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May 1, 2020

Episode 11

The Coronavirus Narrative and Its Demonic Methodology

Today on the Orthodox Ethos podcast, The Coronavirus Narrative and Its Demonic Methodology

Today we are facing a crisis. This much is indisputable. The question is: What is the nature of this crisis? And the word crisis, from Greek, means division or separation. Our crisis is not what, really what most people are saying today, and that is that it is a crisis of the human body, the health of the human body.

Rather, it is a crisis which brings division between those who believe and are faithful, not fearful, not timid, those who are, having the fear of God and not the fear of death. And those whoare afraid to go against the grain of the world, against the narrative that is presented, the superficial excesses which are given in order to close Churches, oppose unjust, unnecessary measures, which violate our conscience as Christians, and also our rights as citizens.

In the midst of all this, we must struggle always to maintain the right Orthodox phronema, the discernment that is necessary to understand all of the various views on the right and the left, to retain the royal path. We must struggle to stay on the royal path in the midst of this mass hysteria, confusion, fake news, and hearsay.

To begin with, let’s just look at the term that is used for this crisis. It is called “pandemic.” It is a Greek term, which meant, and was used always to denote that it affects the whole people, pandemia is the people, all of the people.

Do the numbers really justify this term? No, they do not. And this is being increasingly shown through a variety of means, through a variety of studies, that the numbers do not justify the term. And especially compare them to past pandemics, we are really not facing anything like, for instance what Justinian in his time faced. Or the 1918 flu epidemic.

When we look more deeply at the methodology that is being implemented in order to change society, and change the way we live, including the way we as Orthodox Christians live and our identity as Orthodox Christians, we can see that the devil has his fingerprints all over this process, this way of living that we are all being pushed towards.

And the number one aspect of his identification, the way that we know that it is his methodology is fear. He always uses fear. He works by instilling fear and manipulating mankind through this fear, fear of death, fear of suffering, fear of loss of that which we are attached to in this world, whether it be material things, or even other people.

In his war against God, and his image – man – he goes through various stages, one could analyze this in the following way.

He brings about, first of all, he creates a shock, ekplixsi we would say in Greek. Astonishment, he creates astonishment on the part of the people, a sudden and unexpected threat is brought about, which freezes men in their place. And it is kind of like the shock and awe that they use in modern military warfare.

That is the first step. Everybody is disoriented. Everyone has said, in Greece, and in other places, Church leaders, that when this whole thing developed so quickly, they were rather disoriented, and they did not know quite how to react. So this is a sign of something that the devil does in order to achieve his goal.

And the next stage, we might say is katsplixsi or to traumatize, and to inflict a mental or spiritual wound in the people or in the person that the devil is trying to bring into submission and be able to do his program of submission to him and not to God.

And in this state of things, we are robbed of our motivation and of our purpose. We are disoriented, and then we are also immobilized, as it were.

And then, once we are in this state, the next stage would be […] or a kind of reign of terror or fear that comes over, and he tries to bring about in society. So, to rule through fear, that we are all in fear, and therefore we do things that we would normally not do, not want to do, and our consciences say to not do that.

He is the real terrorist, the first of all terrorist, the devil. He is the father of terrorists. As the [Cosmocrator], the ruler of the world, as opposed to the [Pantocrator], which is our Lord and our God, the ruler of all, right. With the ruler of the world, through the passions, “the world” being the world of the passions and how people live according to the passions. He is the one behind the passions; the demons are behind the passions.

And they rule through submissions to the passions. Well, the Pantocrator, the ruler of all, is above all of that and of course does not rule through fear or through the passions. It is quite the opposite.

So this Cosmocrator uses the cratos, or the state, the powers of this world, the rulers of this world, especially those which have been alienated of course from God, in an inversion of God-oriented authority. This is the 19th, 20th, 21st century, we are, for the most part, almost universally living in societies in which the God-ordered, God-anointed authority has been overthrown and everything is inverted.

So he uses, most of all, those, and he will especially at the end of time with the Antichrist, he uses these means to press forward his plan to bring about submission to him through his anointedone, the Antichrist, the one who stands in the place of Christ and offers not salvation from sin and death, but salvation in this world for this world’s purposes, which is really damnation at the end of the day.

So much so is this the case and obvious when one looks at the history of state-sponsored terrorism over the last hundred, hundred and twenty years, that the enemy was behind the perversion and upending of the state and bringing it to submission to his purpose.

You see that in genocides, through Asia Minor, then the totalitarian states arising in the Soviet Union and communist China, fascist Germany, Italy, and all over the world, through communism.

And so in our own days, the use of state power too, in a terrorist-like manner. So this is his M.O., fear, of course he does it on a case-by-case basis, but he also graduates and goes as much as possible to the state-wide basis.

We have to be cognizant of that, be on-guard and understand that. And anybody who has studied the Orthodox Church under communism is very much aware that we have much experience, the Orthodox Church has the most experience of any other Christian body in terms of what the state, how the state is manipulated and used for demonic ends.

So, overtly totalitarian regimes like communism have crumbled, for the most part, not entirely, but in no way has the methodology of the evil one, which was utilized by those regimes died with them. On the contrary, the Marxist dialectic has been adopted and implemented the world over, and is going on through academia.

Anybody who follows the work of those who are resisting this dialectic, somebody like Jordan Peterson, for instance, who is popular, who is not an Orthodox Christian at all, unfortunately, they observe that this Marxist dialectic is at work all over the place.

And what is that? We have to have this in mind when trying to interpret the crisis that we are facing. It is thesis, antithesis, and synthesis. Or more simply, problem, reaction, and solution. So there is a problem that is created, a reaction that is provoked, and then a solution that is given.

And this is how we pass from one state of things in society that we are not happy with, if we are a part of this ruling class or whatever it is that is trying to change the status quo, and we want to bring it to another state.

Well, how does that happen? We have to pass through a crisis, a separation, an opposition, in order to then offer a new solution, a new state of things. And this is very clear right now that these demonically-inspired thinkers in our day and age are using this methodology right in front of us.

None of this of course is God-like, God-inspired. God and his saints never force; they never instill fear to get one into the Kingdom of God. They never terrorize. Our Lord gives examples. He calls us, as a loving Father. He does not pressure. He does not manipulate.

As many as would be my disciples, he says, you are free. Pick up your cross, if you so desire to be my disciples, if you want to be saved. Freedom of the human person, this is God-given, and this is treasured by God. So, when we see that freedom being impinged upon and pressure being brought for a sudden change to society, we know this is not of God. This is of the enemy.

A few examples of the pressure and the psychological terror being inflicted upon people right now during this crisis: From the outset, almost immediately, voices came as if from nowhere in major publications like the Financial Times and said, everything has changed. Life will never be the same. Life as we know it is over. Why? From a sickness? From a sickness which isn’t even a pandemic, certainly a medical crisis, but not a pandemic.

From this sickness, why must everything change? No matter how bad the sickness is, why would we change our life, and especially our life in Christ, and our life in the Church.

The most, perhaps, notable and well-known of those who are pushing this narrative, this narrative of massive change overnight - we can never go back - is a professor of history of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, a well-known writer. He has written many books. I don’t know if I am saying his name right, Yuval Noah Harari.

You can look him up. He is very well-known among the elite and read by them. He has become kind of the visionary voice of the elite. His books have become New York Times best sellers, and he has endorsements from people like Barack Obama and Bill Gates. So that tells you where he is coming from.

In his 2017 Book, Homo Deus, he argues, there is no God, no soul, no freewill. How wonderfully demonic. For him, life is merely a succession of the chemical reactions, algorithms that interact and evolve with nature. He believes that techno-enabled humanity will eventually become immortal gods.

Immediately, upon the eruption of the crisis, he gave a post-crisis, post-Coronavirus judgement. And it was featured in the Financial Times. And here is just one chapter, one little paragraph, rather of what he says, which just stands out and one is amazed that he is saying it, first of all, and that people are listening and taking him seriously.

In a section called under-the-skin surveillance. He says:

“In order to stop the epidemic, entire populations need to comply with certain guidelines. There are two main ways of achieving this. One method is for the government to monitor people, and punish those who break the rules. Today, for the first time in human history, technology makes it possible to monitor everyone all the time. Fifty years ago, the KGB couldn’t follow 240 million Soviet citizens 24 hours a day, nor could the KGB hope to effectively process all the information gathered. The KGB relied on human agents and analysts, and it just couldn’t place a human agent to follow every citizen.” It’s as if he is bemoaning this. “But now governments can rely on ubiquitous sensors and powerful algorithms instead of flesh-and-blood spooks.”

Pretty amazing. So this is the way of thinking of people who have passed over from light to darkness. So he says: “The first observation is that the Coronavirus is going to change the economy, politics, and culture radically within a short time frame, if world orders act quickly and decisively”. See how everything has to happen quickly and not allow enough time for the crisis to pass.

We have to take advantage of it. That is one of his main points. He says, “the crisis will fast forward historical process,”something they very much want to see happen. The want to speed up the change and do away with the last vestiges of the old order. “They will allow officials to conduct massive experiments using even dangerous technologies, decisions that would normally take years or even decades deliberation will be passed in a matter of hours. It is in this climate of panic that people will accept measures that they would never do in normal times.”

This is demonic methodology if I have ever heard it, seen it, or read it. This is how the demons want to work. They want to bring us into a state of submission, a fall, and then as quickly as possible before we have any time to pray, or reconsider things, and then of course you have to live with this new state of things.

They don’t want to return to normal. And this is apparent in their writings and even in the mass media. They don’t want to return to normal. They want a different order that reflects their worldview.

The future is not presented as a choice at all, but as a fact. It will be this way, they say. The crisis will quickly impose upon the nations. There is no turning back, and the old order is over. And this narrative, this narrative is found in the daily avalanche of news. It is easy to find the measures, methods, and goals he outlines interwoven into the crisis, into the coverage of the crisis.

A recent editorial in the Wall Street Journal, this is now a couple of weeks ago, even by the old, well-known proponent of the new order of things, Henry Kissinger repeats the idea that the crisis will forever alter the world order.

So from the outset, fear mongering from the elite and the establishment. We see this also in the much-touted and referenced professor Neil Ferguson of the Imperial College in London predicted, and many people listened to him, that the Coronavirus death toll would be more than two million in the United States, two million, hundreds of percentages beyond what it has turned out to be, what it is right now.

He arrived at the number by assuming that infection would be nearly universal, and that the fatality rate would be high, which would be of course a terrifying eventuality.

But at the same time, there was another epidemiologist, John Ioannidis, a Greek professor at Stanford, who said quite the opposite, and no one paid attention. He said that there would be a fatality rate of .5 to 1 percent, not that different from the common flu. And of course the Coronavirus is not the common flu; it has different characteristics. It is inflicting more the old than the young, more men than women, and there are many other things that people are still learning about it.

But all the data trends since mid-March show that Professor Ferguson was very wrong, and Professor Ioannidis was quite right. And yet, still there is no reversal. There is no repentance on the part of those who were pushing for more measures, continued measures, closed Churches, and all the rest.

And this is largely due to an irresponsible media and even a media that is carrying out an agenda. They bring fear - again, the hallmark of the demonic in our life - they bring fear and everyone cowers.

A young doctor died in Wuhan and therefore it is deadly and dangerous for everyone. Hospitals in Italy are overwhelmed, and therefore we have a pandemic which is beyond any kind of, of epic proportions. China succeeded with draconian measures, therefore everyone has to follow those of a totalitarian state the world over.

This pandemic narrative continues and the science-based, rational, let’s take this a step at a time and look at the numbers approach is still not listened to, for the most part.

So we are hurling ourselves over a cliff with this mass lockdown, and yet, is it really justified? The International Health Department at the United Nations at the time, at the beginning of this issued warnings that presumed a death rate of 20 to 30 times higher than now appears to be realistic. But who exactly is this International Department of Health at the UN?

These are the same people, same group of intellectuals, elite, who are pushing, including in Greece right now, the government is being pushed and pushing the government to introduce this, a perverse, very spiritually-destructive sexual education program. At what level? From toddler to four years old. From birth, essentially, to four years old, they want to have the people around the world embrace sexual education of the most perverse order, which embraces sexual self-abuse or onanism, and transgenderism from the get go.

These are the kinds of people that as Orthodox Christians, we should have zero trust, of course, we should have no trust in their judgement. And yet we are running along with the masses and following after this narrative of fear and listening to people who are so opposed to basic spiritual sobriety and purity, and listening to them as if they are truly authorities.

We have been pushed, stampeded into a regime of social control which is unprecedented in our history. The Churches need to resist. They need to stand aside, and not follow this process. And not be a part of this narrative.

This terrorizing of the masses by fear of death hysteria, we cannot participate in this as Orthodox Christians. We should have nothing to do with it. It is designed to motivate obedience, submission to the restrictions of free movement among other, many other reasons, if we listen to people like this professor.

And this, this idea is somehow reasonable. It is not reasonable, at all. There is tremendous hypocrisy, and a double standard which reveals the insincerity and the bias. Just one example: Churches are closed. Abortion clinics are open. Churches are considered non-essential, abortion clinics are considered essential. What else do we need, to see that this is rotten? This whole approach is deeply flawed and demonically inspired.

Daily death counts. Let’s go to another example of the fear mongering that is going on in society. Daily death counts coming at you like advertisements. If you are following on YouTube, obviously you are if you are watching this, but if you are listening to this, if you go to YouTube, you get these map of death videos that appear without even subscribing. You see this, the heat map of where people are sick, where people are dying.

And the question is, why? What is the point? Why do we all have to know when the last person became sick and died, as if this is something that, it operates as fear mongering, for the most part.

How about fear of death? Fear of death is literally cultivated, and death is made to be the worst possible eventuality that exists. But is it? Is death the worst thing that could possibly happen to you? As Orthodox Christians we know that is not the case. Death is a door that is opening us to eternal life. We are not fearful of it if we are Orthodox Christians.

But even for those, even just a few years ago, maybe they still exist in some places in the world, who were patriots, who loved their country, they would go to the First or Second World War and die for their country.

So certainly, they considered cowardice, or fleeing worse than dying, and that death was not the worst thing for them, but not supporting and defending their country was worse than death. So death is not the worst thing. It is for those who cling to this fleeting life, yes. If this life is all there is, it is understandable that one would consider death the worst possible event.

But then again, if that person stands and thinks a little bit, deeply - if this life is all there is, this life is itself void of meaning, and value. So it is unreasonable for one who believes this to consider death the greatest evil. If one has to put aside God and eternity, there is no inner unity to his thoughts, no consistency in this life. And that is exactly what we are witnessing.

The only solution, another example, the only solution will be mass vaccinations, otherwise we are lost, we are dead. If you do not submit, you will not be able to live in social society and travel.

I just saw yesterday on Greek television, a presenter become irate at the thought that people would not accept the vaccinations and threaten them with prison or social ostracization, this is not something that is far away and a fantasy. We can see it right now, right in front of us.

I want to quote the end of a very good editorial by the editor of First Things online. I think it is well-put. And he says (to kind of summarize this part of our program today): The experts, professionals, bureaucrats, public officials who did this, who have trafficked in this narrative of fear, they have tremendous incentives to close ranks and to say, it is not wise to tell people that the danger was never grave and now has passed.

Sustaining this Coronavirus narrative, this narrative of fear, will require many lies. It has already required many lies. And he says, it is up to us to insist on the truth. Indeed. Our role in this world is to always stand and confess the truth, and point to the Truth as a person, to take people from the truth in ideas, to the plane of embracing Truth as a person, who is Christ Himself.

So these are some of the examples, that can be observed in this crisis. All of these point to, again, a methodology of the enemy. You do not even need to arrive at the data and the judgements. If you know how the enemy works, and how our Lord works, you can see that the real crisis, the real crisis, which our Lord is allowing for us to pass through and to face, is a spiritual crisis.

Faith or faithlessness, trust, devotion to the truth, wisdom, the way of the Church, or fear, trust in the world, its experts, its powers that be, innovation, or setting aside the truth, tradition, and way of the Church. It appears that since we have given rights to the enemy, by our fear and our lack of faith, worse days are coming.

Worse days, including for Orthodox Christians, for the enemies aim is to not simply have people cower and follow after the government, that is it. It is to blot out the Divine-human nature of our life in Christ, that is the aim, that is the end game. We always have to keep in mind the end game. Where are we going? What is the end?

We know the Alpha and Omega as Orthodox Christians, and therefore there is no excuse for us to not understand the present day in light of the end times and eternity. If we have an eschatological stance, we will be mindful of where we are in the great role of history, and where we are in terms of our Lord’s second coming, not with dates and times, but by the observation with discernment, of the signs of the times. Our Lord commands us to have that, to be watchful and vigilant. We will understand that were we are in this process of the loss of faith in the Divine humanity of our Lord, and of His body, the Church. So we must be watchful. We must be prayerful, and ever-vigilant.

The enemy seeks to distort the very life of the Church, the inner life of the Church. And we will look at that and the struggle ahead in our next podcast. I hope you will join me.

Christ is risen!

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