Ron Tabor says he spent the first 17 years of his life in New York City, watching The Three Stooges and eating pizza.

Now, he’s 31, and lives in Chapel Hill. He’s just finished a documentary on Warren Barrett of Storybook Farm called The New American Mystics and is working on a pilot for a series of television shows, “based on the spirit of American vaudeville,” in which he plays Ronald Radio. He’s a tap-dancer, too. And last year, he and his brother, Dick, opened Aurora, Be Mine, an elegant late-night cafe.

Ron is elegant, too, without being foppish, and a quietly religious man. Add a touch of the old New York craziness, and you’ll understand why his heroes are Fred Astaire and St. Augustine.

We talked at my home, then took great liberties editing the tape. It’s presented in two parts — “Armageddon: A Scenario,” Ron’s history-of-the-future, and the interview “In Defense of the Human Heart.”

— Sy Safransky

 

What’s going on in the next ten years is centered around the Mid-East. That’s the conclusion I draw from The Fatima Prophecy and all the Bible prophecies and the techniques they’re using at the Rand Corporation and the Hudson Institute. The Bible prophecies start with growing Mid-East tension over oil distribution and religious strife. It looks like someone will throw the Bomb. Finally, a ten-nation common market, including the United States, is formed to bring about peace. The Bible prophecies don’t say which nation is going to head it, but I think it’s the United States. Let’s say that this common market pulls it off. Peace is restored. As a result, there are new alignments, which once again set Russia and the West at odds. Russia is not a member.

In the Bible prophecies they talk about the Anti-Christ and, on the political level, about one particular person who’s heading this new common market. I believe the President of the United States will become the president of this new coalition. So the president of the coalition and the Biblical notion of the Anti-Christ are the same. The Anti-Christ is the metaphor for the head of the Satanic or evil forces in the world. At the same time, all the religious organizations, established churches, Baptists, right on down the line, start regrouping. When religion loses its spirit the only thing left for it is organization. Paralleling the common market, a new ecumenical coalition forms, and gives it political support. The people who know where it’s at spiritually, or who know where it’s at in a certain human heart way, don’t buy this new ecumenical council and form the new religious underground.

Meanwhile, there’s more and more social unrest in this country, culminating in assassinations, war between the blacks and the whites. (The blacks and sympathetic whites will call it revolution; the power structure will call it civil war.) The real action will take place in the cities. Right now the blacks and Puerto Ricans are heirs and rightful owners of the cities and one day they’re going to realize it.

What happens if, in our lifetime, because of these events, there’s real repression going on in this country for the first time? It’s just the opposite of that whole wide open feeling of the Sixties. What it’s like when you really go underground would be a new experience for me. Can you imagine actually watching what you say and who you’re talking to?

In the midst of this social disorder, the people who feel like they know the truth about the human heart refuse to fall for any of the bullshit handed out by the new ecumenical order, especially because it’s supported by the new Anti-Christ. The Anti-Christ parades as a devout man. Some expect serious assassinations in 1981. In the Bible prophecies, they all agree that the President of the United States, i.e. the Anti-Christ, is assassinated, but miraculously brought back to life. Medical science declares him dead. At the moment that he is declared dead, a psychic is brought in and brings him back to life, which at one time seemed too fantastical. But now, in view of psychic healing, it’s believable that this guy could get the heart going again. When the Anti-Christ is brought back to life, he becomes convinced of his own divinity and special powers and so does most of the world. Now, the context of all this is tremendous social and political unrest, domestically and internationally. Within that context, you know that the average guy is going to vote for a very strong right-wing fascist-type. Domestic social order and world peace at any cost. That’s going to be the watchword and that’s how he gets his power. He pulls it off by very tight controls on America and very tight controls internationally. But whatever is happening, he’s restoring peace and he’s restoring the economy. So, the more he’s restoring the economy and the peace, the more support he’s getting, except from the people who know where it’s at. Now, the people that are not buying his stuff will be persecuted economically. This will be justified for reasons of internal security. The spiritual underground, since it withholds its allegiance from the Anti-Christ, is sanctioned economically. Ironically, this drives the diverse portions of the underground together, and the underground emerges as a real political force. But economic sanctions soon turn into more violent persecution.

Israel decides to rebuild the temple in Jerusalem. The Arab world freaks out. The Arabs get the support of Russia and there’s a Mid-East coalition. They decide to take over the Mid-East. Russia sends all its Mediterranean forces to Israel, pretty much its whole army. At this point, Russia has more men, weapons, everything, than the United States. The military force of the United States and the ten-nation common market also converge in the Mid-East. World War III.

The Russian Army is destroyed in the field. In The Fatima Prophecy, he said that the big reckoning for humanity would come during this time. As a consequence of repeated atomic explosions, the atmosphere changes color and there are many earthquakes. When the atmosphere changes color, those who have trained themselves not to believe in appearances, the spiritual underground, retain their sanity through prayer and faith. Miraculously, Russia, as the prophecies state, reverts to its native Christianity. But globally, the average person concludes that the Earth will be destroyed. Stanford predicts countless deaths through heart attack by those unable to see past the immediate horrors. For Stanford, our only hope is prayer. Action is impossible.

Now China enters the stage and attacks the remaining forces of the Western coalition. At this point, the interpreters of the Bible prophecies say that Christ will return from the sky and be clearly visible to the entire world, and will stop the war. I believe the divine intervention will take the form of flying saucers and spacecraft. In other words, other powers from the galaxy enter the scene.

Naturally, they’re seen as enemies. The United States and the ten-nation common market throw their military might against them. At this point, the more evolved humans, members of the spiritual underground, are removed from the Earth. The prophecies speak of the rapture, when the believers in Christ meet him in the air. Interpreters suggest teleportation into the intervening spacecraft. Armageddon. The Earth is scourged by fire. Those taken into the spacecraft are altered psychologically and physiologically and returned to Earth to rebuild the planet.

Ron Tabor recommends:

Armageddon, Oil and the Middle East Crisis by Walwood and Walwood (Zondervan)

There’s a New World Coming by Hal Lindsey (Bantam)

The Late Great Planet Earth by Hal Lindsey (Bantam)

The Apocalypse by V. S. Seiss (Zondervan)

The Fatima Prophecy by Ray Stanford (Assoc. for the Understanding of Man)