Apeirophobia - The Fear of Infinity

Figure Head
-People in Houses- 

Figure Head begins his career doing statistical analysis of complex matrices then fuses fractals with chaos theory and proves Euclidean geometry incompatible with Einsteinian relativity. He even publishes outlandish proofs for Riemann’s hypothesis and Goldbach’s conjecture involving logarithmic properties of infinite infinities in determining prime probabilities. The institution frowns upon his conclusions and shrugs them aside, but he continues to fund his research travelling as a motivational speaker.  -  Tonight’s talk:

Apeirophobia - The Fear of Infinity 

“Good Evening folks. Forms are a fallacy of human perception. We label repetitive manifestations necessitated by the system as separate but similar entities when in fact nothing is separate and so everything is similar. The Universe, everything that is, Our mass of matter in motion perpetually molds and shifts, adapts and changes, repeats as a constant result of itself, but never fully separates into an other. It is One. You and I, the stars and space.

If you blur your vision enough, forms disappear and you are left with nothing but a mass of color in motion. There is no word that describes the blur, but perhaps you make one up. Then you make a habit of making up words for blurs and start recognizing similarities - you label tree blurs, rock blurs, other animal blurs and maybe even atom blurs. This allows you to compare and categorize, make judgments, and express artistic concerns about the blurs, but the fact remains that the boundaries between blurs are perceptual, not actual. We know no two trees, rocks, animals, or atoms are exactly alike, but if no two things are exactly alike, We have no way to measure what constitutes one thing or it’s other. If no two things are exactly alike then there must be only one true form that is everything.

We know that sub-atomic particles are constantly in motion, but on a smaller scale than We can perceive. We know that the planet beneath Us is constantly in motion, but on a larger scale than We can perceive. We know the Universe is perpetually changing and in motion, but We perceive most things as unchanging and still. Then We use language to label this fallacious stillness. We recognize similarities in the stillness and create categories and definitions. We forget all about Our faulty premise and attribute a priori importance to these forms We perceive; though in fact knowing no two things are truly separate and everything’s constantly moving.

Asbestos and Pin Head walk in the auditorium's side entrance and have a seat. “You there, how many numbers are there between 0 and 1?” 

Asbestos smiles and answers. “There are no numbers between 0 and 1.” 

“That’s right. Now how many between 1 and 2?” 

“None again, unless you count decimals.” 

“So there are no numbers between consecutive numbers in Our counting system unless divided into fractions of themselves. Decimal point included, how many numbers between 0 and 1” 

“After the decimal there are an infinite number of numbers.”

"So integers perceived as whole remain consecutive, but once conceptually fractionated are necessarily separated by infinite possibility. Thank you, Asbestos. Once you divide perception into forms, once you give separate labels to pieces of the same pie, you’ve begun a necessarily infinite regress of division. We’re all baked into the pie already trying to cut Our custard reality into manageable chunks, but meanwhile We’re forgetting about Our whole number before the decimal point.

Since math involves manipulating quantities, it assumes there is more than just a oneness to all existence. Numbers like words allow reality to be divided and regrouped. Math is a game like language, and mathematicians are numerical poets expressing Our quantitative perceptions.  As for language, it gives some permanence to an ever-changing universe. And there is comfort in the permanence, but also stagnation. Change is a necessary element in perfection, and We’re all part of the perfect equation.

-  We don’t perceive Ourselves as such, but humans are over 70% water. So suppose you’re standing in the ocean, where do you draw the line between the water that encompasses you and the water that composes you? As you stand, the ocean sinks into your pores, gets swallowed and lodged in your orifices. Meanwhile thousands of skin cells and millions of your molecules float away into the ocean. At what point does the ocean start being you and when do your skin cells start being ocean? For that matter, why is your water alive but the ocean’s isn’t? But that’s a whole other issue.

Even if your water’s not wet standing on dry ground, every millionth of a second, trillions of your atoms are replaced by surrounding atoms. Then as you breathe, you become and feed upon on the molecules around you. When does the air cease to exist out there and become part of you? When it passes your lips or when it hits your bronchioles or only when the alveoli suck out the sustenance?

Food, air, water, bacteria, everything that surrounds you is constantly coming into and leaving from your body. In fact, you preserve your human existence by consuming these things around you. You even eat the lives of others in such a way that it’s impossible to say when the things you consume stop being deliciously prepared plants or animals and start being you. Is it the first greasy atom that interacts with your Kentucky fried fingers or the first savory swallow that shrinks through your sphincter or only when the proteins and complex fats break down and feed your hungry cells? 

At what point are you separate from everything else in any meaningful sense? There is no you in you and there’s no out there out there. There is only one life, one consciousness, one source of matter and energy, and it is eternal and it is everything. It is God and you are God constantly creating the world anew every instant.

-  When writing this lecture, my word processor kept showing a grammatical mistake when I typed the tautology nothing is nothing. It suggests I replace the second nothing with anything. Nothing is anything. 

Scientists see no boundary to the Universe, no center of expansion, nor do they know what the Universe is supposed to be expanding into. But it’s both necessary and contradictory for there to exist infinite nothing outside a finite Universe. Thereby inflationary cosmology’s potential something they call nothing defies its definition upon existence. The only reconciliation is to agree with my word processor. Nothing isn’t nothing. Nothing is anything, and the anything’s infinite.

Now, this is important. 

Big bang theorists think the Universe is finite yet began as an infinitely dense, hot and infinitesimally small singularity. The theory also maintains that since then, the Universe has been expanding and cooling. This means shortly after the space-time singularity, certain aspects of the Universe (heat, density, and size) somehow changed from infinite to finite. We must either accept this mathematical impossibility, or that space-time singularities are extremely small, hot, and dense, but are not infinitely so. And if this is true, it means at some measurable heat, size and density, all physical laws break down. Like at 100 googolplex degrees, 100 googolplex grams per negative cubic centimeter all laws of temperature and density hold, but at 100 googolplex and 1, everything changes allowing space-time itself to enter or exit existence.  Big bang theorists also think the Universe is between 10 and 20 billion years old, yet We’ve recently discovered huge galaxies and quasars 15 billion light-years away from Us. Based on Einstein and Hubble’s own equations, this means that fifteen billion years ago, the fabric of space-time was stretched at least 15 billion light-years across, and gigantic celestial bodies were already formed. These are both quite incompatible with current inflationary cosmology. To top it off, We can’t observe the red-shifting of galaxies beyond the Hubble radius because they’re approaching and possibly breaking the light barrier at the very bounds of Our perception. Theoretically We’re left with few options. Either galaxies break the light barrier past the Hubble radius where We’ll never see them or they mysteriously disappear for another reason, because We don’t yet see a boundary, just the infinite anything.

Everything in space rotates round bound in elliptical orbits or swings unbound in parabolas and hyperbolas. The Earth spins on its axis at 1000mph, around the sun at 66,000mph. Our solar system orbits the Milky Way at 500,000mph and the galaxy speeds through the known Universe at 1,000,000mph. Then the known Universe likely orbits another, larger, more central entity at even greater speed etc. I highly doubt this fractal trend of orbital motion ends in the mysterious non-orbital expansion from a singularity. And if so, what resultant force from the big bang is responsible for beginning both space-time’s expansion and matter’s orbital motion? For the outward expansion of space-time and the orbital motion of matter to co-exist in the same Universe, the original acting force either exerted its power in a spiraling, circular pattern, or matter mysteriously developed the motion on its own.

Whichever way, the spiral and other fractal shapes, are abundant in nature, and I suggest the logical progression from quantum physics to cosmology suggests not the expansion of a singularity that defies causality, physics, and mathematics, but instead a timeless, fractally infinite and infinitesimal Universe in perpetual centrifugal motion around itself.
- 
Logically, if you divide a second in half and in half again and again, this process continues forever. Likewise, if you divide a chunk of matter in half again and again, there should always be half your last division left over. And mathematicians agree that any number but zero may be divided ad infinitum. Quantum theorists, however, think the process of dividing time and matter reaches its end long before infinity. At some point far past their ability to see, they claim there’s a fundamental particle of matter and a fundamental unit of time of which there is nothing smaller or shorter. 

Since it’s crucial to higher math, but impossible to prove or disprove, mathematicians assume infinity in their equations. Likewise, science can never prove nor disprove the necessary fundamentality of any supposed fundamental particle, but every time someone gets a new microscope they think they’ve found the end. I propose instead of always supposing they’ve reached the limit, why don’t scientists take after mathematicians and assume infinity in their experiments? By all means continue the further telescoping and magnification of matter, but concede that each time We’ve seen further into the macro and micro-unknown, technology throws down the gauntlet, and God picks it up with seemingly infinite resources, from galaxies and quasars to stars and planets, moons down through molecules to atoms and protons and quarks and gluons and so on and so forth. The fractal unknown forever taunts Our limited perceptions from afar, no matter how deep We reach, so why not assume infinity until We’re somehow given real reason not to?

Science can only prove what We can test with tools and Our senses, but it’s more likely that ultimate answers lie far beyond Our perceptions and any tools We can fashion to aid them. Even if some Unified Field Theory proved perfectly consistent with Our every observation, I’d still be suspicious of some finite answer’s eerie consistency, and forever wonder if something undetectable lay one step further. Personally the only Unified Theory that satisfies my deepest concerns is Infinity as Truth in all facets of existence. Matter is infinitely divisible, time is eternal, and speed is limitless for something We can’t see. I present Infinity as the Anti-Unified Field Theory, a concept We grasp but can’t understand - it dangles around Our minds taunting Us with its necessary Truths but never allows Us access to it’s eternal complexity, like God.
- 
The blasphemy scientists are committing is eliminating the infinite aspects of Our Universe. Einstein thinks light’s the fastest thing, Planck thinks strings are the smallest and shortest things, Hawking thinks the big bang’s the first thing, I think they’re all limiting themselves trying to stop one step before infinity. 

We’ve already observed instantaneous, non-local correlation in entangled particles, some physicists insist there exist tachyons faster than light, others say halos around black hole event horizons break the barrier due to time dilation. Whatever the explanation We keep pulling over for Einstein’s ultimate speed limit. Then quantum theorists step-up and create one-dimensional superstrings that walk the Planck between quantum mechanics and Einstienian relativity.  Finally, cosmologists and astronomers play their finite observations in rewind and find a Big Bang Beginning as inexplicable and unsatisfying as you’d expect from science.

The frantic search for fundamental particles, universal boundaries, other endings and attempts to finitize the Anything into sets of symbols shows a human fear of infinity that’s driven many crazy. Reality may be finite and expressible, but if it isn’t then We’ll all die believing whatever current chaotic theory they throw at infinity instead of honoring its integrity, by believing it over any inconsistent set of finite meanderings. 
- 
Why is it that so many truly important math equations, scientific theories, and philosophical refutations end in an infinite regress? We always take this as a sign of failure when it could be the answer popping up over and over again. Science, Mathematics, and Philosophy give opposite requirements for proof and Truth. For a scientific theory, mathematical formula, or logical argument to be proven it must contain the ability to be falsified so that experimentation can further refine it’s validity. But Truth by necessity cannot be disproved, and thus would not contain the ability to be falsified. So if Truth was looking your theory straight in the eyes, the institution shuts it down - an unfalsifiable theory cannot be tested and what cannot be tested cannot be verified true. So if ultimate Truth lay in infinity, which I assure you it does, science will never concede it; it’s up to you.

The origin of the Universe endows necessary Truth on one of two equally unfathomable options: an uncaused cause or infinity. Rationally they are mutually exclusive but equally valid - neither makes sense, and one of them is right. Thus a rationally based decision to your personal opinion of the origin of the Universe leads to an impasse.

Emotionally, however a decision can be made for, infinity feels awe-inspiring in its complex simplicity whereas an uncaused cause is an incomprehensible paradox and feels like betrayal. A first cause is a He, She, or It out there above rationality and causality, necessitating hierarchy on nature. But infinity is Us, Our Universe, all matter in perpetual motion and interaction together. You know where I stand. Plato said there’s too many slaves in caves; I say there’s too many people in houses these days. The walls are keeping Us separate and the roofs are scaring out infinity. Goodnight.”

The crowd disperses and Asbestos catches up with his old friend Figure Head. He invites him to a church gathering at the library on Sunday then sends Pin Head on special assignment to deliver word of the gathering to another friend.

Asbestos Head By Eric Dubay

Tendency for Interpersonal Victimhood

 

A Note on Jews and Feminism

My recent review of Janice Fiamengo’s The Goddess that Failed cited her summary of a study by four Israeli social psychologists of a personality trait they called “TIV,” or the Tendency for Interpersonal Victimhood. Fiamengo considered it valuable as a description of a kind of woman frequently met with in feminist circles, and I agree. I also noted in my review that the Israeli origin of the researchers might not be an accident: readers of this site are familiar with the salience of victimhood within the self-concept of many Jews. I did not explore this question in the review, because I wished to keep the focus on Prof. Fiamengo’s ideas, but will try to address it briefly here.

Here, as a reminder, is Fiamengo’s summary of the TIV type:

Passionate belief in one’s victimhood creates an identifiable personality type, one that ruminates on grievance and interprets all experiences through the victimhood lens. Belief in victimhood need have no correlation with actual experience of victimization. The victim personality is characterized above all by a strong need to have one’s suffering recognized. With this need comes a conviction of immaculate morality, a resulting inability to accept criticism or disagreement, and a profound lack of empathy for those perceived as enemies. The researchers also found that people with a victim personality believe themselves justified in taking revenge on those who appear to oppress them. Even when presented with facts and evidence to rebut their beliefs, they are unwilling to relinquish their worldview, which becomes intimately associated with their sense of self. Anger at others and the belief in innocent victimhood create a toxic stew of self-righteousness and moral blindness.

A look at the original paper by the Israeli psychologists (which can be read here)* reveals that the ethnic angle did not escape the authors’ attention. They refer explicitly to the cult of the holocaust, and recognize that it can represent a moral hazard for their own people by way of the TIV personality. Good for them: we all know what epithet would have been assigned to any gentile researcher bold enough to make the same point.

Group differences are statistical, and the TIV personality presumably occurs at different rates in different races and ethnicities. It is likely to be elevated among Jews, although it would probably be futile to expect any objective research on this question in our current cultural and intellectual environment. But the TIV type can and does occur within other races.

Indeed, much group conflict over the past forty years has been aptly described as a “victimhood sweepstakes” wherein not only Jews and feminists but blacks, homosexuals, the handicapped, and other identity groups competitively jockey for moral authority by signaling their victimhood. The only group not allowed to participate in the sweepstakes—White, heterosexual, able-bodied men—are by now a distinct minority of the American population (possibly a third). So the increasing prominence of the personality type described by these Israeli researchers would seem to help explain many aspects of our historical moment, and not just feminism or Jewish-gentile conflict.

Anyone who writes against feminism as I do eventually encounters the thesis that it is all simply a product of Jewish subversion, often backed up with long lists of prominent Jewish second-wave feminists. Here is a popular graphic currently doing the rounds on the internet that embodies this thinking: (under the text)

This view is historically myopic: it requires that one’s familiarity with feminism be limited to the American second wave, usually dated from 1963. But feminist ideas have been widely circulating in the West since the eighteenth century, and not only in the form of Mary Wollstonecraft’s celebrated tract. A review of long-forgotten German debates for and against the “emancipation of women” in the 1780s and -90s, for example, reveal that there is not much novel in twentieth century feminism (cf. Klaus Epstein’s The Genesis of German Conservatism pp. 229–236). Indeed, we have plentiful evidence that similar ideas were discussed in ancient Athens, as witness book 5 of Plato’s Republic and Aristophanes’ comedy The Assemblywomen. Western man did not need the Jews to invent feminism for us.

It remains true, however, that Jews have been massively overrepresented in second wave feminism—by far the most successful version, as they have been in other forms of twentieth-century radicalism, and this calls for explanation. A good place to start might be the work of the above-discussed Israeli psychologists on the Tendency for Interpersonal Victimhood. If Jews are indeed especially susceptible to this “toxic stew of self-righteousness and moral blindness,” it would explain much of their involvement in destructive movements such as feminism without our having to assume the existence of a conscious conspiracy to subvert alien races.

* https://gwern.net/doc/psychology/personality/2020-gabay.pdf

F. Roger Devlin, Ph.D.
https://www.theoccidentalobserver.net/

The New Elders of Zion

 

[Thomas Dalton, Ph.D. - author has very limited intelligence and learning, he belives that Jesus haven't existed and Christianity was invented by Jews to undermine Western Civilization despite the fact most of intellectual work in Middle Ages was done in monasteries nevertheless in area of negative Jewish influence on Western Civilization is quite competent VB]

Anyone who has looked into the Jewish Question, and even many who have not, likely have at least a passing awareness of the infamous document known as The Protocols of the Elders of Zion—or ‘Protocols’ for short. This small booklet, which first emerged in Russia around 1900, purports to lay out something of a plan for Jewish world domination.[1] Loosely organized into 24 short essays or individual protocols, this rambling, anonymous work portrays itself as a sort of ‘meeting minutes’ or ‘lecture notes’ from an evidently prominent and influential speaker, talking to a group of (presumably) Jews, explaining the means and mechanisms by which they will dominate individual nations and eventually the world via a master leader called “the Sovereign.”

As one might imagine, such a work has been roundly condemned as one of the most anti-Semitic publications of the 20th century. It has also—owing to its anonymity and fuzzy origins—been regularly denounced as a “forgery”; this assertion relies primarily on textual similarities to passages from an 1865 book by a Jewish writer, Maurice Joly, titled Dialogue in Hell. And because it is a forgery, we are told, the work as a whole is bogus and invalid, and therefore ought to be utterly disregarded.

But this, of course, is nonsense. Even if the writer lifted certain passages from Joly’s book as he was writing in (say) the late 1800s, that does not invalidate any truths in it; it simply reveals the author to be a bit of a plagiarist. The protocols could still be legitimate versions or encapsulations of some actual Jewish plan. But since we do not even know if the writer was a Jew (conveying in summary form an actual plan) or a non-Jew (attempting to make the Jews look bad), it is almost impossible to make clear and accurate determinations here.

As for myself, I do claim some knowledge of the origins and context of the Protocols, having edited and translated a new edition of this work in 2023: Protocols of the Elders of Zion: The Definitive English Edition, published by Clemens & Blair. This work includes the full Protocols in a new, readable American English translation, as well as early commentaries from 1920 and 1921, and later analyses by National Socialist and contemporary thinkers. In what follows below, I will be citing this edition.

First appearing in print in Russia in 1903, the Protocols gained some initial traction there during the first Russian Revolution of 1905, a conflict (really, a civil war) in which a force led by the Jew Leon Trotsky and the quarter-Jew Vladimir Lenin violently confronted Czar Nicholas II; the Jews were defeated, but their actions would certainly have at least given credence to a Jewish movement to dominate Russia.

Then came World War One in 1914. The war raged in Europe for three long years, often devolving into a trench-warfare stalemate. England, though, was in increasingly difficult shape, especially into the second half of 1916; in the Battle of the Somme that year, they lost upwards of 600,000 soldiers. Becoming desperate for assistance, the Brits then made a “contract with Jewry” (Temperley) by which they agreed to help the Zionist Jews obtain a homeland in Palestine, if American Jews would bring the U.S. into the war against its will. Pressure on Woodrow Wilson quickly intensified, and he yielded in April of 1917, declaring war on Germany. Britain then reciprocated by drafting the Balfour Declaration, which was signed in November of that year.[2]

Then in March 1917, Russian czar Nicholas was ousted, paving the way for a Jewish-Bolshevik takeover of that nation in October. Jewish activity culminated in late 1918, when Germany collapsed and was defeated, thanks in large part to the revolutionary activity of German Jews like Rosa Luxemburg, Hugo Haase, Karl Liebknecht, Karl Radek, and Kurt Eisner. Thereafter, Jews led the formation of the so-called Weimar government in Germany, dominating that nation for several years—until the rise of Hitler.

Thus, in relatively quick succession, it became obvious to many people that Jewish wartime activity had led to their taking power in Russia and Germany, and demonstrated their dominance over Britain and America. The Jews truly were “taking over the world.” Consequently, the then-15-year-old Protocols, once a curiosity, could now be understood as a very real, very serious plan for world domination. Non-Jews everywhere had to face the Protocols as a literal blueprint for action, and to deal with it accordingly.

“Ruler of the Rulers”

We need to keep in mind two things at this point. One: The state of Israel obviously did not yet exist when the Protocols were written; Israel would not come into being until a UN General Assembly vote in 1947, and was not declared by the Jews until 1948.[3] For the writer(s) of the Protocols, they could only speculate about a future Jewish state in Palestine, which certainly was not imminent in 1900.[4]

Two: World power, however, was another matter. Well before 1900, Jews were already considered by many to be de facto “rulers of the world.” As early as 1798, German philosopher Immanuel Kant remarked that “the wealth of the Jews…apparently exceeds per capita that of any other nation at the present time”.[5] In 1823, the poet Lord Byron wrote “all states, all things, all sovereigns [the Jews] control”.[6] In 1843, Bruno Bauer observed that “the Jew…determines the fate of the whole [Austrian] Empire by his financial power. The Jew…decides the destiny of Europe”.[7] And perhaps more than Europe. In an essay of 1860, Ralph Waldo Emerson remarked on Jewish toughness, brought on by years of persecution and suffering: “The sufferance which is the badge of the Jew, has made him, in these days, the ruler of the rulers of the earth”.[8]

By 1850, German composer Richard Wagner could complain that much of European society was controlled by Jews. It was no longer a question of “emancipation” of the Jews but rather of coming to grips with their power. He wrote: “According to the present constitution of the world, the Jew in truth is already more than emancipated; he rules, and will rule, so long as money remains the power before which all our doings and our dealings lose their force.” Where money rules, Jews rule: this was his message. Hence, “Jewry itself is the evil conscience of our modern civilization.” In a follow-up essay of 1869, Wagner noted that the European press was “entirely directed by Jews”; control of the press, combined with their accumulated wealth, resulted in a Jewry that was “the mightiest organization of our time”.[9]

In 1873, writer Frederick Millingen published a booklet entitled “The Conquest of the World by the Jews.” There, he wrote that “the Jews…are now the wealthiest and most influential class of men; and [they] have attained a position of vast power, the likes of which we do not meet in all history”.[10] Specifically with respect to Germany, in 1879, journalist Wilhelm Marr issued an influential essay, “The Victory of Jewry over Germandom,” decrying the fact that “Jewry has triumphed on a worldwide historical basis.” Into a naïve and innocent Germany “penetrated a smooth, crafty, pliable Jewry” that defeated “the monarchical, knightly, lumbering German by enabling him in his vices”—that is, by exploiting his weaknesses. “Germany is finished,” concludes Marr.[11]

In 1880, Laurent Oliphant could write about the Jews’ “financial operations of the largest scale.” “Owing to the financial, political, and commercial importance to which the Jews have now attained,” they have become an indispensable ally in any future conflict.[12] Then, in his influential book Jewish France (1885), French journalist Edouard Drumont made a shocking and frankly unbelievable claim: “Jews possess half of the capital in the world.” Commenting specifically on France, he noted that the total wealth of that nation was around 150 billion francs, “of which the Jews possess at least 80 billion”—that is, slightly more than half.[13] A decade later, historian Goldwin Smith confirmed this view: “Judaism is now [in 1894] the great financial power of Europe, that is, it is the greatest power of all”.[14]

All this, then, had emerged and was circulating in intellectual circles well before the final version of the Protocols was written. Any talk there about world rule was not mere speculation; it was well underway. It was realistically attainable. And it was within grasp. All they had to do was stick to the plan.

And here it becomes clear, I think, that the identity of the author(s) of the Protocols is perhaps irrelevant. The document describes in fair detail the “Jewish plan” from ages past: Acquire wealth by hook or by crook, use that wealth to corrupt the government, and then use governmental power to tilt the playing-field even more in the favor of Jews. Strive, ultimately, for world control. Do all this while, at the same time, taking every opportunity to debase, degrade, humiliate, and destroy the Goyim (non-Jews); the world is a zero-sum game, and every loss for gentiles is a gain for Jews. Hold no moral code but “Jewry first.” Might makes right, and ends justify the means. This has been the plan for three thousand years, and it is the plan today; it has worked in the past, and it will surely work in the future. “God” (Yahweh) promised this to the Jews long ago, and he has proven true to his word. This is the message of the Protocols. Whether it is the exposé of an actual Jewish cabal or the work of some Jew-hating anti-Semite does not really matter. It lays out the actual plan in stark terms for all to see. We can either act on it, or choose to ignore it.[15]

Two Relevant Questions

In the remainder of this essay, I will focus on two issues: First, how does the plan look today, in light of recent world events? And second, who might plausibly count as the new “Elders of Zion”—that is, who are the most influential Jews (in America, at least), those who might be leading the charge toward Jewish domination?

Let me begin, then, by working through the protocols in sequence, pulling out some select passages that have a particular resonance today. In what follows, the reader must bear in mind that, here in America, both major political parties are dominated by Jewish money. Republicans receive at least 25% of their political funding from Jewish sources, and Democrats at least 50%.[16] Hence, the actions of both parties are reflective of Jewish wants and interests. American politics are Jewish politics, pure and simple.

In the end, the reader must judge for himself whether or not the following quoted passages conform to current events—passages that are now at least 125 years old.

“I will describe our system, both from our own viewpoint and from that of the Goyim” (P1, p. 77).[17] The word ‘goyim’ (plural of ‘goy’) is a Jewish term of contempt for non-Jews. This immediately marks it as a (nominal) Jewish document, one in which non-Jews, or gentiles, are viewed with utter disdain. This latter point is hardly contentious; if there is one dominant trait of Jewry from millennia past, it is a kind of misanthropy—a hatred for all non-Jews.[18] Such an attitude is well-documented in the Old Testament, in the Talmud, and in the Shulchan Aruch. This misanthropy has been a virtual hallmark of the Jewish people for thousands of years, and it holds as true today as ever; it is the key component of the Jewish supremacism that drives nearly all rich and powerful Jews.

“This task [of crushing those in power] becomes easier if the [Goy] ruler himself has embraced the idea of freedom, of ‘liberalism’” (P1, p. 77). Liberalism, loosely defined as a broad freedom of thought and action, has proven useful to Jews because it gives them license to unleash all sorts of detrimental, damaging ideas and institutions upon otherwise innocent people. In a tightly-run society that operates with oversight, moderation, and regulation, Jews are constrained in their options; in a free and liberal society, “anything goes,” and Jews have a free hand.

“Guided entirely by shallow passions, superstitions, customs, traditions, and sentimental theories, the mob becomes embroiled in party dissensions that prevent all possibility of reaching an agreement, even one based on perfectly sound reasoning. Every decision of the mob depends upon an accidental or prearranged majority… (P1, p. 78). In a democracy, the “mob,” the masses, rule; but their decisions are based on all sorts of irrational things (“shallow passions,” “superstitions,” etc.). Party strife—like ‘left’ versus ‘right’—overrides sound thinking and good judgement, even as the Jewish overseers are able to “prearrange” the outcome by manipulating the people via mass media.

“He who desires to rule must resort to cunning and hypocrisy. Noble and popular qualities—like honesty and frankness—become vices in politics, as they will defeat a leader more rapidly than the most powerful enemy” (P1 p. 78). Jewish politics sinks to the lowest common denominator. Moral virtue in a politician is not only irrelevant, it is a handicap.

“Given the present instability of all authority, our power will be more unassailable than any other because it will be invisible until it is so well-rooted that no cunning can undermine it” (P1, p. 79). Jews are masters at hiding both their own identity and the effects of their action. Jewish power is indeed largely invisible to the common man; it takes a fair amount of effort to uncover the truth, even in this Internet age.

“The fact that the representatives of the nation can be replaced [via elections], delivers them into our power and practically places their appointment in our hands” (P1, p. 82). American elections are essentially a continuous string of pro-Jewish, pro-Israel candidates. When one leaves office, a new one is “elected” to take his or her place. Exceptions like Kentucky’s Thomas Massie are rare and largely powerless to effect change. Very recently, we have seen a slight shift toward more anti-Israeli (never anti-Jewish) rhetoric, but it remains to be seen how significant this will be.

“It is necessary for us that, whenever possible, wars should bring no territorial advantages; this will shift war to an economic basis and force nations to realize the strength of our predominance” (P2, p. 83). Jewish-instigated wars have shifted, since WW2, from territorial gains to economic gains; from territorial defeats to economic defeats. At one time, territory was important, but once Jews gained their Jewish state in 1948, territorial advancement became largely irrelevant—except of course for Israel, which has a never-ending thirst for more land—the Greater Israel project. (The Protocols are rife with explicit double-standards: rules that hold for Goyim but not for Jews.)

“The administrators chosen by us from among the people in accordance with their capacity for servility will be inexperienced in the art of government; consequently, they will easily become pawns in our game…” (P2, p. 83). Virtually all prominent politicians, and most minor ones, are utterly subservient to Jewish interests and Jewish money. Their careers live or die upon their conformance with the Jewish-Israeli line. This has been true for at least 50 years in America, but it is more obvious now than ever; just consider how many politicians call for a complete end of aid to Israel; for a prosecution of Israeli war crimes; for an open discussion about the pervasive role of Jews and Jewish money in government, business, academia, press, and entertainment—zero. Utter servility is the name of the game today.

“There is one great force in the hands of modern states that arouses thought movements among the people: the press. The press’ role is to indicate necessary demands, to register complaints of the people, and to express and promote dissatisfaction. The triumph of free speech is incarnated in the press; but governments have been unable to profit by this power, and it has fallen into our hands. Through it, we have attained influence, while remaining in the background.” (P2, p. 84). Jews own, control, or otherwise dominate all the major US media corporations: Comcast (Brian Roberts), Disney (Dana Walden, and recently Bob Iger), Warner Bros (Michael DeLuca), Paramount Skydance (David and Larry Ellison), and Fox (Zionist Murdoch family, likely part-Jewish).

“Thanks to the press, we have gathered gold in our hands, although it cost us rivers of blood and tears. It cost us the sacrifice of many of our own people. But every sacrifice on our part is worth a thousand Goyim before God” (P2, p. 84). Of the ten richest Americans, at least five are Jews: Larry Ellison, Mark Zuckerberg, Larry Page, Sergey Brin, and Michael Dell. (Possible Jewish heritage of Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos would of course add to this number.) Not far down the list are other Jews, such as Michael Bloomberg, Jeff Yass, Stephen Schwarzman, Miriam Adelson, Marilyn Simons, Henry Samueli, Len Blavatnik, and Dan Gilbert. Much of their wealth comes from high tech, which is now effectively part of “the press.”

“Today I can tell you that our goal is close at hand. Only a small distance remains, and the cycle of the Symbolic Serpent—the symbol of our people—will be complete. When this circle is completed, then all the European states will be enclosed in it, as in unbreakable chains” (P3, p. 85). The EU flag is circle of gold stars on a blue background; it was designed primarily by a Jew, Paul M. G. Levy. Europe is certainly under Jewish control today—both internally and indirectly, via the power of the U.S.

“To induce the lovers of authority to abuse their power, we have placed all forces in opposition to each other, having developed their liberal tendencies towards independence. We have encouraged every undertaking in this direction; we have placed formidable weapons in the hands of all parties, and made power the goal of every ambition. We turned governments into arenas in which party wars are fought out. Soon, chaos and bankruptcy will appear everywhere” (P3, p. 85). Political strife is an excellent means by which to distract from the real problem, namely Jewish manipulation and control of society.

“We, on the contrary, are concerned with…the degeneration of the Goyim. Our power lies in the chronic malnutrition and weakness of the worker, because through this he falls under our power and is unable to find either strength or energy to combat it. Hunger gives capital a greater power over the worker than any sovereign legal authority under an aristocracy. Through misery, jealousy, and hatred, we manipulate the mob and crush those who stand in our way” (P3, p. 86). Junk food, drugs, alcohol, chemical preservatives, sugar, contrived pandemics—all these serve to addict and sicken the masses, who then can barely function in their daily lives, let alone spend time and effort on serious political matters.

“This hatred [of the upper classes] will be still more accentuated by an economic crisis, which will stop financial transactions and all industrial life. Having organized a general economic crisis by all possible underhanded means, and with the help of the gold that is all in our hands, we will throw great crowds of workmen into the street, simultaneously, in all nations” (P3, p 87). An excellent anticipation of the Depression, which was likely induced by Jewish action.[19] This also anticipates later economic crises such as the 1973 oil crisis, the junk bond crisis of the late 1980s, the 2008 housing collapse, and the Covid recession—and now the Iran War financial crisis.

“As things stand, as an international force, we are invulnerable; if we are attacked by one state, we are supported by others” (P3, p. 88). In 2003, Malaysian prime minister Mahathir Mohamad said “Today Jews rule the world by proxy. They get others to fight and die for them.” He was speaking of Jewish control over the US military and the executive branch. Of course, Israel is looking very vulnerable at the moment, thanks to Jewish overreach in Iran, Lebanon, and Gaza; but even a defeat there will not mean the end of the power of world Jewry. As long as they own or control trillions of dollars, they are effectively “invulnerable.”

“We will create a strong centralized government, so as to collect social forces under our power” (P5, p. 91). Jews have always pushed for centralized governmental control, which makes it much easier for them to manipulate the levers of power. A decentralized system is much harder to control. Consequently, we have seen massive pressure for a large centralized government in the US (since 1900) and in Europe—hence the formation of the EU.

“All the wheels of government mechanism move by the action of the motor that is in our hands, and that motor is gold” (P5, p. 92). Money indeed is the decisive factor in U.S. politics, and Jews, by far, donate more political money than any other interest group.

“We must direct the education of the Goy societies so that their arms will drop hopelessly at their side whenever they face any task where initiative is required. The intensity of action resulting from individual freedom of action dissipates its force when it encounters another person’s freedom. This strikes a heavy blow against morale, yielding disappointments and failures” (P5, p. 93). Western academia is in a disastrous state, both in the U.S. and Europe. Jewish money, administrators, and faculty have utterly distorted the traditional strength of academia, and a Jewish-inspired “woke” ideology contaminates all levels.

“We must be able to overcome all opposition by provoking a war with the neighbors of any country that dares to oppose us. Should, however, those neighbors, in turn, decide to unite against us, we must respond by creating a world war” (P7, p. 97). A remarkable anticipation of both World Wars, not to mention the Cold War, Iraq Wars I and II, Afghanistan War, Ukraine-Russia War, and now, the U.S.-Israeli Iran War. Major wars are marvelously beneficial to Jewish interests; they earn wartime profits, they realign global power structures, and they kill lots of Goyim.

“[T]o sum up our system of enslaving the Goy governments of Europe, we will demonstrate our power to them by assassinations and terrorism” (P7, p. 98). Israel is the leading state-sponsor of terrorism globally, and the Israeli Mossad is the leading organization for political assassination—closely followed by the Jewish-influenced U.S. military and CIA.

“As it is not yet safe to give the responsible government posts directly to our brother Jews, we will give them to people whose record and whose character are so terrible that there is a vast gulf between them and the people. Such leaders would face nothing but condemnation and imprisonment, should they disobey our orders. This fact will force them to protect our interests, to their dying day” (P8, p. 99). American Jews directly hold many positions of power (something like 35 current members of Congress, along with cabinet positions and one Supreme Court justice), but the remaining non-Jews are almost uniformly of bad character even as they pander to Jewish-Israeli interests. Jewish blackmail surely keeps many of them in line—likely including President Trump.

“We have already effectively destroyed all governments but our own, even though, nominally, many still remain. At present, if any government protests against us, it is done only as a matter of course, and at our desire, and by our order; this is because their anti-Semitism is necessary to enable us to control our lesser brethren” (P9, p. 100). Most Western governments—and many elsewhere—are currently hopelessly dysfunctional or otherwise “destroyed.” Good governance would be a hinderance to Jewish power, and therefore it will be undermined wherever possible. The specter of ‘anti-Semitism’ is routinely raised in all Western nations, both to rally all Jews and to frighten the masses into yet more protective policies toward Jews.

“We have affected legal procedure, electoral law, the press, personal freedom—and most important of all, education: the cornerstone of free existence. We have misled, corrupted, deceived, and demoralized the Goy youth by education along principles and theories known by us to be false but which we ourselves have inspired” (P9, p. 101). Self-evident.

A Blatant Double-Standard

The second half of the Protocols moves into a more future-oriented mode of discourse, explaining the coming social order when the Jewish Sovereign is in charge. Notably, many of the things that Jews promote today, under Goy rule, will be eliminated under Jewish rule; this is because they desire harmful and disruptive measures now, but will need relative peace and stability once in power. Double-standards are pervasive. Again, the only rule is “Jewry first.”

“When we injected the poison of liberalism into the state organism, its entire political complexion changed; the states became infected with a mortal disease, namely, the decomposition of the blood. It is only necessary to await the end of their agony” (P10, p. 105). Jews have been leading forces in the push for unrestrained immigration, ‘open borders,’ and lax enforcement of visa rules. This was true in the US under several past presidents (Trump is something of an exception, although his actual success at routing out millions of illegals remains to be seen), and it is true of Europe, which has been flooded by at least 20 million Africans and Middle-Easterners since 2000. Racial mixing (“decomposition”) is good for the Goyim because it weakens their genetic integrity and identity; but it is bad for the Jews, who prohibit it by Jewish law.

“To accomplish our plan, we will engineer the election of presidents whose past record contains some hidden scandal—then they will be faithful executors of our orders, for fear of exposure, and from a natural desire to retain the privileges, advantages, and dignity connected with the position of president” (P10, p. 106). Compare to the Protocol 8 passage cited above.

“We must exhaust everyone by dissension, hostility, struggle, hatred, and even martyrdom, hunger, inoculation of diseases, and misery, so as to make the Goyim see no other solution than an appeal to our money and our total rule” (P10, p. 107). Self-evident.

“[W]e have already managed to subjugate the minds of the Goyim to such an extent that almost all of them see world-events through colored glasses that we put over their eyes…” (P12, p. 111). Thanks to Jewish control of the press, media, educational institutions, and entertainment industries.

“All the periodicals published by us will seem to be of contradictory views and opinions, inviting trust in us, and thus appearing attractive to our unsuspecting enemies; in this way, they will be caught in our trap and made harmless. … [Of special importance] will be our ostensible opposition, which, at least in one of its publications, will represent the opposition to us. Our real enemies will mistake this seeming opposition as belonging to their own group, and thus will show us their cards. … Those fools who believe that they repeat the opinions expressed by ‘their’ newspapers will be repeating our opinions or those that we desire them to have” (P12, p. 112). This is an excellent description of the idea of ‘controlled opposition’ in press and politics. Jewish control extends to all media, and thus all media, ‘left’ and ‘right,’ are compatible with Jewish interests; consumers don’t see this influence and thus believe that ‘their’ media are honest and correct.

“We will be able to persuade or confuse [the masses], sometimes printing the truth, sometimes lies, referring to facts or contradicting them, according to the way they are received by the public, and always carefully testing the ground before stepping on it. We will surely conquer our enemies because they will not have the press at their disposal in which to fully express themselves” (P12, p. 113). It is important for the Jews to have total control over media, otherwise the truth might slip out. No truly dissenting voices shall be allowed. Alternative media shall be sued, defunded, harassed, and ‘cancelled.’

“To prevent [the masses] from reaching any independent decisions, we will divert their minds with amusements, games, hobbies, passions, and public cultural centers. We will soon begin to offer prize contests through the press, and sports of all kinds” (P13, p. 115). The over-hyped and over-commercialized nature of television and professional (and college!) sports is self-evident. Such pastimes serve to vent public anger and dissatisfaction, and distract again from the real problems and control mechanisms of society.

“In the so-called advanced countries, we have created senseless, dirty, and disgusting literature” (P14, p. 118). Jews lead the charge in all aspects of pornography—print, film, and Internet. OnlyFans, Vixen Media, Grindr, Aylo/Pornhub, Vivid, and Gamma Entertainment are all Jewish-led or -owned porn distributors.

“You have no idea how easy it is to bring even the most intelligent Goyim to a state of unconscious gullibility, and, on the other hand, how easy it is to discourage them by the smallest failure—or merely by ceasing to applaud them, thus enslaving them for the sake of achieving new success. To the same extent as our people ignore success for the sake of carrying out their plans, so are the Goyim ready to sacrifice all their plans for the sake of success. Their psychology makes the problem of direction easier for us. Those who appear to be tigers are as stupid as sheep; nonsense filters through their heads” (P15, p. 121). Comment unnecessary.

“Our rule will simulate the God Vishnu, who resembles us physically; each of our hundred hands will hold one of the levers of the social machine” (P17, p. 129). Jews do indeed seem to be everywhere at once. There is scarcely an aspect of government or culture in which they do not have an active hand.

“Through cleverly-compiled historical textbooks, we have indirectly given publicity to [political] martyrdom as though done for the sake of human welfare. Such an advertisement has multiplied the number of liberals and has swollen the ranks of our agents by thousands of Goyim” (P19, p. 133). Political rebels, agitators, ‘antifa,’ and so on—that is, those on the extreme radical left—serve as agents of Jewry. Such people believe themselves to be working for radical equality, radical justice, and radical freedom, but in the end they only further the Jewish cause.

“In order to teach the people obedience, they must be taught modesty. And to accomplish this, the production of luxuries must be limited. [Once in power,] we will thus improve public morality, which has been demoralized by competition resulting from luxury” (P23, p. 143). Once again, rules for thee but not for me. Corrupting luxury abounds today, but will be greatly restrained when it serves the Jewish power structure.

“I say once again that people blindly obey only the hand that is strong and entirely independent of them—the hand that wields a sword of defense against the blows of social misfortune. Why should the Sovereign have an angel’s heart? The people want to see in him the personification of power and might” (P23, p. 143). Present-day Israel, and Netanyahu in particular, fashion themselves as Jewish world-powers. In their actions against innocent and disarmed Palestinians, or against the innocent masses in Lebanon and Iran, Israeli Jews reveal themselves to be ruthless and brutal killers; they evidently believe that this shows “strength.” It rather shows them to be genocidal psychopaths, for which no punishment can be too harsh.

The New Elders

Who, then, are the specific individuals guiding “Israel” to its supposed future glory? Who are the new Elders of Zion?

Netanyahu and his immediate advisors are obvious candidates, and they indeed seem to play the role. Pathologically, they seem to believe that the nations of the world should, and will, bend to their will. They cajole, bully, bribe, and coerce other national leaders to serve their interests, often successfully. Trump in particular seems to be in Netanyahu’s back pocket; with all due bluster and hot air, Trump thrashes around wildly in his policy but, in the end, at least so far, seems to do essentially what the Jews want him to do.

But it is not only Netanyahu, of course. It is the entire Jewish power structure in America that also works on him, just as it worked on all past presidents. So who are these leading individuals, these American ‘power Jews,’ who function to implement the age-old plan of the Protocols?

Some names are obvious: We can start with the wealthiest Jews and those with the highest levels of political power. Above I cited by name the 13 richest Jews in America; they certainly count as modern-day Elders. But it is not merely the richest; there are at least 300 Jewish billionaires in the US, and it depends how active they are in trying to shape American, and global, society. Lesser billionaires can sometimes take a more active social/political role, typically because they are super-donors to the Democrats. Among these, I would include William Ackman, (net worth $9.1 billion), David Geffen ($9 billion), George Soros ($7.5 billion), Paul Singer ($6.7 billion), Stephen Mandel ($5 billion), and Tom Steyer ($2.5 billion).

In addition to the richest, there are those Jews in high positions within the federal government, some of whom are mere multimillionaires. Chuck Schumer, for example, wields significant political power but is worth only some $7 million. Other assertive Jewish senators include Richard Blumenthal and Adam Schiff (Bernie Sanders also makes this list, though he is, in some ways, an anti-elder). Then we have the most influential representatives: Debbie Wasserman-Schultz, Lois Frankl, Jerry Nadler, Jamie Raskin, and Brad Sherman. Next, we may include the leading Jews in the Trump administration: Steve Witkoff, Howard Lutnick, Stephen Miller, and Ron Lauder. And of course, we cannot fail to include Trump’s own son-in-law, Jared Kushner.

As a third general group of ‘new Elders,’ I would name those Jews who lead our major technology and media organizations. Above I cited six leading media Jews who certainly make the list. And some of the richest (cited already) are also tech or media leaders. In addition to the above, I would include Adam Mosseri (Instagram), Safra Catz (Oracle), Arthur Levinson (Apple), Sam Altman (OpenAI), Alex Karp (Palantir), Gary Cohn (IBM), Dario Amodei (Anthropic), and Andy Jassy (Amazon).

As a fourth group, I will include Jews who lead powerful organizations within the U.S., by which I refer to Jonathan Greenblatt (ADL), Ted Deutch (American Jewish Committee), and Betsy Korn and William Daroff (Jewish Council of Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations).

Finally, there is a group of miscellaneous Jews who wield power in various other ways. These individuals include political figures such as Rahm Emanuel (former Obama chief of staff), JB Pritzker (governor of Illinois), Josh Shapiro (governor of Pennsylvania), Douglas Emhoff (husband of Kamala Harris), and Josh Stein (governor of North Carolina). Also in this group, I would place film producers Steven Spielberg and (yes) Harvey Weinstein, who, at age 74, is incarcerated and faces ongoing litigation over his 100+ suspected sexual assaults but is still worth some $25 million and still influences events in Hollywood and beyond. I also include here the leading American representative of the infamous Rothschild family, Lynn Forester de Rothschild.[20] Lastly, a mix of various influential figures: Alan Dershowitz (lawyer), Seth Klarman (CEO of Baupost), Arthur Sulzberger (New York Times), David Solomon (Goldman Sachs), Steve Tisch (New York Giants football), Robert Kraft (New England Patriots football), Mark Cuban (minority owner of the Dallas Mavericks basketball and co-founder of 2029 Entertainment), and Josh Kushner (LA Lakers basketball, and brother to Jared). In all, 66 individuals.[21]

Lest the reader lose track of all these names, here they are again, in alphabetical order:

There they are, 66 names: my nominees for the 2026 edition of the new Elders of Zion. Each one guaranteed to work on behalf of Jews and Israel, each guaranteed to put “Jewry first.” I’m sure each reader will have his or her own nominees, perhaps a much larger list; so be it. At least the discussion has begun.

Thomas Dalton, PhD, has authored or edited several books and articles on politics, history, and the Jewish Question. All his works are available at

 www.clemensandblair.com, and at his personal website www.thomasdaltonphd.com.

[1] There are claims that the Protocols were written as early as 1818, but these are not credible. At least in final form, they must date to the late 1800s—though we cannot rule out that some early ‘proto-Protocols’ were drafted much earlier. The final document mentions Friedrich Nietzsche (Protocol 2) who only came to prominence after 1888; it mentions a French prime minister, Leon Bourgeois (Protocol 16), who served from 1895 to 1896; and it has two textual references to Zionism (Protocols 3 and 5), which did not exist in any meaningful sense until 1897. The final composition was certainly after these dates.

[2] The Jewish “homeland” of Israel would not come into being until 1948, thirty years after the Declaration. For the full story of the “contract with Jewry,” see my book The Jewish Hand in the World Wars (2025).

[3] A UN General Assembly vote, incidentally, has no force of law; that can only come from a Security Council vote, which did not happen. Technically, therefore, Israel was never legally authorized by the UN.

[4] Note that the “King of Israel” is mentioned four times in the text, but there, ‘Israel’ refers to the Jewish people, not the nation-state.

[5] Anthropology (1798/1978), p. 102.

[6] “The Age of Bronze.”

[7] Cited in Marx, “On the Jewish Question,” The Marx-Engels Reader (1978), p. 49.

[8] “Fate,” in Conduct of Life (1860).

[9] “Jewry in Music,” cited in Classic Essays on the Jewish Question (2022), pp. 7-43.

[10] Cited in Classic Essays, p. 64.

[11] Cited in Classic Essays, pp. 95-124.

[12] The Land of Gilead (1880), p. 503.

[13] In The Jew in the Modern World (2011, Mendes-Flohr and Reinharz, eds.), p. 315. Chapter One of Drumont’s book is reproduced in Classic Essays, pp. 125-146.

[14] Essays on the Questions of the Day (1894), p. 260.

[15] One man who did act on it was Henry Ford. He became aware of the Protocols around 1919 and was so impressed that it prompted him to initiate his famous “International Jew” series, which began in May 1920; see my published edition The International Jew: The Definitive Edition (2024; two volumes).

[16] See the white paper “The Jewish Vote,” by Gil Troy (2016).

[17] That is, Protocol #1, cited at page 77 of the above-mentioned edition of 2023.

[18] I won’t elaborate here; for details, see my book Eternal Strangers (2025).

[19] According to Louis McFadden, congressman from Pennsylvania, “Paul Warburg…engineered the Great Depression”—as stated in the Congressional Record of 1931. See One Honest Man (2026; Clemens & Blair).

[20] She is apparently a converted Jew, having married prominent Jew Andrew Stein in 1983 before marrying E. Robert de Rothschild in 2000.

[21] Jews attach much symbolic importance to the number six, so this is an appropriate total.

Thomas Dalton

https://www.theoccidentalobserver.net/author/thomasdalton/

It isn’t just that I don’t believe in God, I don’t want there to be a God

 I recall a question on a final exam near the beginning of my graduate studies at Caltech: Which of the biological macromolecules is apt to have been the first “living” molecule, and why? If that sounds like Greek to you, relax. I promise to write in plain English. All you need to know is that the question is about how life began, posed with the unstated assumption that it began by ordinary molecular processes. That assumption had been ingrained in biological thinking for so long that it went without saying. Every student in the class understood this, but I understood it more critically than most did. I knew the expected response to the test question, but through my critical lens, that response seemed scientifically questionable. So I had a choice: Do I go with the flow, or do I push against it?

I decided to give the expected answer in full and then—for extra credit—to state why I found that answer unconvincing. I explained why, contrary to the consensus view, I didn’t think any molecule has what would be needed to start life. As shrewd as that seemed at the time, I learned when my exam was returned (with points deducted) that we students were expected not only to know current thinking in biology but also to accept it without resistance. We were there as much to be acculturated as educated.

I had learned my lesson. The stream of scientific consensus flows with an almost irresistible current.

Almost.

AWKWARD SCIENCE

Of all the controversial ideas to come from modern science, none has brought more awkwardness than Darwin’s idea of evolution through natural selection. We know natural selection means “survival of the fittest,” which in one sense isn’t at all controversial. Indeed, Darwin’s observation that fitter individuals are apt to have more offspring is so obvious it hardly needs to be stated. But how can something with so little content—a truism—possibly explain the astounding richness of life?

The biggest question on everyone’s minds has never been the question of survival but rather the question of origin—our origin in particular. How did we get here? Even if you think natural selection is the answer, you have to admit to a degree of internal conflict over the matter. Francis Crick acknowledged this conflict, at least implicitly, when he cautioned that “biologists must constantly keep in mind that what they see was not designed, but rather evolved.”1 So if Darwin’s claim is true, then it’s a truth we all find ourselves doubting—at least subconsciously—and if it’s false, then we’re to be commended for doubting it. Awkwardness clings to it either way.

In fact, though you won’t see this in any textbook, Darwin implicitly conceded something that adds to the unease surrounding his theory. All six editions of his book On the Origin of Species include a few paragraphs in the conclusion where he addressed the widespread rejection of his theory by his scientific peers. He began with a question: “Why, it may be asked, have all the most eminent living naturalists and geologists rejected this view of the mutability of species?” The answer, he thought, was their closed-mindedness. Sensing little hope of opening more than a few of those minds, he decided to “look with confidence to the future, to young and rising naturalists, who will be able to view both sides of the question with impartiality.”2To Darwin’s own great surprise, this near total rejection of his theory turned to near total acceptance within just a few years. Up to the publication of the fifth edition of his book in 1869, his original gloomy assessment of the reception of his work wasn’t in need of revision. Then in 1872, a mere three years later, the sixth edition followed those original paragraphs with this commentary:

As a record of a former state of things, I have retained in the foregoing paragraphs, and elsewhere, several sentences which imply that naturalists believe in the separate creation of each species; and I have been much censured for having thus expressed myself. But undoubtedly this was the general belief when the first edition of the present work appeared. I formerly spoke to very many naturalists on the subject of evolution, and never once met with any sympathetic agreement. It is probable that some did then believe in evolution, but they were either silent, or expressed themselves so ambiguously that it was not easy to understand their meaning. Now things are wholly changed, and almost every naturalist admits the great principle of evolution.3What would cause such a sudden reversal of scientific opinion? Did a new scientific discovery appear in the late 1860s or early 1870s—potent enough to convince the skeptics that Darwin was right after all? Clearly not, as Darwin surely would have cited such a decisive finding. But if science itself wasn’t the cause of the change, then what was?

Whether he intended to or not, Darwin reveals here that peer pressure is a part of science, happening behind the scenes as the various scientific interests compete against one another for influence. If it’s a plain historical fact that the experts didn’t side with Darwin in the early 1860s, then why would he have been “much censured” by his peers for saying so? It’s as though his colleagues wanted all mention of opposition expunged from the record now that this opposition had faded. Darwin resisted the pressure applied to him on that occasion, but what if others, perhaps under even greater pressure, were less able to resist? Might the earlier inability of some scientists to express their support of Darwin’s theory—the silence and ambiguity of expression Darwin referred to—have been the result of peer pressure too? And if so, then might the sudden change in Darwin’s favor have been more like a change of power than a change of minds—a sudden reversal of the stream’s flow?

We have good reason to consider this possibility. The question of what controls the stream—why it flows this way and not that, and why it changes when it does—is every bit as important now as it was back then. If yesterday’s scientists were influenced as much by human factors as by data, wouldn’t this be equally true of today’s scientists? And if it is true, what does this mean for the received wisdom of our day, which holds the evolutionary view to be the only one worth taking seriously?

As we think more about how science works, we’ll see that those rare people who oppose the stream are the ones to watch.

HEROIC MISFITS

Thankfully, every generation has had a handful of rebels who are compelled to do just that. A countercurrent of awkwardness flows from these misfits in refreshing waves. Among the most beautiful examples of this I’ve come across is a man named Thomas Nagel, a professor of philosophy at New York University. He’s a highly unusual atheist, the author of a superb wave-making book titled Mind and Cosmos: Why the Materialist Neo-Darwinian Conception of Nature Is Almost Certainly False.4

By way of background, the flag that has flown for many generations over the academy of higher education is that of a broad school of thought known as materialism.5 The meaning here isn’t the common one (an obsession with flashy cars or expensive clothes) but rather the view that matter—the stuff of physics—underlies everything real. Even if they don’t use this term, atheists tend to subscribe to the materialist view of reality, believing God to be a product of the human imagination, which they believe to be a product of material evolution. Theists, on the other hand, believe the reverse—that the material universe was brought into existence by God, who is not material. Both views accept the reality of the physical world, but one sees this as the only reality whereas the other doesn’t.

People on either side of this divide might think constructive dialogue is hopeless because everyone on the other side has fallen prey to wishful thinking. In practice, however, I find that atheists are more inclined toward this. Atheists have a pronounced leaning toward scientism, which is the belief that science is the only reliable source of truth. It’s entirely understandable, then, that belief in God might look to them like wishful thinking—as though people of faith have let their hearts overpower their heads. Although people of serious faith (myself included) know this to be a misconception, our holistic understanding of human belief and behavior certainly does include the heart along with the head. We fully acknowledge that emotion can get in the way of clear thinking, but since we see this as a very general condition of humanity, we would never offer it as a particular weakness of atheism, the way so many atheists offer it as a particular weakness of theism.

TWO -ISMS WORTH REMEMBERING

materialism:

the belief that physical stuff underlies everything real

scientism:

the belief that science is the only reliable source of truth

Returning to Thomas Nagel, as you may have guessed from the title of his book, he isn’t your typical atheist. Most significantly, he roundly rejects the simplistic scientism that so many atheists still cling to. His atheism is heart-driven, and he isn’t afraid to say so:

I want atheism to be true and am made uneasy by the fact that some of the most intelligent and well-informed people I know are religious believers. It isn’t just that I don’t believe in God and, naturally, hope that I’m right in my belief. It’s that I hope there is no God! I don’t want there to be a God; I don’t want the universe to be like that.

My guess is that this cosmic authority problem is not a rare condition and that it is responsible for much of the scientism and reductionism of our time. One of the tendencies it supports is the ludicrous overuse of evolutionary biology to explain everything about life, including everything about the human mind.6

As a first-rate philosopher of the mind, Nagel actually changes the debate with this candid version of atheism. In light of his example, thoughtful atheists no longer have the luxury of assuming their worldview just works somehow—that dead molecules somehow formed simple life, and that simple life somehow formed us, despite all the apparent difficulties. Nor do they have the luxury of dismissing every argument against atheism on grounds of religious bias. Thoughtful theists, for their part, can no longer assume that atheism necessarily breeds contempt for faith.

Nagel is living proof that the awkwardness of bare-naked honesty doesn’t compare to the reward of engaging seriously the matters that concern us most—a principle that will serve us well as we begin our journey together. You need no special training to join this expedition. All you need is a healthy dose of curiosity and a healthy tolerance of the good kind of awkwardness—the kind that comes from challenging claims that ought to be challenged.

THE BIG QUESTION

Again, that one big question of our origin unites us—not because we agree on the answer but because we should all agree on the importance of finding the answer. Throughout history, it has been the foremost question of people searching for understanding: What is the source from which everything else came? Or, to bring it closer to home: To what or to whom do we owe our existence? This has to be the starting point for people who take life seriously—scientists and nonscientists alike. We cannot rest without the answer, because absolutely everything of importance is riding on it. To know where everything came from is to know where we came from, and where we came from has everything to do with who we are, and who we are has everything to do with how we ought to live.

THE BIG QUESTION

To what or to whom do we owe our existence?

If all goes well, our journey in this book will take us to the answer. We’ll know we have arrived when we have an answer that not only rings true but also distinguishes itself as the one answer that rings true. There should be no credible alternative.

A map will be helpful as we begin. My aim over the next four chapters isn’t to answer the big question but instead to show where we should be looking for the answer. Chapter 2 will introduce the intuition that creates internal conflict in all of us by tugging against Darwin’s claims. This design intuition, as we will call it, is the very intuition Crick wanted us to suppress. Chapters 3 and 4 will be a short account of the unexpected lessons I learned while seeking a scientific solution to this internal conflict. These lessons weren’t about the proteins I was studying but about the people I interacted with along the way—really, about people in general. With those lessons in hand, we’ll see in chapter 5 that the answer we’re seeking is to be found not in technical science but in something much more familiar—something I call common science. There will be plenty of glimpses of technical science along the way, but all of these will be presented with the nontechnical reader in mind. In the end, we’ll see that mastery of technical subjects isn’t at all needed in order for us to know the answer to the big question. Common science will be perfectly adequate.

The next section of the book—chapters 6 through 9—will be a journey through the important aspects of common science. The point of chapter 6 will be to provide a better understanding of what life is and what it isn’t, which will prove helpful as we progress to the matter of where life came from. Chapter 7 will be a common-science refutation of the idea that natural selection explains how life came to exist in its countless remarkable forms. With natural selection off the table, chapter 8 will be an exploration of searching, showing that the many inventions needed for new life forms to evolve would have had to be found accidentally. Chapter 9 will finish the section by showing why invention can’t actually happen that way. The intuition that Crick wanted us to suppress will end up being confirmed instead.

But all this only tells us what the answer to our question isn’t. To arrive at a satisfying understanding of what the answer is will require us to continue our journey a bit further. In chapter 10 we will revisit the question of what life is, viewing it this time through the lens of invention. The following two chapters, 11 and 12, will serve as a reality check, first by considering carefully whether we have overlooked anything in rejecting the evolutionary explanation of life and then by asking whether the scientific community’s defense of evolution looks more like a “science thing” or a “culture thing.” Finally, chapters 13 and 14 complete our journey. There we examine the nature of life and humanity more deeply—leading to a clear picture of what the answer to the big question is—after which I offer a glimpse of what I hope biology will look like in the not-too-distant future, after a great many people join us on this journey.

Undeniable 

How Biology Confirms Our Intuition That Life Is Designed 

Douglas Axe

Karolina Lanckorońska

 PREFACE

The publication of Karolina Lanckorońska’s memoir of struggle and survival in Poland during World War II is an event of great interest. Poland, during the Second World War, was the site of two catastrophes: the Holocaust and the war of occupation and conquest against the country as a whole. While the human dimension of the Holocaust has been made indelibly vivid through a body of powerful personal testimony, the other aspects of the Polish war are known to American readers, at best, as remote history. Lanckorońska’s narrative, written mostly during the war years, gives us rare insight into some of that history’s complexities, while introducing us to a fascinating story and an extraordinary personality.

Lanckorońska’s personality may initially seem distant from us in its social formation and almost stern code of behavior and honor, but it grows both more familiar and more deeply impressive as she moves through her dramatic and unexpected journey. Countess Lanckorońska was an aristocrat with a cosmopolitan background and strong proclivities for the scholarly life. Through the vicissitudes of Polish history, her ancestors settled in Austria at the end of the eighteenth century. During her formative years, her family was involved in the highest echelons of Austrian life, while keeping the Polish side of their identity intact. The young Countess Lanckorońska seemed to choose Poland as her homeland out of an affinity for that country’s people, culture, and sensibility.

The outbreak of the war found Lanckorońska in Lvov, where she held the post of professor in Renaissance Italian art—the first woman in Poland to achieve this rank in her field.

Her decision to become engaged in the resistance movement, which arose in opposition to the Soviet and Nazi invasions, seemed to follow unhesitantingly from her convictions and affiliations. Her descriptions of working in the underground, with its dangers and its ethos of solidarity, make for some of the most fascinating sections of the book. Her activities in Soviet-occupied Lvov were mostly humanitarian, but her network of contacts was wide. As the danger of discovery became apparent, she had to flee, ironically enough, into the Nazi-occupied Polish territories where she walked a dangerous line between legal and illegal activities, organizing relief efforts for prisoners of the Nazi regime throughout occupied Poland. Her native German helped her in dealing with Nazi officials, whom she confronted with shrewd perceptiveness and uncompromising honesty. In one case, this exasperating combination led one of her Nazi interlocutors, Hans Kruger, to confess to—or boast of—the murder of twenty-three professors from the University of Lvov. (Lanckorońska later tried to make the knowledge of this terrible war-crime public, but was ignored by the German authorities). During the war, she was to some extent protected by her highly placed international connections, but eventually her refusal to disavow her loyalty to Poland led to her imprisonment in Nazi jails and incarceration in the concentration camp of Ravensbrück.

Lanckorońska’s account of these events is unmarred by any excess, self-pity, or sentimentality; but she was driven by some powerful motives. Her youthful ambition was to be a nurse; and the instinct to help, heal, and serve clearly remained potent at the time of her most severe ordeals. In Ravensbrück, she refused the “privileged” treatment of a special solitary cell, choosing instead to share the fate of her fellow inmates, whom she tried to succor in all available ways. Her preferred duty was working in the sick bay and with the so-called “rabbits” who were the subjects of odious medical experiments. But she also gave informal lectures on art and European history to women who, even on the eve of death, seemed to be hungry for the nourishment of mind and spirit.

Indeed, this is where Lanckorońska’s memoir meets with such Holocaust testimonies as Primo Levi’s account of his time in Auschwitz. Like Levi, she was sustained in her bleak setting by memories of art and by literature. Like him, she took all of the world’s culture as her province. Unlike Levi, however, she had actual access to books, and  the readings she requested ranged from Shakespeare to Herodotus and, astonishingly, Mein Kampf (know your enemy!). Her breadth of perspective gave her deep and sometimes poignant insight into the behavior of Ravensbrück’s victims. For instance, when she noticed that women condemned to execution frequently asked to have their hair done, she recalled Herodotus, who described how the Spartans at Thermopylae combed their hair with great care before a foredoomed battle.

In other respects, Lanckorońska’s resilience was also derived from a set of attachments and beliefs which may seem to us old fashioned but allowed her to behave with a selflessness and courage that amounted to a form of heroism. She was a patriot in the true sense of the word, but her love of her homeland was untainted by nationalism, if that suggests a belligerent or insular attitude. She was also a believing Catholic, whose devotion was compatible with genuinely enlightened views and encompassing sympathies. She abhorred discriminatory provincialism, claims to racial superiority, and the ethnic stereotyping that went on even in the desperate world of Ravensbrück. Rather, she judged people by their capacity for self-discipline, generosity, and selflessness, and by how much or little they complained—in other words, by the qualities of their character.

Her own character was underwritten by values that were so internalized as to be part of herself, and that withstood the test of every adversity. After the war, Lanckorońska decided to live in exile, as it became evident that Poland would come under the Soviet sphere. She went on to live to the great age of 104 and established important institutions for the study of Polish culture and art. She clearly felt that the Poland she had fought and hoped for had been, in the end, bitterly betrayed. Her moving and illuminating chronicle is evidence that, during Poland’s greatest trials, she never betrayed what she saw as its best ideals—or indeed, herself.

—Eva Hoffman

INTRODUCTIONDoes one deserve special credit for devoting all one’s strength to doing what one does for love of it? I think not.1Karolina Lanckorońska (1898-2002).

The last representative of the clan Lanckoroński of Brzezie considered that the family history, dating back to the fourteenth century, imposed duties upon her rather than privileges. During the time of Poland’s noble Commonwealth,2 the Lanckorońskis played an active role in political life. They were appointed Deputies and Senators in the Polish Parliament (Sejm) and held various offices and functions such as Bishop, Provincial Governor, Chancellor or Mayor, not to speak of General or Chief of Staff.3 Karolina Lanckorońska was born in the nineteenth century (1898) and lived for the whole of the twentieth century, not only witnessing but participating in many historic events. The main theme of her life throughout was service to Poland and Polish culture.

In the nineteenth century, Vienna, capital of the Habsburgs, became the principal seat of the Lanckoroński family. When Antoni (1760-1830), a deputy in the Four Year Sejm and loyal supporter of the Constitution of the Third of May, moved to Vienna after the Third Partition of the Polish Republic, he was there accorded the office of Austrian Chamberlain and appointed Speaker of the State Sejm. His  son Kazimierz (1802-74) took his seat in the Upper House, and his grandson Karol – father of Karolina and distinguished recipient of the Order of the Golden Fleece – was appointed Chief Steward at the court of the Emperor Franz Josef I. Throughout the nineteenth century the Lanckorońskis became slowly embedded in the governmental fabric of the multiethnic monarchy.

The life of the last of them, Karol Lanckoroński (1848-1933), renowned collector and amateur art historian, encompassed the rise and fall of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy. A greatly respected owner of extensive properties in Galicia, the Kingdom of Poland and Styria, he was highly regarded for his academic pursuits as well as a passion for collecting, with a vigour worthy of the Renaissance era. His collection of paintings in the Lanckoroński Palace comprised one of the richest private art collections in Vienna.4 Through his marriages, twice to Austrians and for the third time to a Prussian, Małgorzata Lichnowsky5 (sister of Karol Maximilian Lichnowsky, German ambassador in London from 1912 to 1914), to all appearances Lanckoroński was ‘completely at home in the life of the Court and of the highly exclusive Austrian aristocracy’.6 Poland’s place under the rule of the Habsburgs he saw as part of a three-nation federation, but the world of his political illusions vanished with the death of the Emperor and the subsequent collapse of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy. Though closely bound up with German and Austrian culture, he nevertheless achieved an enormous amount for Polish culture and learning. His work in this field was acknowledged by the government of independent Poland with the award of the Great Ribbon of the Order of Polonia Restituta. When, after his death, his beloved daughter Karla (Karolina) was tidying the room, she found lying open on his bedside table a copy of Poland’s national epic, Pan Tadeusz by Adam Mickiewicz.

Lanckoroński avoided trying to influence the inclinations or choices of his children in matters national or political. Antoni, Karla and Adelajda, who were reared and educated in Vienna, felt their closest affinity with the culture and history of the old, pre-partition Poland and the new Poland now struggling for independence. At the time of the First World War, when the Chief Steward of the Habsburg court was experiencing the death of the Emperor in 1916, his eighteen-year-old daughter Karolina, with youthful enthusiasm, was collecting photographs of the Polish Legion, leaflets and Eagle badges, while supporting the central figure, ‘Brigadier’ Piłsudski. She also spent some time nursing sick and wounded Polish soldiers in a convalescent home (Faniteum) built by her father. She read with deep emotion Forest Echoes and Faithful River, novels by Stefan Żeromski. At the same time, dearest to her heart was the poetry of Juliusz Słowacki, of which she memorised lengthy extracts.

By the end of the war, the secondary-school student was showing distinctly academic leanings. As a voluntary attendant, she began to follow the university lectures in Vienna by the well-known art historian Max Dvořák. In 1920, having graduated from the private secondary school ‘Zu den Schotten’, she enrolled at Vienna University as an art-history student. Her choice of subject was as self-evident as her childhood contact with art had been unforced. The family collection of paintings in the Vienna palace, supplemented by visits to various European museums, had a considerable influence on her lively imagination.

Equally, in the family’s summer residence at Rozdół in Galicia, where she used to spend the holidays, Karolina saw not only portraits of her ancestors, but examples of Polish art. The walls of the Rozdół palace, indeed, were hung with paintings by – among other artists – Jan Matejko, Arthur Grottger, Józef Chełmoński and Jacek Malczewski, who was virtually ‘court painter’ to the Lanckorońskis. Karolina was not at her happiest in the vast, neo-baroque Vienna palace, as she recalled years later: ‘For more or less seven months of the year, we eagerly looked forward to the longed-for visit to Rozdół where we stayed from June to mid-November, when we returned to Vienna. The important feast of St Karol [Charles] – name-day of both my father and myself (as well as father’s birthday) – we always celebrated at Rozdół where, in the dining-room according to family tradition, on that day the chairs of the celebrants were decorated with flowers.’

It was there, in fact, that she passed the happiest hours of her childhood, climbing trees and swearing childish oaths in their shade. While still a student, observing evidence of a neglect in public health care, she took to ‘chasing’ after the sick. On her return to Vienna she resumed attendance at art-history lectures and studied the works of her favourite artist, Michelangelo. From time to time her father expressed discontent with his daughter’s student lifestyle, arguing that ‘women of the Renaissance [. . .] were educated and did not run to catch a tram at eight o’clock in the morning, clutching a briefcase’. But even before obtaining her doctorate, Karolina was thinking about her future. The desire to devote herself to the service of others, the attraction of nursing and her interest in medical matters led her to visit the School for Nurses in Warsaw.

In the end, however, following the kind advice of the Rozdół  doctor, Tadeusz Rawski – ‘a far better and wiser man than most’ – she opted for an academic career. On the strength of a dissertation entitled ‘Studies relating to Michelangelo’s Last Judgement and its artistic descendants’, which she had been preparing, supervised by Max Dvořák (after whose death she completed the thesis under the guidance of Julius von Schlosser), Karolina was accorded her doctorate in the history of art, at the University of Vienna on 21 May 1926.

The same year Dr Lanckorońska paid a lengthy visit to Rome, where she devoted herself to researching Italian art of the Renaissance and baroque periods. The material she gathered on that occasion bore fruit in her subsequent learned works. She was librarian of the Rome branch of the Polish Academy of Arts and Sciences (PAU), where for several years she was in charge of the art-history department, organising among other things collections of books and photographs, partly consisting of her father’s bequests.

Karol Lanckoroński died in 1933, leaving behind properties in Galicia, which forged a further link between the Lanckoroński family and Poland. Karolina herself inherited Komarno and settled permanently in Lwów. Her academic interests played no small part in this decision – namely a possible university career. In 1934 she was elected a member of the Lwów Scientific Society and, in October, the governing board of the Jan Kazimierz University supported her request for admission to the oral examination to qualify for the assistant professorship of modern art, expressing the unanimous opinion that ‘the acquisition of Dr Lanckorońska by the Jan Kazimierz University as Art History lecturer is highly desirable’.

The same year – as a private lecturer – she began giving lectures and conducting classes. Her examination thesis based on her dissertation, entitled ‘The decoration of the Church Il Gesù in the context of baroque development in Rome’, was received with unanimous acclaim on 13 December 1935 by the Council of the Humanities Department, and on 13 January 1936 by the Senate of the Jan Kazimierz University.7 That was how Dr Karolina came to be the first woman in Poland to obtain a professorial appointment in the field of art history. Now she was able to devote herself wholeheartedly to what she most earnestly desired: the work of teaching and research at university level. However, as she used to say, her happiness was short-lived.

Her wartime memoirs begin with the outbreak of the Second World War and the invasion of Lwów by Soviet forces in September 1939. With emigration as a possible option, she chose instead the ‘destiny of  the belated grandchild’ of her valiant forebears and refused to leave Poland while the country was occupied by foreign armies. At the turn of the year 1939-40, she was still teaching art history at the university. However, it was not long before she was actively engaged in the underground resistance. In January 1940 she swore an oath of allegiance to the underground Union for Armed Struggle (Związek Walki Zbrojnej, or ZWZ). The heart-rending, tragic events of that period – the deportations to the heart of the Soviet Union, the kidnappings and anarchy, the climate of human despair and helplessness – she has tried most faithfully to record in her memoirs. Numerous arrests of members of the Lwów underground, as a result of informers’ reports to the authorities, brought about Karolina’s hurried escape from Lwów in May 1940. As soon as she arrived in Kraków, she resumed her contacts with the underground. On the orders of Colonel Tadeusz Komorowski, commanding the Kraków regional branch of ZWZ, she undertook various duties, including the translation into German of appeals designed to demoralise the German forces. These notices were then pasted on billboards and walls in the city. Chiefly, however, she was engaged in the activity of the Polish Red Cross, in which as a nursing volunteer she brought Samaritan help to sick and wounded prisoners-of-war released from the German Stalags and Oflags. In that capacity she witnessed ‘many deaths and many burials’. In the second half of 1941 the Main Council for Relief (Rada Główna Opiekuńcza, or RGO) entrusted to Karolina Lanckorońska the care of all prisoners in the whole German-occupied territory of Poland – the so-called General Government. She dedicated herself totally to this assignment. Her excellent knowledge of German, her aristocratic descent and her steadfastly courageous attitude towards the Germans helped her to operate effectively. Collective action organised by her for the supply of extra food in prisons, and the procurement of parcels and other assistance for approximately 27,000 prisoners, were instrumental in saving the lives of many of those in captivity.

In January 1942, as an official of the RGO, she travelled to Stanisławów. Having learned of mass murders carried out by the local Gestapo (German secret police), she sent an immediate message to General Komorowski – at the time commanding underground resistance units in the Kraków area. Although officially appointed the RGO Commission’s Manager for the Stanisławów region in March, with German agreement, Karolina ran into problems, arousing ever-increasing suspicion about her activities, especially on the part of SS Hauptsturmführer Hans Krüger.

On 12 May 1942 she was arrested during a committee meeting of the RGO in Kołomyja and was later taken away to the prison in Stanisławów. While she was being interrogated, her persecutor, Krüger, exasperated by the unflinching demeanour of his prisoner, her display of Polish spirit, and convinced that a sentence of death awaited her, confessed to the murder of twenty-five professors of the Lwów colleges of higher education. Thus she became the first witness in the case of a crime that has remained unpublished to this day. What Krüger had not expected was intercession by members of the Italian royal family to Hitler’s Gestapo chief, Heinrich Himmler himself. This led to her death sentence being quashed. A few days later, on 8 June, the Countess found herself in jail in Lwów. There, while undergoing interrogation by SS Kommissar Walter Kutschmann, she gave an account of her interrogation by Hans Krüger in Stanisławów and, at his request, wrote a fourteen-page report in which she revealed (among other things) Krüger’s confession to the murder of the Lwów professors. The text of her report reached Himmler himself and he was surely responsible for having the ‘chauvinist’ Polish countess sent to Ravensbrück, the women’s concentration camp. On 27 November 1942, with an SS escort, she left Lwów and Poland for ever.

After a short spell in a Berlin jail on the Alexanderplatz, she was transported on 9 January 1943 to her appointed quarters in Ravensbrück. On arrival in the camp, she was allocated the number 16076. As a result of repeated representations by the International Red Cross, she was placed on her own in Sonderhaft, or ‘special confinement’. This ‘favour’ Karolina regarded as humiliating and, at her own request, she was sent back to the camp as an ordinary prisoner. ‘There are things going on in there,’ she wrote after leaving Ravensbrück, ‘which people cannot bear to hear about, things the human mind cannot comprehend.’

The memoirs present us with heart-rending documentary descriptions of scenes in the camp life of the women prisoners, of their terror and suffering, faced with disease, torture and death. The atmosphere of constant tension is almost palpable. Against this background, some outstanding women prisoners of invincible character succeeded in redeeming human dignity amid the dire conditions of the camp. They managed to organise meetings, lectures and discussions on subjects pertaining to actual normality, so proving that ‘in countless cases, all this nameless brutality, all these cruelties can neither break nor destroy, nor even harm the human spirit’. Karolina Lanckorońska, in fact, has devoted to such women brief character studies and portraits from  memory – sketched, as it were, in passing. She herself conducted art-history lessons for the ‘rabbits’ – that is to say, women who had been subjected to dangerous medical experiments.

A month before the end of the war, on 5 April 1945, as the first Polish woman to be freed, Karolina was released from the camp with a batch of 299 French women prisoners. This was the result of intervention by the President of the International Red Cross, Professor Carl Burckhardt. Along with many others, the final scene in Ravensbrück will be certain to lodge in the reader’s memory: Karolina’s farewell to her fellow prisoners, when, in deference to a prison superstition, she turns to take a last look at the camp as she passes through the gates.

In Switzerland, Karolina Lanckorońska handed over to Professor Burckhardt her report on the situation of women prisoners in Ravensbrück. She also published an account of her recent experiences in the columns of a French-language learned periodical ‘Souvenir de Ravensbrück’ (Revue Universitaire, 1945, vol. 2), and in German, ‘Erlebnisse aus Ravensbrück’ (Schweizerische Hochschulzeitung, Jg 19:1945/46 Heft 2). At the same time she began writing her Wspomnienia (Memoirs).8 Travel to Italy and an encounter with soldiers of the Polish Army 2 Corps, who were unwilling to return to a Communist Poland, confronted her with a new and unusual task. At the wish of General Władysław Anders and with the rank of Public Relations Officer, 2 Corps (later Lieutenant, AK [Armia Krajowa], or Home Army, as Poland’s wartime resistance was officially known), Karolina undertook to organise educational studies for about 1,300 former soldiers of 2 Corps. Her acquaintances and pre-war academic contacts made it possible for Polish students to attend Italian universities and colleges in Rome, Bologna and Turin. Later she was instrumental in promoting similar activities in England and Scotland.

In November 1945, with Father Walerian Meysztowicz and Polish émigré professors, she signed the founding charter of the Polish Historical Institute in Rome. Closely involved with this ‘small nerve centre of free Polish learning’, Karolina devoted herself entirely to publishing and organising activities to promote Polish culture. Many years later, speaking about her determination and options at the time, she had this to say: ‘Poland’s destiny guided my inclinations to such an extent that I felt obliged to abstain from my beloved art-history research [. . .] It seemed to me then – and I believe I was right – it was the only painful sacrifice of my life – that the service of Polish culture at  that time required of me not the study of Michelangelo, but work of a completely different kind. It was clear to me that the need was to dedicate all my energy to researching and publishing the sources of Polish history to be found in the archives of the West.’9 Under the aegis of the Polish Historical Institute (financed by the Lanckoroński Foundation) were published twenty-eight volumes of an annual review devoted to Polish history, Antemurale, and seventy-six volumes in a monumental series of sources, Elementa ad Fontium Editiones, as well as the Acta Nunciaturae Polonae. It is difficult to appreciate the scale of activity initiated in 1967 by the Lanckoroński Foundation in promoting Polish learning and science.

Karolina Lanckorońska, who dedicated her whole life to the service of Polish learning and culture, also displayed the traditional patriotism of a Polish citizen. She inherited from her father a unique collection of paintings, which, as the last of her line, she presented as a gift in 1994 to the royal palaces in Kraków and Warsaw, ‘in honour of the Free and Independent Republic’. When the monthly periodical Znak (The Sign) distributed a questionnaire to distinguished personalities in the field of culture, asking ‘Polishness – what does it mean?’, Karolina Lanckorońska replied succinctly: ‘Polishness is for me the awareness of belonging to the Polish nation. I consider we should do everything possible to provide concrete proof of this awareness, though I do not understand the need to analyse it.’

Karolina Lanckorońska’s fundamental activity consisted in the promotion of intellectual life with ceaseless vigilance in order to ensure that Poland’s learning and culture remain in the sphere of European and world culture. She died in Rome aged 104 on 25 August, 2002.

Lech Kalinowski and Elżbieta Orman

PROLOGUE

This memoir, intended for possible publication after my death, was written during the years 1945-6, following my liberation from German captivity.1 It was originally intended for publication in English, and I had a few extracts from the book translated and sent to two publishers, both of whom rejected them out of hand on the grounds that the text was ‘too anti-Russian’. A few years later I sent the specimen extracts to two other English publishers, who also turned them down, this time on the grounds that they were ‘too anti-German’.

My memoir is meant to be a report – and only a report – of what I witnessed during the Second World War. I know that others have lived through a great deal more than myself. I was never in Auschwitz or Kazakhstan. Nevertheless, I also know that every first-hand account contributes fresh detail to the picture of those years. I have made nextto-no textual changes, despite the fact that in some places I refer to things nowadays familiar to a wide public and better described elsewhere. I leave it to my publishers to decide on any possible future ‘abbreviations’, since it is impossible for me to assess, let alone rework, the contents of a book written more than fifty years ago. My one stipulation is that any omissions should be limited to matters of detail and include nothing that bears on the general atmosphere that engendered this memoir. I am confiding the editorial task in the first  place to Professor Lech Kalinowski and Eli Orman. They may like to involve other friends in their discussions about any ‘cuts’.

K.L. 

Rome, 20 February 1998

Michelangelo in Ravensbrück