America Needs a Spiritual Awakening Not More Pills and Tech Promises

Guest host Gary Varvel takes the mic today with a sobering but necessary message: America is facing more than just political dysfunction—we are in the midst of a spiritual crisis.

Gary points to recent acts of senseless violence and asks whether our culture is ignoring the deeper reality. While the media dismisses these tragedies as “mental illness,” many perpetrators openly admit hearing voices or being controlled by forces they can’t explain. Gary argues that the Bible offers an answer: demonic influence is real, and drugs—from marijuana to SSRIs—may be one of the gateways.

From biblical warnings about sorcery (pharmakeia) to modern debates about antidepressants, Gary connects the dots between America’s drift from God and the rise in violence, confusion, and despair. He also warns about the spiritual dangers of artificial intelligence, showing how Revelation’s description of a global system of control now looks technologically possible.

But the episode doesn’t end in doom—it ends in hope. America’s founding was rooted in biblical truth, and revival is still possible. The only real solution isn’t in pills or politics, but in turning back to Jesus Christ.

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📰 Stack Links

• WorldNet Daily – David Kupelian on SSRIs and mass shootings — Gary highlights research showing a disturbing connection between antidepressants and violent crimes.

• Elon Musk on AI as an “existential threat” — Even tech leaders warn of the spiritual dangers behind AI.

• Revelation 13 explained — The prophecy about global control through buying and selling sounds eerily familiar.

• Gary Varvel’s work — See Gary’s cartoons and commentary from a biblical worldview.
  

📝 Transcript: America Needs a Spiritual Awakening Not More Pills and Tech Promises

The Todd Huff Show – September 24, 2025

Special Guest Host: Gary Varvel, Political Cartoonist and writer

Gary Varvel: You are listening to the Todd Huff Radio Show. This is America's home for conservative, not bitter talk. But you knew that. But you probably don't recognize my voice. This is not Todd. Todd's away with doing some family time. I'm Gary Varvel, political cartoonist for Creator Syndicate. My work appears in newspapers around the country. You can see my work also at GaryVarvel.com. That's Varvel like Marvel, except with a V. V is in Victor, A-R-V is in Victor, E-L. GaryVarvel.com.

I also write a Substack newsletter. You can find me there at GaryVarvel.Substack.com. I write about current events from a biblical perspective, and I also draw my editorial cartoons there. I encourage you to go sign up for free.

And let's get into it. What's going on in America today?

Gary Varvel: I see a problem spiritually. And I've written about this many times. Let me give you a Bible verse here to start us off with, John 10:10. The thief does not come except to steal and to kill and to destroy. But Jesus says, I’ve come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly.

That is the separation that I see happening in America today. You've got Christians, but alongside of us we are surrounded by people who hate Jesus. They hate God, and they don't like it when people speak up.

We all know just recently, Charlie Kirk was tragically assassinated on camera — on all these cameras when everybody saw that. We also remember the Charlotte, North Carolina train stabbing in which DeCarlo Brown Jr., 34, stabbed to death the 23-year-old Irena Sarutska from Ukraine. She was living here and was just minding her own business, looking at her phone. And he stands up behind her and stabs her to death.

The media calls him mentally ill. His family says that he was schizophrenic and he had all kinds of mental issues that caused him to do this. Brown himself says that he heard voices telling him to do it. Where is that coming from?

Gary Varvel: And this is nothing new. In 2018, Nicholas Cruz was arrested for allegedly killing 17 students, and he pleaded guilty. He killed 17 students and injured dozens at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. At the time, Cruz was 23. When he was arrested he told the authorities that demons told him to do this—told him how to do it.

So are we just to play that off every time as being mentally ill?

The Bible makes it very clear in the New Testament that there were several people that Jesus healed from demonic possession.

So I’d have to say, because I’m a Bible believer, I believe that Jesus Christ is my Lord and Savior, that He lived a perfect life, that He left heaven, born of a virgin, lived a perfect life, died on the cross, and three days later rose to life again proving that He is the God-Man and offers eternal life to anyone who puts their trust in Him.

So that’s the gospel. And I believe what the Bible says about there being times when demons get access to people’s minds. And that’s where the battle is—it’s in the mind.

Gary Varvel: So, how does this happen? Now, we’re not told in the Bible how these people in the New Testament were possessed. But we’ve learned some things down through time.

One of the things I noticed was in the case of this Minneapolis shooter some weeks ago who killed two children sitting and praying in a church on the first day of school, and also injured several. He was known as the Minnesota trans shooter, Robert Westman. I hate to even say his name, but he was transgender.

And this is one of the things he said: “Gender and weed, meaning marijuana, messed up my head. I wish I'd never tried experimenting with either.” And then he says this: “Don’t let your kids smoke weed or change their gender until they’re like 17.”

So he admits that he was a marijuana user in his youth, and it can be assumed that he never stopped—which contributed to his losing his job. Guess where he was working? At a cannabis dispensary. Yeah.

And he was fired because of tardiness and absenteeism. So I believe, based on this, that it was the weed that opened his mind up, that made him susceptible to demons. He even said in his journal, in his manifesto, that he had a demon in him. He admitted it.

So the issue—I look at Revelation 9, and it’s also repeated somewhat in Galatians, also in Revelation chapter 18. Revelation 9 verse 21 specifically says this: “And they did not repent of their murders or their sorceries or their sexual immorality or their thefts.”

Now the context of that chapter is the judgment of God brought down on the earth. All these terrible things are happening: locusts, and men will seek to die, and for five months they won’t be able to die. God won’t let them die—wanting them to repent.

But they don’t repent. This is the saddest thing in that chapter. You read that they would not repent of their murders or their sorceries.

Gary Varvel: This word sorcery in the Greek is the word pharmakeia. It’s the word we get pharmacy from. We’re talking about drugs. Sorceries—you know, we typically think of a witch doctor or something. But in ancient times, what they would do is use drugs as part of their pagan worship.

And if you don’t believe me, go look it up. This is absolutely the truth.

So if you look at that—sorcery, drug use—you see drug use is an avenue to open up the mind so that demonic power can oppress people, even possess people.

That doesn’t mean that every person who ever takes drugs is going to be demon-possessed. No, there’s a process, I believe, that has to open up.

For instance, I’ll give you an example. The Exorcist movie was actually based on a true story. In that true story, this boy—in the movie it was a girl, but in real life, it was a boy—was messing around with a Ouija board. And that Ouija board, even though it’s just made of plastic and cardboard, became the avenue, became the gateway that led to demonic possession.

And this is a well-documented case.

Gary Varvel: I know that may sound crazy, but in Deuteronomy 18:10 it says this: “Let no one be found among you who sacrifices their son or daughter in the fire, who practices divination or sorcery, interprets omens, engages in witchcraft or casts spells, or is a medium or spiritist, or who consults the dead. Anyone who does these things is detestable to the Lord.”

Now, that should be sobering for anybody who’s going to a palm reader or reading your horoscope. I would advise you to stay away from that, because God says this is detestable to Him. You are making an idol out of those things and you’re messing around with the spirit world that is very dangerous.

I believe that we are protected from that. God has put a barrier around us and limited their access to us. But if we open ourselves up, at some point I believe that God gives us over.

And in those cases—and I think we see them every once in a while—like stabbing an innocent girl on a train for no reason: “A voice told me to do it.” Or shooting up a school: “Why did you do it? Demons told me how to do it.”

I think it’s very real. I know the media doesn’t understand it, but I believe these people—like the Minneapolis shooter—I believe they had succumbed to the doctrines of demons the Bible warns about.

Ephesians 5:18 says, “Do not get drunk with wine, which leads to debauchery. Instead, be filled with the Spirit.” Those are two completely opposite things, but both of them have to do with being controlled by a power outside of us.

In the case of wine or strong drink or alcohol of any kind, it says it leads to debauchery. Why? Because it lowers people’s inhibitions. They’re not thinking straight at some point because the alcohol is controlling them.

In the same way, drugs do the same thing. They affect the mind. That’s why people are drawn to them. But it’s dangerous, because they’re opening themselves up to a world that, if they could see it, they wouldn’t want anything to do with it.

But the contrast here is that Romans 5:18 says, “Instead, be filled with the Spirit.” The Spirit of God controlling us leads us to righteousness, leads us to love.

Gary Varvel: Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has publicly suggested that antidepressants—specifically SSRIs—and transition-related medications might have contributed to Westman’s actions. He cited black box warnings about suicidal and homicidal ideation and said the NIH would be conducting related studies.

Now, he got mocked for this in the media—they think he’s crazy. I think he may be onto something.

I’ve done some research. For instance, at WorldNet Daily there’s a guy named David Kupelian—K-U-P-E-L-I-A-N. He’s done some really good research.

Gary Varvel: I’ll just give you an example. For instance, he says that Paxil—known adverse drug reactions according to the FDA-approved label—include things like mania, insomnia, anxiety, agitation, confusion, amnesia, depression, paranoid reaction, psychosis, hostility, delirium, hallucinations, abnormal thinking, depersonalization, and lack of emotion, among others.

Well, I don’t think those sound like something I’d want to be taking. That sounds like a bad deal right there.

So, for instance, Andrea Yates—one of the most horrifying and heartbreaking crimes in modern history—drowned all five of her children, ages seven years down to six months, in a bathtub.

Andrea Yates—you remember the case. She insisted that voices commanded her to kill her children. She had become increasingly psychotic over the course of several years.

At her 2006 murder trial—that was a retrial after a 2002 guilty verdict was overturned on appeal—Yates’ longtime friend Debbie Holmes testified. She said Andrea asked her if she thought Satan could read her mind and if she believed in demon possession.

Dr. George Ringholz, after evaluating Yates for two days, recounted an experience she had after the birth of her first child. And this is what he said: what she described was feeling a presence—Satan—telling her to take a knife and stab her son Noah.

Now, what is that, folks? Why is it that people might say, “Well, she’s just trying to get an insanity defense”? But I’m saying there are similarities between a lot of these people who do these terrible things. And it could be demon possession. It could be real. I’m just throwing it out there.

I’m not saying we have to take all drugs off the market. That’s not what I’m saying. But I’m saying that I think RFK Jr. is right in at least doing a study of this.

Columbine mass murderer Eric Harris was taking Luvox, like Paxil and Zoloft and Prozac—a modern and widely prescribed type of antidepressant called selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, SSRIs.

Gary Varvel: Harris and fellow student Dylan Klebold went on a hellish school shooting rampage in 1999 during which they killed 12 students and a teacher and wounded 24 others before turning their guns on themselves.

Luvox manufacturer Solvay Pharmaceuticals concedes that during short-term controlled clinical trials, 4% of the children and youth taking Luvox—that’s one in 25—developed mania. That’s a dangerous and violence-prone mental derangement characterized by extreme excitement and delusion.

That would be the clinical aspect of it. But I’m saying maybe they opened themselves up to a power that controlled them to want to murder. Remember, the thief comes to steal, murder, and destroy.

What this country needs is a turn back to Jesus Christ.

The Founding Fathers founded this nation on religious principles—on Judeo-Christian principles, mainly on the Holy Scriptures. More than any other book quoted in the founding documents was the book of Deuteronomy. Our laws are based on the Bible.

Fifty-five of the 56 signers of the Declaration of Independence were what we would call today evangelical Christians. These are the things that made America great in the beginning. Now, we had our problems, obviously.

But the start of this nation was unlike anything else. Our second president, John Adams, said this: “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate for the government of any other.”

Now, why would he say that? He was saying our citizens need to be religious and moral in order for our Constitution—our set of laws—in order for it to work. Why? Because we have to have a people who are moral and who know right from wrong to control themselves.

Because you cannot hire a police force large enough to control everybody if everybody does what’s right in their own eyes. And if there’s no right or wrong, and there’s no God, then there’s no one to actually say that murder is right or wrong. It all becomes subjective.

But the fact is, there is a God. He gave us His Word. That Word was used to found this nation and to found our laws. And that’s what we need to get back to in America. We need a revival.

We need to turn back.

Gary Varvel: We’ve had times in the past. 9/11, for instance. That happened and it shocked the nation and unified the nation. We were being attacked from an outside force, and all of a sudden people in America who were divided politically came together because we were all going to stand up against a common enemy.

And our churches were filled. People went to church. But what happened? Eventually life got back to normal. And then people went back to their old ways.

And none of it was real. We were scared, and we got down on our knees and prayed. And then when we saw things get back to normal, we rose up and forgot about God. That’s a very dangerous place to be.

Deuteronomy chapter 8 gives us this warning. God told the nation of Israel, if they go into the Promised Land and forget the Lord their God, He would bring the curses down on them that He was bringing down on their enemies. And He says, “I will destroy you as I destroyed them.”

America is at a turning point. We’ve been at a crossroads for years. And people like Charlie Kirk, people like myself, people like Todd Huff are trying to call America back to the God of the Bible.

Calling people back to hope. Because ultimately, God is our only hope.

I’d also say this: God is our biggest threat. Just as you look in the Old Testament and see how He judged nations at that time—that is always a concern. At some point, if we go too far, if our sin rises to heaven, God will say, “That is enough.”

So pray for our country. I have nine grandchildren and I’m concerned about what we’re leaving them.

I remind you what Judges 2:10 says: “After that generation died, another generation grew up who did not acknowledge the Lord or remember the mighty things He had done for Israel.”

And when we forget God, bad things happen.

In 1964, Ronald Reagan gave a speech titled “A Time for Choosing.” And in it he said this: “Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn’t pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on to them to do the same. Or one day we will spend our sunset years telling our children and our children’s children what it was once like to live in the United States where men were free.”

Ronald Reagan was right. And I’m praying that God will work a miracle and give us another spiritual Great Awakening—because that is our only hope.

Gary Varvel: You’re listening to the Todd Huff Radio Program. We’ll be back in just a minute.

Gary Varvel: Welcome back to the Todd Huff Radio Show. I’m Gary Varvel, political cartoonist syndicated through Creator Syndicate. I’m filling in for Todd today.

There’s something I want to talk about—something that fascinates me, and I don’t know if it does you or not. Artificial intelligence. I’m sure many of you have probably used ChatGPT or Grok 4. It’s fascinating for a lot of different reasons.

I think it’s interesting that Elon Musk, in 2014, said this: “We should be very careful about artificial intelligence. If I were to guess what our biggest existential threat is, it’s probably that. With AI, we are summoning the demon.”

Seems to be a theme on this show today. I’m sorry, but I’m trying to wake us up a little bit.

Is he speaking in hyperbole? I don’t think so. President Trump signed an executive order stating that America is going to be the dominant leader in AI, and then he introduced a $100 billion to $500 billion project called Stargate.

When I heard about Stargate, my mind immediately went to Revelation 13. Technology is neither good nor evil—it depends on how it’s used. But since the Bible says we’re all sinners, sooner or later technology will be used for evil. You can guarantee it.

The Bible says in Genesis 11 that after the flood, when people started repopulating the earth, they decided to build a tower to the heavens. God came down to see the project. Genesis 11:6 says: “The people are united and they all speak the same language. After this, nothing they set out to do will be impossible for them.”

So God confused their languages so they couldn’t communicate. That language barrier delayed the increase of knowledge for millennia. But look at our generation. Nothing seems impossible.

The exponential growth of knowledge has been astronomical. For thousands of years people traveled by horse and buggy. But from 1900 to 1969 we went from horse and buggy to launching men into space. How do you explain that? Exponential growth.

System theorist Buckminster Fuller created the knowledge-doubling curve. Until 1900, human knowledge doubled every century. By the end of World War II, it doubled every 25 years. Later IBM predicted that by 2020 knowledge would double every 12 hours because of the Internet.

Daniel 12:4 says: “But you, Daniel, keep this prophecy a secret; seal up the book until the time of the end, when many will rush here and there, and knowledge will increase.”

That’s us. Transportation exploding. Knowledge exploding. Both exponentially.

Dr. David Reagan preached a fascinating sermon called The Exponential Prophecy Curve—explaining the speed of growth in population, medicine, weapons, communications, computers, the Internet—all fulfilling prophecy.

Which brings us back to AI and Musk’s fear. Revelation 13:14–15 says the false prophet ordered people to make a great statue of the first beast, the Antichrist. And it was given life so it could speak and command everyone to worship it—or die.

We already have robots that can speak. AI makes this even more real.

Verses 16–18 say he required everyone to be given a mark on the right hand or forehead, and no one could buy or sell without that mark. That’s central bank digital currency and AI control. For the first time in history, it’s possible.

I even asked ChatGPT how long it would take for AI to track everyone on earth—8 billion people. The answer? “Not very long.”

That’s sobering. AI is another sign we are very close to the return of Jesus Christ.

Jesus said He is coming back. And He gave us indications of what life would be like. Revelation 13 is a big one.

So the question is: are you ready to meet Him? The way to be ready is to accept Him as your Lord and Savior, the King of Kings. When He comes back, He will take His church to be with Him. Those left behind will face the tribulation period.

Life on earth will not be what we know today. Nobody wants to be here for that.

So if you don’t know Jesus Christ as your Savior, pray and ask Him to reveal Himself to you. Get into a good church. Don’t be left behind.

Gary Varvel: You’ve heard it said, “For when I am weak, then I am strong.” That’s 2 Corinthians 12:10. God’s power is made perfect in weakness.

But 30 years ago, I remember Pastor Warren Wiersbe visiting our church here in Brownsburg, Indiana. He said: “Where you are strong, that’s where you are weak.” The Bible is full of examples.

Abraham’s strength was faith—yet he doubted God and failed in faith. Moses’ strength was leadership—yet he failed when anger led him to disobey God. Aaron’s strength was obedience—yet he failed with the golden calf. Samson’s strength was physical power—yet it became his downfall with Delilah. David was a man after God’s heart—yet he sinned with Bathsheba. Peter was courageous—yet denied Christ three times out of fear.

Where you think you’re strong, that’s where you’re weak. That’s where the devil will target you.

We as human beings need the Lord—in the little things and the big things. Sure, He gives us gifts. I draw cartoons. But that could be gone tomorrow. My eyesight, my hands, my ability could disappear. Everything ends sooner or later.

The most important thing in life is where you will spend eternity.

Jesus said: “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me, though he may die, yet shall he live. And whoever lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this?”

That’s the question. My answer is: I believe it.

Gary Varvel: I want to thank Todd Huff for allowing me to sit in today. I’m Gary Varvel. You can see my work at GaryVarvel.com.

Until next time, God bless. Thanks for watching!

Please note that transcript are generated automatically with transcribing tools and AI. While fairly accurate, it is not perfect.