She lived in Hawaii and at the age of 28 she already had a stunning career. She successfully published a travel magazine, managed investments and bought properties, owned her own house and a good car. She had bought and sold a newspaper. She was brutally torn from living the American dream by a car accident.
Moira Noonan was severely injured, partially paralyzed and in constant pain. For the next two years, her body barely functioned, so much so that she could not even lift a coffee cup.
Doctors gave her only a slim chance of a full recovery. What’s more, the prospect of a further professional career for an injured person had irretrievably disappeared.
This hopeless situation was changed by a call from Moira’s sister, who told her about the pain clinic. For Moira, who lived in constant pain and no hope of recovery, this was great news.
Without hesitation, she left everything and flew from Honolulu to Wisconsin to a new but already renowned clinic whose method of pain therapy was imitated in university hospitals and many wellness centres across the country. Thus began her path in the New Age movement.
The erosion of faith
Moira was raised Catholic, but when she moved from a Catholic school to a secular school as a teenager, she stopped going to Mass and for catechesis. Instead, she became interested in the religiousness of the East, which was very fashionable at the time and promoted everywhere.
She read books on Indian philosophy, attended Indian music events and concerts. While attending state university, she took a meditation class advertised on every bulletin board on campus.
Moira decided that one day she would go to India, find her own guru and achieve enlightenment. However, she had to wait until the end of her studies to realise her dream. Thanks to hard work, she passed her final exams, obtained a diploma and got a great job.
The rush for a career directed her desires to a completely new track, so she stopped being interested in spiritual enlightenment, until the aforementioned accident, which prevented her from further building her professional success and opened a new, intriguing world of spiritual experiences for her.
Caught on a bait
When someone asks Moira today how her adventure with the New Age began, she replies: “Through my insurance company.”
It really was. This coverage by the insurance company enabled her to stay in a pain clinic for post-accident therapy. Paradoxically, in the modern world, preaching the reign of reason, the insurance company funded an occult therapy. The explanation was the effectiveness of the treatment.
After five weeks at the clinic, Moira’s health improved significantly. The patient did not take painkillers and her body functioned normally. She achieved this by undergoing mind training within the New Thought system called autogenics. It was about adapting the mind to the reality that a person wanted to create for themselves, mainly through many hours of self-hypnosis, and transforming the mind.
According to New Thought, when a person begins to think “newly”, they will be freed from guilt, which in turn will free them from pain. Because the system worked, and Moira had even had an unusual out-of-body experience a few times, she became interested in the philosophy and beliefs disseminated at the clinic.
Reprogramming the worldview
The content that was “loaded” into the minds of Moira and the other participants during the course was completely anti-Christian. There was no mention of God as the Creator, but it was argued that believing in a Saviour and hoping that He would save man from pain and protect him from evil was a waste of time.
As part of the training of the mind, it was preached that everyone must help himself. Moira was brainwashed, as a result of which her previous understanding of the world, faith, attitude towards the body, life, God and healing were destroyed.
In place of the Judeo-Christian worldview, she was instilled with the belief that man exists beyond matter, is not a body, that he creates his own reality and can influence God’s plan with the help of gentle spiritual forces (others allegedly do not exist at all).
It wasn’t until years later that Moira realised that this kind of thinking fuelled the human ego to such an extent that a person began to consider himself a god who could do everything with his own power.
Moira was advised to keep her mind in a New Thought state even after the course was over so that she would continue to be pain free.
When she asked if she could go to the Catholic Church for spiritual support, she was advised not to. Instead, she was recommended to participate in groups of the Unity Church, the Society of Christian Science, or Dianetics. She was also provided with autogenous and meditation tapes and other self-hypnotic tools.
Moira’s journey, driven by a desire to recover, led her spiritually astray. Years later, she admitted that rejecting the first commandment – putting herself in the place of God – caused her to break the other commandments and question the truths of the Christian faith.
Moira practiced all forms of idolatry mentioned in the Book of Deuteronomy (18:9-12): divination, sorcery, prophecies, witchcraft, summoning the spirits of the dead. And yet God clearly warns against such practices in order to protect man from evil. The woman, however, being unaware of the threat, went deeper and deeper into it.
Immersed in the occult
Moira worked as a priestess of the Religious Science movement and was a counsellor and psychic therapist. She was passionate about hypnotherapy, past life regression, astrology, a course in miracles, reiki, channelling, crystals, goddess worship, clairvoyance and other occult practices. Through them, she gave evil spirits free access to her life.
Entering the practice of mediumship caused Moira to see the spiritual world. Most of these things she did not want to see at all, because the demonic world is terrifying. For demons do not come gently, and they never act for the good of man. So, Moira could not rest. Her mind was in a constant race. Like an endless movie, she kept seeing visions she couldn’t turn off. She desperately needed help . . .
Refuge of sinners
The Mother of God played a special role in the process of Moira’s emergence from the confusion and darkness of the New Age. Mary placed a number of signs on Moira’s path. Moira followed them, though she didn’t know where they were leading her, nor was she aware of how much evil they were leading her out of. For she was blinded, deeply immersed in various occult practices.
The first sign appeared during a coffee break at a New Age workshop in Hawaii. Moira was given an issue of the New Age Journal, the movement’s most popular magazine in America. In it was an article by Sondra Ray, a well-known New Age personality.
The author described in it how on her way to India – to meet her guru Babaji – she went to Medjugorje. She was intrigued by the information about the apparitions of Our Lady. Sondra summed up this stay with the words: “Mary Mother is the goddess of Heaven who descended to join the goddess of Earth.”
As Moira read that sentence, she felt something not quite right. The article made a great impression on her, it went straight to her heart, but despite all the New Age indoctrination, she knew that Our Lady was not a goddess.
In Moira, a truth sown long ago, when she attended a Catholic school, spoke up. Moved by this situation, Moira left the workshop and during the walk felt inspired to pray sincerely: “God, if the Mother of Jesus appears somewhere, I know that she is not a goddess. I know this newspaper is wrong. Could you show me the truth?”
This prayer did not go unanswered. More signs soon appeared . . .
A Mother’s patient guidance
One of the signs appeared during a table-spinning séance. Moira was among the people who put their hands on the table, waiting for the arrival of the so-called guide spirit.
This time Moira suddenly clearly felt the presence of something else that was next to her and it was very beautiful, angelic and wonderful. She immediately pulled her hands from the table and could not get them back, as they were chained to her body.
Moira quickly got up and left the room. She asked herself, “What is this? Could someone tell me what’s going on?”
At this, she heard a clear voice inside her: “I am the Queen of Peace.”
Moira had never heard of the Queen of Peace before, but she had no doubt that it was Our Lady. Moira replied that she would never return to that séance community.
She wanted to meet the Mother of God, to learn more about Her Immaculate Heart. She also began to understand that the path she was following was not the right one.
A few weeks later, Moira’s grandmother died. In the now empty house of the deceased, after all her things had been carefully packed and taken out, Moira found a locket that her grandmother always wore.
It was incomprehensibly overlooked and ended up in the hands of her granddaughter, who at the time didn’t even know what a miraculous medal from Rue du Bac was. Moira put it on and still wears it around her neck.
It turned out to be the most precious thing Grandma could have ever left her. After that, much more was to happen because of this medal.
Confession? Immediately!
Confession was of great importance in the process of Moira’s conversion. One time the woman was at Mass praying for healing. After the service, she felt that she had to go to confession.
She started looking for a priest. She found him already standing by the car and getting ready to leave. And there, in the car park in front of the church, for the first time in 25 years, she reconciled with God by confessing her sins.
She did not hesitate to accept the grace; she didn’t wait for a “better” time and conditions. She responded immediately to God’s inspiration and shed the burden of all the sins with which she had lived for so many years. She had entered the clear path leading her to the true faith.
Difficult conversion process
The process of Moira’s conversion would not have been possible without God’s grace and strength. Therefore, she attended Mass, read religious literature, prayed and undertook a weekly fast.
Every day she devoted herself to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, constantly and devoutly wore a miraculous medal, aroused Marian devotion by reading the works of St. Louis Maria Grignion de Montfort.
She also learned prayers to St. Michael the Archangel and St. Benedict, to weaken the work of Satan. Moira felt firsthand the influence of evil powers to which she invoked in the New Age movement.
These religious practices were necessary for the difficult and sometimes painful process of transformation to take place in Moira with the help of God’s grace.
One of the challenges Moira faced was changing her mindset. In the New Age, she was instilled in, among others, the belief that man is able to realise himself, is a god and saviour for himself, and that he does not need saving from something like sin.
Recognizing the true God and Saviour was not so easy for Moira, but it was gradual. The hardest thing for her was to give up her belief in reincarnation.
Another challenge for her was getting rid of all the New Age books and other psychic paraphernalia. Moira’s house was filled with countless occult paraphernalia, worth many thousands of dollars.
Moira was unable to get rid of these items herself. She was helped by friends in the Bible circle, enduring her irrational and hostile reactions, lack of self-control and screams, which she did not remember afterwards.
This situation showed that Moira has not yet been freed from the demons associated with these items. So, apart from the house, there was one more thing that needed a thorough cleaning – Moira herself.
A detailed confession
This recently converted woman was unaware that every lie she believed and every practice she encountered was blocking her complete release. However, Mary, to whom Moira entrusted herself, did not leave her unattended.
When Moira was in Medjugorje, she stood in a long line for confession in English. It turned out that she “accidentally” ended up with a priest who had great experience in confessing people coming out of the New Age. Moira was encouraged to tell the priest much more than just the venial sins she had committed.
So, Father Filip Pavić heard her two-and-a-half-hour confession, and because of the long line of people waiting for the confessional, he invited her to his office the next day. He knew that Moira had to confess all occult practices in detail and renounce them. Otherwise, the demons will continue to attack her.
The meeting lasted over 14 hours. During this time, Moira professed a particular practice and then solemnly renounced it in the name of Jesus Christ, as she did for her teachers and spirit attendants. The Holy Spirit also gave Father Filip the gift of knowledge and what Moira had forgotten due to the passage of time or ignorance, the priest prompted and reminded her.
Moira opened her heart completely to God so that He could purify it and fill it with His love and grace. She also clearly understood then that there is a demon behind every occult practice.
The meeting Fr. Filip had with Moira was a traumatic but also liberating experience for her. After it was over, she felt like a newborn child of God. She rejected all the evil from the past and knew that she would only be able to follow Christ by holding on to the hand of the Mother of God.
To save souls
Moira, after her return to the Catholic Church, cut herself off from her old life. She needed a new direction, so she prayed that God would show her what to do next. In response, God gave her an evangelizing zeal so that she could bring good out of her past.
On her way, Moira began to meet people in need of healing, breaking with the occult, thirsting for true faith. They were often people around her. So, she was able to carry out her apostolic mission without going to distant countries.
She was sent to bring the Good News to her community. And so, using her own experience of leaving the New Age movement, Moira brings lost people to God and the Catholic Church, where Jesus is really present. Christ, acting and constantly giving graces to the faithful in the sacrament of the Eucharist and confession.
