Out of the Devil’s Cauldron 1 page

OUT of the

Devil’s

Cauldron

A Journey From Darkness to Light

Santeria

Spiritualism

Palo Mayombe

John Ramirez

Out of the Devil’s Cauldron

Copyright © 2012 by John Ramirez Published by John Ramirez Ministries All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, digital, photocopy, recording, or any other—except for brief quotations in printed reviews without the prior permission of the publisher.

All Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New King James Version, Copyright © 1982 by T homas Nelson, Inc.

Cover Design: Alexander Sarraga, asm@embarqmail.com

ISBN: 978-0-9856043-0-1

Summary: T he testimony of my life Published by: Heaven & Earth Media

a division of John Ramirez Ministries New York, New York 10128

Printed in the United States of America

Contents

Acknowledgments

Prologue

Introduction Mark of the Beast

Chapter One Beginnings

Chapter Two The Burnt-Out Bronx

Chapter Three Initiation

Chapter Four The Silent Pain

Chapter Five Nightmare on Crotona Avenue

Chapter Six A Night of Voodoo

Chapter Seven Jekyll & Hyde

Chapter Eight Losing It All

Chapter Nine Selling My Soul to the Devil

Chapter Ten Rachael – the Prodigal Encounter

Chapter Eleven The Son of the Devil Exposed

Chapter Twelve The Setup

Things That God Hates

Acknowledgments

I am a bondservant of Jesus Christ, and therefore with deep appreciation I wish to express a sincere thanks to those who encouraged me to write down my testimony and make it a book.

First and foremost, I would like to thank my Lord Jesus Christ to whom I give all the glory, all the honor, and all the praise! Without Him this book would never have become a reality.

To my pastor, David Wilkerson, from Times Square Church, I thank Jesus Christ for the many times I had the pleasure of walking you home and the many words of wisdom you shared with me on those nights. They really impacted my life. I have been touched twice in my life—once by Christ and the other by you. As I walked you home one night after service, I left you in front of your home. You could have said many things to me, but you said, “I see Jesus in you.” Thank you, Pastor, for those words that encouraged me all the more to tell the world what God has done in my life.

For my home church, Times Square Church in New York City, where the seasoned preaching and teaching of the Word

of God in my time of need sustained me. A heartfelt thanks to Pastor Carter Conlon, senior pastor at TSC. Thank you, Pastor Carter, for sharing your favorite Bible scripture with me. It blessed me deeply, and I made it my own as well: Psalm 112. You said you were going to have it engraved in a mirror and put it up in your home. Awesome idea!

To Pastors Alexander and Sandra Sarraga from Champions Ministries in Orlando, Florida. In life, the Lord blesses us with many relationships. But I never knew the Lord would be so good as to bless me with two people as special as you. Your discipleship and mentoring has been instrumental in God’s plan for my life. I thank the Lord for both of you. You are a big part of my life.

To Pastor Sandra, thank you for your editing skills and creative thinking. I also want to thank Pastor Alexander for his graphic design gift. Thank you for the beautiful book cover. Your God-inspired gift made it what it needed to be.

I also want to thank God for my beautiful daughter, Amanda. I thank God every day that of all the daughters in the world, He gave me you. I’m blessed to have you as my daughter.

To my mother, whom I love with all my heart. I thank God for you every day. You have not only been a great mother

but you have also taken the role of a dad in my life. Thank you for all the great things and the great examples that you put into my life.

To my sister in the Lord, Angie Kiesling, who I thank God for with all my heart. I thank Him for divinely putting us together for such a time as this and for allowing you to edit the testimony of my life. When I needed an editor, and had so many to choose from, I’m blessed that the Lord chose you. Not only are you an outstanding and excellent editor, but you are also my personal friend.

To my dear friends Jose Ponce and Julio Nieves for being true brothers in the Lord. I love you dearly, and I thank God for both of you and for always sustaining me in prayer. And to Peter Torres, whom I love for being a true brother in the Lord. I thank God for the many times we met at the altar in the mornings for prayer and also the many times we ministered together.

To my sister in Christ, Olga Rodriquez, for taking on the challenge of typing up my testimony of what God has done in my life.

I want to thank all the people at churches, radio stations, TV stations, colleges, and high schools who supported my ministry in allowing me to share my testimony.

To each reader who has purchased this book. I thank God for the privilege of allowing His miracle in my life to change yours.

Prologue

I was a devout follower of Santeria, espiritismo, and Palo Mayombe, a Palero high priest tata and warlock. We called it “the religion.” For twenty-five long years, I had no idea I was enslaved to an unspeakable evil, deceived into believing I was God’s servant and lost in a hideous cult that taught its members to hate and kill, all under the guise of worshipping God. Then one day the Holy Spirit revealed the great lie that had kept me blindfolded for years. Yet with no strength or will of my own to break free from the religion (those who tried were threatened and suffered a penalty of death), I continued doing what I did, admiring cult members who said they loved God. But one day the miraculous happened. I was set free just like the apostle Paul.

As he journeyed, he came near Damascus, and suddenly a light shone around him from heaven. Then he fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to him, “Saul, Saul. Why are you persecuting me?” And he said, “Who are you, Lord?” Then the Lord said, “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting. It is hard for you to kick against the goads.” So he, trembling and astonished, said, “Lord, what do you want me to do?”

Acts 9:3-6

With that, I made a clean getaway through the cross of Jesus Christ. That was how I was delivered from the one who was dragging me to an eternal hell—Satan himself. This is my testimony.

Introduction

Mark of the Beast

Shifting my feet to fight the cold, I waited at the busy crosswalk and watched my breath disperse like smoke in the wintry air. Though the temperature hovered in the low-20s, the main street through Castle Hill in the Bronx teemed with people as it always did this time of day. A cluster of little kids played at the curb, seemingly unaware of the traffic roaring past them just a few yards away. Someone leaned on their car horn and shouted obscenities at another driver. A police car zigzagged through traffic, its siren blaring and bleeping to make a path through the crush of vehicles. Home sweet home, I thought cynically. The light changed.

“Hey, John! What’s happenin’?” a voice shouted.

I looked up to see a man I recognized from Step-In, the corner bar near the train station, leaning against the door of the barbershop. “Not much, man. Just keepin’ it cool,” I replied. We slapped hands in passing before I quickly turned the corner down a side street, not wanting to make small talk.

The cold wind whipping through Castle Hill hit me full

in the face, and I turned up the collar of my wool coat. Though the winter chill invigorated me physically, something nagged at my mind—a troubled feeling I couldn’t shake. I glanced up to see an older Hispanic woman outside her storefront staring at me, and as I turned my dark, piercing eyes on her, fear swept over her countenance. She made the sign of the cross and hurried inside, a bell jingling in her wake.

Go to your aunt’s house . The same thought I’d hadearlier that day came again, this time more insistent. By now it was unmistakable: the spirits were speaking to me. Go to your aunt’s house . I considered not going, but only for a minute.Changing directions, I looped back the way I’d come but avoided the main street, arriving at Aunt Maria’s three-story clapboard house within minutes. I rang the doorbell and waited, then rang it again. After the third ring I decided she must not be home, but something told me to go knock on the basement door. Stepping through the chain-link gate that accessed the basement entry, I started to knock when I saw that the door was already cracked open. I walked in.

Eerie vibes filled the room—vibes I knew well—and instantly I realized some sort of witchcraft ritual was in process. Through the dark I saw my aunt, a man, and another woman sitting at a mesa blanca, a “white table” used for witchcraft readings. I glanced at the floor in front of the table and saw strange symbols written in chalk with lighted candles on them, making it appear as if the floor were on fire. For the first time I got a good look at the man sitting behind the table. Short and stocky, he wore a bandana around his head like a biker, and his

medium-length black hair was matched by coal-black eyes that seemed to pierce right through me. Whoever he was, I could tell he was in charge of this gathering, and his mysterious aura was strangely beckoning.

My aunt waved me over, not wanting to interrupt the reading. As the reading went on, I stared at the symbols on the floor, fascinated by the power and heaviness that hung like a lead cloak over the room. Witchcraft was no stranger to me—I had been casting spells and growing to new levels of power since I was ten years old—but the energy coming off this man was like nothing I’d ever felt before. Whatever it was, I wanted it too.

I listened as he described the different aspects of this religion until finally my curiosity won out.

“Hey, what’s going on?” I whispered to Aunt Maria. “This is Palo Mayombe,” she replied in a monotone,

tucking a strand of her salt-and-pepper hair back under her white bandana. As she said that, the man turned to me and opened his mouth to speak. My heart thumped like a jackhammer in my chest when I heard the words of his prophecy.

“This young man is your right hand and most faithful person in the occult,” he said to my aunt. He held my eyes for a long moment, letting the words sink in. “He is a very powerful warlock who will become a major player in the religion. He must be in the first group of new initiates next month because of his power and commitment to Palo Mayombe.”

Aunt Maria’s eyes widened with awe, and I watched as

a slow smile spread across her face. In that instant we both knew I had just walked into a supernatural appointment—her nephew was about to become a major power player, controlling spiritual regions of the Bronx.

That afternoon was a turning point for me. I knew I was going to another level in the spirit realm and would have power like I never knew before.

Contract with the Devil

The priesthood ceremony took place two weeks later in the basement of Aunt Maria’s house. As I approached the house on foot, I could feel the rhythm of the conga drums vibrating on the night air. The sound of chanting inside told me that those who came to watch the ceremony—seasoned priests of the religion—were beckoning the spirits, setting the spiritual atmosphere for what would take place on that night in February 1997.

Opening the basement door ushered me into a world few people will ever experience. My aunt’s basement had been transformed into a ritualistic chamber, dressed for a serious witchcraft ceremony. Flickering candles cast mysterious shadows on the walls, and seventeen tree branches covered the floor, one for each of the initiates to sit on. Two or three dozen roosters squawked from a makeshift cage in the corner of the room. I knew what they were for.

The music got louder and the songs more intense, with

lyrics inviting the devil to come as the hours ticked toward midnight. Somebody asked the helpers to bring us into another part of the basement, and we stood shoulder to shoulder in front of what I sensed to be an altar. I felt the presence of demons so thick I could almost touch it. When the drumbeats reached their fullest a heavy presence beyond human comprehension descended on the room. Even though the words chanted were African and Spanish, I knew in my heart and soul and spirit they were summoning the devil.

It was Nafumbe, the devil himself.

Beads of sweat broke out on my forehead, and a strange mix of terror and excitement swelled within me. At five minutes to midnight, the high tata priest stood in front of me and started chanting some words, spelling out the contract that was about to take place. He chose me to go first. Taking a one-edged razor, he cut into my flesh. As my blood ran, I knew the contract was being initiated.

Out of the seventeen initiates that night, the devil chose only me to be initiated as tata, the calling of a high priest. The godfather cut a pentagram into the flesh of my right arm, distinguishing me from the others. The priests boasted about how seldom one is singled out for the calling of tata, and I held my head high: I had the mark of the beast on my body.

Early the next morning I woke up, bloody and swollen from the night’s ritual, and made my way to the bathroom. It was still dark out and very quiet, but I could tell from the single small window in the basement that dawn would come soon. I flipped the switch to turn on the light and leaned in close to

peer at my reflection in the mirror.

The face that stared back at me was the face of a new person, a new man. The black eyes that gazed from the reflection were eyes I had never seen before: I had been born into Palo Mayombe to be a Palero tata—a high priest.

Chapter 1

Beginnings

My blood boiling with rage, I walked into a bar and scanned the smoky room for my father, knowing he had to be here. Where else would he be when he was not at home or driving his gypsy cab? And there he was, just as I expected—sitting on a barstool, leaning in close to a woman with dark hair in a tight blouse. He was smiling and laughing, and I knew thoughts of my mother were far from his mind.

A movement across the room caught my eye. A man I’d never seen before glared at my father and clenched his fists. Even from this distance I could feel a thick vibe of jealousy and anger radiating from him.

The strange man reached inside his coat, and in that moment I realized what he was about to do—what I had secretly wanted somebody to do for a long time: kill my father.

Two shots rang out, and as my father slumped to the wooden floor, the stranger crossed the room to pump the rest of the bullets in the barrel into his cold, vile heart. While my dad lay dying, the bullet holes still smoking, I stepped from

behind the stranger and stared down at my father’s face. His eyes grew wide, and as his soul’s silver cord was snapping I told him all he needed to do was show some love and concern for his wife and family. Just a little. Then his firstborn son would not have spent so many days and nights of his young life wishing his father was dead and finally seeing it come true.

The last words he heard me say were: “I wish it had been me who pulled the trigger instead.”

The wail of a siren jarred me from sleep, and I sat bolt upright in bed, shaking in a cold sweat. A dream . . . it was only a dream. The same one I’d had over and over again since myfather’s murder the year I turned thirteen. I looked over at my brothers, snoring softly through the uproar of the South Bronx streets outside our dingy apartment window. The room was freezing as usual, but I was used to it. Unable to sleep, I crossed to the window and peered out. A couple of neighborhood thugs huddled over a trashcan fire on the corner, and a second police car roared down the street, its sirens chasing after the first one that had awakened me from the cruel dream.

How did I get here? I wondered. I was born in PuertoRico but grew up in the Bronx as the oldest of four sons. From the Caribbean island of Puerto Rico, with its glorious sunshine, palm trees, warm breezes, and crystal waters, we moved to the

harsh, cold streets of the South Bronx. As a child, I would fold my arms on an open windowsill on one of the upper floors of our apartment building and look out at the trash-cluttered sea of concrete, glass, and brick buildings. I had an artistic soul, even as a boy, but for miles into the horizon I saw no art or beauty. All I saw was an ocean of ugliness.

Goodhearted by nature, I was a spirited child who did my best to help my mother and brothers out. I knew my mother loved me, and that was very important, but what I craved most was my father’s approval and love. It was something every growing boy needed. I longed for a dad to participate in my life, to say he was proud of me and that he loved me. It was something I never got.

Instead my absentee father had countless women on the side, bar fights, and drunken rages. His insane exploits ensnared him and saddened us deeply. I felt seething resentment even at a young age that he cheated us of a normal family’s prosperity, blessings, and happiness.

His careless, cruel behavior toward my mother and our family became more horrible with each passing year. I would go from being a kind boy to being a very angry one. As time went on, my feelings and outlook on the world festered with the bitterness I felt. Eventually my once-kind heart turned stone cold.

The Bittersweet Big Apple

My mother, Esther Martinez, was only a sweet sixteen-year-old when she married Eustaquio Ramirez in Santurce, Puerto Rico, and gave birth to me that same year in December 1963. The very next year she gave birth to my brother Julio. We stayed in Rio Piedras, Puerto Rico, for one year until my parents and both sides of their families came to the United States.

Upon arriving in America, in rapid succession my brothers George and Eustaquio Jr. came along. But the challenges grew deeper. As I got older I realized our family had not been prepared for the realities of living in New York.

This was supposed to be the start of a better life in the most promising city in the world—New York. Manhattan was the island that was so close, yet from where we lived in the South Bronx, it seemed a world away. It often felt like we were trapped in a time warp. We lived in an apartment prison with invisible bars that caged us in an endless, living nightmare.

The reality in which we lived seemed like a bad dream. My father, who was supposed to take the lead, instead was constantly running out of the home and out of our lives. He was missing in action for most of our lives. But when he did park the gypsy cab he drove for a living, we’d hear his keys jingle in the lock and he’d swing the front door open to step back into our lives. “Papi’s home!” one of my younger brothers would yell. My dad was a young and handsome man with piercing eyes and thick black hair. Within seconds, bustling in her housedress and ever-present apron, my mother would put away any anger because of his absence, and her

heart would be taken in again just by the sight of him.

He’d stroll into the kitchen for a bite to eat as though he had never left.

“What’s the matter with these sons of mine?” he complained to my mom, pointing his finger at us as we stood in the doorway between the tiny living room and the cramped kitchen.

“They’re good boys, Eustaquio. What do you mean?” my mother said, stirring a pot of yellow rice on the stove.

“If they were good boys they would ask for my blessing whenever they see me on the street like their cousins do,” my father said. “‘Bendicion, Tio!’ they always say, but do my own sons ever ask me to bless them? No—all they ever want is a dollar so they can go buy candy.” He glared in my direction, assuming that as the oldest I spoke for all four of us boys. Bitterness and hatred churned in my heart. I knew that a reply of any kind was useless. And then my father would make his way to the living room, fall out on the sofa in a drunken stupor, and go to sleep.

Often the next morning, although we were his own family, he seemed so detached, like his mind was elsewhere. It was as if he needed to be treated more like visiting royalty than a father, and we all tiptoed around and tried our best to please him and make him part of our lives.

My mother probably wanted to tell him news of her last few days or weeks. My brothers and I were bursting to share our baseball victories or basketball stories or talk about what happened in or after school. Maybe mention some cool car we

saw or some girl we had a crush on, or even share a funny joke we heard. But more often than not we just ate in relative silence, afraid to say much of anything.

There seemed to be a gateless fence with barbed wire around him that we were afraid to scale, knowing we’d get cut. At other times it seemed more like a brick wall that we could never break through where he kept his emotions walled in, never expressing any real joy or love for us.

I never knew who my father really was and wondered if he even liked us, but I couldn’t figure out why not. I saw other boys with their fathers going to the park, hitting a ball, playing catch, talking about sports. Those fathers would talk enthusiastically with them, pat them on the back, and walk along with their sons, sharing a good laugh. I yearned for that kind of relationship, but no matter what I tried he’d just push me away and call me “stupid.” Some words are shattering to a child, and stupid is certainly one of them.

My father didn’t seem to care that his dysfunction was so damaging. He seemed to go out of his way to discourage my brothers and me, to criticize us and talk to us in a condescending tone. We were never good enough to make him happy. And I swore I’d never be like him when I became a father and a man. I hated who he was, and I was even ashamed to tell others he was my dad.

Every now and then I held out hope that he would look at me and it would spark a glimmer of affection—in that moment he’d remember the little boy he once was. Or he’d want me to look up to him as the man I would one day become, but

he left no positive impressions. The picture was either distorted or ugly or strangely blank. He left no template for me to pour myself into, no image for me to model myself after.

He frequently made promises, and like fools we let our hopes get high.

“Hey, John,” he would call from the sofa, a beer in his hand. “This weekend, once my shift is over, I’ll take you and your brothers to Coney Island. What do you say to that, huh?” His smile looked so genuine I believed him. “Want to go to the amusement park? Obey your mother all week and we’ll go do the rides on Saturday.”

But Saturday would come and my father was nowhere to be found. He had run out of our lives once again, to be missing for days or weeks on end.

Mom was the backbone of the family. With four children at a very young age, it was difficult for her to do things and move around from place to place. Since my mother was poorly educated and had no work experience outside the home, we depended on public assistance, food stamps, and whatever help my mother could get. Everything ran out after only a week or two, but we tried to make the best of it. From time to time my father would give her twenty dollars to buy food for the week. Even back then, that was not enough.

But at times it was much worse than that. Once I walked into the kitchen and stopped cold, staring in amazement at the five dollars he had left on the counter for food and other necessities . Five dollars! For his wife and family of four growing boys! Even with my grade school math I knew that

five people (six whenever he came back home), divided by five dollars, meant my dad had left less than a dollar apiece for each of us to live on for the week. I also knew that even in the late ’60s and early ’70s that was no money. My mother used the basics—rice, beans, and potatoes—to stretch everything. But even with her creative and good cooking, five dollars was just a bad joke. What my father had left for us to survive on was more of an insult than a help.

“Five dollars! You know that’s not enough to feed a family,” my mother pleaded, her brow creased with worry lines.

“Then maybe you should put the five dollars in some water and stretch it,” my father called back over his shoulder, a sneer on his face as he laughed at his joke. That was one of the many ways he humiliated my mother and controlled the family, by leaving us in lack.

Where Are You, God?

Like so many others, my father was involved in espiritismo (spiritualism) and appealed to his gods in adarkened room with strange rituals, chanting, and candles. To him it was just a cultural thing. One afternoon toward dusk I walked down the hall of our apartment and heard my father chanting in the bedroom he shared with my mother. Tiptoeing to the door, I peeked through the crack and saw him before a makeshift altar glowing with candles. The sight of my father chanting to his favorite saint, whom he called San Lazaro (St.

Lazarus), both frightened and fascinated me.

He often sent me with five dollars to the nearby botanica, a potion store, to buy an orange candle and flowersfor San Lazaro, whom he probably loved more than his own kids. I could still hear his words throbbing in my mind: “Hurry and don’t lose the money!” I would run down the stairs like a bat out of hell, trying to catch my breath and running past the people sitting on the front stoop. I was on a mission, dashing through cars in heavy traffic, my hands tightly gripped on the money. As I ran into the botanica, I hoped and prayed they would have what my dad sent me to buy. If they didn’t, he would be disappointed—and angry with me.

Date: 2016-04-22; view: 528