Many of you know of the Doomsday Clock. It has just been moved to five minutes before midnight, the projected end of civilization due to nuclear arms threat and climate change. Long the stuff of science fiction, the present threats are real enough now to warrant the closest attention of world leaders. But when you consider it is world leaders that have led to these threats because of their lust for power and wealth there isn’t much room for optimism.

With the resident cat in my lap purring away while warming her paws and pelt, as I watched the quail and a particularly frisky large beautiful gray tree squirrel in my yard this morning, it was difficult for me to turn my attention away from this kind of serenity to the issues plaguing America and the rest of the world. However, I write by compulsion whether of the muses or other and seem to have no particular will of my own when I sit down to this keyboard each morning; and whether of angel or demon the things that have my attention demand being addressed.

Pragmatically, it seems actions by world leaders provoking the end of civilization is the work of lunatics, not rational human beings. But history is replete with mad leaders and this cannot be discounted, especially when mad tyrants and despots, including individual Muslim fanatics dedicated to the destruction of civilization for their “holy purpose,” have nuclear weapons at their disposal.

However, America would seem to be led of mad men and women, an instance being the refusal to secure our borders for the sole purpose of further enriching the wealthy. What is this but inviting nuclear terrorism upon America, an obvious act of lunacy encouraged by the lust for power and profits on the part of our leaders? And here are organizations like the ACLU and La Raza lending themselves to this madness. But even the most well-intended organizations too often find themselves doing the Devil’s work while believing they serve God, too often a small drop of poison turning the whole deadly because even the Devil may do good when it suits his ultimate purpose of the greater resulting evil.

Yes, I do believe there is such a thing as a “spirit of wickedness” pervading throughout history, that the earth is Satan’s domain. Though metaphysical in the extreme, it is one thing that makes sense of the otherwise lunatic actions of so many throughout the history of humankind and continuing even now in the face of that Doomsday Clock ticking away.

“If I can’t have you, no one else will!” Then the mad man murders the object of his grotesquely twisted desire. This from Scripture would seem to be the thinking of Satan leading the world in the path of destruction. But whether the result of consummate malevolent evil embodied in a creature like Satan or not, neither can this be discounted among those whose madness is the result of their greed and avarice, their lust for power and profits. No amount of science, no psychiatrists can explain the kind of madness that often results from the seed of power being planted in some people, nor the kind of evil that some do in efforts to gain power.

Good people do not want power and authority over others. But this is the Devil’s offer, and he has many willing takers. Consider the purpose of those wanting power and authority over others; it may insinuate itself with the most altruistic of motives, the person convincing themselves and others the only reason for seeking political office is to do good. But since it takes money to get elected and stay elected the Devil, by whatever definition, has the eventual say in the matter, the power of the purse to evil ends. And who looking at those in our government can with a good conscience say these are representatives of the good?

We read the story of Luther casting his inkwell at the Devil. Apocryphal or not I suppose if anyone qualified for the Devil’s personal attention it would be someone like Luther. And the many representations of angels and demons among all cultures from the most ancient of times lends credence to there having to be a legitimate and real source of such things beyond simply the imagination of ancient peoples. The making of various representations of the gods and goddesses, the idols of Scripture and other accounts must, I believe, have some substance in facts, ever as much as believing there must be some degree of facts supporting the various mythologies of the various cultures and civilizations of antiquity and even continuing to this present time.

The various beliefs of people of whatever cultures having to do with the supernatural are not always amenable to simple dismissal by those considering themselves too “scientific” in their thinking. Take the following from the New Testament which many Christians believe:

2 Thessolonians.2: [1] Now we beseech you, brethren, by the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, and by our gathering together unto him, [2] That ye be not soon shaken in mind, or be troubled, neither by spirit, nor by word, nor by letter as from us, as that the day of Christ is at hand. [3] Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition; [4] Who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped; so that he as God sitteth in the temple of God, shewing himself that he is God. [5] Remember ye not, that, when I was yet with you, I told you these things? [6] And now ye know what withholdeth that he might be revealed in his time. [7] For the mystery of iniquity doth already work: only he who now letteth will let, until he be taken out of the way. [8] And then shall that Wicked be revealed, whom the Lord shall consume with the spirit of his mouth, and shall destroy with the brightness of his coming: [9] Even him, whose coming is after the working of Satan with all power and signs and lying wonders, [10] And with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish; because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved. [11] And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie: [12] That they all might be damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness.

Whether you believe in the Rapture and the ultimate judgment of God visited upon the wicked or not, the fact remains that Doomsday Clock is ticking due to the seeming lunacy of world leaders, the kind of lunacy that might be explained by a creature like Satan and his servants. I am not burning candles or saying prayers, I do not take part in séances or have a Ouija Board or crystal ball, I do not hear things going bump in the night, and though I talk to God and departed loved ones and friends I hear no audible response, I see no apparitions. But neither do I discount out of hand the accounts of others including the accounts of the ancients that such things might well be real in some instances. There is simply too much unknown to science, to me, to not give some heed to such things. “That they all might be damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness” is something I want to believe. Somehow, someway there must be some means of ultimate justice prevailing, otherwise eat, drink, and be merry would be the most sensible thing for all of us.

Few would deny there is in fact a “mystery of iniquity,” a “something” driving world leaders on a path of destruction accounting for that Doomsday Clock existing. And I offer for your consideration a creature like Satan explaining what would otherwise be nothing but lunatics in charge throughout the world.

Certainly charlatans abound, those jumping on what I have long called the “prophecy bandwagon.” They appear silly in pulpits and on TV and we rightly dismiss these kinds of people, and most certainly Jesus cautioned against the pretenders “wearing soft clothing and living in kings’ palaces.” Nevertheless, even the most sober-minded cannot dismiss the threats abounding worldwide that appear to give legitimacy to those cautionary words in Thessalonians. And when I am forced to consider, as I am, whether humankind is set on a path to its own destruction of accident or design, as with the universe and life itself I choose to believe there is design to the whole. And I am not willing to dismiss the stories of antiquity, that there may be some basis in fact to the various myths and fables resulting from certain knowledge long lost to us “moderns.”