Sue Ellis-Saller

I have to admit that I’m really disappointed about Doreen Virtue’s recent blog post (A-Z List of New Age Practices To Avoid), calling everything—up to and including rainbow sparkly unicorns and statues—demonic work of the devil, and anyone who was working with angels, Reiki, drums, shamanism, yoga, MINDFULNESS… you name it, all evil according to Doreen.

Oh. My. Gods.

The weird thing is that her words in that blog post go against almost everything she taught in her classes, at least what I got from them. Parts of her list don’t even make sense, really. I mean, has Doreen ever stepped foot in a church? She says statues are evil and false idols, but every Catholic church I’ve been in in my whole life is filled with statues of Jesus, Mary, and other figures in the Christian tradition. Are we to think that churches are evil now, too?

Her teachings before she was baptized and born again in 2017 were all about acceptance, non-judgment, learning to trust your own intuition, being kind but assertive, connecting with nature. Doreen Virtue didn’t stop at teaching people how to work with her cards or respect deities from other religions, she also delved into her version of keeping yourself and your environment healthier and creating a life that was more in line with your own happiness.

I talked a bit about my thoughts about Doreen Virtue’s Conversion to Christianity here
and how the Angels Are Bigger Than Just One Person: Angel Work Post Doreen Virtue here

Personally, I enjoyed reading her books and learning about different ways of connecting with my intuition and angels with the practices she taught. What I learned by following some of what she taught and combining it with other rituals and details I learned from other sources took my spirituality to the next level. My own craft and connection with Spirit grew from my work, and I was also led to other teachers, topics, and rituals through learning about angels, ascended masters, goddesses, etc.

I won’t say that I bought everything she sold hook, line, and sinker, though. I never went vegan or believed in chem-trails. She was one of many teachers whose work I used to carve out my own spiritual path. I found Doreen’s teachings to be broad enough to allow many people to recognize and build their spiritual gifts and practices. Her work helped me take my own to the next level.

And the people I met through her community are some of the absolute best people I’ve ever had the pleasure to know! The Light Workers, Earth Angels, Tarot Readers, etc that I met were, as a whole, empathic, understanding, generous (sometimes to a fault), sensitive, forgiving, fascinating people. They’re fun and, because they’re high-vibe people, they are often kinder than most of the people I’ve met through other spaces.

So I don’t get how the people whom I met and formed bonds through Doreen Virtue’s work are demonic. Empathy, kindness, tolerance, curiosity, DIVERSITY are evil and we must change our ways immediately or face eternal damnation? Sorry. I’m not buying that.

Call me a sinner then. This girl ain’t giving up her Reiki, tarot, crystals, drum circles, magical friends, yoga, nature, and so many other things I consider sacred and fascinating because Doreen Virtue says they are from the devil. And I certainly don’t see my friends, colleagues, and peers who work with energy, self-help, and those who believe in something other than Christianity as being possessed by demons or in contact with evil entities. The people who I’ve gotten to know through the Angel Community aren’t, in my opinion, possessed by demons like Doreen Virtue asserts. They seem quite the opposite to me.

And that leads me to the reasons I am extremely disappointed about Doreen Virtue’s blog post:

1) The people I mentioned above. Some are doubting their connection to Spirit now. If Doreen was sincere at first, or if she was just in it for the money or never believed in it at all, or if she thinks it’s all satanic and demonic, what does that make them? What does that make me? What does that make their work? What does it say about mine? (I’ve removed my association with her work from my site in most places. If you find mention of it on my site, please tell me which page so I can update it.)

As I mentioned above, Light Workers—myself included—are a sensitive bunch, so having one of the most popular teachers in the community who taught us some of the methods we use to connect with Spirit or different entities call the work we do out as evil and negative causes a gut reaction. Either you think, “Wow, she’s lost her marbles,” like me and go on with life or you think, “Have I been imagining this all along? Are those entities I’ve been interacting with actually evil?”

Some people who found such comfort in their spirituality that was sometimes expanded by Doreen Virtue’s work are once again insecure and questioning what’s going on in their worlds, what they are sensing, the messages they are getting.

The loss of trust one might place in her own intuition is a great loss to me. We need MORE people honoring their own intuition and thoughts and being confident in themselves and a little focused on their own happiness, not less. We need to keep moving forward with this connection with the positive and good, not less. We don’t need to set ourselves back 50 years in the spiritual community.

2) Another thing we have to discuss is religious diversity. Not everyone is a Christian. There are other religions, other gods and deities, other belief systems in the world that should be respected and it’s good to learn about other gods and goddesses from other cultures and religions, too. Her new stance is anti-magic, anti-witch/Earth-based religion/pagan, anti-indiginous population, and xenophobic.

Did we learn nothing from the Inquisitions or from the Witch Hunts and trials? Are we going back to the time when religious freedom was banned and those who went against the teachings of the Church were shamed, outcast, tortured, and murdered?

Going from tolerance, acceptance, bringing people together and broadening their minds and knowledge bases to saying that everything that YOU don’t believe in is demonic or satanic is just disturbing, especially in today’s global environment. The world is a smaller place nowadays, and it’s better to learn about and respect people with other religious beliefs and rituals instead of condemning them. Understanding one another and having open conversations about what we believe in is how we make the world a better place. We need more tolerance, not less.

People need to be able to connect with a more earth-based religion if that’s what floats their boats. We need to be able to reconnect ties that were long ago cut for fear of being found out as a witch. We should be able to practice their own form of religion and worship our own gods.

Magic can’t go underground again. We, as a community, can’t let it.

3) Doreen Virtue is speaking from a place of fear, not love. Her whole post dripped guilt, shame, judgment, and fear. She’s looking to make people upset with her “bad, bad, bad” babble. She’s certainly not embodying the teachings of Jesus Christ as I know them. She needs to ask herself WWJD and let our own gods judge us when our time comes. Maybe she, herself, has something to be scared of. I don’t feel like I do.

So, while I do wholeheartedly think that Doreen’s spiritual path is her own, I wish she’d follow the advice she might have given before she was born again, the advice I think that Jesus, whose name she brought up over and over, would give: Promote what you love instead of bashing what you don’t. Respect everyone in your space, even if they have different beliefs. Love thy neighbor.

If Doreen doesn’t want to get a Reiki session or practice mindfulness or meditate, that’s her business, but she needs to quit calling anything SHE doesn’t believe in bad, especially people of other religions and backgrounds.

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