"The Howling Man"
Exactly 65 years ago this election day, November 4, 1960, Rod Serling's prescient Twilight Zone episode aired on TV - for whatever that's worth.
David Ellington: “I-I didn’t believe you. I saw him and didn’t recognize him.
Brother Jerome: “That is man’s weakness... and Satan’s strength.”
That’s from “The Howling Man” a second season episode of The Twilight Zone which will have aired exactly 65 years ago this coming election day, Tuesday, November 4. I happened to watch the episode last night, appropriately on Halloween night, and was struck all over again by the prescient, timely messaging of Rod Serling’s Twilight Zones.
There’s a bunch of them — including “He’s Alive,” “The Shelter,” and “The Monsters Are Due on Main Street.”
The gist of “The Howling Man” — scripted from a short story of the same name written by TZ contributor Charles Beaumont — finds a man lost in a storm knocking on the door of a hermitage, where the devil is locked up in a cell and held in check by a simple “staff of truth” which he cannot breach.
The devil appearing to be a just a man, pierces the scenes with his incessant howling demanding he be released. Despite being warned by Brother Jerome to stay away from the jailed Satan, the wanderer, David Ellington, is swayed by the devil to remove the “staff of truth” which imprisons him.
Once outside the cell, Diablo’s horns spike from atop his head as he takes on his true form. The devil momentarily paralyzes Ellington, dropping him to the floor. Brother Jerome rushes to his aid.
Brother Jerome: “I’m sorry for you, my son. All your life, you will remember this night. And you’ll know, Mister Ellington, whom you have turned loose upon the world. “
David Ellington: “I-I didn’t believe you. I saw him and didn’t recognize him.”
Brother Jerome: “That is man’s weakness... and Satan’s strength.”
Indeed. Man’s weakness — not recognizing the devil as he cons his way to influence. The Bible warns the devil even “masquerades as an angel of light.” Americans first hand know something about that.
In both the short story and TZ episode, “The Howling Man,” the devil is recaptured and imprisoned — but not before, in the story version, the enemy rises to power as one Adolf Hitler and the “world was plunged into war.”
This Tuesday, on the 65th anniversary of TZ’s “The Howling Man,” is big. Election results held in three states — New Jersey (gov., legislature), Virginia (gov., legislature), and New York (mayor) will determine whether more evil is unleashed — or we bolster efforts towards eventually caging the devil. Vote the Democratic ticket.
Meanwhile, I’m still waiting for fellow Christians, distracted, programmed white evangelicals in particular, to see the mistake they’ve made, in essentially giving the devil carte blanche and holding wide open the Oval Office door for him.
This has been just a brief, but urgent reminder from the nether regions of The Twilight Zone this scary weekend for the food insecure and the Obamacare dependent. Don’t miss it. God does work in creative and mysterious ways.
Happy Halloween.