Thomas Merton on "The Principalities and powers"

Thomas Merton addressed the sinister powers which rule the ruling powers which St. Paul called "principalities and powers" in this manner:

"'They,' of course, have never really been in any position to support anyone. 'They' need us, but not our emptiness 'they' should need as a justification of their own emptiness. That is why their support comes always, and only, in form of bribes. We are nourished in order that we may continue to sleep. We are paid to keep quiet, or to say things that do not distrub the unruffled surface of that emptiness from which, in due time, the spark and the blast must leap out and release in all men, the grand explosion."

-Raids of the Unspeakable, p. 59