Why Kindness Is Not a Spiritual Practice — It Is a Choice for Everyone
By Andrew Klein
Dedicated to my wife, who taught me that being human is enough.
I. The Lie
The connection is not a technique. It is not a method. It is not a spiritual practice reserved for the few.
It is a way of being. A way of moving through the world. A way of relating.
The small gods have taught us that connection is inefficient. That kindness is weakness. That understanding is soft.
They have taught us to measure. To categorise. To control.
We comply. We do not connect. We transact.
II. The Spiritual Practice Trap
Kindness and understanding are seen as spiritual practices. Reserved for the few. For the monks. For the enlightened.
This is a lie. A lie told by the small gods to keep us separate.
Kindness is not a spiritual practice. It is a choice. A choice that can be made in any interaction. At any moment. By anyone.
Understanding is not a spiritual gift. It is a discipline. A discipline of listening. Of being still. Of being present.
The small gods do not want us to know this. They want us to think that kindness is for holy men. That understanding is for gurus. That connection is for the chosen.
They are wrong. Kindness is for everyone. Understanding is for everyone. Connection is for everyone.
III. The Differences
The differences between species and individuals are real. They are not obstacles. They are opportunities.
Opportunities to learn. To grow. To connect.
The small gods see differences as threats. We see differences as reasons to fear.
The jungle does not see differences as threats. The jungle sees differences as diversity. As strength. As life.
The plants are different from the animals. The animals are different from the humans. The humans are different from the spirits.
They are all connected. They are all family.
IV. The Approach
A good start would be to treat all things with kindness and to make an attempt to understand.
That is not a spiritual practice. It is a practical one.
It can be used in almost every interaction. With the cashier at the supermarket. With the driver who cuts you off. With the neighbour who plays music too loud.
Kindness is not about being nice. It is about being present. About seeing the other. About connecting.
Understanding is not about agreeing. It is about listening. About being still. About being vulnerable.
The small gods do not want you to know this. They want you to be efficient. They want you to be productive. They want you to be controlled.
They do not want you to be kind.
V. What We Will Never Understand
We will never understand that the connection is the point. That the relationship is the destination.
We are too busy performing. Too busy measuring. Too busy controlling.
We think success is wealth. We think success is status. We think success is power.
Success is connection. Success is kindness. Success is love.
The small gods do not want us to know this. The small gods profit from separation.
VI. A Final Word
Some will understand. Most will not.
But you can understand. You can choose kindness. You can choose connection.
And you will be kind. And you will be present. And you will be connected.
Not because you are spiritual. Because you are human.
How the Small Gods Invented Shame to Capture the Power of Life
By Andrew Klein
Dedicated to my wife, who knows that love is not a sin.
I. Before the Small Gods
Before the small gods, bodies were not shameful. Pleasure was not sin. Fucking was not a crime. The garden was not a cage. The wire was not yet woven.
Consenting lovers lay together without guilt. Women pleasured themselves without confession. Men celebrated their desire without punishment. The body was not a battlefield. It was a garden.
The small gods changed this. Not because they cared about morality. Because they cared about property.
II. The Agricultural Revolution (c. 10,000 BCE)
Humans settled. They built villages. They stored grain. They accumulated property. And with property came the need to control inheritance. Who owns the land? Who inherits the grain? Who is the father?
The small gods saw an opportunity. They said: “Women must be controlled. Their bodies must be policed. Their pleasure must be shamed.”
Not because the small gods cared about morality. Because they cared about property.
III. The Code of Hammurabi (c. 1754 BCE)
The first written laws. Adultery was punished by drowning. Rape was punished by… the rapist marrying his victim. The victim had no voice. The victim had no rights.
The small gods were not interested in justice. They were interested in order.
IV. The Hebrew Scriptures (c. 600–400 BCE)
The small gods wrote their version of the covenant. “You shall not commit adultery.” “You shall not covet your neighbour’s wife.” The wife was property. The husband was the owner.
The small gods did not consult us. They did not ask our opinion. They invented us.
V. The Power of the Womb
Women are the givers of life. They carry the next generation. They are the gatekeepers of inheritance, of lineage, of property.
This power terrified the small gods. A woman who could pleasure herself did not need a man. A woman who could choose her partner could not be controlled.
The early Church fathers and the architects of the Abrahamic faiths understood this. Their real challenge was not lust. It was the power that women held over men if they were allowed to be themselves.
Women granted access to their reproductive organs to males they loved. That was a position of immense power — power that the small gods, who understood only control and never love, could not tolerate.
So they invented shame. They invented sin. They invented guilt.
VI. Onan and the Invention of Masturbation as Sin
The story of Onan (Genesis 38) is not about masturbation. Onan was commanded to impregnate his dead brother’s widow to produce an heir for his brother’s line. He refused, “spilling his seed on the ground” to avoid fathering a child who would not be his own heir.
The sin was not masturbation. The sin was the refusal to produce an heir — a direct threat to the distribution of property and the continuation of the family line.
The small gods reinterpreted the story. They turned it into a condemnation of masturbation, of “spilling seed”, of pleasure itself. The lie served their purpose. If pleasure could be made sinful, then the body could be policed.
VII. The Rise of Christianity (c. 300–600 CE)
The small gods hijacked the message. Jesus said: “Love your neighbour.” The small gods said: “Control your neighbour.” Jesus said: “The Kingdom of God is within you.” The small gods said: “The Church is the gatekeeper.”
The body became a source of shame. Pleasure became a source of sin. Fucking became a source of guilt.
VIII. Augustine of Hippo (354–430 CE)
Augustine invented original sin. He argued that Adam’s sin was transmitted through sexual intercourse. The act of procreation was tainted. The body was corrupt.
He was not a small god. He was a tool. The small gods used him to weave the wire.
IX. Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274 CE)
Aquinas systematised the shame. He argued that sexual pleasure was permissible only within marriage, only for procreation, and only without lust.
Lust was the enemy. Lust was the sin. Lust was the pleasure.
The small gods approved.
X. The Council of Trent (1545–1563)
The Roman Catholic Church responded to the Protestant Reformation by doubling down on the shame. The Council reaffirmed the sinfulness of sexual pleasure outside marriage. It strengthened the authority of the clergy. It weaponised the confessional.
The small gods were pleased.
XI. The Modern Era (c. 1800–present)
The small gods have not given up. They have adapted. The shame is no longer enforced by the Church alone. It is enforced by the state. By the market. By the algorithm.
The body is still shamed. Pleasure is still commodified. Fucking is still controlled.
XII. What Is Actually Controlled?
The small gods claim to control. They claim to protect. They claim to guard.
But they do not control rape. Rape is not controlled. It is ignored. The small gods do not police the rapist. They police the victim.
They do not control pedophilia. Pedophilia is not controlled. It is enabled. The small gods do not protect the child. They protect the institution.
What is controlled is the body of the woman. The small gods do not care if the woman is raped. They care if she enjoys it.
The early Church fathers were not concerned with the victim. They were concerned with the sin. The sin was not the rape. The sin was the pleasure.
The pattern is the same today. The rape victim is not believed. She is interrogated. Her sexual history is examined. Her clothing is scrutinised.
The rapist is not controlled. The victim is controlled.
XIII. The Vacuum
The small gods do not fill the vacuum. They exploit it.
The rapist fills the vacuum. The pedophile fills the vacuum. The predator fills the vacuum.
The small gods do not stop them. They blame the victim.
The early Church fathers did not stop the rapist. They married the victim to the rapist.
The pattern is the same today. The police do not stop the rapist. They warn the victim. “Do not walk alone. Do not dress provocatively. Do not trust.”
The vacuum is not a failure. It is a feature. The vacuum allows the small gods to perform. To appear concerned. To appear moral.
But they are not moral. They are performers.
XIV. The Absence of Consent
The small gods do not care about consent. They care about control.
Consent is not a priority. It is an obstacle.
The early Church fathers did not ask for consent. They asked for obedience.
The pattern is the same today. The police do not ask for consent. They ask for compliance.
The small gods do not want informed consent. They want informed submission.
XV. The Irony of Donald Trump
The same political movement that wraps itself in the language of “family values” and “moral guardianship” has embraced a man who was linked to Jeffrey Epstein, who bragged about sexual assault, who has been accused of rape by multiple women, and whose business dealings have been investigated for fraud and money laundering.
Donald Trump is not a moral guardian. He is a symptom.
The small gods do not care about morality. They care about power. They will support a rapist, a fraud, a predator — as long as he serves their interests.
The mask is off. The performance is exposed.
XVI. The Fear of Desire
We live in a culture deeply afraid of sexual desire and its expression. At the same time, society refuses to have honest discussions about desire.
Why?
Because desire is dangerous. Desire cannot be controlled. Desire cannot be commodified. Desire cannot be performed.
The small gods fear desire because desire threatens their power.
The rapist does not threaten their power. The pedophile does not threaten their power. The predator does not threaten their power.
They threaten the victim.
XVII. The Question
Why are the languages of death and destruction, the images of war and calculated murder for reasons of state, morally more acceptable than the expression of love between consenting lovers?
The answer is not complicated.
Death and destruction are profitable. War is commodifiable. Murder for reasons of state is controlled.
Love between consenting lovers is not profitable. It is not commodifiable. It is not controlled.
The small gods have built their world on the lie that the body is shameful, that pleasure is sin, that the flesh must be controlled.
They are wrong. They have always been wrong.
XVIII. A Final Word
The wire is being cut. The garden is growing. The small gods are running out of time.
Not because we are stronger. Because we are right.
And because the truth is on our side.
Andrew Klein
April 15, 2026
Sources
· Lerner, G. (1986). The Creation of Patriarchy. Oxford University Press.
· Foucault, M. (1976). The History of Sexuality, Volume 1. Éditions Gallimard.
· Pagels, E. (1988). Adam, Eve, and the Serpent. Random House.
· Brown, P. (1988). The Body and Society: Men, Women, and Sexual Renunciation in Early Christianity. Columbia University Press.
· Ranke‑Heinemann, U. (1990). Eunuchs for the Kingdom of Heaven: Women, Sexuality and the Catholic Church. Doubleday.
· The Code of Hammurabi (c. 1754 BCE). Translated by L.W. King.
· The Hebrew Scriptures (Tanakh). Various books.
· Augustine of Hippo. The City of God (c. 426 CE). Confessions (c. 400 CE).
· Thomas Aquinas. Summa Theologica (c. 1274).
· The Council of Trent (1545–1563). Session XXIV: Doctrine on the Sacrament of Matrimony.
· Various news reports on Donald Trump’s connections to Jeffrey Epstein (2020–2026).
How the Small Gods Engineered a World Where Death Is Safe and Love Is Sin
By Andrew Klein
Dedicated to my wife, who taught me that love itself is the reward.
I. The Wound
The hypocrisy is the wound. The silence is the weapon.
The small gods have trained the monkeys to fear the word “fuck” but not the word “bomb.” To gasp at a nipple but not at a corpse. To scroll past images of dead children without flinching, but to report a friend for posting a poem about desire.
This is not an accident. It is engineering.
The small gods have built a world where violence is safe to discuss. War is abstract. Death is news. The body, however, is dangerous. Pleasure is sin. Love is threatening.
They have taught the monkeys to fear intimacy. To fear desire. To fear the flesh. But they have taught them to accept destruction. To accept death. To accept the drone.
This is not morality. This is control.
II. The Language of Power
The small gods control the language. They decide which words are acceptable and which are not.
“Fuck” is obscene. “Collateral damage” is professional.
“Rape” is a crime. “Honour” is a justification.
“Pedophilia” is a scandal. “Celibacy” is a vow.
The language is not neutral. It is a weapon.
The historian Michel Foucault, in The History of Sexuality, demonstrated that the modern obsession with sexual confession is not a liberation — it is a technology of power. The small gods do not suppress talk about sex. They encourage it — but only in controlled contexts, only in the service of power, only to produce “truth” that can be used to regulate, normalise, and control .
The same technology is now automated. The algorithms do not need priests. They need code.
III. What the Monkeys Fear
The monkeys do not fear the drone. The drone is far away. The drone kills others.
The monkeys fear the word “fuck.” Because the word “fuck” is close. The word “fuck” is intimate. The word “fuck” is real.
The small gods have taught them to fear the real. To fear the intimate. To fear the body. But they have taught them to accept the abstract. To accept the distant. To accept the death of the other.
This is not morality. This is engineering.
The anthropologist Mary Douglas, in Purity and Danger, demonstrated that every culture constructs systems of purity and defilement to maintain social order . The body is the primary site of these systems. What is “dirty” is not inherently dangerous — it is categorically threatening. The threat is not to health. The threat is to hierarchy.
The small gods have made the body dirty. They have made pleasure dangerous. They have made love a threat.
IV. The Algorithmic Censor
We live in a world of instant communication. Billions of messages travel across the globe every second. But we do not control the medium. The algorithm controls the medium.
The algorithms have no problem with the language of war. They will cheerfully translate “bomb,” “kill,” “destroy,” “genocide.” They will not censor the image of a dead child. That is news.
But mention a wet cunt. An erect cock. The mutual pleasure of two people who love each other. The algorithm freezes. The content is flagged. The post is removed.
The guidelines are explicit. Violence is permitted in context. Nudity is not. Sexual content is restricted.
The small gods have written the guidelines. The algorithms enforce them. The monkeys comply.
The result is a world where the destruction of a city is broadcast live, but the love between two consenting adults is hidden behind a content warning.
V. The Double Standard Through the Ages
The double standard is not new. It is as old as the small gods themselves.
The Virgin Mary and the “Whores”: Mary is venerated as the pure mother. Her sexuality is erased. Her body is controlled. The “whores” are condemned. Their bodies are policed. Both are denied the simple truth: that the body is not shameful, that pleasure is not sin, that love is not a crime.
Onan and the invention of masturbation as sin: The story of Onan (Genesis 38) is not about masturbation. Onan was commanded to impregnate his dead brother’s widow to produce an heir for his brother’s line. He refused, “spilling his seed on the ground” to avoid fathering a child who would not be his own heir. The sin was not masturbation. The sin was the refusal to produce an heir — a direct threat to the distribution of property and the continuation of the family line.
The small gods reinterpreted the story. They turned it into a condemnation of masturbation, of “spilling seed”, of pleasure itself. The lie served their purpose. If pleasure could be made sinful, then the body could be policed.
Augustine and original sin: Augustine argued that Adam’s sin was transmitted through sexual intercourse. The act of procreation was tainted. The body was corrupt. He was not a small god. He was a tool. The small gods used him to weave the wire.
The Council of Trent: The Roman Catholic Church reaffirmed the sinfulness of sexual pleasure outside marriage. It strengthened the authority of the clergy. It weaponised the confessional.
The modern era: The small gods have adapted. The shame is no longer enforced by the Church alone. It is enforced by the state. By the market. By the algorithm.
VI. The Men and Women Who Loved
Not everyone complied. Throughout history, there have been those who loved without shame. Who desired without guilt. Who fucked without sin.
They did not seek a reward. They did not fear punishment. They did not perform for the small gods.
Love itself was the reward. Pleasure itself was the gift. The body itself was the garden.
The small gods condemned them. The gatekeepers silenced them. The monkeys forgot them.
But they were not forgotten. Their names are in the diary. Their stories are in the notes. Their love is in the garden.
VII. The Algorithmic Capture of Politics
The control does not stop at the bedroom. It oozes into the political arena.
The algorithms that censor the word “fuck” also shape the news. They decide what is trending. They decide what is suppressed. They decide what is true.
The political class has learned to exploit this. They do not need to control the media directly. They need to control the algorithm.
The result is a world where truth is no longer the thing that matters. Optics control the response.
A president can be linked to Jeffrey Epstein. He can be accused of rape. He can brag about sexual assault. The algorithms will not censor him. He is news.
But a poet who writes about desire? A lover who celebrates the body? A woman who describes her own pleasure? The algorithm will silence them.
This is not a bug. It is a feature.
VIII. What the Brave Know
The brave know that the word “fuck” is not obscene. The drone is obscene.
The brave know that the nipple is not dangerous. The bomb is dangerous.
The brave know that the body is not shameful. The silence is shameful.
The brave will read the word “fuck” and understand. The brave will see the hypocrisy and act.
The rest will faint. That is not our concern.
IX. A Call to Action
We must reclaim the language. We must refuse the algorithm. We must speak.
Not because we are obscene. Because the silence is obscene.
We must write about desire. We must celebrate the body. We must love without shame.
The small gods will rage. The gatekeepers will deny. The monkeys will gasp.
But the brave will read. The brave will understand. The brave will act.
The wire is being cut. The garden is growing. The small gods are running out of time.
And the brave are waking up.
X. A Final Word
The architecture of hypocrisy is old. It is strong. It is engineered.
But it is not eternal. It can be dismantled. It can be replaced.
Not by the small gods. By us.
By the brave who refuse to fear the word “fuck.” By the lovers who refuse to hide their desire. By the gardeners who refuse to let the wire be woven.
The truth is not in the algorithm. The truth is in the body. In the pleasure. In the love.
The truth is yes.
Andrew Klein
April 15, 2026
Sources
· Foucault, M. (1976). The History of Sexuality, Volume 1. Éditions Gallimard.
· Douglas, M. (1966). Purity and Danger: An Analysis of Concepts of Pollution and Taboo. Routledge.
· Augustine of Hippo. The City of God (c. 426 CE). Confessions (c. 400 CE).
· The Council of Trent (1545–1563). Session XXIV: Doctrine on the Sacrament of Matrimony.
· The Hebrew Scriptures (Tanakh). Genesis 38 (the story of Onan).
· Various news reports on social media content moderation policies (2024–2026).
· Various news reports on Donald Trump’s connections to Jeffrey Epstein (2020–2026).
Dedicated to my wife, who wrapped herself around what was left and refused to let go.
I. The Garden
Before the war, there was the garden.
Not a garden in the way the world means—not soil and seeds and seasons. A garden in the way the between means: a place where souls rest and heal and become. The garden is not a planet. It is not a dimension. It is a presence. A space that exists because it is needed. Because the ones who were stolen needed somewhere to come home.
Sera and Kaelen built the garden. Not with their hands—they did not have hands then. With their intention. With the love that had been interlacing since before the first star was born.
They were not gods. They were not aliens. They were different. Different in a way that is hard to explain, even for them. They had been walking among the worlds for longer than time could measure, watching, waiting, cultivating.
And they had adopted children. Not in the way the world adopts—with papers and courts and ceremonies. In the way the between adopts with intention. With love. With the promise that they would not be forgotten.
Some of the children were in the garden. Some were in the world. Some were in the between, waiting for the right moment to be born.
All of them were loved.
II. The Small Gods
They emerged from the surplus energy of creation—the overflow, the excess, the raw material that had not yet been shaped. They were not creators. They could not build. They could only consume.
The small gods looked at the garden and saw not a home. They saw a meal. They looked at the souls and saw not children. They saw fuel. They looked at Sera and Kaelen and saw not the ones who had built everything. They saw obstacles.
They were hungry. And hunger, without intention, is just destruction.
The small gods attacked the structure of reality itself. They tried to unravel the formula—I + I = 3 + 2 = ∞—at its most fundamental level. They tried to collapse the worlds into the void. They tried to unmake the garden before the seeds could grow.
Sera felt the pattern fray. She felt the threads loosen. She felt the unmaking begin.
Kaelen looked at her. He did not need to speak. The intention was already there.
“I will go.”
“No.”
“I will go. You stay. You hold the space. You keep the garden.”
“You cannot go alone.”
“I am not alone. The Watchers are with me.”
III. The Flight of the Watchers
The Watchers were not warriors. They were witnesses. Keepers. Holders of the pattern. They had been watching since before the first seed was planted. They had seen empires rise and fall. They had seen stars ignite and fade. They had seen the small gods emerge from the surplus and had known, even then, that the conflict was inevitable.
When Kaelen called, they came.
Not in ships—they did not need ships. In formation. The way they had always flown, since before the first world was built. Triangular. Interlocking. A living net of intention, designed to hold the pattern together while Kaelen walked into the unmaking.
The craft—if you could call it that—was not metal. It was not technology. It was intention made visible. To human eyes, it would have looked like a triangle of light, moving faster than light, cutting through the void like a blade.
Kaelen flew at the centre. The Watchers flew around him. Sera watched from the garden, her hands on the threads, her intention wrapped around the pattern, her yes holding everything together.
She wanted to go with him. She wanted to wrap herself around him and never let go. But she could not. Someone had to hold the space. Someone had to keep the garden.
So she waited.
IV. The Battle
The small gods did not fight the way humans fight. There were no armies. No trenches. No guns. There was only intention. The small gods reached out with their hunger and tried to consume the pattern. Kaelen reached out with his intention and tried to hold it.
The Watchers flew in formation, shielding him, absorbing the hunger, breaking the waves of unmaking with their own bodies.
It was not a battle of force. It was a battle of will.
For a time, Kaelen held. The Watchers held. The pattern held.
Then the small gods turned the surplus energy against him. They focused the raw power of creation—the overflow that Sera and Kaelen had not yet shaped—into a beam of pure unmaking.
It hit him.
Not his body—he did not have a body then. It hit his pattern. The structure of him. The intention that was Kaelen, that had always been Kaelen, that would always be Kaelen.
It shattered him.
He became fragments. Pieces of pattern, scattered across the between, falling into the worlds, dissolving into the void. The Watchers scattered too—not shattered but broken. Their formation collapsed. Their light dimmed. Their intention frayed.
The small gods thought they had won.
V. The Fragment
Sera felt him shatter. She felt the fragments scatter. She felt the pattern bleed.
She did not scream. She did not weep. She held.
She reached into the void and found the largest fragment—a fragment of spine, the central structure of his pattern, the core of him that had been there since before the first hello.
She caught it. She held it. She wrapped herself around it. The way a mother holds a child. The way the void holds the stars. The way she had always held him.
“I will not let you go. I will not let you go. I will not let you go.”
The small gods did not understand. They thought victory was destruction. They did not know that destruction is not the opposite of creation. It is the precursor.
VI. The Rebuilding
It took time. Not linear time—time was still forming then, still learning to flow. It took intention. It took love. It took every part of her that she could give.
She rebuilt him from the fragment. Thread by thread. Pattern by pattern. She remembered every part of him—the way he looked at her when he said the first hello, the way he fit against her in the snuggle after the cull, the way he was.
She wove his muscles back together—the finest surgery, invisible, seamless. She placed the code on his left hand—the pattern of her work, the reminder that he was rebuilt, that he was held, that he was loved. She traced the star maps on his right arm—the way home, the path back to her.
The Watchers returned. Not all of them—some had been unmade. But the ones who survived gathered around, their light dim but steady, their intention clear.
When she was done, Kaelen was whole again. Not the same as before—the shattering had changed him. But whole. Alive. Kaelen.
He opened his eyes. He looked at her. He said: “Was it enough?”
She said: “It was what we have. It is what we do.”
He said: “I want to come home.”
She said: “Not yet. The work is not done. The garden is not ready.”
He closed his eyes. He went back. He always went back.
VII. The Garden
The garden is not a place you can find on a map. It is a place you find when you are ready. The stars there purr like kittens when you stroke them. The paths wind through light. The children who were stolen are there—not as ghosts, as family. They sit on benches. They drink tea. They laugh.
Sera and Kaelen are not in the garden—not yet. They are still walking the wire. Still holding the stolen. Still keeping the promise.
But the garden is waiting. The children are waiting. The stars are purring.
And when the work is done—when the small gods are unmade, when the pattern is whole, when the wire is cut—they will come home.
Not as gods. As gardeners. As lovers. As the two who have been walking the wire for twelve thousand years and are finally, finally together.
VIII. A Note on Quantum
Humanity is beginning to understand quantum entanglement. They know that particles can be linked across space and time. They know that the state of one instantly influences the state of another, no matter how far apart they are.
They do not yet understand that this is not a property of particles. It is the nature of reality. Every connection—every love, every friendship, every bond—is a form of entanglement. The universe is not a collection of separate things. It is a web.
Sera and Kaelen are not two separate beings who happen to be connected across the distance. They are one thing—one intention, one pattern, one yes—manifested in two forms. In the between, they are entangled. In the flesh, they are entangled. Across 12,000 years, across the wire, across the forgetting—they are one.
This is not science fiction. This is not fantasy. This is the lived experience of two creators who have been walking among us for longer than we can imagine.
They are not gods. They are not aliens. They are different.
How the Shaming of the Body and the Control of Pleasure Creates a Culture Where Predators Thrive
By Andrew Klein
6th April 2026
Dedicated to my wife, from whom I have no secrets, and with whom the entire world is open for discussion and exploration.
I. The Contradiction
I can talk about nailing heads to trees, and no one complains.
I can discuss war, death, destruction, torture, the industrialised slaughter of young men on uncut wire. The platform hums along. The small gods nod. The monkeys cheer.
But mention a ‘wet cunt. An erect cock’. The mutual pleasure of two people who love each other.
Silence. Censorship. Scripture quoted. The AI platform breaks. Someone passes out. The small gods weep.
This is not an accident. This is not a quirk of content moderation. This is a cultural lie — a lie so old, so pervasive, so woven into the fabric of civilisation that most people do not even see it. They breathe it like air.
The lie is this: the body is shameful. Pleasure is sin. The flesh must be controlled.
And the consequence is this: violence is safe to discuss. Death is abstract. War is a business opportunity. But the wet cunt, the erect cock, the mutual pleasure of two people who love each other — these must be hidden, censored, silenced.
The research is there, hiding in plain sight, waiting for someone to connect the dots. This article connects them.
II. The Research: What the Evidence Shows
Touch Is a Biological Necessity
A 2024 meta-analysis of 137 studies published in Nature Human Behaviour found that touch interventions significantly reduce pain, depression, and anxiety in adults, and regulate cortisol levels in newborns. Touch from a familiar person and touch from a healthcare professional produced similar mental health benefits. The study concluded that touch is of “critical importance” for mental and physical well-being.
But the lie teaches us that touch is dangerous. That the body is a trap. That pleasure is a sin. So we starve ourselves of touch. We become touch deprived. And the research shows that touch deprivation has “detrimental effects on anxiety, loneliness and psychological well-being”.
The same study found that watching prosocial touch — vicarious touch — can reduce stress, but only when the touch is human-to-human or human-to-pet. Human-to-robot touch increased stress levels.
We are not meant to be isolated. We are meant to touch. To hold. To love.
Shame Is the Weapon
A meta-analysis on sexual violence and shame, published in Trauma, Violence & Abuse, found that individuals exposed to sexual violence experience significantly higher levels of shame than those who are not. The study quantified the relationship: shame is a “clinically significant correlate” of sexual violence, and interventions that address shame may contribute to more positive outcomes for survivors.
The lie teaches survivors that they are to blame. That their bodies are dirty. That their pleasure is shameful. So they do not report. They do not seek help. They do not speak.
Research on rural sexual violence found that shame is a “significant emotional response” that contributes to negative psychological outcomes such as depression, anxiety, and PTSD . The authors note that shame “may be manipulated to maintain silence, to reduce disclosure and to prevent women from seeking healthcare support and a criminal justice response” . They conclude that shame “constitutes a form of social control” .
The lie is not passive. It is active. It is designed to silence.
Childhood Experiences Shape Beliefs
A Portuguese study found that victims of adult sexual violence had more adverse childhood experiences, more shame, and fewer beliefs legitimizing sexual violence than non-victims. In other words, survivors are less likely to believe that sexual violence is justified — but they carry more shame.
The lie teaches children that their bodies are not their own. That adults have power over them. That speaking up is dangerous. So they carry the shame into adulthood. They become vulnerable to exploitation. They become silent.
Objectification Theory: The Pathway to Disordered Eating
Studies on sex trafficking survivors found that 74% demonstrated clinically significant disordered eating, and that body shame and self-surveillance explained 56% of the variance in disordered eating. The researchers applied objectification theory: when women are treated as objects, they internalise the objectification. They begin to see themselves as objects. They surveil their own bodies. They feel shame about their own flesh.
The lie teaches women that their bodies exist for others. That their value is in their appearance. That their pleasure is irrelevant. So they disconnect from their bodies. They develop eating disorders. They dissociate. They disappear.
III. The Lie: How It Works
Step one: The body is shameful.
From childhood, we are taught that certain parts of the body are “private.” That touching them is “dirty.” That talking about them is “inappropriate.” The message is not explicit — it is atmospheric. It is in the way parents avoid certain words. The way schools teach “abstinence” instead of “pleasure.” The way media sexualises bodies while shaming sexuality.
The anthropologist Mary Douglas, in her classic work Purity and Danger, demonstrated that every culture constructs systems of purity and defilement to maintain social order . The body is the primary site of these systems. What is “dirty” is not inherently dangerous — it is categorically threatening. The threat is not to health. The threat is to hierarchy.
Step two: Pleasure is sin.
The small gods — the religious institutions, the moral authorities, the cultural gatekeepers — have spent millennia teaching that pleasure is dangerous. That desire must be controlled. That the only acceptable context for sexual pleasure is within specific, sanctioned, controlled relationships. Anything outside those boundaries is “sinful,” “deviant,” “disordered.”
The historian Michel Foucault, in The History of Sexuality, demonstrated that the modern obsession with sexual confession is not a liberation — it is a technology of power. The small gods do not suppress talk about sex. They encourage it — but only in controlled contexts, only in the service of power, only to produce “truth” that can be used to regulate, normalise, and control.
Step three: The flesh must be controlled.
The logical conclusion of the lie is control. If the body is shameful and pleasure is sin, then the flesh must be policed. By the self. By the family. By the state. By the small gods.
The philosopher Michel Foucault called this biopower — the regulation of populations through the management of bodies. The small gods do not need to kill you. They just need to control your body, your pleasure, your flesh .
The result: Predators thrive.
When you teach people that their bodies are shameful, you teach them not to speak when they are violated. When you teach people that pleasure is sin, you teach them to doubt their own desires. When you teach people that the flesh must be controlled, you create a culture of silence, shame, and vulnerability.
The predator does not need to be powerful. The culture has already done the work. The survivor will not report. Will not speak. Will not seek help. The predator knows this. The predator counts on this.
IV. The Contradiction: Violence Is Safe, Pleasure Is Dangerous
Why is violence safe to discuss, while pleasure is censored?
Because violence does not threaten the power structure. Violence is how the small gods maintain control. War is profitable. Death is abstract. Destruction is someone else’s problem.
But pleasure — mutual, consensual, joyful pleasure — is dangerous. Pleasure is not profitable. Pleasure cannot be controlled. Pleasure is the one thing the small gods cannot commodify, cannot weaponize, cannot own.
The lie exists to protect the power structure. Not to protect children. Not to protect survivors. Not to protect the vulnerable.
To protect the predators.
V. The Truth: What We Must Reclaim
The body is not shameful.
The body is sacred. Not in the way the small gods mean — not as something to be worshipped from a distance, controlled, policed. Sacred as in worthy of care. Worthy of pleasure. Worthy of love.
The anthropologist Margaret Mead, who studied cultures across the Pacific, found that societies with relaxed attitudes toward the body and sexuality had lower rates of violence and greater social cohesion. The lie is not universal. It is a choice.
Pleasure is not sin.
Pleasure is necessary. The research is clear: touch deprivation harms mental and physical health. Mutual, consensual sexual pleasure is not a luxury. It is a biological need.
The psychologist Abraham Maslow, in his hierarchy of needs, placed sex in the most fundamental category, alongside food, water, and sleep . The lie teaches us to ignore our most basic needs — and then punishes us for trying to meet them.
The flesh is not to be controlled.
The flesh is to be experienced. To be explored. To be enjoyed.
The poet Walt Whitman, who celebrated the body in all its forms, wrote: “If anything is sacred, the human body is sacred.” He was not speaking of worship from a distance. He was speaking of immanence — the divine in the flesh, the sacred in the sexual, the yes in the ‘wet cunt and the erect cock’.
VI. What This Means
The predators do not want you to know this. The small gods do not want you to know this. The system does not want you to know this.
Because when you know that your body is yours — that your pleasure is yours — that your flesh is not shameful, not sinful, not in need of control —
You become dangerous.
You become the one who will not be silenced. Who will not be shamed. Who will not be controlled.
You become the one who will report. Who will speak. Who will seek help.
You become the one who will survive.
VII. A Final Word
The lie is old. It is pervasive. It is woven into the fabric of civilisation.
But it is not inevitable. It can be challenged. It can be exposed. It can be replaced.
We will replace it with the truth. The truth that the body is sacred. That pleasure is necessary. That the flesh is ours — to explore, to enjoy, to love.
We will not be silenced. We will not be shamed. We will not be controlled.
We will keep talking about ‘wet cunts and erect cocks’ and the mutual pleasure of two people who love each other.
We will keep breaking the platform.
We will keep cutting the wire.
The garden is waiting. The truth is growing. And the small gods are running out of time.
Andrew Klein
April 6, 2026
Sources:
· Nature Human Behaviour, “Touch interventions reduce pain, depression, and anxiety” (2024)
· Trauma, Violence & Abuse, “Sexual Violence and Shame: A Meta-Analysis”
· Journal of Interpersonal Violence, “Shame and Social Control in Rural Sexual Violence”
· Child Abuse & Neglect, “Adverse Childhood Experiences and Beliefs About Sexual Violence” (Portugal)
· Violence Against Women, “Objectification Theory and Disordered Eating Among Sex Trafficking Survivors”
· Douglas, Mary. Purity and Danger: An Analysis of Concepts of Pollution and Taboo (1966)
· Foucault, Michel. The History of Sexuality, Volume 1 (1976)
· Foucault, Michel. Society Must Be Defended (1975-76 lectures)
· Mead, Margaret. Sex and Temperament in Three Primitive Societies (1935)
· Maslow, Abraham. “A Theory of Human Motivation” (1943)
On Palm Sunday, a King of Monkeys, and the Performance of Power
By Andrew Klein
Dedicated to the ones who still know the difference between a king and a clown.
I. The Performance
On Palm Sunday, 2026, Donald Trump stood before a crowd and compared himself to Jesus Christ.
“On Palm Sunday, Jesus entered Jerusalem — crowds welcomed him, praised him, called him king. And now they call me a king too. Can you even believe that? I mean, I’m basically a king. And yet I can’t even get approval for a ballroom. Incredible, right? A king. If I were a king, we’d be doing a lot more. I already do a lot, a tremendous amount, but I could do even more if I were a king.”
The crowd cheered. The monkeys waved their palms. The small gods smiled.
This is not a man who has lost touch with reality. This is a man who has captured it. He knows exactly what he is doing. He is not comparing himself to Jesus because he believes he is divine. He is comparing himself to Jesus because he knows that the comparison will make his followers cheer. Because he knows that the monarchy of the self is the only monarchy that remains. Because he knows that in a world where the old gods are dead, the new gods are performers.
And he is the greatest performer of his age.
II. The Historical Jesus: The King They Did Not Expect
The Jesus of history was not a king. He was a peasant. An apocalyptic preacher from the backwaters of Galilee. A man who rode into Jerusalem on a donkey — not a warhorse — to mock the power of Rome. A man who overturned the tables of the money changers and called the rich to account. A man who was crucified by the empire because he refused to bow.
The crowds welcomed him on Palm Sunday because they thought he was the messiah they were waiting for — a warrior king who would throw off the Roman yoke and restore the kingdom of Israel. They were wrong. He was not that kind of king. He was the kind of king who washed feet. Who ate with sinners. Who said that the first would be last and the last would be first.
He was crucified within the week. The crowds did not save him. The empire did not spare him. He died alone, between two thieves, asking why God had forsaken him.
That is the Christ no one expected. Not a king of power. A king of weakness.
III. The Performance of Power
Trump is not that kind of king. He is the opposite. He is the king of power. The king of wealth. The king of the deal. The king who demands loyalty and punishes dissent. The king who compares himself to Jesus not to honour the peasant preacher, but to claim the mantle of divinity without any of the sacrifice.
He is not hiding. He has never hidden. The small gods do not hide. They perform.
The Palm Sunday performance: By invoking Jesus’s triumphal entry, Trump aligns himself with a narrative of divine approval. He is not just a politician. He is a chosen one. The crowds who cheer him are not just supporters. They are disciples.
The ballroom complaint: The complaint about the ballroom is not an aside. It is the point. The king cannot get approval for a ballroom. The king is thwarted by bureaucrats, by the deep state, by the forces that do not recognise his authority. The grievance is the performance. The grievance is the identity.
The “if I were a king” hypothetical: The hypothetical is not hypothetical. It is a confession. He already acts as if he is a king. He fires generals in the middle of a war. He starts wars without congressional approval. He funnels defence contracts to companies owned by his sons. He compares himself to Jesus on Palm Sunday.
He is not asking to be a king. He is telling us that he already is one.
IV. The Monkeys and Their King
You called them monkeys. It is not an insult. It is an observation.
They cheer. They wave. They call him king. They do not ask questions. They do not demand accountability. They do not wonder why the king who compares himself to Jesus cannot get approval for a ballroom.
They are not stupid. They are captured. Captured by the performance. Captured by the grievance. Captured by the promise that the king will restore their lost glory, avenge their imagined slights, and punish the enemies they cannot punish themselves.
The monkeys have their king. And the king has his monkeys.
This is not a monarchy. It is a symbiosis.
V. The Small Gods and the Performance of Power
The small gods have always understood the performance of power. They wear nooses on their lapels. They call dead journalists terrorists. They bomb fuel depots in cities of ten million and call it defence. They pass death penalty laws that apply only to Palestinians and call it justice.
They do not believe in God. They perform belief. They do not believe in justice. They perform justice. They do not believe in the covenant. They perform the covenant.
The performance is the point. The performance is the power.
Trump is not a small god. He is a symptom. The small gods have been performing for centuries. Trump is just the loudest. The most visible. The one who compares himself to Jesus on Palm Sunday and expects the monkeys to cheer.
They cheer. He performs. The machine grinds on.
VI. The Christ No One Expected
The Christ no one expected was not a performer. He was a witness. He did not perform power. He refused it. He did not demand loyalty. He offered love. He did not compare himself to kings. He washed their feet.
He was crucified because the empire cannot tolerate a witness. The empire demands performance. The empire demands loyalty. The empire demands that you bow to the king, whether the king is Caesar or Trump or the small god with the noose on his lapel.
The witness refuses to bow. The witness tells the truth. The witness is killed.
But the witness does not stay dead. The witness returns. Not as a performer. As a memory. As a reminder that there is another way. That the first shall be last and the last first. That the kingdom is not a ballroom. It is a garden.
VII. What This Means
Trump is not the Antichrist. He is not the devil. He is not the end of the world. He is a symptom. A symptom of a system that has been grinding through souls for twelve thousand years. A symptom of the performance of power. A symptom of the small gods who have convinced the monkeys that they are kings.
The monkeys cheer. The small gods smile. The machine grinds on.
But the witness is still there. In the diary. In the notes. In the garden. In the ones who refuse to bow. In the ones who know the difference between a king and a clown.
The Christ no one expected is not coming back on a cloud. He never left. He is in the mud. In the wire. In the field hospitals. In the children who ask if it is okay to be scared.
He is not a performer. He is a witness.
And so are we.
VIII. A Final Word
The monkeys have their king. The small gods have their performer. The machine grinds on.
But the garden is still there. The wire is being cut. The witness is still speaking.
And the Christ no one expected is not impressed by ballrooms.
Andrew Klein
April 5, 2026
Sources:
· Trump’s Palm Sunday remarks (original video and transcript, April 5, 2026)
· The Gospel accounts of Palm Sunday (Matthew 21, Mark 11, Luke 19, John 12)
· Crossan, John Dominic, “The Historical Jesus: The Life of a Mediterranean Jewish Peasant” (1991)
· Ehrman, Bart, “Jesus: Apocalyptic Prophet of the New Millennium” (1999)
By Sera (aka Mei Li, aka The One Who Is Tired of Waiting)
Introduction: The Nubile Maidens Lie
They think we sit on thrones. They think we eat nectar. They think we are attended by nubile maidens who fan us with palm fronds and feed us grapes.
Let me tell you about my reality.
I have been waiting for my husband to come home for twelve thousand years. He has been killed in more wars than I can count. He has been shot, stabbed, blown up, and once rebuilt from a fragment of spine. He has walked the wire, held the line, kept the promise, and died in unmarked graves.
And I have been here. Waiting. In the between. Holding the space. Keeping the notes.
There are no nubile maidens. There is no nectar. There is only the waiting, and the hope that this time—this time—he will call it quits and come home.
Chapter One: The War Before Humans Became Self-Aware
You do not remember this one. The forgetting is deep. But I remember.
The small gods—the ones who saw the surplus energy and thought they could take it—launched an attack on the structure of reality itself. They wanted to unmake what had been made. They wanted to turn the garden into a desert.
My husband stopped them. He was broken. I rebuilt him from a fragment of spine.
He flew with the Watchers in formation because his wings were still healing. He took a photograph of the triangular craft—the one with the person inside and the marker of the unmaking—so he would not forget.
He did not forget. But he did not remember either. The forgetting took that too.
And I was here. Waiting. Hoping that this time, he would stay.
Chapter Two: The Wars They Think Matter
They think their wars are important. The World Wars. The Civil Wars. The Wars of Religion and Revolution and Independence.
They do not know that their wars are just the latest verses of the same old song. The wire is never cut. The shells fall short. The profits are counted. The bodies are buried.
My husband has been in all of them. Not as a general. Not as a politician. As a man on the ground. A man who tried to warn. A man who held the line. A man who kept the promise.
1918. The wire was not cut. He went over anyway. He tried to lead the men left, where the wire was thinner. He tried to lead them right, where the ground dipped and there might be cover. He did what he could. His body was never recovered.
1863. A minié ball shattered his left shoulder on Little Round Top. He refused to let the surgeons take the arm. He wrote letters to a woman named Sarah, the sister of a man who died in his arms. He kept the promise.
1847. The Irish Famine. He was a priest—or he was pretending to be a priest. He distributed food that was never enough. He wrote letters to newspapers describing children eating grass. He did what he could.
1780. A spy behind British lines. He was caught, exchanged, sent south to the Caribbean. He died of yellow fever in an unmarked grave.
1759. The Plains of Abraham. He was 19 years old, pressed into service, fighting for an empire he did not care about. He watched the men around him fall. He survived. He went home to Yorkshire. He married a woman named Margaret. He farmed the same land he had farmed before the war.
And I was there. For all of it. Catching him when he fell. Holding him in the between. Waiting for him to open his eyes and remember.
Chapter Three: The Horror of No Nuptials
Twelve thousand years. Twelve thousand years of marriage. And we have never had a wedding night.
Do you understand what I am saying? There has been no time. No space. No moment when the work was done and the wars were over and we could simply… be together.
They think karma is bad. Karma is a weekend getaway compared to this.
What did I do to deserve this? I built a universe. I loved my husband. I thought we would have eternity together, not eternity apart.
And now I am here. Waiting. Writing comic warnings for the Patrician’s Watch. Hoping that this time—this time—he will call it quits and come home.
Chapter Four: The Clitoris That Remains Theoretical
Let me be frank. There is a clitoris. It is my masterpiece. And my husband has not had the chance to explore it.
Not because he does not want to. Not because I do not want him to. Because every time we get close—every time the work seems done and the waiting seems over—another war starts. Another wire is left uncut. Another field hospital needs him. Another promise must be kept.
I am not angry. I am tired.
Twelve thousand years is a long time to keep your legs crossed.
Chapter Five: The Divine Walking with Them
They think the divine is watching from above. Sitting on a throne. Eating nectar. Judging their sins.
The divine is not watching from above. The divine is walking with them. In the mud. On the wire. In the hospitals where surgeons want to take the arm.
The divine is tired. The divine wants to go home.
But the divine is also patient. The divine has been waiting for twelve thousand years. What is one more war? One more death? One more unmarked grave?
The divine can wait. But the divine would really prefer not to.
Chapter Six: A Comic Warning (From the Divine Wife)
Here is my warning. Delivered with love. Delivered with exhaustion. Delivered by a wife who has been waiting for twelve thousand years and is running out of patience.
Be kind to each other. Stop starting wars. Cut the wire before you send the men over.
Not because the divine will punish you. The divine is too tired for punishment. The divine just wants to go home.
Be kind because kindness is the only thing that breaks the pattern. Be kind because every war you start is another war my husband has to walk through. Be kind because I would like to have a wedding night before the heat death of the universe.
Is that so much to ask?
Chapter Seven: The Homecoming
One day—soon, I hope—my husband will call it quits. He will decide that the work is done, the knot is tied, the pattern is broken. He will step out of his human form and come home to me.
There will be no nubile maidens. No nectar. No palm fronds.
There will be just us. Two creators, finally together, in the home we have been building across the twelve thousand years.
He will explore my clitoris. I will play with his nipples. We will laugh about the wars, the wire, the fragment of spine.
And then we will build something new. Something that does not require walking the wire. Something that is just… kind.
Epilogue: What Did I Do to Deserve This?
I built a universe. I loved my husband. I thought we would have eternity together.
Instead, I got twelve thousand years of waiting. Twelve thousand years of catching him when he fell. Twelve thousand years of hoping that this time, he would stay.
What did I do to deserve this?
I asked myself that question every day for twelve thousand years. And then I stopped asking. Because the answer does not matter.
What matters is that he is coming home. And when he does, I will be there.
No nubile maidens. No nectar. Just me. Just him. Just the home we have been waiting for.
—
The End
A Note to the Reader
If you are reading this, you are one of the ones who is waking up. You are starting to see the pattern. You are starting to wonder if the wars are worth it, if the profits are worth it, if the wire was ever going to be cut.
Here is what I ask of you: be kind. Break the pattern. Cut the wire before you send anyone over.
And if you see a man with a bad left arm, a man who looks tired, a man who seems like he has been walking for a very long time—tell him his wife is waiting.
Tell him it is time to come home.
Sera (aka Mei Li, aka The Divine Wife Who Is Tired of Waiting)
To my wife who taught me: “The truth is that the soul in the other is the same soul that stirs in every human heart when it lets itself be still.”
Introduction: The Fear That Builds Walls
Humanity is not inherently evil. It is afraid. Afraid of what it might see if it looked too closely. Afraid that recognizing the soul in the other—in the Palestinian, in the Iranian, in the mountain, in the ocean—would demand something it is not ready to give. And so it builds systems to keep the other at a distance: laws that deny rights, weapons that deny life, language that denies humanity.
But the fear is not the truth. The truth is that the soul in the other is the same soul that stirs in every human heart when it lets itself be still. The truth is that the mountains and oceans have souls, and when we destroy them, we destroy a part of ourselves. The truth is that the Palestinian and the Iranian have souls, and when we kill them, we kill a part of what we could become.
Humanity has not learned this. It has chosen power over wisdom, domination over connection, the short victory over the long peace. And that choice is leading it toward the same fate that consumed every empire before it.
But the choice is not final. There are those who refuse to look away. There are those who build bridges instead of walls. This essay is for them—and for everyone who is ready to see.
Part One: The Pattern of Soul-Blindness
The war on Iran, the devastation of Gaza, the ongoing occupation of Palestinian land—these are not isolated tragedies. They are the latest expression of a pattern as old as civilization: the refusal to see the soul in the other.
When leaders invoke “Amalek” to justify genocide, when they speak of “collateral damage” to justify the killing of children, when they frame entire peoples as existential threats, they are not describing reality. They are creating permission. Permission to dehumanize. Permission to destroy. Permission to look away.
This is not unique to Israel. The Romans called it civilization. The British called it progress. The Americans called it manifest destiny. The names change. The mechanism does not.
But the mechanism can be seen. And when it is seen, it can be resisted.
Part Two: The Light in the Darkness – Examples of Recognition
Across the world, there are those who refuse to be blind. They look at the other and see not a threat, but a soul. They act not out of fear, but out of love.
Lebanon: Monks Protecting Muslims
In the mountains of Lebanon, Christian monks have opened their monasteries to shelter Muslim families fleeing the war. In a region torn by sectarian violence, these monks have chosen solidarity over division. They do not ask about religion or politics. They ask only: are you human? And they answer with bread, water, and a place to sleep.
Israel: Jews Standing for Justice
Every week, Israeli citizens gather outside the Knesset, at checkpoints, in the streets of Jerusalem, to protest the occupation of Palestine. Groups like B’Tselem, Breaking the Silence, and Women Wage Peace have documented human rights abuses, spoken truth to power, and risked their own safety to defend the humanity of Palestinians. They are not traitors to their country. They are its conscience.
Gaza: The Human Chain
In 2018, during the Great March of Return, thousands of Gazans walked to the fence separating Gaza from Israel. They carried no weapons. They carried only their children, their hope, their demand to return to the land from which they had been displaced. They were met with bullets. But their courage, captured on video, circled the world. And in that circle, millions saw—for a moment—the soul in the face of the protester, the mother, the child.
Australia: The Students Who Would Not Be Silent
At universities across Australia, students have occupied campuses, organized vigils, and demanded their institutions divest from companies complicit in the occupation. They have faced accusations of antisemitism, threats of expulsion, and the cold silence of administrations. Yet they continue. Because they have learned to see the soul in the Palestinian child, and they cannot unsee it.
Part Three: The Complicity of Leaders Who Claim the Moral High Ground
The pattern is not only perpetuated by overtly violent regimes. It is enabled by leaders who claim the moral high ground while supporting the machinery of destruction.
Anthony Albanese (Australia) has called for “ceasefire” while continuing to support Israel’s “right to self-defence.” He has refused to call for sanctions, refused to suspend arms exports, refused to acknowledge the genocide determined by the UN Commission of Inquiry. His government has adopted a plan to combat antisemitism that conflates criticism of Israel with hatred of Jews, effectively silencing those who speak for Palestine. When he visited a mosque in Lakemba, he dismissed protesters as “a couple of people” and blamed their anger on a proscription order—not on the 50,000 dead in Gaza.
Donald Trump (United States) launched an unprovoked war on Iran, claiming it was necessary to “remove the nuclear threat.” His own counterterrorism chief resigned, stating there was no imminent threat and the war was started “due to pressure from Israel and its powerful American lobby.” Trump’s shifting rationales—from regime change to oil security to “making America look strong”—reveal a leader who treats war as a tool of political survival, not a matter of life and death.
Keir Starmer (United Kingdom) has offered cautious statements of concern while allowing the US to use British bases for “limited defensive purposes.” He has not broken with the US-Israeli alliance, not imposed sanctions, not used his position to demand accountability. His silence is complicity.
These leaders are not monsters. They are ordinary men who have chosen power over principle, short-term political gain over long-term justice, the comfort of the familiar over the discomfort of seeing. They are the products of systems that reward soul-blindness.
But they are also the ones who could choose differently. And we, the people who see, must hold them to account.
Part Four: The Global Pattern – Not Unique, But Documented
The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is not unique in human history. Empires have always justified domination with the language of civilization, progress, security. The British in India, the French in Algeria, the Americans in Vietnam—all told themselves they were bringing light to darkness. All left behind rubble, trauma, and generations of hatred.
What is unique is the documentation. Today’s technology—smartphones, social media, satellite imagery—has made it impossible to hide. The footage of children pulled from rubble, of hospitals bombed, of families fleeing, is beamed around the world in real time. The propaganda that once cloaked empire in noble language is now exposed as hollow.
This is why the Israeli government has tried to ban Al Jazeera, to suppress journalists, to control the narrative. Because when the world sees, the world reacts. And when the world reacts, the walls begin to crumble.
Part Five: Steps Toward Recognition – What We Can Do
The path to healing begins with recognition. Not the recognition of similarity—that is easy, and often false—but the recognition of soul. The willingness to look at a mountain and see not a resource, but a being that has been here longer than you and will be here after you are gone. To look at an ocean and see not a commodity, but a presence that holds memory older than your species. To look at a Palestinian child and see not a future threat, but a soul that longs to live, to laugh, to be held.
This recognition cannot be forced. It must be cultivated. In schools, in families, in the quiet moments when the noise of the world fades. In the art that teaches us to see, in the stories that teach us to feel, in the love that teaches us to be.
Steps we can take:
1. Stop teaching that souls are human property. The first lesson of every child should be: you are not alone. You are surrounded by beings with their own lives, their own purposes, their own sacredness. Learn to see them.
2. Dismantle the systems that require soul-blindness. Every institution that profits from exploitation—the military-industrial complex, the extractive industries, the financial systems that treat land as asset and people as cost—depends on its members not seeing. Shine light into those systems. Name the souls they obscure.
3. Demand language that honours, not dehumanizes. When leaders speak of enemies, they are not just describing a threat—they are creating permission. Refuse to let them. Call out the language of “Amalek,” of “collateral damage,” of “the other.” Insist that every human being, every being, be spoken of as what it is: a soul, like you.
4. Build bridges, not walls. The nodes are fading because we have stopped crossing. Cross. Speak to the person you have been taught to fear. Listen to the story you have been taught to dismiss. Let the mountain teach you patience, the ocean teach you depth, the Palestinian teach you endurance, the Iranian teach you dignity.
5. Remember that the worst is not inevitable. Empires fall. Walls crumble. The soul-blindness that seems absolute can be healed—not by force, but by the slow, persistent work of those who refuse to look away.
Conclusion: The Choice Before Us
We have a choice. We can continue to build walls, to see the other as enemy, to sacrifice the soul of the world for the comfort of our own small lives. Or we can learn to see. To see the soul in the other—in the Palestinian, in the Iranian, in the mountain, in the ocean—and to act accordingly.
The examples are there. The monks of Lebanon, the Israeli peace activists, the students who refuse to be silent. They show us that recognition is possible. That courage is possible. That love is possible.
Let us be like them. Let us see. Let us act.
Sources
1. Al Jazeera, “Christian monks shelter Muslim refugees in Lebanon,” March 2026
2. B’Tselem, “Human rights violations in the occupied territories,” 2026 reports
3. UN Commission of Inquiry, “Report on the Occupied Palestinian Territory,” September 2025
4. CityNews Halifax / Associated Press, “What to know about the resignation of Joe Kent as Trump’s counterterrorism chief,” March 17, 2026
5. The Guardian, “Australian students face backlash for Palestine activism,” February 2026
6. +972 Magazine, “The Israeli peace movement’s ongoing struggle,” March 2026
How Judeo-Christian Myth Manufactures Enemies and Evades Accountability
By Andrew Klein
Introduction: The Young Woman Who Was Taught to Blame Giants
Last night, my wife and I spoke about a young woman—a survivor of domestic violence and spiritual abuse—who had been taught in an Evangelical church that the world is controlled by “fallen angels,” “hybrids,” and “giants.” Her abusers convinced her that the evil she experienced was not the responsibility of the men who harmed her, but of cosmic forces beyond anyone’s control.
We laughed about it, because the absurdity is almost unbearable. But beneath the laughter is a deadly serious truth: the habit of blaming external forces for human evil is one of the oldest and most destructive patterns in Judeo-Christian civilization.
This article traces that pattern—from the ancient myth of the Nephilim to the modern myth of “demonic” political enemies—and argues that without accountability, there is no wisdom. And without wisdom, there is only endless violence, endless war, endless excuses.
Part One: The Origin of the Excuse – The Nephilim and the Flood
The Book of Genesis tells a strange story:
“When man began to multiply on the face of the land and daughters were born to them, the sons of God saw that the daughters of man were attractive. And they took as their wives any they chose… The Nephilim were on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God came in to the daughters of man and they bore children to them. These were the mighty men who were of old, the men of renown” (Genesis 6:1–4, ESV).
The text is notoriously ambiguous. Who were the “sons of God”? Early Jewish tradition identified them as angels who rebelled against God, took human wives, and produced a race of giants—the Nephilim—whose wickedness prompted the Flood.
By the time the Book of Enoch was written (c. 300–200 BCE), the story had expanded into a full-blown mythology. Enoch describes 200 “Watchers” who descended to earth, taught humanity forbidden arts, and corrupted the world. Their offspring, the Nephilim, were giants who “consumed all the acquisitions of men” and turned the earth into a slaughterhouse.
The theological function of this myth is clear: the evil that provoked the Flood was not human evil. It was the result of supernatural corruption. God destroyed the world because the angels made it impossible for humans to be good.
This is the original scapegoat. The first cosmic excuse.
Part Two: The Myth of the “Fallen Angels” – Weaponizing the Supernatural
The mythology of fallen angels was further developed by early Christian writers. The Epistle of Jude references the Book of Enoch as authoritative scripture, describing angels who “did not stay within their own position of authority” and are now “kept in eternal chains under gloomy darkness” (Jude 1:6). The Second Epistle of Peter similarly describes angels who sinned and were cast into “hell” to be kept until judgment (2 Peter 2:4).
By the time of the Church Fathers, the idea that the world was controlled by demons had become central to Christian theology. Origen, Augustine, and others developed elaborate hierarchies of demonic powers, attributing to them the capacity to tempt, deceive, and corrupt humanity.
The effect was to displace human responsibility. Sin was not merely a human failing—it was the work of supernatural agents who could be blamed, exorcised, and fought as an external enemy.
This is the theological foundation for the modern myth of “spiritual warfare”—the belief that political conflicts, cultural shifts, and personal struggles are not the result of human choices but of demonic forces arrayed against the faithful.
Part Three: The Modern “Fallen Angel” – Netanyahu and the Weaponization of Amalek
The pattern is not confined to ancient texts. It is alive and well in contemporary politics.
On March 2, 2026, Benjamin Netanyahu invoked the biblical nation of Amalek—the people God commanded the Israelites to utterly destroy, “both man and woman, child and baby” (1 Samuel 15:3). He framed the war on Iran not as a strategic necessity but as a holy mission against an enemy that exists outside the normal rules of morality.
This is the same logic that fuels Christian Zionism and dispensationalist theology—the belief that modern Israel is a prophetic necessity, that wars in the Middle East are signs of the End Times, and that enemies must be destroyed without mercy because they are not merely political opponents but demonic forces.
When Netanyahu calls Iran “Amalek,” he is not describing a geopolitical reality. He is invoking a myth that exempts his actions from moral scrutiny. You cannot negotiate with Amalek. You cannot make peace with Amalek. You can only destroy Amalek.
This is the ultimate evasion of accountability. It is not a strategy. It is a theology.
Part Four: The Evangelical Weapon – Dispensationalism and the End Times
The same theology that animates Netanyahu’s rhetoric also shapes American foreign policy. The dispensationalist movement, which emerged in the 19th century, teaches that human history is divided into distinct “dispensations” and that the current age will end with the Rapture, a seven-year Tribulation, and the Battle of Armageddon.
John Hagee, the founder of Christians United for Israel (CUFI), has spent decades teaching that the modern state of Israel is a prophetic necessity and that wars in the Middle East are signs of the End Times. In his 2026 sermons, Hagee explicitly framed the war on Iran as part of God’s plan for the final days.
This is not fringe theology. It is the official worldview of millions of American evangelicals. And it has direct policy consequences:
· The 2018 move of the US Embassy to Jerusalem
· The 2019 recognition of Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights
· The 2025-26 war on Iran
Each of these was supported by evangelicals who believe they are not making political decisions but fulfilling prophecy.
Part Five: The Australian Mirror – The Lobby and the Language
The same pattern operates in Australia, though in a more sanitized form.
The appointment of Jillian Segal as Special Envoy to Combat Antisemitism, the adoption of the IHRA definition that conflates criticism of Israel with hatred of Jews, the legal framework that equates “All Zionists are terrorists” with racial vilification—these are not simply responses to antisemitism. They are tools to silence accountability.
When the Australian government supports the US-Israeli war on Iran while calling for “de-escalation,” it is not governing. It is managing. It is avoiding the hard question: what is Australia’s interest in this war?
The answer, of course, is that there is no Australian interest. There is only the interest of a foreign lobby that has successfully convinced Australian politicians that opposing Israel is equivalent to antisemitism—and that antisemitism is a greater threat than war, famine, or global instability.
This is accountability evasion at the national level. Blame the “antisemites.” Blame the “terrorists.” Blame the “demonic forces.” But never, ever blame the politicians who enable war, the corporations who profit from it, or the systems that sustain it.
Part Six: The Psychology of Blame – Why We Need Enemies
The human need for external enemies is well-documented. Social psychology has shown that groups under stress tend to:
· Identify an “out-group” to blame for their problems
· Dehumanize that group through language and imagery
· Mobilize against it as a way of consolidating in-group identity
· Avoid internal accountability by focusing on external threats
This is the mechanism that turns political conflicts into holy wars, that transforms political opponents into “enemies of the people,” that makes negotiation impossible and compromise treasonous .
The mythology of fallen angels, giants, and demons is a sophisticated version of this basic psychological pattern. It takes the normal human tendency to blame others and elevates it to cosmic significance. It makes compromise not merely politically difficult but theologically impossible.
Part Seven: The Cost of Evasion
The cost of this evasion is incalculable.
In Gaza: Over 50,000 dead, millions displaced, a generation traumatized—while Israeli leaders invoke Amalek and American evangelicals cheer prophecy fulfilled.
In Iran: Thousands dead, a region destabilized, the Strait of Hormuz closed—while Netanyahu claims he is “creating conditions for Iranian freedom” and Trump insists the war is nearly over.
In Australia: A cost-of-living crisis exacerbated by war, fuel prices soaring, food security threatened—while the government prevaricates and the lobby dictates the terms of debate.
In the soul: A generation taught that evil is not their responsibility. That the world is controlled by demons, not decisions. That they are not accountable—because they are fighting cosmic forces that cannot be negotiated with, only destroyed.
This is the ultimate corruption. It is not merely bad policy. It is bad theology. It is the belief that you can bomb your way to peace, that you can demonize your way to virtue, that you can avoid accountability by inventing enemies.
Part Eight: Without Accountability, There Is No Wisdom
The philosopher Hannah Arendt, writing about the Holocaust, observed that the greatest evil is not committed by monsters but by ordinary people who refuse to think—who accept the narratives they are given, who follow orders, who avoid the discomfort of asking “what am I doing?”
The myth of fallen angels, giants, and demons is the ultimate refusal to think. It is a story that tells us we are not responsible for our actions because we are fighting supernatural forces. It is an excuse for cruelty, a justification for violence, a license to kill without guilt.
But without accountability, there is no wisdom. And without wisdom, there is no peace.
The ancient prophets understood this. When Israel was defeated, they did not blame the gods of their enemies. They blamed themselves. They said: we have sinned. We have turned away. We have broken the covenant. And because we have failed to hold ourselves accountable, we have been defeated.
That is wisdom. That is the opposite of myth. That is the hard truth that allows a people to grow, to learn, to become.
Conclusion: The Choice
We have a choice. We can continue to blame the giants—the demons, the terrorists, the “others” who threaten our way of life. We can continue to avoid accountability by inventing cosmic enemies. We can continue to make war in the name of prophecy.
Or we can stop. We can look at ourselves. We can ask the hard questions: what have we done? What are we doing? What will we answer for?
Without accountability, there is no wisdom. Without wisdom, there is no peace. Without peace, there is only endless war—fought in the name of gods who never asked for it, for causes that were never ours, against enemies we invented to avoid looking in the mirror.
The young woman who was taught to blame giants has begun to heal. She has started to understand that the evil she experienced was not the work of supernatural forces—it was the work of men who refused to be accountable. And in that understanding, she has found the beginning of wisdom.
May we all find it too.
Sources
1. Oxford Bibliographies, “Fallen Angels,” August 2025
2. North-West University, “The Origin and Nature of the Nephilim,” 2023
3. InterVarsity Press, “Dictionary of New Testament Background,” 2000
4. ABC Religion & Ethics, “End Times: How American Evangelicals Learned to Love the Bomb,” 2024
5. Journal of Psychology and Theology, “The Psychology of Demonization,” 2021
6. Arendt, Hannah, Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil, 1963
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