^{July 24, 2025}

Ex Hollywood Witch Turned Christian Reveals Occult’s Dark Secrets

Inside This Episode

In this powerful interview, former Hollywood witch Jac Marino Chen shares her extraordinary journey from spiritual darkness to the light of Christ.

After a childhood marked by trauma and addiction, Jac turned to the New Age for healing — diving deep into tarot, Egyptian magic, and occult practices. She eventually joined an order called The Golden Dawn and performed rituals inside a Freemason lodge, unaware of the deep spiritual danger she was in.

Today, Jac shares how Jesus gently and patiently led her out of deception, broke the hold of the occult on her life, and brought her into true healing and freedom. 

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Transcript

Eric Huffman: Is New Age spirituality just harmless self-help, or is it a gateway to something much darker?

Jac Marino Chen: A sword was held to my neck as I swore this long oath never to share what went on in the order.

Eric Huffman: Today, former Hollywood witch Jac Marino Chen reveals how magic, manifestation, and occult rituals left her broken. And now she's warning others what looks like light could actually be leading them into darkness.

Jac Marino Chen, welcome to Houston, Texas, and welcome to the Maybe God podcast.

Jac Marino Chen: Thank you so much for having me. It's already been so fun being here. I appreciate it.

Eric Huffman: That's great. I'm glad to hear it. I've been wanting to talk to you for some time, so this is really an honor. You've really had an impact on me and my wife and many others here. I know sometimes in this internet age, it's hard to know who all is hearing your story, who's being impacted by it, but there are many and-

Kate: Praise the Lord.

Jac Marino Chen: Yeah.

Eric Huffman: I'm really excited to get into it with you today. Let's go back. Before we talk about who you are today, because that's a glorious thing to talk about, we'll get there, let's talk about who you were and sort of what led you down those paths that were dark, even starting with the early years, your childhood, if you wouldn't mind getting into that.

Jac Marino Chen: Yeah. So I grew up really thinking I was Christian. We went to church. I don't remember ever hearing the gospel, but then again, I was very young, so I could have, but I didn't know the truth. My dad struggled with drug and alcohol addiction very badly. And so when I was five, my parents separated. My mom separated us for my safety.

Also, at a very young age, I really don't know what age it started, but really as soon as I have memories, I have memories of sexual abuse. So that left me very confused. By the time I started to have memories of it, I had grown a fascination for the person. So there was just a lot of confusion about it. To an extent, knew I shouldn't be doing it, but I was really too young to understand what that even meant.

So there was a lot of guilt and shame and secrecy that left me feeling very isolated at that young age. And then my parents separating, feeling very upset, afraid, and scared, and not knowing what to do about that and having really nowhere to run. I continued down that until I started getting into some very harmful things in middle school.

Eric Huffman: I'm sorry. Obviously, it's heartbreaking, devastating when you hear these stories. Just the thought of a vulnerable child being subjected to something like that is horrible. And it can really set you on a path in some ways and make you more susceptible to other things later in life.

But you mentioned something that in passing, I found interesting. You just said that when your mother and father separated, that you felt like you were being removed from your safety. So was that your father for you?

Jac Marino Chen: Yes. I thought that my dad was a very healthy relationship. We were very close, like best friends. I didn't really understand that he had an addiction problem. I never saw him drunk or on drugs, at least if I did, I didn't know that he was. So having that taken, my dad taken, who in my mind was my closest relationship, and then seeing him in the hospital from overdoses or withdrawals from drinking, and then seeing him in rehabs and then way back homes, it was very hard seeing him in that state. I felt personally responsible because I knew that he didn't want to lose me. So I felt very responsible for his sobriety and for his wellbeing.

Eric Huffman: Wow. That's insightful. I mean, that's a lot for a kid to carry. You felt a burden to keep your dad healthy and whole at a young age. That's a lot of pressure.

Jac Marino Chen: Yeah. And it gave me a sense of identity in a way where I felt a lot of confusion and isolation, but this was my purpose, I thought.

Eric Huffman: And then it wasn't because you were removed from him.

Jac Marino Chen: Right.

Eric Huffman: Wow. So it must've left a void.

Jac Marino Chen: MM-mm.

Eric Huffman: Can only imagine. Goodness. The other thing you said that caught my interest is that you thought you were a Christian growing up, but you never heard the gospel that you can remember. And for people that sort of casually Christian or think to be a Christian is to know the gospel, what does that mean to think you're a Christian, but not know the gospel? Why did you think you were a Christian?

Jac Marino Chen: I just really thought I was a Christian, like I was an American or like I was Italian. Like you were just kind of born... since I thought everyone in my family was a Christian and so because I was born into this family, I too was a Christian. I didn't know who Jesus was or what He really meant other than He was someone I could imagine when I was afraid is kind of the only thought I had. But I just thought it was an identity that I was born into.

Eric Huffman: Interesting. Pretty common, I would guess to varying degrees. People that just check the Christian box, but don't really have a living relationship with the Father through Jesus. So how did this troubled childhood in the essay you mentioned, how did it start to affect your life and the decisions you were making early in life?

Jac Marino Chen: Well, I love how you said that there's a void because that's so true. I mean, imagining like a man that I didn't know anything about it, I felt very scared, very unsafe, like you said, very alone and I wanted to find a way to deal with those big feelings. And the way that I found was really escapism. So that started with self-harm, cutting myself. It sounds counterintuitive, but I felt such emotional anguish and pain inside that creating physical pain was a distraction from that pain and helped me feel a sense of control.

And then I developed an eating disorder. I was bulimic. Then a lot of the time I just didn't eat. That also gave me a sense of control. Like I couldn't control my life, I couldn't control my dad, but I could control my weight. So these things that obviously are destructive, but at in middle school gave me the sense of 'at least I can control this. At least I can control if I'm having these feelings. I don't know what to do with them. I don't know where to run for help, but I can escape it.'

Eric Huffman: Right.

Jac Marino Chen: And so really in middle school, I started with that. Then in high school, I never wanted to do drugs or alcohol because I'd seen firsthand it destroying my dad's life. But I just got to the point where I thought," I just need to do this to fit in, to not lose my friends and to really escape myself." First started with drugs and smoking and all those things. But the first time that I got drunk was the first time I really was numb and really forgot the abuse and all the things I'd been pushing down. And so really from that point on, I was full-on addicted.

Eric Huffman: Yeah. And in some ways, it seems like another thing you can control.

Jac Marino Chen: Right. Another way to escape.

Eric Huffman: Yeah. That was middle and high school, but throughout those years, were you also a... I know you to be a very mystical, spiritual person, sort of, were there spiritual realities or experiences that you had early in life?

Jac Marino Chen: Yes. That's a great question. So when I was seven or around seven at this time, also the person who abused me was caught abusing a toddler. I got a call asking if anything ever happened, a frantic call. And I just really made a decision in that moment that I would never talk about it again. I would never think about it again.

At seven, I really believed if I just never think about this again, then I can believe my own lie. And then it never happened because it was so afraid of being discovered or how it would affect the people in my life and destroy them. So that kind of gave me the sense of another way to control my reality is I'm just going to believe that this never happened. All that to say, I was very isolated. Like I already had this, no one can get in. No one can really see me, no one can really know me.

Then around that time, I had an experience where I would sit outside a lot and just kind of stare off into space, almost in a trance, like state just to kind of numb out. And I saw lights in the sky. My dad had two friends who'd passed away very tragically and violently and awfully from really the effects of drug and alcohol abuse. And I assume that these lights, because they felt like personal, familiar beings were my dad's friends, because that was... maybe they were the angels of my dad's friends. That was the only context that I had.

Eric Huffman: What did they look like these lights?

Jac Marino Chen: They looked like lights, but almost like stars, except energy, I guess, radiating off of them. It wasn't just like seeing a light, but it really felt like this personal being, like a really powerful being. I took from that that they communicated to me. I believed that I was special, that they saw me, they knew everything that happened to me, and they accepted me and chose me. I really clung on to that supernatural experience. It was exciting. It was adrenaline pumping, in a sense.

Eric Huffman: Yeah. Filled a need to.

Jac Marino Chen: Yes. It gave me this identity and I felt really special because of it. And then also I kept wanting to have more of these supernatural experiences, thinking that whatever small amount I learned in Christianity, which honestly wasn't that much at all, I didn't think it had a place for that experience. So it planted in my mind, there must be more out there because this experience was so real and powerful. Then maybe this isn't true because now this is true.

Eric Huffman: Yeah. Wow. So at the time you thought these were spiritual beings or some kind of alien presence that that was a manifestation of your dad's departed friends.

Jac Marino Chen: Yes.

Eric Huffman: But now looking back, not to jump ahead too much, but what do you think that was?

Jac Marino Chen: I'm so glad that you asked that. I started talking to it. I had a family member very close to me who also was very into Orion, which I later became obsessed with, the constellation and believed he was from there. And so learning about aliens and UFOs from him, I was able to say, "Oh, that must be what I experienced." Actually, it was my dad. He'd be okay with me saying he is saved now, which is amazing. But he really identified with Orion and aliens. So I kind of took that on of, "Oh, this is like my lineage. This must be what this is." So I became obsessed with aliens because of that, but-

Eric Huffman: With aliens?

Jac Marino Chen: Yes. Then now looking back, I don't believe they were aliens because of what they taught me, which was that I needed to embrace contrast. So I need to embrace good and bad, light and dark. You need to do wrong to feel right. This idea of unifying duality and also the more that I got into as I grew up channeling and believing they want to see through my eyes and enter my body, but thinking that was noble. Again, it wasn't just like I woke up one day and thought that, but it was-

Eric Huffman: Over time.

Jac Marino Chen: Over time, since childhood. I truly believe they were evil, demonic even, beings.

Eric Huffman: So these lights, they started as lights. Did they continue to manifest and appear as lights, or were the same spirits or whatever they were, did they manifest in other ways and come to you?

Jac Marino Chen: Yeah. So later in my life, I had very vivid visitation contact experiences with these beings that almost always looked tall, what the world would call gray aliens with big black eyes. I had a very vivid abduction experience that was an experimentation. I woke up and I was in such pain, I had to go to urgent care. I'm willing to go into detail on that if you'd like.

Eric Huffman: Yeah, that's fine.

Jac Marino Chen: It was my ovary and ended up needing to get ultrasounds and they couldn't figure out really what happened. There was just a hole, but there was no evidence of a cyst causing it or anything. So all these experiences were happening where I felt so isolated. Who do you tell that to? I was going through this and feeling terrified, but at this point I was in my 20s. So it'd been so many years of gaining trust with these beings. How could this happen? And really it was that experience that shook me enough to think, "Okay, maybe this isn't good."

Eric Huffman: Yeah. If they're hurting you.

Jac Marino Chen: Right.

Eric Huffman: So we're jumping around timeline a little bit, but I think it's very instructive to see that these beings that appear to you early in life continued to influence or try to influence you for years after that and seemed benevolent at first. And that's helpful because oftentimes people that get wrapped up into some of the things you got wrapped up into are drawn in because yeah, it seems powerful. It seems meaningful. It seems good for you until things turn as they inevitably do.

But let's go back to some of your high school years as you started to, so these beings or influences were telling you embrace the darkness to see the light. I'm guessing that had real-life consequences as you started to live what the world would call more free or what Christians would call more sinful, I guess. But what did that look like early in life?

Jac Marino Chen: Yeah. Also got into Ouija boards and making my own Ouija boards. I really grew this lust for supernatural experiences because they were so powerful. They seemed so real, and I wanted more. It was that more escapism power control. And then in high school, I came across the book, The Secret by Rhonda Byrne, which brought in the law of attraction. So that book, you know, it seemed to be sold everywhere at that point.

Eric Huffman: Oh yeah. It was huge.

Jac Marino Chen: Yes. Promoted by Oprah. It just seems so not scary. But the law of attraction and the beliefs that are taught, basically thoughts become things. You create your own reality. You're the most magnetic being in the universe.

Giving me power kind of gave a framework for my experiences. And that was really alluring to me because obviously I'm having these experiences that I'm holding so close to my chest because I find so much identity in it. But who do you even share these things with? And this seemed to give a framework for it. So I dove really strong into the law of attraction.

Eric Huffman: What is that?

Jac Marino Chen: Again, basically thoughts, like thoughts become things. So if you think something, if you can use your emotions to tell you what you're thinking, and then you can use yourself to manifest your own life.

Eric Huffman: I hear that all the time.

Jac Marino Chen: Yeah, sadly-

Eric Huffman: Even Instagram reels. It's like every other reel you find is speak good things and good things will happen and don't speak bad things or bad things will happen, right?

Jac Marino Chen: And that's the law of attraction, the idea that everything's vibrational. So if you tune yourself to a certain frequency, you'll attract like things to yourself, which is-

Eric Huffman: I can hear Christians say that.

Jac Marino Chen: Yeah, it's tragic. And it is definitely not a biblical or Christian teaching and following that, really the thread, because in the book, The Secret, I think about in the intro to the movie, it flashes all these words like alchemy, Rosicrucianism, the Emerald Tablet, there's Thoth and all these things as we get deeper into my story is what I was led to, but I didn't see the seed so early on in this book that seems so innocent. But it's core and the core of these teachings is very occult and very dark, but it doesn't appear that way. And so I started really eating it up.

Eric Huffman: Barnes and Noble puts it in the Christian book section sometimes.

Jac Marino Chen: Yeah. It's very sad.

Eric Huffman: Yeah. There's a lot of confusion out there.

Jac Marino Chen: There really is.

Eric Huffman: Yeah. So where did that influence lead you, and how did you start to live in your late teens into your 20s?

Jac Marino Chen: Yeah. So just very addicted to drugs and alcohol, living a very secret double life, trying to hide who I really was from authority figures, trying to keep my grades up. But I mean, I realized that I wasn't like my friends who I'd really started drinking and doing drugs to keep, but now I'm hiding in the bathroom, drinking way more than anyone else, hiding to smoke cigarettes. I was addicted to pretty much anything I tried and I was so ashamed.

And that led me to... I mean, in those stupors, I gave way more of myself away than I ever thought that I would. It was like this snowball of growing shame, more shame, more shame. And I got into a relationship with a native American man who lived on the reservation, who was older than me. And he started teaching me about native American spirituality and aliens and ancestors and the stars. And we'd stay up all night doing drugs and talking about these things. And I just thought, "Wow, I've been so close minded. I need to be more open minded. These, you know, native American secrets passed down. Maybe I should look into this kind of more spiritual than religious."

Eric Huffman: Yeah. Like maybe that's the real stuff and these rigid American Christians are just being judgy and-

Jac Marino Chen: Stuffy.

Yeah. Yeah. And closed off to the deeper truth of spirituality.

Jac Marino Chen: Yes. And it's so sad because the more that I tried to get off any remaining small amount of Christianity that I knew, the more liberation I thought I was getting, the more shame for lack of better words and awfulness. I was seeing myself getting into more out-of-control thinking I'm gaining control, but I felt so out of control.

Eric Huffman: You did?

Jac Marino Chen: Yes.

Eric Huffman: Do you think you would have said that then?

Jac Marino Chen: No, because I wouldn't have wanted to attract more out of controlness into my life. So it's living in this cognitive dissonance of lying to myself all the time. "No, I feel positive. Things are good. I'm in control" so that I would continue attracting those things into my life.

Eric Huffman: Would that version of you has said that you were more spiritual and further along spiritually than the average Christian was?

Jac Marino Chen: Oh, absolutely.

Eric Huffman: Yeah. Yeah. That's the deception of it, right?

Jac Marino Chen: Yes.

Eric Huffman: How long did that relationship last?

Jac Marino Chen: About two years. It was physically abusive. It was very violent and wild, but I thought that's what love was. I had no biblical understanding of love. I just knew what I had experienced in my life. So that ended, I felt truly just like a void, like an empty, empty person because he had become my identity.

That summer after things ended, I tried heroin and meth and that didn't even seem like a big deal to me. Anything I would have tried to just get out of the pain for a second.

Eric Huffman: Was this guy older than you?

Jac Marino Chen: A little bit, not-

Eric Huffman: Was there a spiritual component to your relationship?

Jac Marino Chen: Yes.

Eric Huffman: Was he like a guide?

Jac Marino Chen: I would say not too... I mean, I looked up to him for sure, but not quite. But during that time of being, you know, just totally lost in that state of trying those drugs, I ended up going to a party-like thing where I met a guy who was a drug dealer. And the second I met him, I had that same familiar, powerful feeling that I felt when I first saw those quote-unquote "aliens" that I thought that at that point called my aliens and had had that relationship with. And I just never left his side. I thought it just felt like this magical thing.

Eric Huffman: So the other relationship had ended.

Jac Marino Chen: Right.

Eric Huffman: And this guy comes along, and there's a connection on some level.

Jac Marino Chen: Yes. And because he was a drug dealer and he was able to provide alcohol and all the things he just had me move in right away, and provided for me in those ways. But he also started teaching me true New Age spirituality about karma and the universe and how the elements play in.

Before I really knew it, I'd become completely dependent on him. And I really started looking up to him a lot. And he taught me that we had lived hundreds of lives because of karma and-

Eric Huffman: The two of you together, like soulmates or something?

Jac Marino Chen: Right. Like through reincarnation. Because we were something called twin flames, he would have taught me, is that we were both the same soul basically-

Eric Huffman: Oh, yeah. 

Jac Marino Chen: Or I would say he more taught me that we'd lived these hundreds of lives. And then I came to understand it as twin flames, but that we were one soul, like we were one. And then we'd split off into two, like male and female and we had lived hundreds and hundreds of lives because we, we were the universe experiencing itself.

And then in some of them, we chose to have different experiences to learn, but in all of them at the end, we would be together because there's always twin flame union. So I really started to believe not only was this guy my teacher, but we were each other. So anything that he did was just a reflection of me. Anything I did was a reflection of him.

I started getting really started doing psychedelic drugs for the sake of supernatural experiences and ascension, started getting really into crystal magic and going to transformational music festivals where there's a lot of sexual liberation and Tantra and wild things, but getting deeper and deeper into the New Age with him, looking at him like my everything really, like me but also my guide.

Eric Huffman: I think that's exactly how the origins of, um, soulmate philosophy sort of... like the old... I think it was Plato or Socrates.

Jac Marino Chen: It was Plato.

Eric Huffman: Plato. He described soulmates as being one soul that had been fractured. And you know, you're incomplete until you find your other half. And that is how everybody today looks at dating. Like so many people look at dating is like, I've got to find that one that is my other half. I don't know how it's become so part of our fabric socially, but that's exactly how people think of it.

Jac Marino Chen: And even looking at Plato's where that comes from it's actually very strange. It's like we were around and we had like four arms, four legs, and then the gods got mad because we were becoming too powerful. So it cut us in half and now we're just seeking the other one. That's not a good thing. That's not a good story. But still clinging onto part of it. And then I definitely believed in that and this yearning for the other half to complete you. It's very popular today.

Eric Huffman: That's right. That's why everybody who's single should read Shel Silverstein's The Big O Meets Missing Piece. It's a children's book, but it's totally about dating. Like you have a missing piece that you need to fit with. And he's like, "No, you both need to be whole." But anyway, I digress.

Where were you in the world at this point with this guy who was your twin flame, so to speak? Where were you living?

Jac Marino Chen: In Hollywood?

Eric Huffman: Really?

Jac Marino Chen: Yes. So I was born and raised in San Diego, but then I went to college in the LA area and then from San Diego, then my quote-unquote, "twin flame" moved to Hollywood. And so then I also moved to Hollywood to be with him and dropped out of college even. So, yeah. So we were in Hollywood. He was pursuing DJing. It was a very fast lifestyle in the midst of the Hollywood world.

Eric Huffman: Would you do these drugs, like the heavier drugs together and have these spiritual experiences?

Jac Marino Chen: Yes. That was a huge part of our relationship and connection was-

Eric Huffman: What kinds of drugs are we talking about?

Jac Marino Chen: Well with him, it was MDMA, something called moles, which isn't necessarily psychedelic, but what we did the most, which is like... it feels similar to heroin, but it's a lot of weed and nicotine smoked all at once. So it's like very, very strong. Ketamine, just ecstasy, coke.

Eric Huffman: A lot of these are, especially MDMA is something you hear a lot about on popular podcasts these days as being a gateway to something transcendental and good.

Jac Marino Chen: Yes.

Eric Huffman: Like you really want to know yourself.

Jac Marino Chen: Yes. And sadly, it's even being promoted as therapies, ketamine therapy. I'm pretty sure ketamine is either a cat. I think it's a cat tranquilizer.

Eric Huffman: Is it?

Jac Marino Chen: Yeah. You definitely feel it, but they're being promoted as though it can help you like to your point, spiritually ascend is what I believed or get in touch with yourself.

Eric Huffman: So help those of us who are more novices in this world understand what that experience was like for you, what you did see.

Jac Marino Chen: Well, on those drugs, it was more just this overwhelming feeling of love and connection or ketamine. You're very numb, but you sometimes have like... not so much psychedelic in the sense that you're seeing things, but physically you're feeling all these things.

And then later I went on to try acid and psilocybin mushrooms. Those are very... like you're seeing things. I would argue that your brain chemistry and maybe not chemistry, but the way you see the world tends to be altered after that, because it just-

Eric Huffman: Even after the high?

Jac Marino Chen: It can really. Sadly, I knew many people who had been very negatively affected by having quote-unquote, "tripped out" on these drugs so many times that they were mentally not in reality anymore and weren't coming back for a while.

Eric Huffman: Were you ever revisited by these beings we mentioned earlier during those experiences?

Jac Marino Chen: Yeah. So with the drugs that I did with the man who I thought was my twin flame, that was more like channeling, or I would feel these impressions I would say. But with the acid and the psilocybin mushrooms, it was very pronounced.

So on acid or LSD, I believed that it was as though... the experiences that I had were made concrete. Like the things that I thought I saw now I saw so clearly and just confirmed everything I believed. And then with psilocybin, at that point was following this Egyptian deity that I was worshiping, and it was just so clear. It just seemed so manifested and real. But it came with a lot of negative effects afterwards and left me feeling... I thought I would feel so much love and so much wholeness and so much excitement, but I felt this deep, cold emptiness with it.

Eric Huffman: Really?

Jac Marino Chen: And I wasn't expecting that.

Eric Huffman: What'd you make of it at the time? Were you just doing it wrong? It was supposed to help, right?

Jac Marino Chen: Yeah. They might've said that, but at the time I became very... well, actually the LSD was with the man who I thought was my twin flame. And I just thought I'm just meant to be way more dependent on him. I mean, after I did it, I couldn't form. I didn't know how to have a conversation. I felt like all social skills had been wiped from my catalog. I couldn't say goodbye to anyone. I looked at words and they look like foreign glyphs. And it felt so scary and empty, but I just thought, "I'm just meant to be more dependent on him. He is my guide and my teacher; he will protect me." So I just kind of thought it was cool.

Eric Huffman: That actually makes sense that that would lead to further manipulation and power dynamics with this guy. So there's several threads here. I want to pull on that you have been through and seen so much that you'll just drop something like, yeah, I was following this Egyptian God for a while. It just piques my interest. I want to know how did a certain Egyptian God come into play for you? At what point?

Jac Marino Chen: It's so interesting because this Egyptian deity was called Thoth. One by other names like Dahoudi and Tahoudi, but basically this Egyptian quote-unquote, "deity" with an Ibis head and was known as the scribe and the God of magic.

I don't remember the exact day when this being quote-unquote came into my life, but it became so clear that this being was my friend and my guide. At that point, I had gotten so deep into this stuff after my twin, quote unquote twin flame. And I separated in a very, very confusing way, manipulative way. I didn't see it like that at the time. He said he would come back from me. All he knew was that he loved me, but he had to go on this quest and then, and all that he knew was our connection. And how could I doubt it? I could never doubt it, but no one would understand. So I'm in this world of just so tripped out.

When that relationship ended, I was alone in a studio apartment in the Hollywood general area. And I just dug deep into the occult thinking, "Clearly something isn't working." I felt like my Christian quote-unquote dogma that I'd come to believe that it was, just my upbringing, was holding me back from true spiritual liberation.

So when I'd go to these festivals with this man and I couldn't go to these tantric festivities, which are just sexual immorality.

Eric Huffman: Like orgies?

Jac Marino Chen: Yes.

Eric Huffman: Really?

Jac Marino Chen: Tantra would be argued that it's this beautiful yogic thing, but it's all about uniting the divine masculine energy with the divine feminine. So like yin and yang. And it goes into this deep, profound-sounding thing, but at the end of the day, it's these sexual activities that are just repurposed to sound like these beautiful spiritual ways to ascend. And so I thought it was noble, and I felt so embarrassed that I didn't feel at all comfortable, and I couldn't get myself.

Eric Huffman: And that was that, in your mind, that was the old Christian voice in your head keeping you from true liberation.

Jac Marino Chen: Yes. And I was so upset. I felt like it was this glass ceiling holding me back.

Eric Huffman: So that was sort of the pivot point from like, what I would say, spiritual-ish experiences that are drug-induced to more occult-like practices.

Jac Marino Chen: Yes.

Eric Huffman: Yeah, that is an inflection point, if you think about it, like from just seeking experiences to actually going out and practicing I guess worship rituals and things like that. Is that what happened next?

Jac Marino Chen: Yes. yeah. I really don't have words for how dark and confusing and empty I felt when that relationship ended. My whole identity was wrapped up in this person. At that time, my dad was homeless in Hollywood, and I was his responsible party. And when it would rain, I would just feel crushingly empty. I'm thinking, "I'm supposed to have control over my reality and clearly this isn't working, so I just need to go deeper and just cast off any..." Really it was God's grace holding me back from doing things, but I need to cast it off. And so I got really obsessed.

My family was supporting me at this time. I dropped out of college, so I had all the time and I just spent all my time on the computer looking up. There was a lot of from Mason's Masonic literature, Hermetic texts which basically has to do with this being called Hermes Tris Magistus, which is an amalgamation of Hermes, the Greek god, and then Thoth, the Egyptian god. And so that had to do with the Egyptian deity worshiping.

And at this point, I was so out of my mind that things would glow to me. At this point too was believing these entities that I'd known my whole life wanted to use my body and see through my eyes and I was regularly practicing channeling and wanting them to use me. I didn't know what was physical reality and what was just me seeing things. But things would physically glow to me that were the next thing I was supposed to do.

And that's not surprising because of how much I was asking for these kinds of experiences and begging and pleading. And I was in this metaphysical store and these tarot cards were glowing to me and they were the Thoth Tarot deck by Alastair Crowley.

And I'd been reading stuff by Aleister Crowley. I just kind of kept being led and drawn to this man, but I knew that he was called the wickedest man in the world. So I thought, you know, well... I was making these arbitrary just like lines in the sand. Well, maybe that's bad.

But I was so drawn to this tarot deck that it became my new everything. I was obsessed with it. I was trying to take it into my psyche. I learned to do readings and I already was so obsessed with this deity, Thoth, who... it's hard to explain other than that everything that glowed, I believed he was the one basically touching or leading me to. I just felt such a worship.

Eric Huffman: So the beings that had been with you since childhood, you started to perceive later in life that they wanted something from you, that they wanted to use your body, to see through your eyes. Did they tell you that?

Jac Marino Chen: Yeah, not verbally, but telepathically.

Eric Huffman: And how would that work? Would you sense them possessing you?

Jac Marino Chen: I would have never called it possession because I still had that enough knowledge to know possession bad. But I just really thought it was noble. I thought I had made an agreement with them before I'd been born for them to use my body. And so I thought it was like noble, which is so awful.

I would go into these trance-like states asking them to enter my body and then I would channel and say things and write things as them communicating to me.

Eric Huffman: Wow. You had that going on internally and then you had these influences like the tarot, the training I guess you did with tarot readings and Aleister Crowley who is notorious, at least I've learned later in life. My wife sort of turned me on to his writings just as a cautionary tale kind of. And so where did that lead you? What was sort of the first step into actual like occult practice?

Jac Marino Chen: It was such a slow burn. It was such a gradual throughout my life that by the time I was reading Aleister Crowley, people get so mad when I say Crowley, but it's technically Crowley because he was English, but that's okay. But his slow burn into getting where I was, that it didn't seem that bad. Like I just thought he was misunderstood because I placed one on top of the other of these teachings.

Anyway, on the tarot deck, I learned about, or in a booklet in it, I learned about an order called the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, which was a magical order founded by three master Freemasons where they practiced these magical arts. And I just felt so drawn as though that was my next step because it was basically everything that I'd been led by who I believed to be Thoth to study like alchemy, which basically is about changing your soul from lead to gold or from this mundane state to this union with divine state, basically trying to get yourself to God and magic and tarot and astrology.

All the things that I'd been led to were part of this order. But because Aleister Crowley had been in it, I was like, "I don't know, I feel like maybe that's bad." So I went to a Rosicrucian meeting. And Rosicrucians are more philosophical mystics. So it has been said that what Rosicrucians believe the Hermetic Order practices, so was more like practical magic where Rosicrucianism says that it's Christian, like a Christian organization in a sense, but it's mysticism and it's brings in alchemy and magic and all the things.

So when I went to that meeting, it seemed almost right, but like not quite like Goldilocks or something.

Eric Huffman: What's the meeting like?

Jac Marino Chen: It was very strange.

Eric Huffman: How many people are we talking about and where?

Jac Marino Chen: Oh man, this was in Hollywood. Man, I would say at least 50 people. It was in this lodge called... it was either the Hermes Lodge or the Thoth Lodge. I believe it was a Hermes Lodge.

Eric Huffman: Like a Masonic Lodge?

Jac Marino Chen: No, this was just a building. But they had devoted it to the being that I'd been following. So I was like, "This is such a sign." Everything was a sign in the new age in the occult. Basically, I had to learn a certain step to go in, which I was self-conscious in front of everyone walking in in a certain ritualistic way and then going to sit down.

Eric Huffman: Can you just wander in? Sorry to interrupt you. Can you just wander in off the street, or do you have to be invited?

Jac Marino Chen: No, this was an open meeting. They would say when the student is ready, the teacher appears, which is a saying that they say, which is ridiculous. But because I'd been led to these things, I was led to looking up this specific order. So I found that they had a secret meeting.

I would argue that they believe that no one would be quote-unquote called to look up that meeting unless they'd been called to it because it's so niche and private and secret.

Eric Huffman: Again, everything's a sign.

Jac Marino Chen: Exactly. Yeah.

Eric Huffman: Divinely ordained.

Jac Marino Chen: You're meant to be there. Right. And it was just kind of like a peanut gallery of people. We all at the end had to do this meditation together and it just felt very icky, which is wild to say based on all that I was in. But I left with a bad taste in my mouth. I felt violated as... it's hard to explain. I just felt very looked into or violated and I felt weird about the whole thing.

And that was kind of the last straw for me of I just need to... or I'm sorry. Then I was walking and I... this might have even been before. I was walking and I saw a Masonic temple. The whole building glowed to me. I didn't know it was Masonic temple. I just thought it was a temple... or I'm sorry. I just thought it was a building. And I found out it was a Masonic temple. So I wrote this very long email, which is a very... it's a peek into my mind state at that time about, "I've been called to this my whole life. I'd like to join."

They let me know that there's no Masonic order or Masonic... that women can't be Freemasons in America. So they pointed me to the order of the Eastern Star, which is their women organization, but their symbol has an upside-down pentagram. So I thought, "Well, I don't like that." So then I was like, "I just needed to stop running from it and join the hermetic order."

So then I looked up that order and they happened to have a chapter in Los Angeles or an order, they would say. I met with a man at a coffee shop called Alfred in Silver Lake and everything that he talked to me about from, you know, alchemy and magic and Egyptian deities like Thoth, was just what I'd been being led to. So for the first time I can have a conversation with someone I don't feel absolutely insane. And I felt like this is clearly, this is clearly where I'm being led. And so he said, "Okay, this Sunday come to the Masonic temple and you'll be initiated into the order."

Eric Huffman: Okay. In my experience, you talk about taking people off, talking about the Freemasons, Eastern star.

Jac Marino Chen: Totally.

Eric Huffman: Like there's a lot of Bible totem Christians that claim fealty to those entities. And they would say, a lot of them would say, you know, this is just alarmism. If you start to, you know, concoct conspiracies against this group that does so much good for so many ways, like there's no dark side to this, you know, just kind of stop making stuff up. What do you say to people that are like, yeah, the Freemasons and Eastern star, it's just good people doing good things.

Jac Marino Chen: Yeah. Well, I would say, one, I think of the symbol vitriol, which probably just sounds like words, but it's the symbol that Masons use that has to do with alchemy. So the beliefs that are tied in at the very, very least, it's not a Christian organization.

If you can be yoked to brethren in different religions, if what you're doing are these rituals, really ceremonially talking about this person who supposedly has this legend, like all the things that go on, even at the basics, even in the Blue Lodge, are not Christian.

But I would say I wasn't a Freemason. I practiced magic in the Masonic temple. But the reason why we practiced it in the Masonic temple is because this hermetic order was founded by Master Masons. And so much of our ritual and liturgy for lack of better word, and ceremony was modeled after Masonic things.

So the reason why we're in the Masonic temple is because the room that we practice rituals in the, I just called the ritual room, it was set up with the same symbolism, the checkerboard floor is about unifying duality, which was a central part. The two pillars, which are in Freemasonry, Jochen and Boaz. It was in the Golden Dawn, which was, it's again about unifying duality, which is the core of the occult.

And so these symbols were in Masonry, sure, maybe they're not going as deep. I would just argue there was a reason why we were practicing these magical rituals. And sure, I'm not saying that all Freemasons are practicing hermetic Golden Dawn ceremonies, but-

Eric Huffman: Most of them might not know.

Jac Marino Chen: Exactly. I come from a family that is rich with Freemasons. And so I get that my grandpa was a Mason, this was a Mason. And of course, maybe they don't know, but I would encourage anyone to really look into it. There's a website about ex-Masons for Jesus. And they just describe no alarmism, nothing like wild, just basic reasons why this is opposed to biblical Christianity.

Eric Huffman: And if you have Jesus, why do you need something else?

Jac Marino Chen: Exactly. And it's not a religion, but it's about making it to basically heaven. There's a lot of cognitive dissonance going on, I think.

Eric Huffman: Right. It's probably like a lot of things, the deeper you get into it, the darker it gets.

Jac Marino Chen: Right.

Eric Huffman: So I interrupted your story about being invited to be initiated. What was the initiative? I have like movie scenes from like dark, scary movies or Eyes Wide Shut or something. What was it like in real life?

Jac Marino Chen: Probably similar.

Eric Huffman: Really?

Jac Marino Chen: It's funny because, well, again, I wasn't airdropped in. It was this long thing. So by the time I'm there, it just didn't seem like that big of a deal. Plus, I'd been in a sorority, which I'm not saying is the same thing. But I was used to like the ritual and the strange blindfolding and secrets and the whole thing.

So I got there and I still remember the way it looked and smelled. And there's a lady at the top of the stairs. It's called a black tall robe, but it's a black robe with the hood kind of like the Grim Reaper. I don't know, just like the black robe. There were a lot of candles. And she led me into a room once I had put on my black robe and I had to bring my own red socks, which my husband always thinks is so funny that I had to go to a sporting goods store and go buy my red socks.

Eric Huffman: What are the red socks about?

Jac Marino Chen: The red socks they believe that it symbolizes how Moses was standing on red sand when he stood on holy ground.

Eric Huffman: Goodness. Really?

Jac Marino Chen: And that the temple that where you practice magic is holy ground.

Eric Huffman: So they're tying in Bible to this as much as they can.

Jac Marino Chen: A ton. But bookly. So yeah. So then we're, I'm in this room with it all on and told to become one with god and one with love while I prepare. And in the ritual room, I would call it is I can hear yelling and men's voices and knocks and specific words. And then I was hoodwinked and I had a cord tied around me and I was led into the temple, the room. It was just very ritualistic, ceremonial, theatrical event.

Eric Huffman: Were you the only initiate?

Jac Marino Chen: I was. Yeah. I felt really special. I remember even writing my journal, like, "All these people are here to initiate me and I've been called to this." And they're saying, I've been called to the great work, which is this thing in alchemy. AIt just makes you feel very like-

Eric Huffman: Special.

Jac Marino Chen: Yes, this is it. This is a thing. I really fed my pride to thinking, "Who else has gone through this?" Thinking that's a good thing.

Eric Huffman: It's restoring identity that was lost in a way.

Jac Marino Chen: Right? Yeah. That's a great point. The ritual in it, I was sworn to secrecy. I truly thank God that I'm saved because even talking about this, even I recently was writing a book and writing about this is so... it was scary.

Eric Huffman: Did it take a lot out of you to talk about it?

Jac Marino Chen: It's more when I get to this part, it was so heavy, the ritual, and there's so much fear instilled in me about talking about it, that I praise God that Jesus is so far above all that darkness. And then He calls us to expose Him for works of darkness. And it truly was works of darkness. But told so much throughout it. They used John 1:5 about the light has come to the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it, but they twist it to mean you have to go into the darkness to shine the light of knowledge.

So it's not bad that you're going into the darkness, you're shining light of knowledge. It only seems dark because you haven't illuminated it with knowledge. A sword was held to my neck as I swore this long oath never to share what went on in the order, giving the powers that they named the authority to give me diseases and spiritual harm if I ever talked about it.

Eric Huffman: Goodness.

Jac Marino Chen: There was this other part where they literally did a chemical mixing where a liquid would turn from clear to look like blood to, again, illustrate if you talk about this, this is what will happen to you. So all that to say, there's so much pomp and theatrics that I'm not surprised people don't talk about this if they've been through it because you are instilled with fear, this demonic spiritual fear that if you ever expose what has done in darkness, you will be hurt. And that was a huge part, which we'll get to of my salvation was realizing that I thought I was so deep in darkness that I could never be pulled out. And yet just like that, Jesus pulled me out.

Eric Huffman: Do you ever feel afraid about talking about this stuff? Like, are you in danger?

Jac Marino Chen: I would say sometimes I do. While I was writing my book, I texted my pastor because I was like, "I just want some feedback." But I know the truth. Like when I'm in the word, I know the truth, which is that I know... And I know also from my testimony that Jesus is truly above the spiritual forces. I know He created all things. I know that He's far above all rule and authority and power and dominion and every name that is named. So I might've sworn to these evil beings, which I believe do exist, but Jesus is over and above them.

So when it comes to fearing man, my husband helps me so much with praying through, like I'm going to die one day. Bottom line, we all are. So whether that's tomorrow because someone's mad at me or when I'm really old, like either way, I'm going to die and I know where I'm going.

Obviously, I'm a weak human, so sometimes it does scare me, but at the end of the day, I'm called to fear God and not man. But spiritually I know who's in control. And I know that anything that happens to me has to first pass through God's hand because he's the sovereign one, not these beings. So spiritually I take comfort in knowing who my God is.

Eric Huffman: Amen. So thus far with this initiation that and the group you were initiated into, you've talked about sort of a fixation on blood and sex, it sounds like, played a big role in it bastardizing biblical truth. It sounds like that played a role in it. I'm dragging Moses and Jesus and others through the mud. What changed after the initiation? What did your life look like after that?

Jac Marino Chen: It kind of just continued on as normal at that point because I was so already ingrained in this. But then now I learned different rituals where I'm banishing, I'm invoking. I learned rituals to do every single day that took up so much of my time every morning. And I was so devoted to it, drawing pentagrams to banish and protect.

There was so much work that now my whole really life, even if it was Christmas, even if I'm traveling, even if I'm at a festival where I'm singing or something, I'm doing the rituals because that's who I am and that's what I do. And so really it was, I would say, enslaved to continually every day, multiple times a day, practicing rituals, going to the houses of the higher ups to go to tarot festivals, going to other people's initiation rituals at the temple, going to something called conclave where we'd meet for many, many hours, like eight hours to do practice magic together, learn from, they're called the [adepti?].

Basically, they're the people who are high up in the order where the first word of their rank, it starts with adept and they would teach us all these things. And so it had to do with invoking Thoth, invoking different Egyptian deities. We'd have to get down on our knees offering incense to golden statue of Isis, which is an Egyptian quote-unquote goddess. Just awful things that I thought were not bad because I thought that they were not worshiping the goddess. We're just trying to embody the energy. All these justifications, biblical justifications even.

Eric Huffman: Would they evoke the name of Jesus?

Jac Marino Chen: So according to the literature that I was given, Jesus, it literally said cannot... the Christianity has it wrong. Jesus cannot offer vicarious atonement. Jesus is a type to become. So we used Jesus, but Jesus was not Jesus. Jesus was a type like Osiris, which was this being that we offered Eucharist to, which is truly so awful.

Christ just became an energy, kind of like Christ consciousness that you then become your own savior by becoming Christ. So I got to the point where I awfully believes that I could be Jesus.

Eric Huffman: Yeah. Christ is sort of esoteric spiritual manifestation that probably, according to that theory, has appeared through many religions, right? The Christ spirit was on Buddha. The Christ spirit was on other, you know, these Egyptian deities and you know, the cosmic Christ kind of principle or Christ consciousness where, yeah, we're not trying to follow Jesus, we are Jesus. We are Christ in a way.

Jac Marino Chen: And what was so interesting to me is, so as I'm in this order, I start having these, as Elisa Childers says, pebbles in my shoe because I'm learning about the story of Osiris and it's nothing like the little I know about Jesus. I'm reading these Bible verses, but I'm not understanding how what we're doing aligns with that. So I was already starting to think... the deeper I get, I kept thinking I was going to gain all the answers, but they're using a lot of Bible. They clearly recognize and think there's power in this. They're trying to recreate the temple in the ritual room. They're trying to suck this power out of the Bible.

And no matter where I went in the occult, there was Bible verses. Someone was trying to use the Bible. So I'm thinking, "Okay, clearly there's something to this, but this isn't working." I'm still having... At that point I was having terrifying, terrifying experiences with these beings.

Eric Huffman: Really?

Jac Marino Chen: Yeah.

Eric Huffman: At the gatherings when you would do the magic together, were there... I mean, I guess what the average person wants to know is there must be some reason why you kept doing it. Does it work? Like, is there real power in it that you could see? Like, were you manifesting things? Were you changing the course of things?

Jac Marino Chen: To an extent, things were happening. There was clearly powers happening. There was a time when we did the invocation of Thoth and I could physically see this being manifest and things like that.

During the invocation of Isis, there was prophecy given and a person embodied and channeled this being, and it seemed somewhat right. Like, for example, one thing that really bothered me was that during conclave, when we'd be done with a magical ceremony or teaching, there would be a smoke break. And so many of the higher-ups would be outside smoking cigarettes. And I'm thinking, "I'm addicted to cigarettes and I know many people are addicted to cigarettes. And I don't know one person who wants to be addicted to cigarettes."

So if you have the power to control all of reality in the universe and the magician has rulership and authority, how are we addicted to cigarettes? Things like that, not that, you know, whatever.

Eric Huffman: Sure. I hear what you're saying. It was a clue.

Jac Marino Chen: And then in my own life, I'm supposed to be gaining all this power and authority. And yet I was becoming more wicked and depraved. I truly both started to believe at that point that I was possessed because I remember looking in the mirror and hearing this voice that was mine say, "It's crazy how evil becomes you." Because I had kept kind of justifying what I was doing. "Is it evil? I don't know if it's evil. I'm going to find out. I want to find out for myself." But it wasn't just that I'm doing evil. Like I was evil me.

Eric Huffman: And the voice said that to you.

Jac Marino Chen: Mm-mmh.

Eric Huffman: Wow. That's haunting.

Jac Marino Chen: Yeah.

Eric Huffman: It's crazy how evil becomes you?

Jac Marino Chen: Mm.

Eric Huffman: That's stuck with you. You've remembered it all this time.

Jac Marino Chen: Yes. It was not a good time in my life. And I kept, again, trying to tell myself, "No, this is good. No, I'm getting power. Who else has done this?" But inside I was this wicked, addicted, enslaved, lost person.

Eric Huffman: Thank you for sharing all that. I'm sure it's not easy to revisit it, but as we were talking before we started rolling, it's all for a greater purpose now. So when did all of that wickedness and emptiness lead you to the point of reaching out to Jesus?

Jac Marino Chen: The best part. I was so deep in this. I don't even have words for how lost and empty I was, but thinking I was so powerful, thinking I was connecting with God, thinking I'd never been as close to God. And my grandpa came to visit and I didn't even know him that well, but he sat us, my cousin and I down and he said to me, "What's your relationship with God like?" And I said, "Oh, I've never been this close to God. I'm reading the Quran. I'm reading the Bible. I'm looking into all this stuff." And he just so soberly said, "Jesus is the way, the truth and the life. And no one comes to the father except through Him."

Eric Huffman: He just laid it out.

Jac Marino Chen: I was so mad. I thought, "How ignorant and rude?" And I was shaking. But it didn't really matter what I thought because then as I'm going to the temple and I'm practicing these things, I'm thinking that. And something just struck me and I knew it was true. And everywhere I went, it seemed like they tried to drag Jesus into it.

And then because we were using the Bible so much in rituals in all of it, I thought, "I might as well just read this for myself. I mean, clearly there's something going on here." So I read, I believe it was in Matthew 7, that you can tell a tree by its fruit. I didn't really know what that meant, but I knew that my fruit was very bad. And I knew that even the people that I loved and were so kind and were my community in the order, they were just as depraved as me. They were just as searching and lost and hurting as I was.

Even the highest up in the order, they didn't have all the answers, like they were just as lost. So that really bothered me as I'm going and as I'm practicing. I'm thinking, "How can this be the answer when it's bad fruit?" And then I read that in 2 Corinthians 11:14, that Satan masquerades as an angel of light. And I had had a serious love for the darkness problem from the aliens to thinking maybe Lucifer was behind what I was doing, but maybe he's good. Like I had gotten so twisted and I was afraid that I loved evil because also my past relationships and my whole life I was thinking, "Am I drawn to something dark? But I want to find out for myself. I don't know..." I just kept justifying it.

But when I read that, Satan masquerades or Satan disguises himself as an angel of light, that was what he was disguising himself as. And I just thought, "This isn't the Bible." I just knew it's Satan behind what I'm doing. But I was so prideful in my practice. "I'm good at this. How can I leave it? I don't know what will be left if you take me out."

Eric Huffman: Yeah, the whole narrative is so muddy in that world, as best I understand it, is that they portray Lucifer as the good guy.

Jac Marino Chen: Yeah, they do.

Eric Huffman: And that the God of the Bible is sort of the stick in the mud, bad guy. And Lucifer wants us to be liberated and free. You see that everywhere. People may or may not know it, but it's out there. In the writings of Glennon Doyle, where she wants to recast the Genesis 3 story, as Eve was doing something powerful and good when she took the apple, and that every woman should take the apple and eat like she is. She's claiming to be a Christian author and recasting the whole.

So, it's easy to get confused if you're not grounded in scripture. It's interesting to me, your whole life, you had sort of identified as a Christian, but never really read the Bible.

Jac Marino Chen: Right, exactly.

Eric Huffman: All along, the answers you really were seeking were in that book that you had never really explored. And that has been my experience as a pastor, as a person, I did the same thing, and it wasn't until I really read the Bible that I saw the truth that I was missing. And so, yeah, it's understandable why you would be easily duped and confused.

Jac Marino Chen: And I love that you brought up Genesis 3, because that was the next thing where I was just in my apartment, and all of a sudden... like the same studio apartment, and all of a sudden, I just remembered Genesis 3 out of nowhere, that the lie that the serpent said that you will not die, but if you eat from the tree with the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil, you'll be like God, knowing good and evil. And that was the heart of what I was being taught in the occult, darkness and light, a black and white duality that it needs to be integrated, that you need to eat from both to gain divinity, basically.

And I was thinking, "This is not some new thing. This is the same lie told by the same enemy, and it led to the fall, it was a lie, and it's leading to the fall in me." And I just knew, again, that this is evil, that Satan is behind this, but I was still, again, too prideful to turn. I just thought, "Well, I guess it is what it is. Then this is my life."

Eric Huffman: You were too deep in it, in a way.

Jac Marino Chen: I really thought I dug myself in a pit so deep that I even thought not even Jesus could save me. Like, I truly had that belief and that's where I was.

Eric Huffman: Wow. When did that tension finally break?

Jac Marino Chen: One day, just actually night, just like any other night, I was in my studio apartment and I was walking across my studio and I was spiritually attacked, which wasn't out of the normal for me, but this time it was so powerful that I just collapsed to my knees and it felt like my soul was being sucked out of me, like pulled out of me into just utter darkness, and I had no control over it.

And I heard myself cry out, "Jesus Christ, save me." And in that moment, just like that, I felt the peace that I'd been searching for my whole life. And I knew that it was the God of the Bible, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit who had saved me. And I was shocked that in that horrible darkness, He just saved me.

I also was aware if this God is real, then He's right, that what I've been doing is just sin against Him. And so I was shaking. I basically crawled over to my bed where there was a Bible under it and started reading, starting in Genesis. I really had so much pride. I was really so sinful. And I just thought, "I've learned the secret meaning, the coded meaning of the Bible, but I'm just going to read it anyway." But it really didn't matter what I thought because God's word just pierced my heart.

And for my whole life, reading all these texts had left me emptier and emptier, but for the first time, it was like my soul was being fed. And I just was hungry. Again, I wasn't working at it all the time. So I just started reading through the Bible.

Eric Huffman: Gosh, there's such mercy in that story.

Jac Marino Chen: Yes.

Eric Huffman: And just how you told it, it hit me how you said it just now, because you said, I heard myself cry out. It was like, it wasn't even you crying out. It was something, it was your conscience or the spirit interceding or something. Like you were so desperate, but still so prideful. Like you needed some kind of intercession or some supernatural grace.

Jac Marino Chen: I think of the verse that says, He saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to His own mercy. So I did not do anything to make myself right with God or get there, or I didn't figure it out and turn. I was in my pride and in my sin. Jesus Christ saved me.

And I think about the verse talking about calling those who call on the Lord Jesus Christ. It truly amazes me, like I really did not... that whole time I just thought all these wrong things about Jesus. But even in just that simple moment, because I had already been having people speak into my life and testify, I finally understood that God is perfect and holy and all-powerful and amazing. And He is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. And that I had sinned, like grievously sinned and rebelled and gone my own way and sinned against Him. And that there was, there is a just punishment for that sin, and that real place that I was headed for is hell.

That's a very real place of outer darkness. But God is love. And that he sent his only begotten Son, Jesus Christ, the only true Jesus Christ, the only Jesus Christ that exists, born to a virgin who lived a perfect sinless life. Even though He was tempted like us, he never sinned. And He went to the cross where He was betrayed and beaten and mocked and scourged and crucified.

And where He bore sin and the wrath of God in the place of sinners, that just punishment that I truly deserve for my sin on Jesus Christ, that He died, was buried, rose on the third day, seen by so many eyewitnesses, and then ascended to the right hand of God, the Father as the one and only mediator between God and man. Like, knowing who Jesus really is, the only real Jesus is what made all the difference for me because I thought I knew Jesus that whole time, but I had no desire to turn from sin and put faith in Him because I didn't understand the beauty of what the true Jesus has done in the place of sinners like me.

Eric Huffman: You also hadn't really stopped to consider the darkness of your own depravity.

Jac Marino Chen: Right. And even if I knew it, I was so prideful in it. And I didn't think that there was a Savior who could pull me out of it. I genuinely didn't know that there was a Savior who would want to or had the power to save me out of it.

Eric Huffman: Yeah. I had an experience that... our stories are very different, but there's some similarities. And I was pretending to be a Christian, pretending to be a pastor for 13 years. And those 13 years, I was in Kansas City, I was telling you before we started rolling. And I was in the Methodist Church, ordained and all of that. But I did not believe in things like the resurrection, things like God's sovereignty, I need to submit. And I just continued in sin.

And I just sort of justified it. I thought as long as I keep helping the poor, as long as I keep speaking up for the powerless, I was a very kind of progressive activist at that time. And as long as I keep running the soup kitchen and working with urban youth and making their lives a little better, then I can watch all the porn I want, I was like, "God understands."

I mean, "If God is cool, like I am," that was my thinking, "then He made me the way that I am for these appetites and everything." It never occurred to me that the idea of being permitted into God's presence, unvarnished presence in heaven, while objectifying and using His daughters, women He made in His image, like that dissonance never occurred to me.

Then Jesus saved me. A very similar experience where I just hit my knees in Capernaum in the Holy Land of all places. And people ask me about that experience. And I talk about it being at once wholly freeing and joyful and horrifying, because it was only then that He put my sin before me and showed me, mercifully showed me how deep the darkness had been. And what an affront that was to Him for years. And not just the acts themselves of porn and all this idolatry, but my own pride. And justifying it for years and misleading others with the way that I lived and spoken.

And if you're listening and watching and going, "I don't want that," it's like, no, no, no, listen to the whole thing because He shows you that to open your eyes to the depth of His grace. Like, this is what I saved you from. And despite what you've done, my Son died for you. And so there's a mercy in showing us, you know, our darkness and bringing us into the light. And then, you know, we have a story to tell. We have a testimony that the world needs to hear it because the world's full of people walking in darkness, just like you and I have.

Jac Marino Chen: Right. And I love that you used the word "submit" because I think it's such a dirty word in our culture, but at the heart of it was, I wanted to be my own. I wanted to do what I wanted. I wanted to be my own God. I wanted to be the sovereign of my own life. But it is so beautiful to submit to the Lord because He is the best. He is the one who knows what is best. He is truly God. We make awful gods. We really do. And our own way is not as good as we think it is.

So I'm just so glad you said that because at the heart of it, I think coming to that place of submission. And I'm so glad that you emphasize His grace because He's so amazing that there's no... I don't have the words to tell, to testify of how incredible, merciful, righteous, lovely, amazing He is.

Eric Huffman: He's good. Fundamentally. And every good thing has always come from Him. And here we are just taking it for granted. Or taking credit for it or whatever. He's always taken care of us and I've just been a jerk. I've just betrayed, denied, ignored Him, offended Him, and yet He remains steadfast and ready to forgive. So, wow. Thank you for that.

That's beautiful. And I'm curious what changed for you because you were so deep in that other world and then Jesus gets ahold of you and calls you home. Do you go back to the hermetic order and say, "By the way, guys?" Or do you just stop going and then do you go to church? What happened then?

Jac Marino Chen: I was loved for my story to be "and then that day I packed it all up and turned from it all," but that's sadly not my story. I continued in the order and started listening to sermons and reading the Bible. By the time I had read a lot of the Bible, I realized I could get sober, which sounds like not a big deal, but I had been addicted, enslaved, even at times when I was in the order and wasn't able to do drugs during magic, I was still living for the escape.

And so to think that I could get sober, not because of me, I'd failed so many times, but because God is with me. And I just locked myself away in my studio apartment and got sober. And it was so hard, but God was with me. He was so kind when I would cry to Him for help. I remember opening the Bible and Him just speaking right to me in my pain, through His word, like so specifically. I was just like, "Wow, God, you are so real and so amazing and faithful and caring."

I started going to a church. I went to a couple of churches first before I landed in a solid church, very small church plant where the pastor, and his wife really took me through the scriptures. And I still had so much pride thinking I knew the secret meaning. And I didn't really understand how hell and different things, but they were just patient, faithful, preaching, taking me through the word, not sugarcoating the truth. And then-

Eric Huffman: Is it hard to find a church?

Jac Marino Chen: Yes. In Hollywood? Yes.

Eric Huffman: Yeah. Especially probably.

Jac Marino Chen: Yes. I actually went to a church first. I grew up in a Methodist church, and so I went to a Methodist church. But sadly, the only thing that they talked about, like truly the only thing that they talked about when I went was how they were going to change the board for LBGTQ rights and just never-

Eric Huffman: That was the whole message?

Jac Marino Chen: Right. There was no Bible opened.

Eric Huffman: How'd that hit you when you were on this journey?

Jac Marino Chen: I was so hungry for the truth and the word. And I just thought, "Okay, so this is church, this is Christianity." I felt so sad and defeated and discouraged. And I just went home like, "Okay, well, maybe this isn't the answer. I know that God is real, but maybe church isn't the answer." But God is so kind and faithful that I'm so thankful that I did find a solid church. But yes, that was very discouraging.

Eric Huffman: Oh, sure.

Jac Marino Chen: So yeah.

Eric Huffman: It's a good reminder. My church just came out of the Methodist denomination and for reasons like you're describing, I mean, to a lesser extent here in Texas. But I know in not every Methodist church is like that, but a lot of the Methodist churches have been, and other denominations have been overtaken by the woke parade, I guess.

And just sort of taking their eye off the ball and people are desperate just for the plain gospel. It's really not that hard to grow a church and reach the lost these days because the bar is so low. Just give them the gospel and leave your politics and stuff out of it and just keep it simple. And yet we just keep getting in our own way.

Jac Marino Chen: Yes. I was so hungry.

Eric Huffman: I'm glad you kept looking. Because a lot of people I think might try and then realize, maybe the church isn't what they need.

Jac Marino Chen: Right. And it was scary, of course, going to church and all that.

Eric Huffman: For sure.

Jac Marino Chen: But truly by the grace of God, there was a pastor earlier in my story before I was truly saved that I'd heard on the radio and I thought, "What is this? This is true." And then I found out it was a pastor and thought, "Wait, this is Christianity?" Like just so confused.

But I started listening to that pastor online. And one day I was on a walk at Griffith by the Hollywood sign, which I did all the time, and I can still remember exactly where I was when he started talking about being lukewarm, having one foot in the church and one foot in your life and that you have to turn from it all and forsake it all and follow Jesus.

And I was so convicted that I can't... because the order kept trying to justify this is Christian. This is biblical. See the Bible. They just, you know, all the things, I was genuinely confused. But the Lord convicted me so strongly that right then when I went to church that Sunday, I went up and I talked to the associate pastor and said, "I'm saved, but I'm in this stuff and I just want to walk away from it all and follow Jesus and get baptized and whatever it is."

So from there I reached out to the order and I said, you know, "I'm walking..." or I said, "I'm leaving." And they say, you can't leave because you've basically... I don't think they use the word covenanted, but basically like you have made this oath, you're part of this spiritually but you can walk away. So in my mind, I'm thinking, "Whatever you want to call it, I'm not coming back." So that was that.

And I did have them, you know, reach out to me, try to pull me back in. You've been called to this, but just no. Got baptized. And from there, I really see myself just running after the Lord, really involved in the church. And I just see the Lord's kindness to sanctify me and just how different it was my growth when I was isolated in my studio apartment versus when I was under the preaching of the word in the fellowship, having people speaking to my life, seeing me. I really grew.

Eric Huffman: Well, it's interesting to me about your story compared to others that, you know, might be in the same category is that yours is so recent. You're still so young. And this all happened in the age of the iPhone. You know, my dark years were... we were still taking pictures with cameras and stuff and no social media. And so there's not the same, I guess, catalog of videos and things I can point back to and say, "Look who I was."

But you really went through your darkest times in the age of, you know, I guess, Facebook, Instagram, whatever. And so there are videos and reels and pictures and posts of everything you've talked about pretty much that you've put on your own Instagram channel and things. And that adds a certain level of credence to what you're saying.

Sometimes I think people get used to hearing Christians tell really, you know, really fantastic stories about our conversions. Yours is documented.

Jac Marino Chen: Mm-hmm. And really in God's just sovereignty, because the reason why I recorded myself and so often is because I was so isolated. I didn't know who to tell these things to. I didn't know what to say. I have a video of me on my way to get initiated talking about it because I didn't have anyone else to tell. So just in his sovereignty, now I can use it to testify and show this is what a person in this state of mind sounds like, and this is why it's not actually good.

Eric Huffman: So if you're watching or listening and you want to know more about Jac's story here and the legitimacy of it, check out those old posts. It's not even old posts. Like your pinned post on Instagram is sort of montage of a lot of those clips. And what stood out to me, I don't know if you feel this way, I just see a whole different person.

Jac Marino Chen: Absolutely.

Eric Huffman: Like a whole different person. There's a darkness in your eyes. There's a different effect than the person sitting before me now.

Jac Marino Chen: Right. The reality of, I believe it's 2 Corinthians 5:17, like whoever's in Christ is a new creation. I'm so glad that's true because the condemnation that you can feel thinking about your past. I mean, if you're listening to this and you've been in darkness, you know, sexual abuse, done terrible things, been in depraved addiction and all that comes with that, I get it. I truly understand.

But I believe it's Romans 8:1 that there's therefore now no condemnation for those in Christ. Those who are in Christ are a new creation. The old is passed away. The new is come. Like Jesus bore that on the cross. And I think so many people come to me and they just... whether they've come out of witchcraft or these dark things and they feel cursed. I mean, I can relate to that too.

And they just "how can I get clean? Is there anything else I need to do?" But look to the cross. Jesus Christ's blood is what cleanses us. He bore it all on the cross. There's nothing more than the gospel. There's nothing more powerful than what Christ has done. So continue fixing your eyes on Jesus and what He paid, what God paid for sinners.

Eric Huffman: Yeah. So how many years since you were baptized?

Jac Marino Chen: Oh man, what year is it now? Let me think here.

Eric Huffman: 2025.

Jac Marino Chen: Honestly, I'm so bad at math. I believe I was baptized January of 2017. So let me think. That's eight.

Eric Huffman: Eight years.

Jac Marino Chen: Eight years.

Eric Huffman: There you go. And how long have you been sober?

Jac Marino Chen: Eight years. I believe it was in May. So yeah, just eight years.

Eric Huffman: Yeah. And you brought a boy with you today, who is a great man. We were going to bring him in to be a part of this at the very end. I think you're off the hook, Josh. No worries. But we're short on time, but tell us a little bit about Josh and how he came into your life.

Jac Marino Chen: So we met... actually I was in Hollywood. I was convicted that I had an idle problem with Hollywood after being there for a while because I loved it. I even wrote in my list of if I ever get married, he must want to live in Hollywood forever and love cats.

Eric Huffman: That's a tall ask.

Jac Marino Chen: But I came to Arizona once and I started really feeling like the Lord was calling me there for lack of better words. And as I was in the Bible, I was just convicted of these ways. I was clinging to my past in a sense and the music industry stuff I was doing there. And just really got to a point where I ended up moving to Arizona after the Lord made it very clear. I'd never been to where we live and I just looked up an apartment online and moved. And very soon after that, I met my husband on the worship team and we became best friends, in my opinion, very quickly.

Eric Huffman: Best friends, but not twin flames.

Jac Marino Chen: Oh yes. Praise the Lord.

Eric Huffman: Praise God.

Jac Marino Chen: And yeah, we just got along really well. We have a very funny story of a year of a situation ship, a friendship. I mean, the twin flame thing I would say was the hardest thing for me to really grow from because it was so confusing and painful. And I still, for a long time, believed we were that and he was coming back for me.

So the Lord has really used my husband to biblically walk me through these things. He's been so patient with me. And he was saved at a young age and was raised in the church, and we're just polar different backgrounds, but it's amazing how that doesn't... I always thought I needed someone who'd come from the same darkness as me and understood my darkness but I was so convicted that that is not biblical or true thinking. I need someone who knows Christ and who knows the light and can point me to truth, not someone who knows the darkness.

Eric Huffman: And sort of correct and clean up some of those bad teachings that had become ingrained in you over the years.

Jac Marino Chen: Yes.

Eric Huffman: So how honest were you with Josh when you were dating about everything that you had gone through and experienced?

Jac Marino Chen: Very. We were in the same... we actually co-led a growth group and we had a testimony night and he was there for my testimony. That was actually like when he started having feelings for me is after he heard my testimony, he just really felt like the Lord was putting me on his heart, I guess, for lack of better words.

And so he's known from very early on a lot of the details, I think, in an extent to what was appropriate at that time. But we'd already known each other so well that once we started dating, it was kind of just all on the table. I even sat him down and I said, "Okay, if you're going to date me and you know, I'm really messed up from this, this, this, this. And so it's totally up to you." And he just said, "All I know is that I believe the Lord is calling me to be in a relationship with you and He will work the rest out." And he was just so patient and confident in the Lord that it was amazing.

Eric Huffman: Praise God. Yeah. Shows a lot of maturity, spiritual maturity and trust in the Lord because, yeah, lesser men might've walked away. So praise God for men like Josh.

I think it's helpful to hear as we sort of wrap up and land the plane that for people that have struggled in darkness, when they come to Christ, it's not like a magic wand is waved and everything that was just goes away. You mentioned being and feeling like a new creation and that's a real thing. But you also mentioned like some of the bad, the bad code was still in your thinking as far as twin flame sort of went and other things that you sort of had to progress your way out of. What would you say to someone who's maybe in a situation or coming to Christ, but still working through some of the wrong thinking and some of the residual effects of sins of the past?

Jac Marino Chen: That is such a good point. And I know that it can feel daunting and heavy at times, but God is so faithful and He's truly faithful to complete the work that He began in us. It's true that once you're saved, you're born again, you're a new creation, and there's a very true realness to that. And yet there are memories and there is the reality of the past. And yet God even uses that to sanctify us, to make us more like Christ, to heal us.

I'm actually really glad. I mean, some people, you know, the moment they're saved, the addiction's gone, they have no taste for it and praise the Lord for that. That's amazing. I'm so thankful that that is not what the Lord planned for me, because in those very hard moments of say, getting sober and how just difficult that was, God met me in such intimate, beautiful ways, just me and the Lord.

Some of the most beautiful seasons of my life were some of the hardest because it was just me and the Lord. And I learned so much of His character and His kindness. And now even these things that I'm working through with my husband, it's truly a blessing in our marriage. Like we love working through it together. The Lord has blessed me with a man who genuinely loves talking about these things. It's a joy.

So trusting the Lord with your pain, trusting the Lord with your past, knowing it doesn't define you, Christ does. It doesn't have a hold on you anymore. You're new. But working through that with the Lord and also with someone you trust, like a pastor. My pastors have been so, so helpful and wonderful in pointing me to truth. And knowing that the Bible has spoken to these things.

I would be so amazed. I would say the weirdest things to my pastors, like the alien stuff, the order stuff and they didn't even flinch. They just opened to Ephesians 6 or just open the Bible. And we're like, "Well, this is what..." and that was so cool to me to think, "God, it speaks about these things. That's so wonderful."

Eric Huffman: Let's give a shout out to your church and your pastors. Who are they?

Jac Marino Chen: Aw. I go to Redeemer Bible Church. And so my pastor-

Eric Huffman: What city is it in Arizona?

Jac Marino Chen: Gilbert.

Eric Huffman: Gilbert, yeah.

Jac Marino Chen: The lead pastor is John Benzinger, but we have quite a few pastors. Truly all of them have been very helpful to me. I worked on staff once I moved there doing their internet stuff for about three years, I want to say. Again, the math thing. But just being there working and being able, like I have something come up, I can just go in the next office. Like they truly, especially before I got married, were so helpful. I praise the Lord.

And then my first church, Greg and Christine. They're actually the ones picking me up after this.

Eric Huffman: Really?

Jac Marino Chen: So I get to spend time with them. We still have a great relationship, and their faithfulness at that. It was a Calvary Chapel, Hollywood church plant.

Eric Huffman: Yeah.

Jac Marino Chen: Their faithfulness, the Lord deeply used in my life.

Eric Huffman: That's awesome. Well, Jac, I can't thank you enough, not just this interview, but what you do on a regular basis to share your story courageously, fearlessly. I'm sure it's exhausting at times to relive or retell some of those stories, but thank God for His mercy and grace.

Jac Marino Chen: Amen.

Eric Huffman: And I hope that folks listening and watching have really absorbed what you've said, because anybody walking in darkness needs to know there's hope. There's hope in Christ. So if somebody wanted more from you, you mentioned a book, maybe some other online resources, where would they find more of your work?

Jac Marino Chen: Thank you. I have a YouTube channel that is under Jac Marino Chen. Lord willing, I have a book coming out June 2026. I also have an Instagram also under Jac Marino Chen, but Lord willing, I hope to make more videos on my YouTube channel about these topics.

Eric Huffman: Awesome. Well, when it's time for the book to come out, let's have another conversation.

Jac Marino Chen: I'd love that.

Eric Huffman: Yeah. Maybe we'll bring it back to Houston or maybe we'll do it online or something.

Jac Marino Chen: Yeah. Great.

Eric Huffman: We'll put all those links in the show notes so everybody can find them easily.

Jac Marino Chen: Thank you.

Eric Huffman: And once again, Jac, sister, thank you so much for your faithfulness.

Jac Marino Chen: Thank you for having me.

Eric Huffman: Of course.