The 1900s-era weapon had been in its flesh for some time.

Christ is King. Satan is real. In a strange way, I'm thankful for both. It's not that I'm happy about the principalities and powers with which we do battle in this fallen world, of course. But I thank God for the wisdom to seem them for what they are. 'Wisdom is the recovery of innocence at the far end of experience.' Satan is real. It's a sentence I would have been embarrassed to speak just a few years ago. Perhaps you're familiar with that famous bell curve meme? At one end you have the simpleton, at the other the genius. The joke is that both extremes believe the simple, unadorned truth: In this case, Satan is real. In the middle we find the educated modern — or midwit. Not for him a crude, three-word fact. Sentences and sentences of hemming and hawing, qualifications and hedges, intellectural frippery. That's where I was for most of my life. That's the sweet spot for the American elite and those who aspire to it. That worldview worked, until it didn't. The first step to acquiring wisdom was realizing I wasn't nearly as smart as I thought I was. The cover of the the Louvin Brothers' 1959 country gospel album "Satan is Real" regularly shows up on those clickbait lists of weird album covers. It's the kind of goofy kitsch I used to love with an affectionate sense of superiority. It strikes me a little different now. The brothers didn't hire a professional to design the cover of "Satan is Real," and it shows. The image — featuring a 12-foot plywood devil Ira Louvin built himself, backlit by burning, kerosene-soaked tires — has been widely shared for its kitsch appeal. And yet the eerie power and urgency of songs like the title track or “The Drunkard's Doom” can make you wonder if maybe they're right. The Louvin Brothers' homemade hell can't compete with the far more immersive depictions of the demonic offered on today's screens. And yet few of these visions spring from genuine conviction. We don't take evil seriously, especially not supernatural evil. But we're like the obnoxious preteen who's only recently outgrown Halloween, walking through the haunted house and gleefully pointing out how “fake” everything is. Just who is he trying to convince? I remember how easy it was for me to dismiss the notion of supernatural evil. The occult isn’t what it used to be. We’d need the firewood from a thousand Burning Mans to dispatch every witch casting spells on TikTok, but their “magick” tends to focus on self-realization and wellness, like yoga for people with purple hair and face piercings. Child sacrifice in the form of abortion persists, but many of its practitioners are only dimly aware of the death cult they serve. Even the pants-soilingly grueling ayahuasca trips now in vogue don’t seem to pose any eternal risk; all spirits encountered are assumed to have our best interests at heart. Current popular entertainment tends to reflect this shallow and naïve understanding of the unseen world. Rare is the artist who dares remind us of what might really be stake in these lives we lead. This is why the sickening dread evoked by Irish director Liam Gavin's 2016 movie "A Dark Song" is so unfamiliar. Two people meet in a remote farmhouse in rural Wales: a desperate, grieving mother, and the bitter, alcoholic occultist she’s hired to help her contact her recently murdered young son. They begin an arduous, months-long ritual, which writer-director Liam Gavin depicts with painstaking realism. By showing how tedious and grubby the path to damnation can be, "A Dark Song" makes us ponder our own demons and the disturbing possibility that we’re not as in control of them as we’d like to think. Someday we may reach out to remove the mask, only to find that our deepest childhood instincts about what lurks in the dark were right all along. “Wisdom is the recovery of innocence at the far end of experience,” says Orthodox theologian David Bentley Hart. I'm grateful every day for a new chance at cultivating this wisdom — and I wish the same for you. Happy Thanksgiving.

Jack Smith’s cases investigating Trump’s attempts to challenge the 2020 election are falling apart — and now he’s stepping down from his position as special counsel before the president-elect takes office. Mark Levin of “LevinTV” isn’t surprised. “You know why? It’s simple. He’s an unconstitutional prosecutor. Donald Trump’s going to fire his ass. All the cases collapse, based on Department of Justice memos,” Levin says. “They collapse, these cases should never have been brought, the case in Florida was rightly thrown out.” “That’s why they were in a rush to get these cases prosecuted. To get him in prison before the election, which also violated numerous Department of Justice rules,” he continues. Now, Levin believes action against the people who sanctioned this needs to be taken. “It’s also my position that the new attorney general needs to dig into this and find out who exactly was responsible for it,” he says, adding, “They did everything possible to affect the election and to destroy Donald Trump’s life.” While the obsession with putting Trump behind bars was obvious from the start, Smith had been hyper-focused on Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election — which is a perfectly normal thing for a candidate to do. “A candidate has every right to try and challenge an election, which means to overturn it. That’s exactly what’s going on in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania today at the behest of Chuck Schumer with their slip-and-fall lawyer Mark Elias,” Levin explains. “They did the same thing in Minnesota to give Al Franken a senate seat to take out Norm Coleman. More than a decade ago, Al Gore challenged the election in court after court in Florida until the Supreme Court stopped it,” he continues. “There’s simply nothing criminal about challenging it, about looking for more votes, about encouraging a state legislature to act, about encouraging a board of elections to act,” he says, adding, “This is the first time it’s been criminalized.” Want more from Mark Levin?To enjoy more of "the Great One" — Mark Levin as you've never seen him before — subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.

An unusual new Steam Deck rival has just been announced by OneXPlayer, but calling it a handheld might not do it justice. The hybrid design of the OneXPlayer OneGX 2 makes it hard to place, mixing the form factor of a handheld gaming PC with design features we’d expect from a laptop, although the unusual double keyboard added on top is completely original. The best gaming handheld PCs in the market right now, including big players like the original Steam Deck, largely all have a very similar form factor. The effort here by OneXPlayer to switch things up a little could pay dividends, if the device works as intended. Not only could it be a great handheld, but it could also prove to be a great two-in-one replacement for your gaming laptop, too. Continue reading With two keyboards, this Steam Deck rival is the oddest handheld gaming PC yet MORE FROM PCGAMESN: Best graphics card, Best gaming PC, Best SSD for gaming

Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 landed on Steam with an unfortunate thud. When you could actually get into the game, it was great, and worked fine, but for a lot of players the newest edition of the beloved PC series was unexpectedly off limits. Owing to technical problems, Flight Sim fans were left permanently on the initial load screen. The issue got so bad that MSFS 2024, for a short time, was forced to carry the shame of an ‘overwhelmingly negative’ rating on Valve’s store. But like Cyberpunk 2077, No Man’s Sky, and Final Fantasy 14, Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 has found redemption. Developer Asobo confirms that the issues regarding access are dealt with, and the Steam reviews have started to regain altitude. Continue reading Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024’s worst days are over as dev fixes loading issue MORE FROM PCGAMESN: Microsoft Flight Simulator review, The best PC simulation games, Microsoft Flight Simulator system requirements

When is the Dead by Daylight Bone Chill event 2024? These days, it feels like one DBD event is barely finished before the next begins - but we’re not complaining. Fresh out of the Haunted by Daylight Halloween event and the latest 2v8 limited-time mode, it’s time to ready up for the Bone Chill winter event. Now in its fourth year, Bone Chill returns to the horror game with some familiar features, alongside brand-new mechanics. A new Event Tome gives you the chance to pick up new wintry Dead by Daylight cosmetics, both DBD killers and survivors can jump into Snowmen to trick the enemy, and a brand-new map debuts with the launch of the event. We’re yet to see if there’ll be any new DBD codes to celebrate the event, but here’s everything else we know about DBD Bone Chill 2024. Continue reading DBD Bone Chill 2024 release date, start time, new map, and more MORE FROM PCGAMESN: DBD killer tier list, Best horror games, DBD codes

There’s another Black Friday deal on the table, and this one feels juicy. The prices of subscriptions to Nvidia GeForce Now have just been slashed on the cloud-based streaming service, offering a huge 50% off the price for new subscriptions for the first three months of membership. If you’ve never given the service a try, now’s your chance to lock in a cheap deal over the holiday season. Not everyone has the best gaming PC in the world, but thanks to Nvidia, you don’t need one. GeForce Now members can hire the power they need, on the go, to enjoy the latest games on all kinds of devices, whether it’s an old PC or a smartphone. As long as you own the games, you can rent your own GPU, including an Nvidia GeForce RTX 4080, and start playing immediately. Continue reading Grab 50% off an Nvidia GeForce Now sub in this Black Friday deal, but be quick MORE FROM PCGAMESN: GeForce RTX 4070 Super review, DLSS explained, Best graphics cards

While there is no official Steam Black Friday sale, the Autumn sale still offers lots of exciting deals over the Black Friday period. Some publishers are now running specific Black Friday sales on the platform too, so there's no shortage of bargains. Remember all those games you wanted to try but were waiting for them to go on offer? Well, chances are they’re on sale now - from Silent Hill 2 to Diablo 4 and Dragon's Dogma 2, some fantastic games are going cheap. Continue reading Steam Black Friday sale - the top PC game deals MORE FROM PCGAMESN: Steam FAQ, Steam family sharing, Steam in-home streaming

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