Or spirits?
You never know.
It’s in the new this week, even at the White House.
We speak here — of course, what else? — about that phantasmal viral scourge called covid-19.
The other day a Houston doctor who praises hydroxychloroquine and says that face masks aren’t necessary to stop transmission of coronavirus became a sensation on the internet, garnering tens of millions in views on Facebook, Monday alone. Donald Trump Jr. declared the video of Dr. Stella Immanuel a “must watch,” while President Donald Trump himself retweeted the video. It immediately outdid — by far — the “viral” video Plandemic.
The secular press was quick to jump on this, learning that the doctor has previously linked gynecological afflictions, such as cysts and endometriosis, to interactions in dreams with “demons and witches.”
It sounds crazy, and to the secular media it is.
One must admit that her claims can pull even the most open mind to the limits of elasticity. For instance, Dr. Immanuel alleges that DNA from aliens is being used surreptitiously in current medical treatments, and that scientists are cooking up a vaccine to prevent people from being religious (not that they wouldn’t dearly love to). She also thinks “reptilians” and other extraterrestrials clandestinely run our government.
Yes, quite a reach, and her video has been removed by both Facebook and Twitter as bogus, and Trump Jr.’s Twitter account temporarily suspended.
And yet at the same time — again, this week, to show how unpredictable and topsy-turvy and far-out our times are — The New York Times, paragon of that same secular media, has had another report on so-called “UFOs.” It was just two years ago that the newspaper, once America’s most august, revealed Navy footage of “tic-tac” UFOs over the Atlantic and Pacific that the military could not explain.
Now, in answering questions of whether, after he believes that aliens are visiting, that newspaper’s key reporter on the topic, Ralph Blumenthal, said this week, around the same time as Dr. Immanuel’s appearance, and after a follow-up article on possible UFO crashes:
“Our latest article provided a more daunting set of challenges, since we dealt with the possible existence of retrieved materials from U.F.O.s.
“Going from data on a distant object in the sky to the possession of a retrieved one on the ground makes a leap that many find hard to accept and that clearly demands extraordinary evidence.
“Numerous associates of the Pentagon program, with high-security clearances and decades of involvement with official U.F.O. investigations, told us they were convinced such crashes have occurred, based on their access to classified information. But the retrieved materials themselves, and any data about them, are completely off-limits to anyone without clearances and a need to know.”
That’s quite a statement from a publication that for decades offhandedly dismissed the idea of extraterrestrials, psychics, and anything paranormal (including miracles).
What are we to think? Are UFOs from another civilization “out there” or a dangerous demonic deception?
We have no idea if there is life on other planets. It wouldn’t upset our notion of God if there is. He created all the universe. We do know that many if not most if not all substantial “alien” encounters seem demonic (replete with those dark slanty voodoo eyes and the smell of sulfur).
Here we come back to the pandemic. As noted many times, Church leaders thought evil spirits seen in the air were involved in the great Black Death of the Middle Ages, and more recently, Evangelical and Pentecostal types in Africa, the U.S., and New Zealand have postulated the same for the coronavirus. One, Immanuel Mankandiwa, who has a massive following in Zimbabwe and elsewhere on the Dark Continent, long ago — in 2015 — predicted a pandemic due to a “demon on a rampage.”
Halfway around the globe, in New Zealand (we’re told, this time by a tabloid, the London Mail), Brian Tamaki, another controversial Pentecostal preacher, likened covid-19 to ebola, bubonic plague, and cholera — saying the outbreak was “energized by demons” and “evil spirits” to punish non-believers. “Satan has control of atmospheres unless you’re a born-again, Jesus-loving, Bible-believing, Holy Ghost-filled, tithe-paying believer,” he pronounced to a crowded hall of followers.
What about faithful, God-fearing Christians who have been stricken?
Priest. Bishops. Cardinals.
And a good number of Evangelicals?
That’s another mystery for you to discern.
Meanwhile, we’ll file all of the above in our “suspense account.” Odds and ends in an odd time indeed.