- 20 minutes ago
CTP (S4ESepSpecial3) Doreen Virtue From New Age Messaging To Full Christ
We talk with Doreen Virtue about her 26-year path through New Thought and the New Age, and the moment Scripture finally cut through the “always positive” filter. We trace how cherry-picked Bible verses can create a counterfeit Jesus, why paranormal spirituality spreads so easily, and what it looks like to return to biblical Christianity with real repentance and discernment.
• her upbringing in Christian Science and New Thought and why it looked Christian from the outside
• becoming a psychotherapist, media guest, and popular New Age teacher
• learning and teaching Reiki, chakra clearing, psychic development, and other occult-adjacent practices
• how “stay positive” theology skips the Fall, sin, the cross, and judgment
• the Alistair Begg sermon on 2 Timothy 4 that brings conviction
• why the New Age audience is often mostly women and how “intuition” can be misused
• practical ways to share the gospel without hardening people through performative tactics
• the pull of astrology, horoscopes, tarot, and divination as a desire to control the future
• being a Berean in daily Bible reading and testing every claim against Scripture
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AI images/videos/audio CTP uses: https://tinyurl.com/GalaxyMagicaAI
https://tinyurl.com/BookPromotionViaFiverr
- other services: https://fiverr.com/jlenarddetroit
We talk with Doreen Virtue about her 26-year path through New Thought and the New Age, and the moment Scripture finally cut through the “always positive” filter. We trace how cherry-picked Bible verses can create a counterfeit Jesus, why paranormal spirituality spreads so easily, and what it looks like to return to biblical Christianity with real repentance and discernment.
• her upbringing in Christian Science and New Thought and why it looked Christian from the outside
• becoming a psychotherapist, media guest, and popular New Age teacher
• learning and teaching Reiki, chakra clearing, psychic development, and other occult-adjacent practices
• how “stay positive” theology skips the Fall, sin, the cross, and judgment
• the Alistair Begg sermon on 2 Timothy 4 that brings conviction
• why the New Age audience is often mostly women and how “intuition” can be misused
• practical ways to share the gospel without hardening people through performative tactics
• the pull of astrology, horoscopes, tarot, and divination as a desire to control the future
• being a Berean in daily Bible reading and testing every claim against Scripture
SEND US FEEDBACK: https://www.buzzsprout.com/2210487/fan_mail/new
https://tinyurl.com/SubscribeToCTP
CTP Audios: https://tinyurl.com/CTPonBuzzsprout
CTP Videos: https://tinyurl.com/CTPonBITCHUTE
https://tinyurl.com/CTPgear
https://tinyurl.com/JLenardDetroitGear
AI images/videos/audio CTP uses: https://tinyurl.com/GalaxyMagicaAI
https://tinyurl.com/BookPromotionViaFiverr
- other services: https://fiverr.com/jlenarddetroit
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NewsTranscript
00:00Hello, welcome to another episode of Perstitutionalist Podcast.
00:06I am your host, Joseph M. Leonard.
00:09That's L-E-N-A-R-D.
00:12It looks French.
00:13It's not.
00:14It's Leonard without an O.
00:17Thank you for tuning in, as Graham Norton used to say, on his show.
00:24Let's get on with the show!
00:25Hello, joining me today is Doreen Virtue, to whom I said, great, would love to talk, quote,
00:44ex-new-age teacher, unquote, and make obvious puns about your last name.
00:51So welcome to the show, Doreen.
00:55Thank you, Joseph.
00:56I appreciate you having me on your program.
00:58My audience knows me, but let me do something different.
01:02Insert your own, her last name is Virtue, joke here.
01:08Don't make me do all the work.
01:10Come up with your own joke for a change.
01:15I think I've heard them all.
01:17Most of them have to do with patience.
01:20Exactly, yes.
01:22That would be one that would come to mind and all that.
01:26Yes, no doubt, no doubt.
01:28For benefit of the transcript, we're laughing.
01:31We're joking.
01:33It's good-natured fun.
01:35I'm sensitive to names.
01:37I've said it before on my show.
01:39My audience knows you don't.
01:42A last name looks French.
01:44It's not Lennard.
01:46It's Leonard without an O.
01:48And there is a Joseph Lennard who's also a Christian author.
01:52So I have to put my middle initial in there, Joseph M. Leonard.
01:57And I still get people sending me emails thinking I'm him.
02:03No, we're two different people.
02:06It's not me using a nom de plume, one with VM and one without VM.
02:15We're two different people.
02:16And as I like to joke, neither of us will be confused for Shakespeare.
02:22But anyways, we're not here to talk to that.
02:26I was immediately curious when I saw, quote, again, ex-New Age teacher, unquote.
02:33This could be interesting.
02:35But before we get to that, the usual, where were you born and raised?
02:41Where are you now?
02:42Significant places you've been in between, that sort of stuff.
02:46Well, it's good to be with you, Joseph.
02:48And thank you for allowing me to talk about the New Age because it is, unfortunately,
02:53growing in popularity, even among professing Christians and even in some churches.
02:59And I was in the New Age for 26 years.
03:03Before that, I was born and raised in what's called New Thought, which is unity, Christian
03:08science, religious science, not to be confused with Scientology.
03:11So my mom was a professional Christian science practitioner.
03:14We were raised on the Bible, the King James only Bible.
03:19We went to church twice a year.
03:20We looked like a Christian family, but we had a false Jesus and a false gospel.
03:25So then when I grew up and I went to college and I became a psychotherapist, and then I
03:30started to write psychology books for women based on my work, then I was absolutely just
03:36embraced by talk shows.
03:38I was on Oprah Winfrey frequently.
03:40I was on Sally Jesse Raphael, CNN, The View, all these different talk shows.
03:46And then I was asked to tour with a mind, body, spirit group organization called the Whole
03:53Life Expo.
03:54And we toured North America twice a month in different convention centers.
03:58I was giving kind of just holistic type of talks, but I was with other teachers who were
04:06new agers.
04:07And since we were traveling together, I learned from them the new age practices, such as chakra
04:13clearing, reincarnation, yoga.
04:15I became a Reiki master, which is like this energy healing stuff.
04:20And as I would learn these things, I would start to then teach others about them.
04:24And part of what I learned was psychic development classes.
04:28And we were touring together and we had a lot of like rock stars and movie stars and models
04:35who would come to our events.
04:37And eventually I became a psychic to the stars, became one of the most popular new age teachers
04:43just because I was out there all the time just teaching.
04:47But I thought I was a Christian this whole time because of my Christian science upbringing
04:52and my reading the Bible every day, but through the lens of a false commentary of Mary Baker
04:59Eddie of Christian science.
05:01So I...
05:02Yeah, somehow you missed a lot of the stuff you were reading there.
05:07Yes.
05:07Yeah, we...
05:08Exactly.
05:09We skipped over Genesis 3.
05:11We skipped over the crucifixion.
05:13And it was this belief that you have to always stay positive.
05:17So we would read...
05:18We would cherry pick the...
05:20Prosperity doctrine.
05:22The feel good doctrine.
05:23Yeah, it was mostly the belief that Jesus was a created mortal man, and that's blasphemous,
05:32but that's what we were taught, and that he came to teach us the secret of healing.
05:36We weren't a prosperity so much.
05:39We weren't about wealth, but we were about how did Jesus heal these people and trying to
05:44crack the code by reciting Bible verses out of context and saying prayers that were not
05:51prayers of the righteous.
05:52And the thing is that the devil is a counterfeiter.
05:55So every Wednesday night, a Christian science church has a testimonial meeting.
06:00And at these meetings, there were real healings.
06:03In fact, we were not allowed to go to doctors growing up.
06:07We didn't even have mechanics.
06:09We would pray over everything, Christian science prayers.
06:12And I saw healings happen, but it's counterfeits from the devil designed to ensnare people into
06:20his deception.
06:23So, you know, that's what my life was.
06:25I thought I was doing the right work.
06:27I thought God was pleased with me because people told me my work comforted them.
06:31You know, it seemed like everything was fine until I heard an Alistair Begg sermon, because
06:37I thought I was a Christian, so I'd listen to Christian radio.
06:40But I would also listen to Buddhist and Hindu and shamanic and New Age radio.
06:45There's nothing wrong with those philosophies as a philosophy, but just not as a worship.
06:53Yes.
06:53Right.
06:54I was a universalist.
06:56I believed that all paths led to God, not realizing that meant all paths lead to God's
07:00judgment seat.
07:01And I really believed the New Age near-death experience reports that everyone goes to heaven.
07:07So I was listening to Christian radio, January 15th, 2015, and Alistair Begg came on the radio,
07:14and he was doing an expository sermon on 2 Timothy 4, that in the end times, people will
07:20want their itching ears tickled with false teachers.
07:24And then Joseph, he described a false teacher, and it was like he was describing me, giving
07:29false hope.
07:31He quoted from Jeremiah, peace, peace, where there is no peace.
07:34That was me.
07:35And it was the first time in my life I would have been 57 years old then.
07:40I'm now 68.
07:42And it was the first time in my life I remember the Holy Spirit convicting me.
07:47And it really, that startled me.
07:49I didn't know the Bible.
07:50I didn't know the gospel.
07:51Well, I heard the gospel, but I had rejected it.
07:54I didn't know Jesus.
07:55So I went home.
07:56I was listening to Alistair Begg in the car.
07:58And when I got home, I said to my husband, I think we need to start going to, I knew
08:03enough to say this, I think we need to start going to a real church.
08:07But we didn't know what that meant.
08:09We didn't know denomination.
08:10So it's like Dennis Quaid says, he coined the term, I'm a little jealous, he came up
08:17with it rather than me.
08:19Churchianity.
08:20Just because a building has a steeple doesn't mean it's a house of Christ there.
08:24It's a humanist club.
08:26And you're describing perfectly Matthew 23, where Jesus called out viper, snakes, blind
08:35guides.
08:35I wrote in a song, which I will tack on my tough love gospel song at the end of this
08:42episode.
08:43If I remove the thorns, then I rewrite the story.
08:48I'm not telling the same story or true story.
08:52Oh, and a joke, because you mentioned psychotic.
08:56I'm not psychic, but I am psychotic.
08:59But I'm bummed.
09:01Jokes, people.
09:02Jokes.
09:03Lighten up.
09:03But when you say new age, what comes to my mind as an author, too, is to think George
09:10Orwell.
09:11New speak.
09:13Yeah.
09:14Yeah.
09:14That's a big part of it.
09:15And it's really old age.
09:17You can look at the false prophets, at the divination in Acts 16, 16 of the slave girl
09:24who had the python spirit in her.
09:26You can look at all of the idolatry of the Old and New Testament and the sorcery and the
09:33witchcraft.
09:33That's what New Age is.
09:35It's nothing new.
09:36It's just repackaged because the devil keeps repackaging Genesis 3 over and over again
09:41with that Gnostic promise of secret, hidden wisdom.
09:45And you can be like God, like he promised to Eve.
09:49And interestingly, I think this is one of the reasons why the serpent chose Eve instead
09:54of Adam in the garden.
09:56When I was a New Age teacher, Joseph, it was almost all women at my events.
10:02And statistics show in the UK and in the US that the majority of people in the New Age
10:08and witchcraft and Wicca are women.
10:10We are very vulnerable to deception.
10:14You know, we call it women's intuition, but it's really, it's not a skill that's from
10:19God.
10:20It's rebelliousness is what it is.
10:23The curse that wanting to be like Adam and be in control.
10:27Being saved really humbled that part of me because I saw it wasn't in control.
10:32Yeah, you're talking again, the Matthew 23, the kumbaya version of Jesus around the campfire
10:42singing songs and everything is great.
10:45Everything is wonderful.
10:46You're so special.
10:48You're so, and we are all unique and special in our own way, but that feeds into the hubris.
10:55And as you're saying that you can be God kind of level of hubris, if again, if you take out
11:04the thorns and other parts of the story, it's not the same story.
11:11Exactly right.
11:12New thought and New Age teach a buddy, buddy, kind of a laid back hippie Jesus who says, wow,
11:18man, you can do whatever you want as long as you're peaceful, as long as you're positive.
11:23And that's what I, I thought I was a Christian following Jesus all those years, but I would
11:28have heard Lord, Lord, you know, me saying Lord, Lord, and him saying, I never knew you
11:32away from me.
11:33So dangerous that a lot of the women I now disciple were following the false Jesus.
11:39And you have to study the Bible to know God's attributes, have to absolutely know God's word
11:46and be in it every single day because this world will tempt you with the false images
11:52of Jesus that are on TV, movies.
11:54Yeah.
11:55You know.
11:56Which is not to say, though, we are all human, frail, and flawed.
12:01Most of us don't have like the old, you know, TV show, Big Bang Theory, Sheldon with the,
12:11I joke, pornographic.
12:12No, I mean, photographic memory, right?
12:15And then, again, that's a joke, people.
12:18Lighten up.
12:19Endemic memory is called.
12:21I mean, I don't have it memorized.
12:23No one I know has it memorized.
12:27We're going to forget parts as long as we remember that it's there and can go back later
12:34to find it, but as you've been saying all through this, the purposeful, willful, malice
12:43of forethought glossing over whole parts of it.
12:48Yep.
12:49That's what we did in New Thought and in New Age.
12:53We glommed on to the Imago Dei in Genesis 125 that we're made in the image and likeness
13:00of God, which is true, but then we would skip over the fall and we would insist that because
13:05God is sinless, that we were sinless and that there was no such thing as hell, need for
13:10repentance, no such thing as sin.
13:12We believed that that was an imagined concept that came from Roman Catholicism to try to control
13:18us.
13:19Yeah.
13:19We didn't, we, we, like I said, we believed everyone went to heaven.
13:23Yeah.
13:24Another part of that is a lot of people want to call us over a faith without works is meaningless.
13:31Shall be known by your fruits.
13:34Yes.
13:35Actions matter.
13:37You can't just proclaim to be something, but not act it and show it to be written into the
13:45book of life.
13:45What you've done, proof of your God, anyway.
13:54Yeah.
13:55As you, as you know, the Galatians and other parts of the epistles clearly say that we're
14:01not saved by our works, but once we're saved, the fruit of the spirit is exhibited and faith
14:06without works is dead.
14:07But James says, so we, we want to obey God.
14:11Context.
14:11All of it in context.
14:13Exactly.
14:14We want to, we want to please God.
14:16We want to obey him after we're saved.
14:18But before we were saved, like me, I was a rebellious feminist, woke leftist.
14:24I hadn't, I had a, you know, the secular worldview.
14:28Now I have a biblical worldview and I, I love God.
14:31I'm so grateful for him having mercy and grace on me when I deserved his wrath.
14:36And for him to open my eyes and lead me to salvation is a miracle because I tell you what,
14:44I was
14:44saved nine years ago, 10 years ago.
14:47I wouldn't have imagined coming on your podcast, Joseph, because I didn't understand the gospel.
14:52I'd heard it, but new age and new thought kind of Teflon proofs you from it because you're
14:58taught to always stay positive.
15:00And the gospel, of course, necessarily is negative in the beginning.
15:04You get the bad news to get to the good news.
15:06And so we were.
15:07Revelation don't look like a whole lot of fun either.
15:10No.
15:12Those bowls and trumpets are scary.
15:15And yeah, back then you were duped into the worldly communism force, stealing from Adam
15:27to give to Steve to help Rachel is not charity.
15:33Biblical community is not worldly.
15:37Biblical community is pretty will.
15:40You have to want to be your brother's keeper.
15:43And Jesus makes the distinction, too.
15:47There is a difference between the unwilling and the unable.
15:52We have Christian obligation to the unable, but not to the rebellious, unwilling, unruly.
16:02Just give them stuff, crowd.
16:05Right.
16:06Yeah.
16:06Hopefully my testimony is an encouragement to anyone listening who's got a loved one who is older.
16:12Like, I was saved at age 59.
16:14And so there's hope.
16:16There's always hope.
16:17Never too late.
16:18Right?
16:18No.
16:19And you have to share the gospel.
16:21My brother was saved 20 years before me, Joseph.
16:24And my brother would share the gospel with me and send me Ray Comfort videos.
16:29And I would get mad at my brother.
16:31I gave him pushback.
16:32But now I thank him every time I talk to him because he had the love and the boldness to
16:37share the truth that Jesus came to earth fully God, fully man, lived a sinless life, died on the cross
16:43for our sins, and then was buried as prophesied for three days and then resurrected bodily.
16:49People touched him, talked with him, heard him, and saw him.
16:53And he conquered sin and death on our behalf for all who believe the gospel and repent from their sins.
17:00I mean, I heard that because I grew up in the 60s and 70s.
17:05I was born in 1958.
17:06And there was solid preachers on TV back then.
17:09Even going on the Johnny Carson show, they'd share the gospel back then.
17:12But I didn't want to hear it because it seemed negative to me.
17:16No, it's like, cool, man.
17:17That sounds great.
17:18Pass the mushrooms.
17:20That's right.
17:21Yeah, that was the world back then.
17:24What would you be, man?
17:28Which again, is not to say there aren't medicinal value purposes, but most aren't about that.
17:37They're about the getting high part of it.
17:40You can get the CBD oil medicinal benefits without the TCH or the THC.
17:51I always scramble those letters.
17:53But we can extract the health benefits.
17:57But the excuse is, oh, yeah, I need it for medicinal purposes.
18:01No.
18:02You just want to get high and lay around and do nothing and expect everyone to take care of your
18:08lazy ass.
18:09Yeah, that was the, for those who are young, that was the 1970s.
18:16Well, it's, I say it's returned.
18:20We are there.
18:21But the good news, the great news is the Jesus revolution came out of that, as I say over and
18:29over.
18:30Unless if you were Bernadine Dorn or Bill Ayers and became terrorists, a lot of those hippies, I'm putting in
18:40air quotes, finally woke up to the fact that, yes, you know, there's a lot.
18:47That bunch is, this is a big world.
18:51There's a lot of open space.
18:52A lot of other people.
18:54It's got to be something more than just me, me, me led to the Jesus revolution.
19:02And that, if it feels good, do it mentality that's returned now is leading to a second Jesus revolution.
19:10I pray that.
19:11So, I remember the Jesus revolution of the 70s.
19:14And I wish I could rewind time and have gone to church with the people who invited me and gave
19:19me tracks.
19:20But I was so stubborn and spiritually blind, really.
19:23That was what it was.
19:24Just like the Bible says.
19:26That inner hubris.
19:28Well, the God of this world, the devil.
19:30I'm right.
19:31I'm fine.
19:32Just go away.
19:33Yeah.
19:34Basically, yeah.
19:35I'm sure I was nice to the evangelists.
19:37But I would not listen to them.
19:40In my head, I would think, well, I know the truth.
19:42It's Christian science.
19:44And push them away that way.
19:46And, you know, I had so many opportunities to go to really solid churches growing up.
19:51In fact, my next door neighbor did invite me to VBS, Vacation Bible Study, when I was a kid at
19:58a Baptist church, solid Baptist church.
20:00And this was a no-nonsense VBS.
20:02There was no skits.
20:04There was no stage.
20:05It was us kids sitting in a circle of folded chairs in the fellowship hall with children Bibles in our
20:13hands.
20:13And I'm sure I heard the gospel there.
20:15And I loved that Baptist church.
20:17But my mom wouldn't let me continue going.
20:19God's word does not return void.
20:22So if anyone listening to this has an unsaved loved one, you have to share the gospel with them.
20:28It doesn't matter how mad they get.
20:30That gospel is the seed that is the power of God for salvation for those who believe.
20:35And I'm so glad that my brother had the boldness and the love to share the gospel with me, even
20:42though he knew I'd be furious with him.
20:44And that's what we have to do is plant that seed and then pray for God to nurture it like
20:49the parable of the sower.
20:51I have a meme I share.
20:53I have a show in the back catalog.
20:56Memes.
20:57Right.
20:58Indeed.
20:59There's a meme I share.
21:01I don't know who created it.
21:03About planting seeds.
21:05Don't get our role and God's role mixed up.
21:08It's up to us to plant the seed, but God delivers the rain that helps it grow.
21:16He is the one that helps nurture the soil of their brain to let that seed grow into a thought
21:25because a forced conversion is not real.
21:29They have to want to truly accept.
21:33And that's why I love Christians.
21:37We all get the, you know, the stereotypical Bible thumper.
21:43And if we are that way, it's like, yeah, okay, yes, I love Jesus.
21:50Now just go away, leave me alone.
21:52That forced faith conversion isn't real.
21:55We need to be gentler and settler and, as you say, plant the seed, let it grow.
22:03They have to come to it, come to Christ on their own for their soul to really be saved.
22:12And why I love so much my favorite Christian movies aren't the Bible thumper ones.
22:19They're the resurrection of Gavin Stone.
22:22And a lot of Christians will freak out because the word resurrection's in there.
22:28It's a figurative, not a literal.
22:31It's a comedy, which is great.
22:34Same with Mom's Night Out, a comedy.
22:37The best Christmas pageant ever that more recently came out.
22:44It's hilarious, but that is a way that gets past people's defenses and allows us to plant
22:54the seed without beating them over the head with the Bible.
22:58Why won't this sink in your head?
23:00Well, if you're beating them over the head with anything, they just want to get away from you.
23:07Oh, man.
23:08Yeah.
23:09So, you know, there's different ways to share the gospel.
23:11I'm sure you've talked about these, but saying grace is a wonderful place to insert the gospel
23:17and thank the Lord for sending his only begotten son, Jesus, to die in our place.
23:22Or if you notice someone who's got some sort of trouble, you can offer to pray with them
23:26and then put the gospel in that.
23:28Because as you mentioned, Joseph, it's about their defenses being lowered.
23:32I remember Christians picketing my New Age events, a literal picket circle.
23:39One that I remember, I was up in the Yukon of Alaska.
23:42It was this beautiful, huge convention center overlooking the trees in Whitehorse.
23:48These Christians had heard that I was coming up there and I thought I was a Christian doing
23:54Christian work.
23:54I didn't understand why they were picketing me, but they had literal signs and they were
23:59marching around the building like, you know, it was like something out of Joshua, you know,
24:06going around Jericho.
24:08And so I went out to them and I said, thank you so much for praying for us.
24:12This is so kind of you.
24:13And I think they must have looked at me funny, like, don't you know that we're against you?
24:17I was so spiritually blind.
24:19I did not know that they were picketing my New Age event.
24:23I thought they were being supportive.
24:25Yeah, I'm glad you mentioned picketing because I was born and raised Catholic, but this is
24:33not a denomination.
24:34How long did Catholics and Protestants murder and maim each other over minor doctrinal differences?
24:43That's not Christ-like.
24:45So this is non-denominational.
24:47We need to whatever Catholic, Protestant, Baptist, Lutheran, blah, blah, blah, whatever, the label.
24:56We need to focus on those things we agree under Christ, not let the devil win by having us
25:04fight each other, focusing on minor doctrinal differences.
25:09But the picketing brought to mind the Dan Brown move when the movies came out, Catholic nuns out.
25:19I remember kind of laughing because, yes, Dan Brown was taking part fact, part fiction, and weaving a wonderful story.
25:31To me, that wasn't bad.
25:36That meant some people became more curious to understand, well, what is the fact and what
25:45is the fiction in here?
25:46And it actually brought some people to the Bible to try to distinguish the two.
25:54I viewed him and his books as helping bring people to it, whereas the Catholic nuns, oh, blasphemy,
26:05blasphemy.
26:06But what are your thoughts on that?
26:09Well, I think it just goes back to studying God's word.
26:12The Bible is a miracle.
26:13It's literally God sending us his God-breathed words.
26:17And a lot of the people that I disciple, Joseph, haven't read the Bible at all.
26:22I had, and I was one who'd read the Bible, but through the lens of, you know, false teaching
26:28and skipping over the parts.
26:29To watch the opposite of rose-colored glasses.
26:32Yes, yes, exactly.
26:34It was definitely cherry-picking verses that we called positive, you know, knock and the
26:40door shall be open, ask and it shall be given.
26:42That was our verses.
26:43Yeah.
26:44Not much else.
26:45Sometimes a door closes, another door doesn't necessarily open.
26:50Again, a window might be presented for you to crawl through.
26:55Yes.
26:55Well, it was interesting that you mentioned the different denominations.
27:00At my New Age workshops, which I said was mostly women, and these were big.
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