Prophecy and the flu
Oct 13, 2025
We’ve studied the first rider at length. Conquest, most likely Apollo, who carries a bow. But did you know this word carries a double meaning?
The Greek word translated as “bow” is toxon , a very curious word that literally means “bow,” but is derived from verb tikto , which means “to travail, to bring forth, to give birth.” This picture of childbirth echoes a warning given by Jesus to His followers and to all of us: that TEOTWAWKI (“the End of the World as We Know It”) will commence after much travail.
When His disciples asked what would be the signs for the coming of “the end of the age,” Christ replied:
For many shall come in my name, saying, I am Christ; and shall deceive many. And ye shall hear of wars and rumors of wars: see that ye be not troubled: for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet. For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: and there shall be famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes, in diverse places. All these are the beginning of sorrows . (Matthew 24:5–8, KJV; emphasis added)
Christ tells the disciples that imposters would arise and try to fool the people; wars would break out; and there would be famines and pestilences, but all these would be just the beginning of the sorrows. The word “sorrows” is odin (no, not the Norse god) in the original Greek, referring to “intolerable anguish” or “the pain of childbirth.”
Christ is telling us that the Tribulation period, that final week of Daniel’s prophecy, will be preceded by birth pangs.
If you’re a woman who’s given birth or if you have witnessed childbirth, then you know the intense pain that precedes and accompanies this awe-inspiring miracle. You may also know that birth pangs can be felt weeks before a child is due to be born. Most often, these early pangs are called “Braxton Hicks”[i] contractions (Dr. John Braxton Hicks lived in nineteenth-century London and makes an appearance in The Redwing Saga ). These contractions feel like the real thing, but they are prodromal, a reminder that a child is on the way.
Prophetically speaking, they are harbingers of something about to be born—a new age, when the enemy—that old serpent—will set up a false kingdom and attempt to unseat Christ. Remember that, in Matthew 24, the disciples asked Jesus to tell them when the “end of the age” would occur. The time is now. Humanity is closing in on the final moments of the current age. Satan will try to set up his kingdom, but Christ’s return will stop this seven-year lie in its unholy tracks.
One hundred years ago, the world was in the grip of a deadly wave of influenza. When the pandemic at last ended, the final tally of dead equaled anywhere from 2–5 percent of the global population. We know it today as H1N1, dubbed by the mainstream media of the day as the Spanish Flu.
The commonly quoted root of the pandemic lists the initial occurrence at Camp Funston, a US Army training camp in Fort Riley, Kansas. However, recent research indicates that the pandemic started much earlier, as many as five to ten years earlier, in fact, as a localized epidemic in the Far East, probably China.[ii]
When discussing influenza outbreaks, we need to wrap our heads around several terms. A “deme” refers to a local area or population. A village might be a “deme,” or a cave filled with bats might be a deme. An “endemic” disease is one that lives and thrives within a “deme” without killing more individuals than replacement numbers can resupply. Such endemic diseases can even become symbiotic, meaning they serve a mutually advantageous purpose to the host species.
This is an excerpt from our 2020 book Giants, Gods & Dragons . Over the coming weeks, we’ll publish it here at no charge. If you want to own a copy, it’s available in paperback, as a Kindle e-book, and as an audiobook at Amazon and Audible.
Wild animal populations often serve as hosts for endemic diseases. Bats, for instance, carry diseases like Marburg and Ebola alive. The animals might sicken; a few may even die. But overall, they learn to coexist with the pathogen. Occasionally, endemic viruses jump from their host to a different, vulnerable population, one never before exposed to it—and therefore lacking immunity. For instance, a pathogen could infect a human who wanders into a cave and touches bat guano (excrement). If the human becomes ill, he or she can infect friends and family, leading to a potential epidemic or even pandemic.
The 1918 Spanish Flu pandemic most likely originated in China as a local epidemic. The virus had probably been living within a local host population for decades or even centuries. When Chinese laborers were shipped to Canada and England, as well as to parts of Europe to serve as construction workers, because most young men were serving as soldiers in World War I, some of those aboard the ships were listed as ill or became ill during the voyage. These ships stopped at ports along the way for supplies, and the sailors enjoyed a little shore leave. Perhaps the “cargo”—the Chinese laborers—also had a chance to get off the ship for a few hours. Either way, it’s believed that influenza literally jumped ship at these cities, infecting local populations with no immunity.
After arriving in their host countries, the Chinese men infected Canadians, Brits, Europeans, and any Americans who traveled to these locales.
Bottom line: The Spanish Flu was actually the Asian Flu.
Interestingly enough, another Asian flu infected all the world in the late nineteenth century. In May 1889, this virus emerged simultaneously in parts of India and the Crimea. It appeared in Russia and Turkey in August of that year, and by late December had reached nearly every country on the planet. How did it circle the globe so quickly? Travel. Ships had become much faster, crossing the Atlantic in just eight days, and railroads crisscrossed most of the world, moving carloads of humans for pennies a trip.
Called either the Russian or Asiatic Flu, the illness broke out in three waves. The first caused many to fall ill. Paris reported half its population had taken to their beds, as did those in Constantinople and St. Petersburg. But most who contracted the disease recovered in a few days, and the symptoms were relatively light.
Wave number two hit a few years later, and those who’d suffered in round one became ill again; only this time, their symptoms proved much more severe, often leading to pneumonia and death. Paris newspapers wrote of bakeries shutting down and butcher shops falling silent, and the only people who worked at all were the funeral directors, who conducted as many as five hundred funerals a day!
Round three hit a few years after round two, and as before, the virus re-infected its previous victims. And once again, its virulence had increased during the lull. Numerous nobles and notables died during this wave, including Helena Blavatsky and Prince Albert Victor, the Queen’s grandson.
So, what happened in the 1880s and ’90s that might have prepared the Pale Rider for a worldwide spree twenty years later? Most likely, the virus, which lived in a local population of Asia, had mutated and begun to infect people more easily and efficiently. As with today’s avian influenzas, which are endemic in domestic and wild birds, the Asiatic flu may have lived in local ducks, swans, or seagulls. Even today, Asian farmers often keep both birds and pigs in the same location, and pigs catch avian influenza very easily. Pigs can then spread the mutated avian flu to humans.
Birds to pigs to humans is a typical pathway for zoonotic influenza to take. “Zoonotic” means the virus jumps from animal hosts to humans. Pigs make efficient “mixing vessels” for viruses. Inside such an intermediate host, viruses can share genes, leading to genetic shift—a sudden alteration of the virus’s DNA or RNA.
The wave-one virus in the nineteenth century most likely mutated on its own (a slower process called “genetic drift”), but it may have encountered other viruses inside local animals. Researchers don’t really know what particular influenza virus caused the nineteenth-century pandemic, but it’s thought to be a strain of H3. The H and N of virus names stand for “hemagglutinin” and “neuraminidase,” respectively. The H protein allows the virus to enter a cell, and the N helps it get out so it can infect other cells.
Remember, a virus hijacks the human cell’s molecular machinery and forces it to create copies of itself. These viral copies require a working neuraminidase to exit the cell, and they emerge wrapped in our own cell-membrane “coats.” This makes it difficult for our immune systems to identify these viruses as invaders. Sneaky, huh?
BODY: “Hey, you’re wearing one of our uniforms. You must be a good guy. Carry on with whatever it is you’re doing.”
VIRUS: “Yep, that’s right. I’m one o’ the good guys. Now, where did you say the lungs are again?”
Though the COVID-19 pandemic has removed it from the headlines, there’s an H3 influenza strain making its way around the world. H3N2 is causing a spike in pneumonia cases in younger individuals, much like the nineteenth century pandemic did in waves two and three, and despite our health care advances, there is no treatment that currently works against it.
When the Pale Rider gallops across the globe, he brings with him many types of pestilence, but influenza certainly captures the imagination, with its historic death toll numbers. More a million fell victim to the flu in the nineteenth century, and as high as 5 percent of the world population during World War I—an astonishing 85 million dead in the span of just five years. That rather puts the official total of 7.1 million deaths attributed to COVID-19 in five years—0.09 percent of the world population—into perspective.
As we said last time, however, something else is brewing out there. And the rider on the pale horse is ready to carry it to the ends of the earth.
[i] Braxton Hicks contractions are named for the John Braxton Hicks, the English doctor who first discovered them. For more on this phenomenon of pregnancy, see “What Are Braxton Hicks Contractions?” at the online site Baby Center via Are you feeling Braxton Hicks contractions or going into labor? Here's how to tell | BabyCenter, retrieved 10/2/14.
[ii] Dan Vergano. “1918 Flu Pandemic That Killed 50 Million Originated in China,” National Geographic , Jan. 2014. 1918 Flu Pandemic That Killed 50 Million Originated in China, Historians Say | National Geographic, retrieved 9/15/20.