I had always been interested in the Church but I wanted to experience life first so the years went by and I “lived” my life but it got to a point a year and a half ago where I wasn’t happy and the Church seemed to be calling me.

What had really happened - to paraphrase G K Chesterton - was that, when I stopped believing in something, I didn't believe in nothing, I believed in anything. My philosophy was a mish-mash of eastern religious thought, magical and divinatory techniques, and relativism. In other words, I very much subscribed to a philosophy known as the New Age.

What's helped me learn resilience was physical fitness. Whatever you do to your body will translate to the mind. You train your mind to push past whats uncomfortable, you push it into new territory, the unknown, you push past pain and never give up. This can build mental fortitude in the face of struggle. Building strength is also important to me, everyone needs a strongman.

As a result of an 8-year relationship unravelling over Christmas 2019, I drove to the edge of a cliff and prayed the Rosary. In that darkest time my prayers were heard, the sun came out and broke through the clouds. I knew that our differences were irreconcilable, things had to come to an end and changes must be made.

I was really committed to this idea of using Black Magik to achieve my aims and goals. It is however at this point that the brakes begin to be gently applied.
Of all my time reading, studying and committing to Magik and the whole Pagan pathway, I never felt, ever, once, that this was real. I never felt a calling. I never felt a single spell actually worked. In order to get my results, I felt I had to get darker and deeper and needed something very powerful on my team. Satan or a Demon.

Raised in a matriarchal 'Catholic cult' and lacking in strong male role models, I was on the weak, emotional and self-pitying end of the masculine spectrum. It took the arrival of fatherhood and a restored relationship with my own father to unveil some of the mysteries of authentic manhood, but it took the teachings of the Catholic Church on masculinity and fatherhood to imbue those mysteries with meaning.