you’re back in Germany? I heard you had been on tours abroad with Youth With A Mission!"
    The young man now stood directly beside me at the counter, but ignored me. "Yes, I’m back with my team to serve here at Church Days. But you are right, I have been in Egypt!"
   "In Egypt?" she asked with enormous eyes. "I have heard that it is very difficult to do mission work there. Difficult territory, isn’t it?" 
    He nodded: "Yes, you are right! Once we found ourselves in a room where I immediately sensed the presence of the occult powers!"
Till this moment I had listened with casual interest, but now I interrupted energeticly, "Excuse me. You said occult! What does that mean?"

They both looked at me with surprise. The young man hesitated for a moment and then he said, "Occult means things like magic, for example. But tell me, why do you want to know this? Are you a Christian?"
  I smiled, "Yes, for just two hours! And I want to know whether or not I am involved with occult things.” He did not bat an eyelash and said, "So why do you think that you could be involved?”
    I shrugged my shoulders "Well, I do not know exactly. For example, I am occupied with astrology, tarot and I also had contact with my dead relatives."
  He raised his eyebrows and gave me his full attention." You had contact with your dead relatives? How did you do it? Pushing glasses?" I denied, "No, with a small table!" "Anyway," he said, "these are things that are not good!”

He looked around. Meanwhile the room had filled with people. “Ah, there is Mike!”, he said and pointed to a dark-haired man sitting alone in an armchair. “ I would like to introduce you to him. He can answer you much better than I can. Before he became a Christian, he was involved with white magic."
    We walked up to him. Uli said to him, "Mike, here is a young man …” , he interrupted and looked at me. “by the way, what is your name?” “Heiner”, I said. He continued introducing me. “Heiner has become a Christian today. He is not sure whether he is involved in occult things or not. Could you tell him something about occultism!"
    The man looked at me, then he nodded and said, "Please take a chair and sit down!"
                                                      
Mike was a good looking man with a symphatic voice. I estimated him possibly at 35 years of age. So after having sat down he told me a little bit about his magic experiences. At last, he said, "Well, this was before becoming a Christian. Today, I know that it was wrong." 
     Now I started to tell him about my esoteric things and he listened without looking at me. But when I mentioned the contact with my "relatives" he suddenly looked right at me with a jolt and amazement! Then he said slowly, "Did you really think that these were your dead relatives?" I was astonished, "Sure! I knew them since my childhood?"
     He shook his head. "No, these have not been your relatives! You have been in contact with demons!" I was puzzled, "Demons? What s that?" Again he looked straight into my eyes, "Evil spirits! The servants of the Devil!" 

In the same moment I began to understand. It was as if a bright light had illuminated my brain. "Evil spirits?", I repeated. "I have been in contact with evil spirits all the time? My god!"
     Of course, this was the only possible explanation for the hard words at the end of our contact. My relatives would never have talked to me in such a way. But why did the evil spirits stop the contact? , I suddenly thought. Had I come to close to the truth?
 "Well, let us pray!" Mike`s voice brought me back into the present.