KEY POINTS:
The Old Testament book of Ecclesiastes says: "There is nothing new under the sun". That is something of which the Kiwi Party's founder is all too aware, as he and his Christian political party decide their future after this month's election defeat.
Twenty years ago, Gordon Copeland railed
against the Devil's work in Bangkok, burned the "evil" music of pop diva Grace Jones, and called for the Holy Spirit's guidance in oil market forecasting.
Today, the 65-year-old again sees evil spirits at work on the violence-riven streets of the Thai capital, a lack of moral guidance in speculation on the tumultuous oil markets - and Grace Jones is back this month with her first album in nearly 20 years.
So is this mere coincidence - or are we all slaves to the rhythm of history? It was also 20 years ago that Copeland authored a little-known personal reflection on spirituality, Faith that Works, in which he discussed his encounters with God and the Devil.
As a senior BP executive, he wrote, he had been lying awake at 4am in London when the Lord told him that Satan would attack him in Bangkok on the way home.
"I had forgotten all about that a couple of days later when I was lying back in 40 degree heat alongside the swimming pool at the Oriental Hotel in Bangkok enjoying the sunshine.
"A beautiful girl stripped off topless alongside me and covered herself in suntan lotion before diving in for a swim."
The woman was very much in his thoughts, he wrote, as he returned to his hotel room for a much-needed nap.
"The Lord's warning to me in London suddenly flashed into my mind. I realised that I had been attacked by an unseen spiritual being from the realm of Satan.
"The problem was that on this occasion I was incapable of speaking since my voice box appeared to be choked off. Inwardly, however, my spirit cried out desperately to God, 'Help me!'
"From within the deepresources of my being, a wave of the Holy Spirit rose up through my body and seemed to explode up through my throat and my mouth in a song, from my boyhood days of praise to God."
If Kiwi Party members decide in the next few weeks to continue their political activity, Copeland plans to remain involved. But if that is not to be, he will go where God calls him - and that may be to work as a lay missionary in Thailand.
So is Bangkok, with its sex trade and political violence, a latter-day Sodom and Gomorrah?
"Nothing is beyond redemption," he says. "It is a place of huge Satanic activity. When you get into the city, you find there are whole shops which sells gods and idols of every description, gold leaf, horrendously expensive, things with an animal's body and human head. People sacrifice food to them."
"You can explain what's happening there now in terms of human weakness and human sinfulness."
Last time he was in the city, it was at the end of 21 months' work at BP in London, a turbulent time in the oil markets yet one in which his prayer-inspired financial forecasts were never more than 3 per cent out.
He wrote in his book: "I was conscious week by week during 1974-75 of the Holy Spirit guiding my forecasts through one of the most turbulent periods in the history of the international oil industry."
Now, he says we are enduring "spectacular" turbulence, largely because of oil futures speculation without moral or spiritual guidance.
Quoting Lord Robert Skidelsky, a British economist, he says the economic meltdown was caused by worship of the false god of greed. "It is one of the seven deadly sins."
On his return to New Zealand in the late 1970s, with five children passing through their teenage years, he became alarmed at the sex and violence in the movies and pop music they enjoyed.
"I shall never forget sitting down for the first time with a cassette which Andrea [his daughter] brought home by Grace Jones. It contained a lyric glorifying groupie sex and I realised it was evil ... I burnt it."
This month, Grace Jones' new album, Hurricane, contains such lyrics as, "your meat is sweet to me" and "I give birth to sheep".
Says Copeland: "Weird stuff. It sounds pretty much the same as 20 years ago. If people want to keep shocking, they have to keep going downhill - which I suspect is what has happened in that 20-year period. Addiction to heavy rock, dark music, is more difficult to break than drugs or alcohol or sex."
One thing is certain: he won't be at Jones' Antipodean concert in January.
