Comedian Russell Brand warned during an interview earlier this week at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, while discussing the recent assassination attempt against former President Donald Trump, that spiritual "darkness" is evident in the world today.
In response to a question from conservative influencer Benny Johnson, who noted that one would have to be "comatose or dead" not to sense the "heightened spiritual energy" in the light of Trump's near-death on Saturday, Brand said he was glad people are looking at the incident spiritually.
Russell Brand discusses dark spiritual energy and how that contributed to the assassination attempt on President Trump:
"This is something I've felt an awareness of for quite some time.. It does feel like there is a darkness that is beyond our rational means to fully… pic.twitter.com/ytVar3RBpl
— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) July 16, 2024
"I'm so glad that you're affording us a spiritual lens because, let's face it, this was an event that several people prophesized [sic] or at least foresaw, and perhaps it was foreseen because of the escalating conditions and the outrageous tension," Brand said. "It seems from a number of perspectives, this is something that people were anticipating."
Referring back to Johnson's point about "dark spiritual energy," Brand said it is something he has "felt an awareness of for some time."
"It does feel sometimes that there is a darkness that is beyond our rational means to fully understand," adding that "certainly, as a new Christian, it's something that I'm beginning to look at from a new perspective."
"I've always understood cruelty, darkness, mendacity to occupy establishment spaces for materialistic reasons, for reasons of dominion," Brand told Johnson. "Now I'm beginning to sense that there might be — I don't like to use the word — 'occultist' dimension, or Luciferian."
Brand, who has been open about his former drug use and New Age dabbling, said he has lately been thinking about the story in Luke 10 when Jesus told his disciples that He "saw Satan fall like lightning from Heaven."
"This really struck me lately, to sort of think of an atemporal, a-spatial Creator God giving people the ability to cast out the very kind of darkness that surely needs to be cast out now more than ever," he said.
Brand listed some of the remaining unanswered questions about the assassination attempt against Trump, pointing back to a point Johnson made earlier about how it was a "miracle" that, as video shows, Trump rotated his head at the right time so the bullet didn't kill him.
U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., announced Wednesday that the U.S. House of Representatives will establish a task force to investigate "shocking security failures" related to the Trump assassination attempt.
Brand made international headlines earlier this year when he converted to Christianity following a lengthy public wrestling with faith. In April, he was baptized in the River Thames, along with Bear Grylls and another friend.
His baptism came less than a year after a joint investigation by The Times, The Sunday Times and Channel 4's Dispatches reported on allegations from four women who accused Brand of rape, sexual assault and emotional abuse. He has denied the allegations.
Other figures have recently suggested that divine intervention played a role in the fact that 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks merely grazed Trump's ear because the former president happened to turn his head during a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania.
During a Heritage Foundation event at the RNC on Monday, conservative commentator Tucker Carlson provided Trump's attempted assassination as an example of the dark spiritual forces at work in the United States.
"I think what happened on Saturday, the assassination attempt against President Trump, reminded a lot of people, or awakened a lot of people to this. There is a spiritual battle underway," he said.
"There is no logical way to understand what we're seeing now in temporal terms; you just can't. These are not political divides. There are forces — and they're very obvious now, they've decided, for whatever reason, to take off the mask — whose only goal is chaos, violence, destruction," he added.
Dr. Ben Carson, an Evangelical who served as Trump's secretary of Housing and Urban Development, quoted Isaiah during a Monday speech at the RNC, saying he believes God "lowered a shield of protection" over Trump last weekend.
"I saw President Trump, a dear friend, escape death by mere inches," Carson said. "And my thoughts immediately turned to the book of Isaiah that says: 'No weapon formed against you shall prosper.'"