When The Witch Hunters Use Witchcraft

Magic, hypocrisy, and the White House Faith Office.

About a year ago, my cousin from Alabama — a United Methodist minister’s daughter who grew up in the Civil Rights era — reached out to me with a question:

“Have you ever heard of the New Apostolic Reformation?”

An unquenchable blue dot in a deeply red state, she remembers the Birmingham church bombing and the urgent call for medical volunteers from her father’s congregation that day.

She has zero tolerance for the toxic mix of right-wing politics and religion that continues to infect the Bible Belt.

Her text launched me on a search. What I found was a movement — the New Apostolic Reformation, or NAR — that claims to wage spiritual warfare against evil forces, and frequently accuses others of occultism and demonic influence.

As I dug deeper, I was astonished by the glaring contradictions: the NAR itself embraces both secretive and public rituals that bear the hallmarks of occult practice — without the slightest hint of self-reflection, irony, or apology.

I’m not smacking down the occult

This essay isn’t about condemning occultism. Spiritual paths are diverse, and many contain elements outsiders might call “occult” without harm or malice.

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On a personal level, I’ve got plenty of witchy friends and happily show up at the occasional ritual to throw incense on the fire or raise a horn of mead. Over the years I’ve also sat Zazen with Buddhist monks, shared Shabbat blessings on Friday nights, prayed in mosques across Western Asia, and watched the Solstice sun rise with OBOD Druids on the beach at Narragansett.

Because the divine is larger than any tradition can hold. Any sincere seeker is a brother or sister of mine.

Let me be even clearer:

I don’t have any problem with witchcraft. I have a problem with hypocrisy.

The problem isn’t that the NAR uses ritual, prophecy, and mystical power — many traditions do. The problem is the hypocrisy: they condemn others as demonic for doing things that look almost identical to what they do themselves — and they weaponize those accusations to control people, attack opponents, and build political power.

This piece is about exposing the blatant hypocrisy of a movement that demonizes others while doing spooky sh*t themselves — in service of control, division, and manipulation.

The NAR’s literal witch-hunt — combined with their own occult-like practices — undermines the crusade they claim to lead.

The fact that their numbers are growing, and they have a foothold in both the White House and House of Representatives, makes the NAR dangerous.

Let’s get back to those blurred lines: prayer, mysticism, occultism, and magic

Right-wing religious discourse often weaponizes terms like prayer, mysticism, occultism, and magic — yet the boundaries between them are murky at best. Prayer is generally accepted, mysticism tolerated with high suspicion, while occultism and magic are harshly condemned, usually without consistent definitions.

In truth, these practices overlap and blend. Christian mystics — from the Desert Fathers and Mothers to Julian of Norwich, Hildegarde of Bingen, and Thomas Merton — engaged in experiences bordering on what some would call occult.

Compare a Christian ritual to a Pagan one and the similarities become immediately obvious.

The Bible and Christian folk religion are packed with healers, charms, potions, and ritual magic:

• The bitter waters ritual (Numbers 5:11–31) involves a curse written on parchment, dissolved into holy water, and drunk to reveal guilt or innocence.
• Paul’s healing handkerchiefs (Acts 19:11–12) were carried to the sick to heal disease and cast out demons.
• Jesus heals with mud and spit (John 9:6–7), a tactile, physical ritual of healing.
• Mandrakes for fertility (Genesis 30:14–16), used by Leah and Rachel.
• Blood on doorposts (Exodus 12) functions as protective magic during the first Passover.

Across Christian folk traditions, similar patterns emerge: saint charms and relics, protective medals, holy wells, Appalachian healing, Hoodoo practices, Eastern Orthodox evil eye prayers, and medieval lapidaries describing the spiritual powers of stones.

These examples challenge the simplistic divide between “true faith” and “dangerous occultism.”

If such practices appear in Scripture and Christian tradition, then the real question isn’t what is practiced — but who is practicing it.

That double standard? Therein lies the hypocrisy.

The NAR’s accusations against others

The New Apostolic Reformation is notorious for its aggressive spiritual warfare rhetoric — but much of that warfare is aimed not at traditional religious foes, but at fellow Christians, both religious and political progressives, followers of other religions, and anyone else who doesn’t fall into line behind them.

During the 2024 U.S. election cycle, apostles and prophets affiliated with the movement repeatedly claimed that Democratic leaders were influenced by demonic spirits and engaged in a spiritual battle against America’s Christian foundations. When Kamala Harris stepped up to lead the Democratic ticket, NAR leaders said she was inhabited by the “Jezebel Spirit” — a term with both racist and misogynist roots.

Progressive Christians and interfaith advocates are also cast as spiritually compromised. In 2019, NAR leader Cindy Jacobs publicly condemned interfaith dialogue, asserting that engaging with non-Christian spiritualities invites spiritual contamination and opens doors to evil forces.

She has also labeled LGBTQ+ affirming churches as “compromised” and “under demonic attack,” framing progressive faith communities as enemies of God.

And as journalist Kathryn Joyce notes in her coverage of the NAR’s influence, such leaders routinely invoke occult-level spiritual warfare when describing everything from liberal policies to racial justice movements.

On the home front, NAR attacks mainstays of many households. Jennifer LeClaire, a former editor at Charisma News and a widely known NAR prophet, calls tarot cards a tool of Jezebel, warning that even so-called “Christian tarot” in which the cards are used for visio divina is just witchcraft repackaged.

In a similar vein, Mark Driscoll, who has long been aligned with NAR-adjacent circles, once said bluntly, “If you sign up for a little yoga class, you’re signing up for a little demon class.”

This broad demonization of everything outside their theological framework doesn’t just stigmatize other faiths or practices — it paints them as dangerous cosmic threats in an escalating spiritual war.

But the shoe’s on the other foot for the NAR’s own occult practices

While loudly accusing others of occultism, the NAR mirrors many of those same practices:

• Prophetic councils and apostolic hierarchies claim direct communication with God and angels, often operating in secret. Sarah Posner describes these networks as “shadow governments” inside evangelicalism.
• Deliverance rituals and ecstatic healing resemble shamanic ceremonies, with exorcisms, tongues, emotional highs, and spiritual trances. These ceremonies often feature intense emotional states and symbolic gestures reminiscent of occult magic — specifically voodoo/vodou and various forms of shamanism
• Prophetic words, visions, and angelic visitations guide both personal and political decisions, with divine revelation treated as absolute and binding. Leaders like Bill Johnson and Patricia King regularly claim to receive prophetic words, divine visions, and angelic visitations, often using these revelations to guide both personal lives and national politics.
• Their followers are taught that these supernatural messages, or “prophetic words” are not symbolic or contemplative, but authoritative and binding.
• Demons in the house: In addition to angels, they see themselves in daily battle with an army of demonic entities. NAR-influenced groups see their prayer as literally warfare, and deliberately name it such.
• Ritual warfare and magical geography: NAR apostles conduct spiritual mapping, identifying demonic strongholds over cities, nations, or political institutions.
• One extreme example was the 1997 expedition Operation Ice Castle, where a NAR group traveled to Mount Everest to confront and cast down the “Queen of Heaven,” believed to be a territorial demon — A.K.A the Virgin Mary, mother of Jesus — ruling over Asia.
• Blowing the shofar (ram’s horn) is widely used in their rituals. NAR adherents believe blowing shofars — the rams’ horns borrowed from ancient Israelite tradition — summons angels, breaks demonic strongholds, and signals spiritual war.
• These acts are not symbolic. NAR followers consider them tactical, magical tools in an invisible battle for global domination.

The dangerous hypocrisy

The New Apostolic Reformation’s ritual life reflects the very characteristics of occultism it publicly condemns, with its penchant for hidden knowledge, secret rites, invocation of spiritual beings, and claims to supernatural authority.

It’s ironic, this theological contradiction, but we can’t afford to shrug it off.

Those who’ve read 1984 know it as doublethink — and it’s a strategy.

By accusing others of occultism while practicing their own forms of ritualized spiritual power, the NAR reinforces fear, polarizes the faithful, and solidifies its grip over followers who believe they’re locked in a cosmic battle between God and demonic forces.

And as their influence grows — not only in churches, but increasingly in political movements, school boards, legislatures, and even presidential campaigns — this spiritual hypocrisy becomes more than dangerous. It becomes a threat to both authentic spirituality and democratic life itself.

Because when every opponent is demonized, there are no neighbors. Only enemies.

Enemies who may be in league with demonic forces.

And when leaders claim to hear directly from God, there is no accountability. Only power.

This story was originally published on Substack.