What could possibly possess someone to do something so ghoulish, so barbaric—so inhuman?

You’ve surely heard of this spate of bizarre cannibalistic crimes. They sound like scripts from shock B-grade horror films—but, incomprehensibly, they are actually happening.

A homosexual porn star in Canada apparently killed his lover and ate him—but not before mailing to the nation’s main political parties his victim’s dismembered feet and hands. A naked Miami man ate almost the entire face off a homeless person; when police intervened, he viciously growled back at them like an animal before they shot him to death. A Louisiana man was working in his yard when another man showed up and attacked him, and actually bit a chunk of his face off. At a college in Maryland, a student admitted to carving up his roommate with a knife and devouring his heart and part of his brain.

The mind reels. And all these events occurred just within the last couple weeks.

Much media coverage has centered on bath salts—a potent drug that a couple of these attackers might have taken. The U.S. Senate responded by voting almost unanimously to ban the substance.

As reasonable as passing that bill may have been, though, are we really going to pretend that this combination of chemicals is the real cause of these horror stories? No drug turns people into crazed, violent beasts.

These are clearly crimes influenced—or perhaps even committed—by demons.

That’s right—there is a spiritual dimension to these events that the media are apparently duty-bound to completely ignore.

People can laugh or scoff, but demons are very real, and active in the world today.

Be honest: A drug alone cannot account for a man—whose girlfriend says was happy, and with whom she “felt safe”—one day getting out of his car in broad daylight, stripping off his clothes, finding a napping homeless man, savagely attacking him and gnawing away at his face in full view of passing motorists and cyclists for nearly 20 minutes, and then responding to multiple threats by police to shoot him by snarling at them incoherently.

However, that drug could weaken a mind enough to open the door to a demon.

This kind of behavior is unmistakable evidence of the power of the spirit world, which has a very evil side.

The Canadian cannibal knew all about it. “There is such things as Monsters, Demons and Ghosts,” he wrote on his Facebook page. “They live inside of us, and sometimes they win.”

In this man—who, it has since been discovered, appears to have committed other unspeakably grotesque murders in the past—they clearly did win. The macabre and violent nature of these acts is a measure of the demons’ extreme hatred for human beings—a hatred that actually has a remarkable explanation.

How much do you understand about evil spirits? The Bible makes clear that ignorance about these powerful beings leaves us dangerously vulnerable to them.

Do you know where they came from? Do you know why they hate us so much?

Matthew 12:43-45 and many other passages reveal that demons crave to possess someone or something. However, not all demonic activity takes such manifest form. Our world suffers from far more satanic influence than most people realize.

Read Revelation 12. It describes a stunning spiritual reality. It names the supreme evil spirit being as “the great dragon … that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world.”

The whole world is cloaked in deception about this being. He often obscures his own identity—even, at times, disguising himself as an angel of light (2 Corinthians 11:14).

How much do you recognize evil spirit influence in the world around you? Popular culture today is saturated in it. Many people are fascinated by and addicted to increasingly overt forms of rank evil and perversion—yet naively believe it is harmless or even healthful. Millions are soaking their minds in books, television programs, movies, music, video games, websites and other media with explicitly demonic messages. No doubt there are demons influencing or even possessing people in order to write books and screenplays, to direct videos and films, that consumers are lapping up.

Added to these influences are the widespread use of mind-altering drugs; spreading mental and emotional imbalances and loss of control; increasingly commonly embraced perversions; open blasphemy and hostility to God. In arena after arena, our society is opening doorways to sinister spiritual influences and creating a hospitable playground for evil spirits to have their way.

It’s to the point where appalling stories such as these recent events actually generate more laughs than gasps of shock and dismay.

You need to protect yourself from the influence of demons, which the Apostle Paul called “the rulers of the darkness of this world” (Ephesians 6:12). There is a reason he instructed believers to “have no fellowship with unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them” (Ephesians 5:11). Compromising with that world of darkness is far more dangerous than people realize.

You need to read Chapter Two of Herbert W. Armstrong’s book Mystery of the Ages, titled “Mystery of Angels and Evil Spirits.” You can also watch Trumpet editor in chief Gerald Flurry’s television program “Satan Is a Mystery.” These sources give solid biblical explanations on this crucial subject. And they show how important it is to draw close to God for protection (e.g. James 4:6-10).

That passage in Revelation 12 reveals the lightning-bolt truth: The malevolent ruler of the evil spirits, who at one time actually inhabited heaven, has been cast down: “he was cast out into the earth, and his angels [the demons—of which the Bible suggests there are millions or perhaps billions] were cast out with him.” The devil and his countless demons are now roving the Earth, spreading their evil. “Woe to the inhabiters of the earth and of the sea!” the scripture warns: “for the devil is come down unto you, having great wrath, because he knoweth that he hath but a short time.”

This scripture, contained in the prophetic last book of the Bible, contains both a strong warning and a powerful promise. It forewarns of a period when bizarre, violent demonic activity will intensify because of the devil’s resentment growing hotter and hotter.

Resentment over what? There is the promise: It is speaking of the shortness of time before Christ’s Second Coming, when those evil spirits will be locked up! (see Revelation 19:11 through 20:10).

We are living in this urgent, intense time today. Watch. Expect more of these horrifying headlines in the time ahead!