In December 2023, Holy Spirit Led Ministries officially affiliated itself with the 2024 presidential campaign of Donald Trump. The Trump campaign proudly announced that the two founders of Holy Spirit Led Ministries, Patricia Lage and David Lage, had endorsed Donald Trump and joined his council of religious advisors in Iowa, an organization called the Iowa Faith Leader Coalition.
You may be wondering what kind of public policy expertise Holy Spirit Led Ministries brings to the Trump for President campaign. The professional credentials of David and Patricia Lage, it turns out, are not at all insubstantial
Patricia Lage claims to be able to raise the dead from the grave and bring them back to life. She also asserts that she can fight demons, and has the power to use Christian magic to disperse thunderstorms on command.
What’s more, Holy Spirit Led Ministries explains that both Patricia and David Lage have the special skill of identifying witches.
The organization recently shared a warning with its followers that they might be practicing witchcraft, but not even aware of it.
How can you identify a witch? Patricia Lage spelled it out.
If you’re Catholic, and use rosary beads to do a Hail Mary prayer, she says, you’re a witch.
If you do yoga to keep your joints limber, you’re a witch.
If you let your kids go trick-or-treating on Halloween, Patricia Lage says, you’re a witch.
If you hang a dream catcher in your bedroom, you’re a witch.
Patricia Lage warns that if you eat the fortune cookies that come along with your Chinese take-out meal, you’re a witch.
Fortune cookies? Yes, fortune cookies are part of an evil conspiracy of witches who are trying to take over the United States with their evil magical spells. If she’s right, the people who operate Chinese food restaurants across America must be part of the conspiracy. The workers at the printing companies that produce the little papers that go inside the fortune cookies must be in on the evil dark magic. They must be witches too, if Patricia Lage is to be believed.
Of course, Patricia Lage is not to be believed. Fortune cookies are not a form of witchcraft. Chinese food restaurants are not operated by witches. The inclusion of weird, enigmatic phrases on pieces of paper placed within fortune cookies is just an old marketing gimmick. That’s it.
But that’s not how Holy Spirit Led Ministries sees it. Patricia Lage is working with the Trump for President campaign to spread the word that there are witches using yummy sesame chicken as part of a sinister supernatural plan to conquer the United States with black magic.
Think about what it means for Donald Trump to be getting spiritual counseling from the likes of Patricia Lage and Holy Spirit Led Ministries. The Republican presidential nominee in 2024 is being advised that, if he becomes President, he should use the powers of the US federal government to clamp down on witchcraft.
What’s ironic is that Patricia Lage warns her followers that superstition is a sign of witchcraft. It’s ironic, because Patricia Lage is herself a faith healer who claims that she has magical powers. She says that the is capable of resurrecting dead people. She says that she has the supernatural ability to stop livestock diseases and to control the weather. She says that John G. Lake Ministries has taught her to use magic to cure deadly diseases and to defeat demons in battle.
Patricia Lage is, in short, thoroughly immersed in superstitious practices. She believes that spirits and monsters and witches who fly on broomsticks are all real, and that she has special powers given to her by her patron sky deity to fight magical battles.
By her own standard, the superstitions of Patricia Lage make her a witch. She’s an anti-witch witch working with Donald Trump.
Chew on a fortune cookie and think about that for a minute.
