[BELOW IS A LITTLE EXTRACT from my 657-page book on the Book of Revelation, “The Essential Apocalypse”, which will be published on my website on June 10th. This little extract is from the section dealing with chapter 18, which is about the fall of what is spiritually called “Babylon”, which is the term used in The Book of Revelation to describe the satanic world-system. This extract specifically asks the question, “What is it that Lies Behind the Reach of Spiritual ‘Babylon’?” Here it is…]

“When we go through chapter 18 in this remarkable Book of Revelation, we discover the underlying element which has been the culprit in spiritual Babylon’s operations. The last part of the penultimate verse sums up that element which lies behind the reach or influence of the satanic ‘Babylonian’ world-system. The voice from heaven tells it: “Your merchants were the great ones of the earth, because all the nations were deceived by your sorcery” (Verse 23). When John says in his first letter (chapter 5, verse 19) that “the whole world lies under the power of the evil one [the fallen archangel, Satan]”, this ‘deception by sorcery’ is precisely what he will have had in mind. For the influence of Satan, and that wielded by his Babylonian kingdom-building, even at the present time, is like a vast hypnotic sway over the people of the earth, virtually making them drunk on what he has to offer.

The Greek word in the original manuscripts translated above as “sorcery” is pharmakeia, which means the kind of witchcraft, magic spell, which was often cast through the use of potions (hence, the derivation of the English words with pharma- as the prefix). This is not to be taken literally here, but is a symbol of the force of enchantment and resultant fascination of the people with satanic Babylonian allures. The same idea has already been presented in chapter 14, verse 8: “Then a second angel followed, saying, ‘Fallen, fallen is Babylon the great, who has made all the nations drink the wine of the fierce impulse of her immorality’”. The hold exerted by satanic Babylon over the world is like a drug which lulls people into an altered state of consciousness which makes them feel good, reinforcing their dependence on it, even though they have been enslaved through it. It is as if the entire world has been captivated by what is known today as “Stockholm Syndrome”, in which captives not only submit to their captors but even come to love them and defend their amoral ways. It makes people live in a bubble of enslavement to controlling authority and social engineering, self-centred materialism, and hedonism, focusing only on personal fulfilment, the accrual of possessions, and blind conformity to a corrupt normality. In other words, we live in a world which is predominantly hypnotized by Satan and which does the bidding of the demonic realm.

We have already established that “Babylon” in the Book of Revelation is a symbolic representation of the entire satanic world-system, which takes in its politics, governance, financial systems, false religion, godless philosophy and science — not to mention its media and ‘cultural’ endeavours in music and the arts. This is not to say that all music and the arts are the very embodiment of evil — for pure music is surely a gift from God — but that they are used mightily in service to Satan by the satanic world powers. The so-called “music industry”, for example, is mainly pushing what can barely be described as ‘music’ in order to create ‘hits’ through using ‘hooks’ and make loads of money while filling people’s heads (especially those of the young) with mindless and even amoral ideas. It is a crude money-making machine with strong connections to organised crime (as, indeed, are all vast money-making enterprises).

The reach of satanic influence and manipulation in society in general is tentacular. The entire financial system is based on greed, materialism and enslavement, with freedom from stress for comparatively few. What do you think lies behind wars, despotism, fiscal corruption, corporate greed, toxic food produce, weapons manufacture, governmental shenanigans, mind-control programmes, psychological operations (psyops), terrorism, massacres, genocides? A truly civilized world would have no need for hegemonial governments, with their armies and mega-destructive weaponry, shady intelligence networks and contractors, assassinations, totalitarian control, faux-democracies, false-flag operations, avaricious taxation, colonization, coups d’états, corruption, coverups, whitewashes, censorship, crushing of dissidents, and so on.

This whole world-system, from top to bottom — with its power-elites, corrupt governance, fiat monetary schemes, warped financial markets, heartless business corporations, militaries, secret intelligence networks, unnecessary poverty and famines, fabricated diseases, secret societies (such as the Bilderberg group, etc.), pharmaceutical companies, armaments manufacturers and whorish media — has been invented, developed and maintained by fallen angels (aka demons/archons) working hand-in-glove with psychopathic humans in a power-elite whose consciences are seared and whose inner pathway to God is completely closed and who are thus in servitude to another master altogether, the real Satan. All the controlling forces of the world are the product of behind-the-scenes archontic machinations which operate in ‘the spirit of the Antichrist’ and which have been waiting for the opportunity to create a one-world government. In other words, we live in a world which is controlled by satanic powers, both human and discarnate, and it is aptly called “Babylon”, for that word in Old Testament times referred to a morally corrupted, power-hungry, idolatrous opposer of God and His people.

The ground that is covered by the text here in chapter 18 is extensive. Firstly, it says that Babylon “became a habitation of demons, and a prison of every unclean spirit, and a prison of every unclean bird, and a prison of every unclean and despised wild beast” (verse 2). We can again see here that this idea of spiritual Babylon goes way further than merely the Roman state. This is to convey the depths of degeneracy and darkness into which the world has been plunged by the satanic Babylonian world-system which has cast its filthy shadow over it. It is demonic through and through.

Secondly, there are three classes of people specifically mentioned a number of times as having been the main players in the Babylonian world-system of Satan: Kings (verses 3, 9), merchants (verses 3, 11, 15, 23), and the wealthy (verses 3, 14, 16, 17, 19). Kings represent all emperors and governmental rulers who have operated tyrannical and self-serving regimes. Merchants represent the financial establishment and bigtime traders who uphold it and use it to accumulate wealth. Along with the wealthy, what is being represented here in our own day is the power-elite — the ruling classes involving government, financial institutions, trade corporations and cartels, and those who move and accrue wealth — which lie behind every nation-state, and which will ultimately form the backbone of the push to create a one-world government out of those corrupt nation-states for the Antichrist. That will be the pinnacle of Babylonianism.

It is obvious that ordinary retailers and shopkeepers who struggle to make a living to support their families and operate fair businesses are not what is being especially targeted here. The Greek word translated as “merchants” is ἔμπορος, emporos, which especially means bigtime traders rather than κάπηλος, kapélos, a small retailer. The parallel meaning today would be corporate enterprises or global trading accounts. Tucked in here today would be the banking system, which is basically trading in people’s money (then charging them for it). In fact, if one looks closely at the large list of items being traded in our text, one shockingly sees that it also includes “slaves and the souls of men” (verse 13). That is literally, in the Greek, “the bodies and souls of people”. Essentially, in the satanic world-system, people are commodities in many different ways, most folks having sold their souls to it. In our text, there is a clear reference the human trafficking of people as slaves and heaven knows what else. It could also have been trading in human fodder for gladiatorial purposes in Roman times, right down to our own day of human trafficking for the purposes of sex slavery and snuff movies. Welcome to Babylon.

Neither would fair, just and godly rulers be targeted here under the title of “kings”. Plus, there is nothing intrinsically wrong with wealth in itself. Paul never said that money itself is the root of evil (as is popularly misquoted), but that the “love of money is a root of all kinds of evil”. We are talking here about wealth pursued for its own sake. If the accrual of wealth is being undertaken in order to aggrandize oneself, that is very different to making money which one uses for the benefit of many through charity and philanthropy. It is the ruthless quest for power and wealth which is plainly being highlighted in this chapter. For that is what the satanic Babylonian world-system has been built on.

The failure to understand all this or perceive it in any way is caused by what amounts to an invisible blindfold draped over the minds and perception of the mass of people. In other words, almost the whole world lives in a state of manipulable darkness wielded by forces of darkness beyond human understanding. Waking up from that induced slumber involves far more than merely seeing through the world’s plethora of conspiracies and power-elite-driven evil. That is a start. But awakening for real — essentially becoming a new creation — involves the realisation that there is a vast spiritual battle involving angels and demons, and the reality that the Christ came in the flesh to bring this battle to an end, as I have shown earlier, and that He is coming again in a cataclysmic cosmic blast of Light across the world like lightning flashing from the East to the West, as we will see in the next section of this chapter, when the one-world government of the Antichrist will be destroyed, the world judged, the present creation wound up and a wholly new cosmos inaugurated in which no Fall of humans or angels will be possible.”

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