“The rave scene was about PLUR. That was the rave new age mantra. Peace, Love, Unity, Respect…”—
This reminds me of the new age rhetoric and practices of the 60’s hippie movement. I’m honoured to share Bryan’s story on my blog! Wonderful to see Bryan find Jesus and then dramatically enter the deliverance ministry, Laura.
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Bryan Ketler
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“When the Light came in the car. What happened to me took no time. I was taken out of time and into eternity…
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…I witnessed her eyes turn colors. They would turn completely black, or her pupils would turn to slits like a snake. I watched smoke or steam rise off her head. I watched her slither around on the ground like a snake. I heard her speak with many voices. She had taken razor blades and sliced herself all over her arms, neck and face. She carved occultist symbols into her arms and neck. While we were singing (worshiping Jesus), the deep bleeding slices started to heal up right before my eyes.”
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I have shared my story in youth group meetings, on local Christian radio and the like over the past 20 years.
I grew up in a broken home with no Father and a drunk for a Mother. My Grandparents, who took care of my two brothers and I took us to church with them on Sunday. That formed my early belief system.
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When I was very young I was shown porn films by my older brother. I was also sexually molested by a male friend. These things lead me to be sexually active at a young age. This lead me to see females as my salvation.
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After a number of bad decisions followed by many bad heart breaks I found myself at 22 Living with my Mother and no prospect for a future. I applied for one of those jobs traveling around and “demonstrating products”. It was selling Cleaner door to door. We were somewhere in Michigan when my bad attitude got me dropped off at the side of the road in the middle of nowhere. They said I was like cancer and needed cut out.
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So there I was trying desperately to get home with several suitcases and no money. It was a long journey but eventually I made it home to Mom’s house. I felt so bad for my Mom since I just left and she thought I was gone for good that I contacted friend in Pittsburgh and asked her if I could come stay with her. I had idea what I would do after that. She said Yes.
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Pittsburgh
My first night in Pittsburgh I met a witch. I was at a bar/club. She was cute. We went back to her house. I stayed overnight. To make long story short I ended up moving in with her. She introduced me to LSD. She once told me she was going to party for eternity with satan in hell. I liked LSD.
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Florida
Back home in Massillon I had no plans to stick around. My friend Dave asked me if I wanted to go to Florida and stay with his Mom for “a while”. I said Yes.
We were having all kinds of a debauched time when we decided to go to Orlando one night. While at a night club I ran into an old friend from Canton. He had moved to Orlando and become a drug dealer. He told us about a “rave party” going on downtown starting at 3:30 am. He was our guide.
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That night, at this amazing event, I took more LSD than I ever had taken and had the best time of my life. The music was positive and uplifting. People from all walks of life partied as one. I had found heaven on earth.
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Ohio
Back in Ohio I moved back in with my Mom, got a job, a car and was ready. Not to become a responsible person but someone who was going to find and partake in all the raves I could! And I did for 5 years every weekend. I took every drug possible. And had all the fun I could squeeze out of life. Until it all started to fall apart…
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In the rave scene I met many witches and worlocks and new age spiritists. I heard of how we all are one being, moving and breathing as one with the planet. But the religions of the world, especially Christianity was keeping us from the next step in evolution. It was keeping us from true unity as the human race. Those words started to make me question what I thought I believed from my early days spent at church with my Grandma.
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On top of this I started to see how the drugs and the people that were my rave family were starting to crack and fall apart. All was not well in rave land.
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Bad Trip
One night I had a bad trip. I was having an amazing trip, traveling into and out of rave flyers (don’t ask) when all of a sudden, from a standing position, I fell to the floor in slow motion. I hit hard but felt nothing.
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The next thing I know I can see another one of me standing next to my dresser. The me by the dresser said “Oh no I fell!” Then another one of me sitting on the couch looked at the other me and said “So”.
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I laid on the floor as my heart pounded in my chest like a jackhammer. I thought it would explode. I struggled to get up but finally made it to the kitchen. I drank a large glass of water that made me extremely sick to my stomach but started to bring me down slightly. I had 2 choices: continue in my trip and hope my heart didn’t explode or keep drinking and be sick but slightly sober. I chose the latter.
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Another Bad Trip
It was a long time before I tripped again. The next time would be significant I believe in this spiritual journey. I had invited a bunch of people over for kind bud and gel tabs. No one showed. I did all the drugs myself.
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About halfway through I started to see so called shadow people. It wasn’t the first time. I started to think about hell and the devil. It wasn’t the first time. The thoughts snowballed.
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Every face I looked at on magazines turned into demon faces. I tried to reason the thoughts away. It wasn’t working.
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I cried out to the God who may or may not have existed and I told Him that I wanted Him to reveal himself to me. Because if He was not real I wanted to party myself into oblivion without any guilt about a made up hell. Little did I know He was about to answer my prayer.
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Demonic Revelation At The Party
I moved in with a girl named Charlotte. She had a friend named Jenny. Jenny was a believer. She talked to about Jesus. She answered the hundreds of questions I had. She befriended me. One night we went to a house party in Cleveland thrown by a warlock. I took ecstasy. And smoked marijuana.
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At one point I was in the basement when I struck up a conversation with a man high on the ladder of the Rave Mafia (This was a thing). I still believed the rave scene was about PLUR! That was the rave mantra. Peace, Love, Unity, Respect!
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This man proceeded to tell me that the scene was all about drugs. Without drugs there was no scene. I was naive! Our conversation ended and I went upstairs from the basement. When I got to the main room I noticed all the people there were walking hunched over. Their faces were drawn downward and distorted. They looked like demonic creatures! All of them.
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All of them except for Jenny the Christian! She was standing tall with a big smile on her face. A beautiful light surrounded her. The demonic party kids were avoiding getting near the light. They walked out around her ,as to not get near the light. I told her we needed to go. I felt very uncomfortable but strangely knew what it all meant.
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The Car
On the way home we were speaking about Dolly the Sheep. She was the first successfully cloned animal. As Charlotte and Jenny sat in the front seat discussing Dolly I sat in the back and started to ponder. It was as if mankind was through with God. We had gotten to the place where we could make our own animals. Next it would be people. We wouldn’t need God after that. I started to feel sorry for God.
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The Incredible Light
At that moment an incredible light filled the backseat of the car. I looked toward the front seat to see if Jenny or Charlotte noticed. I caught my eyes in the rear view mirror right before the light enveloped me. Then I was no longer in the car…
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*(What follows I have not tried to make sense of. It is simply what I experienced.)
The next thing I know is that I am a small child. I am walking around the Church I attended when I was younger. I am being lead around by The Hand. I look up to see a dark skinned Hand with a scar on it from being pierced. I know it is Jesus. He has me notice the Light.
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The same Light that was around Jenny and in the car is in the church! It is in some of the people. In some people it is brighter than others. The Light is also floating around the church.
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The next thing I know is that I see a Bible open up in front of me and I go into it. All of the truth inside goes into me like thousands of pictures flying by in a few seconds!
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Then I am in The Light. Nothing but Light. And incredible peace. And I believe the presence of Almighty God.
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He Lives!
The next thing I know is that I am back in the car. I am still looking at the rear view mirror. I notice that we are just now passing the place in the road that we were at when the Light came in the car. What happened to me took no time. I was taken out of time and into eternity. I was sober.
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And all I could picture is Jesus Christ as the center of the universe holding it together. Nothing happened without His say so. He made it all. He runs it all. He did come as a man. He did die on a cross. He rose again. And He is coming back again.
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I desperately wanted to tell Jenny to pull over. I wanted to go to homes and knock on doors. At 6 o’clock in the morning. We needed to warn people that Jesus was coming back. I have never felt more strongly about anything in my life.
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Grandma
When we got home I called my Grandma. It was Sunday morning. She was not up for church yet. When she answered the phone all I could say was “Is He coming back?” Over and over again. She said “Is who coming back?” I tried to say His name. When I got up the strength to say the name of Jesus I broke down and wept and wept.
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I went to church with Jenny that morning since it was conveniently Sunday morning. I walked in and connected with all the people there on a spiritual level. I felt the peace, love, unity and respect I had looked for in the rave scene and had never found. I found it in Jesus and His body.
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After I Got Saved
I met a wonderful Pastor and his family. They let me come and stay with them in their fellowship hall. My life had been flipped upside down and I wasn’t sure yet what exactly I believed. If people talked about Jesus I figured they were speaking the truth. So I went to a lot of church services of different denominations. One night the Pastors teenage children and myself decided to go to a youth group “lock-in” at the local AME Zion Church. At one point they were praying over the youth choir and I had gone to get a drink in the hallway.
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As I was coming back into the sanctuary I heard a ruckus. I went toward the front to see a young lady flopping on the floor and screaming as the minister prayed against evil spirits. This made me very uncomfortable. I hated the Exorcist movie. I said to God, “If this is fake or some kind of deception I am not going to be happy.” Then I heard the Lord clearly say these words “If you want to go where I want to take you, then this is merely the beginning of the things you will see”.
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Mt. Vernon
He was not joking. I soon moved to Mt. Vernon Ohio to get away from the rave scene and all the people I had hung out with, all those drug riddled years. Mt. Vernon was a small town with about 50 churches and a Nazarene college. Soon after I was invited to a church that was in a barn out in the middle of nowhere. I saw many spiritual things there over the next 4 years. I saw healings, deliverances, answered prayer of all types, and felt the power and presence of God in a way I never could have imagined. I also saw that the enemy is very real and active.
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It all culminated when a young woman from another church asked for prayer. She told me she had sacrificed her baby to satan. I took her to my Pastors house.
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That First Night
On the way to his house my friend looked at me and said, “I don’t feel good about this. I have a feeling that something bad is going to happen”. I said “No way. Tom is a great guy. You’ll love him”.
Two hours later I understood what she meant.
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As we were talking Tom looked at my friend and said, “Look me in the eye and tell me that Jesus Christ is your Lord and Savior”. She gripped the edge of the table. He said it again. She started to moan. Or growl. I’m not sure. He said it again. She started to bang her head on the table. He placed a hand on her shoulder and started to pray.
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She threw herself onto the floor and crawled quickly into the corner. She huddled on the floor in the corner as several different sounds came from her. Voices? Noises? Groans? Moans? Cat like sounds? All of the above. All at the same time.
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Tom called the elders of the church to come to his house to pray over my friend. What I saw those next few hours and then next few weeks was like deliverance ministry school, up close and personal.
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Jesus overcomes Satan
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The Enemy
Over the next few weeks, during many deliverance sessions I would witness my friend’s strength become superhuman. Her 5’3” 130 lb frame would be able to battle 2 men who were 6’3” and 275 lbs. They would try to hold her down and she would shove them aside.
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I witnessed her eyes turn colors. They would turn completely black, or her pupils would turn to slits like a snake. I watched smoke or steam rise off her head. I watched her slither around on the ground like a snake. As I laid across her legs to hold her down I felt something moving around inside her body. Like a creature looking for an escape. I heard her speak with many voices. I smelled the foul stench of death pour out from her mouth.
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I was attacked one day while I was driving her to my Pastor’s house. I had been there many many times and yet one particular evening I kept getting lost. Would have to turn around just to get lost again.
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One night while she was in a home with my friends and I (Not Tom’s house) I saw several impish creatures walking around the living room. (It was like how you could see The Predator in those movies.) When I rebuked them in the name of Jesus, I watched them scatter at the power of His name.
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The Healing
The highlight was one night when we were out looking for my friend. She was stumbling around town like she was drunk. She was bleeding all over her body. She had taken razor blades and sliced herself all over her arms, neck and face. She carved occultist symbols into her arms and neck. We picked her up and took her to Tom’s.
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After a long deliverance session Tom suddenly told us to stop. He said he felt that the Lord wanted us to worship Him and He would do the rest. My friend Scott started playing his guitar. We all raised our hands and worshipped the Lord.
During these past few weeks my friend was emotionless when she wasn’t manifesting the demons that were controlling her.
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While we were singing she raised up to a seated position and lean against a barn pillar. She started to weep. And weep heavily. I watched as, in a sweeping motion, up her arms then back down, then back up again, the deep bleeding slices started to heal up right before my eyes. More and more with each movement. Until they were just scars. Almost completely healed.
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But I believe God left a small reminder of what He had done.
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Bryan Ketler
I thank God that my Grandparents were faithful followers of Christ. And that my Grandma was such a prayer warrior. I shudder to think what my life would have looked like if they hadn’t been.
Thanks for taking the time to read my testimony. Bryan Ketler.
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