The former spiritualist, Johanna Michaelsen, who became a Christian said that her occult abilities continued to function even after her conversion. They only disappeared some months later, when she consciously renounced the gifts of Satan and any continued functioning of them. She was not impressed by the level of discernment she found among some of the Christians she came into contact with. She writes that in some of the meetings she attended, her abilities would be hailed as “the gift of the word of knowledge” and “the gift of prophesy.” Meanwhile, she herself was quite well aware that they had nothing at all to do with the Holy Spirit, but were nothing more nor less than clairvoyance and extra-sensory perception.
Such experiences ought to make it abundantly clear that there is an absolute need for the testing of prophecy or words of knowledge in the Christian church.
