Katie was her name. I met her when she started work for Kirby, and we worked together for a while. We got to know each other quite well, and started seeing each other outside of work.

Now this was back in 1991, back when I was an atheist. I was raised by atheists to BE an atheist. There was no God or angels or the devil or anything like that. It was interesting, however, that even though I considered myself to be an atheist, a non-believer, I still remember thanking a 'guardian angel' for being in my life, back in 1989. I was never sure how to resolve that internally. If there's no God or angels, how can I have a guardian angel? But I felt like I had one, so I went with it. But I digress...

Katie and I had become good friends after a few weeks of us working together. One day she dropped a bombshell on me.

"By the way, I'm a witch."

"You're a what?"

"A witch."

I looked at her. Tall, blonde, slim, very attractive, bubbly personality. "Funny, you don't look like a witch," I said. She laughed, and then explained to me that she was a Wiccan. She practiced the ancient religion of Wicca.

Though sometimes used interchangeably, "Wicca" and "Witchcraft" are not the same thing. The confusion comes, understandably, because both practitioners of Wicca and practitioners of witchcraft are often called witches. In addition, not all practitioners of Wicca are witches, and not all witches are practitioners of Wicca.

Let me go off on a small tangent...

For quite a few years prior to 1991, every now and again I would be overcome with feelings of fear. I might be sitting at home reading a book, or walking somewhere, and suddenly a horrible feeling would overcome me. My heart would start beating faster, and I could hear the blood pounding in my ears. The hair all over my body - my head, the back of my neck, my arms and legs - felt like it was all standing on end. The skin on my back would start prickling; maybe you know the feeling yourself, when you have that paranoid feeling that someone's about to stick a knife between your shoulder blades - or worse - but you can't turn around because you know you don't want to see that knife falling and striking you. It's better to not look and die not knowing, than to look and experience the even greater horror of seeing what's about to strike you. That's the feeling I used to get, repeatedly, but only every few months. I didn't take much notice of it. Most of the time I knew there was nothing behind me, which just made the feeling all the worse, and if I was out somewhere and it occurred, I never actually looked behind me, I just tried to ignore it and move on. It usually passed in less than 20-30 seconds. I got used to it. It was only my mind, I used to tell myself. Some kind of irrational fear of the unknown.

One day while working, doorknocking and giving away free tickets to a holiday, as long as they had a free Kirby demonstration in exchange, I got the feeling again. I had just pressed the doorbell of someone's house, and was looking at the strange curved metal decorations hanging from the verandah over the door, when suddenly 'that feeling' came back. The feeling of great fear, as previously described. I decided to immediately leave the area, as no one seemed to be home, and after walking up the driveway the feeling disappeared. With relief, I went to the next house and prompty forgot the incident.

That night, I was walking with Katie, going back to her house after a wonderful dinner at the nearby McDonalds. We were chatting about stuff to do with Wicca, as we had been for a couple of weeks by this time. I remembered the incident during the day and decided to tell her about it, feeling she'd be interested.

I said, "Oh, by the way...." but I didn't get any further before the feeling came back. I was 'struck with fear' again. At the exact same time, she started freaking out.

"Oh shit! Oh fuck!" And other such exclamations. She held onto my arm, holding me close, but I stopped, looking at her.

"What's wrong?" I asked her, surprised and concerned.

"Nothing," she replied after taking a breath and calming herself down. "It's ok, tell me what you were going to tell me." She stayed silent as we continued walking, while I told her about the feeling I'd had that day, and which had just come back then.

By this time we had arrived at her house and, still silent, she unlocked the door and we went inside. As soon as the door closed behind her, she leant against it.

"Thank God! Now I feel safe again."

I looked at her for a few moments, wondering what the hell all that was about. "You wanna tell me what the hell all that was about?" I asked.

"Well..." she said, looking at me. "It felt like I was about to be psychically attacked."

"Right.... and that means what exactly?"

She had previously explained psychic abilities to me, which was something I believed in. God might not exist, I thought, but the power of our own minds holds untold secrets. Psychic abilities, in various forms, were untapped abilities I believed we have. Albert Einstein believed we only used 10 percent of our brains. What secrets - what powers - are within the other 90 percent?

"It felt like something was about to attack me with psychic energy. Something powerful. I need to find out what the hell that is."

Slightly bemused, I sat back and watched as she prepared a circle of candles and then sat inside it. She went into a meditative trance, and was like that for at least half an hour before she came out of it. I put down the book I had been reading during this time, but my mind wasn't completely on it. Psychic attacks? The fear I felt... what did it all mean?

"Well, that was interesting," she said, and looked at me for a while. I waited. "Ok, you've got a demon following you around."

"A demon?" I asked, incredulous.

She nodded. "A big ugly one too."

"Great, that's all I need. Demons following me around. Life can't get much more interesting than that."

She then taught me about demons. They exist only because of us. We give power to them. We create them with our own negative attitudes and thoughts, and if we put so much energy into our own negativity, that energy becomes substantial. It follows us around, and it can even take on a 'mind' of its own. It affects us, plays with our emotions and our thoughts. It helps us by continuing the cycle of energy that we have created it with. I'm sure you've all heard the saying, "She has to fight her own demons?" It's not just a figurative phrase. Demons are real, and we create them for ourselves.

It took me a few months to learn about the power of negative thought, and how the energy we devote to it can manifest in the form of a being of negative energy. We create them, and they stay with us. They're ours, for as long as we continue feeding them with the same energy that created them. At the same time, by understanding that these demons exist only because of the energy that we give them, we actually do have the ability to defeat our own demons - simply by not giving them that energy any more. They have no power over us apart from the power that we let them have.

The next time the feeling returned, about 3 months later, I had learnt a great deal about energy and the power of thought. I had learnt that this demon existed only because of my own negativity. When the feeling returned, I immediately turned around and in my head I said to it, "I'm not afraid of you any more." I had turned to face it, something I had never done before. I saw nothing. The feeling vanished immediately, and I have never had it return, not once in the 14 years since then.

Now, the really interesting thing about this experience, which began my journey into disbelieving atheism, was that the fear that I felt was simultaneously experienced by Katie. She felt threatened, about to be psychically attacked by something external to her. For me, this was absolute proof that my feelings were caused by something outside of me. It wasn't my mind! It was something else! My fears had manifested into an external being of energy that threatened another person. Demons were real.

This was the single most life-altering experience of my life, and still is to this day. This was the event that changed the path I walk. From this point on, my world changed. It wasn't all simple any more. It wasn't about belief, it was about reality. If demons actually existed, and we created them, what does that say about God and angels, etc? I had to change my beliefs. I was forced to. Physical evidence proved to me that my world wasn't the same any more.

I started to listen to Katie more. I started to believe what she was telling me. I opened my eyes, and she changed my life.

Another event that had another profound effect on me was when Katie wanted to prove to me that Magick was real. Not magic, but Magick. She did another candle meditation one night, and told me to look out for something. She didn't know what it would be, but it would prove to me the reality of what she was talking about. So I watched and waited. While she was in her meditation, after about 15 or so minutes, I suddenly noticed something happening. One of the candles that was half melted was unmelting. It was reforming before my eyes, until it was whole again. I didn't really know what to make of this. It was like a surreal moment. Candles don't unmelt! But again, it was proof for me that she knew what she was talking about, and that everything I had believed about reality was wrong.

She came out of her trance and asked if anything had happened. I pointed to the candle, and she was surprised to see it whole again, as if new. Surprised but very pleased. She explained to me that she set in motion the manifestation of energy. She didn't know what the result would be, but her mind directed energy to manifest in some way so as to prove to me that the manipulation of reality by the mind was possible.

I looked again at the candle, wondering if I was going mad. This kind of thing isn't possible, I was telling myself. But if it's not possible, how is it that she did it? How is she creating what a rational mind believes is impossible? How is she seeing the same thing I'm seeing? If I was going mad, surely I'd be the only one seeing or feeling the things that I do? The only 'rational' conclusion I could come to was that literally, everything I believed was wrong. Magic was real, and reality wasn't what I thought it was.

This has been the foundation, the beginning, of everything that I have done since then, and everything I have experienced. When you come to understand that there's more to reality than what you once thought, your eyes - and your mind - are opened to supernatural and metaphysical experiences that you once thought were impossible.

Since then I have channelled spirit guides for myself and others. I've requested the aid of angels and even seen them. I've sensed the presence of lost spirits (ghosts) and helped them move on. I've had my spirit guides come to my aid and move on angry spirits for me, when I've requested it. I've seen the demons of other people and protected myself from them, subsequently causing those people to feel weird around me and decide not to see me any more. I've seen other people's past and future, with a high degree of accuracy.

But above all, I've learnt that the most important part of life is simply to live it. I move through life understanding that there's more to it than most people think. I'm aware of the dangers around me, and within me, that are actually part of this physical world. I actively work with energy to protect myself from those dangers, and to be more aligned with the path I choose to follow in this life.

Magic? It's real. Reality? It's really not what you think it is. It's so much more.