Now that the present Pope is to quit, attention is focused on his successor, especially in the light of the alleged prophecies of a man known as "Saint" Malachy, which tells you all you need to know. Be wary lest you be sucked in by this claptrap. I put as much value on it as on the alleged "Mayan Prophecies." When I first heard those my comment was: "Who cares what they predicted? They knew so much about the future that they are extinct"¦" The same goes for all those who claim to be seers. I have lived among such people, heard their philosophy, attended s ƒ ©ances and so on. The one thing you can be certain of is: they do NOT know the future.

Malachy died about 400 years or more before his so-called prophecies were allegedly discovered in 1590. So yes, there are seemingly accurate predictions of things that happened BEFORE then. After that time, the whole mess becomes just a host of obscure references which, like the mutterings of Nostranonsense, could mean almost anything.

According to these make-believe false predictions, the next pope will be Petrus Romanus, Peter of Rome. He will be the last pope and will see the destruction of Rome and the end of the age. This is just a crib from the book of Revelation, which does indeed detail the destruction of Rome-the City on Seven Hills (Revelation 17/18). I believe we are very close to the end, and speak about it to any church which invites me. However, my source of information is Bible prophecy, not quackery. There probably won't be many more popes, but the timing of events is in God's hands alone and all date setters, those whose information is ultimately based on deception, will suffer the fate of the pathetic ‚   radio millionaire Harold Camping, the last deluded soul to make a big fuss about the Lord's return in, er, 2011....

Harold was one of an ongoing line of false prophets, tools of Satan used to persuade people that prophecy is meaningless. In fact, Biblical prophecy is what every church should be studying in these astounding times of fulfilled prophecies. The so-called "Saint" Malachy, was Archbishop of Armagh,Ireland, and died in 1148. No mention of any prophecies was made during his lifetime, which tells you a lot. His very title is false: all Bible-believing, born-again believers are Saints, and this would be unlikely to include Malachy, although God is his judge on this count.

The End Times which we are in are marked by great deception, fuelled by those with more regard for making money than telling the Gospel Truth. In fact there may just be one thing on which I agree with the Catholic false church, which we expose in detail in our book, ‚  Cults and Isms: True or False? ‚  That is, that the pope prophecies of Malachy are just a forgery, rediscovered by the gullible and greedy every few decades.

I once worked for a sort of modern-day, wannabe Malachy, who thought he was one of the "Masters of Maitraya" tasked with ushering in the New World Order/Age of Aquarius. We published newspapers and magazines, ostensibly secular but in fact being prepared to tell the world the "spiritual truth" - from a New Age perspective - when the end times tumult started and scary things sent people searching for gurus "“ just as they are today.

One day, I misguidedly took Pat to a meeting with this man and his wife, a spiritist medium. As their front door swung open the lady, who shall be nameless, made one true prediction: "One day you will expose us." She seemed unaware of what she had said. Sometimes, you see, the demons put some truth into the mouths of even the deluded and fanciful. This story is in ‚  Goodbye America, Goodbye Britain, ‚  the book Pat and I wrote which tells the truth about what is going on today, from a Biblical viewpoint.

One chapter I wrote for the ‚  Cults and Isms ‚  book, which we would like every new Christian to have for reference, is all about the occult. Remember, modern-day prophets are almost certainly false prophets, giving people what their itching ears long to hear. Here is what the Bible says about such folk: ‚  "Believe not every spirit, but test the spirits, whether they be of God." 1 John 4:1. ‚  Certainly there is a lot of supernatural activity in these last days, as Satan knows his time is short.

I spent years as a reporter and investigator, researching stories about UFOs. Oh yes, there are UFOs, "Men in Black" and much else. However, they are not from outer space. No, they come from a much darker place than space. Of course, the world wants to believe tall tales from Roswell rather than the truth, which is that demonic activity and other deception is behind many UFO sightings, some of which are indeed credible. That doesn't mean they are physical, however.

I once interviewed an old man who claimed to have been taken up in a space vehicle parked on the banks of a canal. His name was Alfred Burtoo, an obvious fantasy artist. I wrote a spoof story about it, headlined :"The Day Alf Met a Spaceman." It was never meant to be taken seriously, but beware what you commit to print....This became one of the classic tales of modern ufology, the subject of books by people who had never met old Alf......I reviewed one of these books in the newspaper I edited, trying to dispel the myth. You might as well spit into the wind. I was roundly denounced by the true "believers." What did I know? I only originated the story.....

Those who want to believe in date setting, papal prophecies and all the occult mumbo jumbo with which we are bombarded, beware. It has one source, a being out to deceive you as we approach the end of the Church Age and the soon return of the Lord Jesus Christ. This is something I saw at first hand over a period of many years, and investigated in great detail. Again, I would like to remind churches: I will be in America from late June and will consider speaking on Cults, Isms and other deceptions, as well as Biblical prophecy - the truth, not the fiction- anywhere from Dallas, where I start out at Dave Reagan's prophecy conference, to Oklahoma and Missouri.

Here's another, final extract, from our book, again from my chapter on the occult: "I moved on to become a magazine writer and was recruited by a New Age organisation which, I was amazed to learn, was really spiritualism in a new form. They didn't use this term, though. They were "healers" and business people, aiming to usher in the Age of Aquarius.

"However, they didn't take a business decision without contacting the "˜friends'. ‚  The friends were spoken to at s ƒ ©ances, just like the old-style spiritualists held. ‚  When Satan has a good con trick going, he won't let it go in a hurry. ‚  Why try new tricks when the old ones work so well? ‚  So spiritualism is not only still with us, it is stronger than ever, with psychic channels on television in which you can "call the psychic" on a minute-by-minute charge basis. ‚  (AF adds in 2013: Lucrative and popular, just like books and DVDs about false prophets. Oh yes, there's a money machine behind Malachy.)

"I realised this when I borrowed some ladies' magazines to research an article. ‚  I was amazed to see many pages of classified ads offering tarot readings and occult consultations of all forms. ‚  Whole new generations have discovered that there is a spiritual world out there, something they can, perhaps, tap into. ‚  Except that the Bible expressly forbids this.

"Leviticus 19:31: ‚  "Regard not them that have familiar spirits, neither seek after wizards, to be defiled by them." Leviticus 20:27: ‚  "A man or a woman that hath a familiar spirit, or that is a wizard, shall surely be put to death." In Isaiah 8:19 there is another warning about practising spiritism, the seeking after "familiar spirits," today called spirit guides. ‚  Odd that in the spiritualist churches I attended they never read those passages out.

"Of course, today's psychics usually don't bother with church: they are often busy touring the country with travelling psychic fairs, which pull in the punters at town halls near you. This is in the long tradition of occultism as a stage show. ‚  The Fox sisters founded modern spiritualism on March 31, 1848. ‚  This was the day ‚  Kate and Margaret Fox, of ‚  Hydesville, New York, claimed to have contacted the spirit of a murdered peddler. ‚  The alleged spirit communicated through rapping tables, sounds which onlookers heard. Thus started a whole tradition of rapping, tapping and ouija board consultation. ‚  The Fox sisters became the showbiz sensations of their time.

"As a young reporter I sometimes rustled up a "spooky story" to sell to the more lurid tabloids. ‚  This is how I made my living and the cases were often convincing. ‚  Something was going on"¦so in the days of the Fox girls the papers splashed the story and soon the girls' alleged "communications with the dead" became a stage act eventually managed by PT Barnum of Barnum and Bailey's Circus fame. ‚  The Fox family were the world's top mediums and modern spiritualism was launched.

"Unfortunately for the credibility of spiritualism, however, Margaret Fox later confessed that the whole thing was a hoax and the knocks were produced by, among other things, the cracking of her toes! ‚  She added that the Hydesville events were a pre-April Fools' joke prank which was taken too seriously!

"Her confessions were reprinted in "A Skeptic's Handbook To Parapsychology" by Paul Kurtz, 1985, Prometheus Books). However, she later withdrew her statements and tried to resume her career as a medium. ‚  It didn't work and the Fox sisters are said to have died as penniless drunks. ‚  There is always a price to pay if you allow Satan to use you, even if it seems like a joke, or just fun."

This is still true, of course. The papers, TV programs and conferences will be full of false pope predictions. It's a new year, a new scam. I predict this: they won't come true. Only God knows the future, His word reveals it and it is not left to ancient mystics and their modern apologists to guide us through the spiritual mess that our nations have become.