God’s Country

15 Aug 202630 Aug 2026 nivtricLeave a comment

Surprise, surprise

Why would the Netherlands be central in God’s plan? It probably wouldn’t be your first guess, and it might even surprise you. Of all countries, the Netherlands? Indeed, that requires clarification. God likes a good joke. But there is more. That low-lying area ranks the highest in quality of life in 2026,¹ making it the closest to Paradise. For that reason, probably, the tallest people come from there, making it the country of the giants. It is not an accident, but the outcome of extreme social engineering. Culture is ubiquitous in our conduct, so this requires a more thorough investigation. Hegel’s grand scheme of social progress towards Paradise and the Enlightenment ideas are central pillars of God’s plan, and the Netherlands has progressed the furthest in that scheme.

That makes the Netherlands, apart from windmills, dykes, tulips, red light districts, herring biting, and all the other things, such as the most unique illness-related swearwords with cancer, tuberculosis and typhus in them, the superior quality of the tarmac, and the lowest level of personal hygiene in terms of washing hands with soap after toilet visits, that make the Netherlands special, so special. On Reddit, several lists circulate in which the Netherlands stands out in one way or another. If you view it that way, it all starts to make sense. It is a very special country indeed.

In hindsight, the ultimate bogeyman of the conservatives, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, who became the fall guy for everything they believed was wrong in this world, proved to be one of the greatest prophets of all time by implying that social progress through new ideas and revolutions is God’s path towards Paradise. Social progress is God’s thing. The Netherlands has been one of the most progressive countries on issues like dealing with the limits of growth, LGBTQ rights, animal welfare, balancing work and private life, opportunities for ethnic minorities, and the right to decide to terminate one’s own life.

And the plan seems to bring the rest of the world up to the same level, for the Netherlands is a tiny, crowded country, so not everyone can move over here to enjoy the good life. For that reason, the Netherlands was also the first to have a fascist party in parliament after World War II in the 1980s, arguing that the country was already overly crowded, and later, a fascist messianic leadership cult. The country even had a political party named New Social Contract, from Enschede, of all places, the place where, unlike Almelo, the greatest things have happened. A New Social Contract is what this world now desperately needs.

The Netherlands is God’s country. Israel, the United States, and Saudi Arabia bite the dust. The Netherlands means ‘low countries’. Half the Dutch live below sea level on land taken by draining swamps, lakes and even seas. It is only one of the things that make the country unique. Yet the name nearly translates to ‘humble country,’ as ‘humble’ in Dutch is ‘nederig’. So, what’s in a name? There is no coincidence. And so, I am not the kind of person who would brag, nor are most Dutch, but I have to explain why the Netherlands is God’s special country, for that it appears to be.

The Netherlands has long been a civil society centred on cooperation and founded on a compromise among identity groups, known as the polder model. That is less so today. Before that, the Netherlands was an oligarchic merchant republic, so like the United States today. It was the world’s wealthiest country on the eve of the Industrial Revolution. The Dutch greatly contributed to modern capitalism by founding the first stock market and the first multinational corporation, the VOC, during the Dutch Golden Age.

Yet, the Dutch Golden Age doesn’t fill the Dutch with pride. The VOC exploited the Dutch East Indies, which is now Indonesia. One of the best-known books in Dutch literature is Max Havelaar by Multatuli, which is about the plight of farmers and labourers on coffee plantations in the Dutch East Indies. We had to read it at school. The Dutch also made a lot of money from the Atlantic slave trade. And one of the most well-known Dutch heroes of the era, Piet Hein, was a pirate who stole boatloads of silver from the Spanish. Okay, there is a little bit of pride, but not that much. There was a dark side to it, and everyone knows it.

The Dutch are the best non-native English speakers. Dutch is the most similar to English, as the Netherlands is close to England. It helps me write this. Details like this demonstrate the intricacy of the script dubbed God’s plan. On Reddit, there once was a map of reported UFO sightings. The supposed extraterrestrials espouse a keen interest in three countries: the United States, Great Britain, and the Netherlands. As the Dutch are true pioneers in post-apocalyptic means of transport, since it is the country of the bicycle, it becomes all the more astonishing that extraterrestrials have also shown interest in the United States and Great Britain. And so, the scratching of heads continues.

Where it all comes together

That the Netherlands came to lead the world in liberal reforms and became the most socially progressive country was the outcome of the political manoeuvring of the left-wing liberal party D66 and, most notably, its leader, Hans van Mierlo, who features in an impressive coincidence scheme that involves, among others, D-Day, the battle of Hastings, the assassinations of Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy, and the curse of all curses, The Curse of the Omen. The coincidences in history and The Curse of the Omen are discussed in detail in other stories. The fate of the Netherlands, and by extension the world, became settled when Van Mierlo seized the opportunity and plotted a liberal revolution that made the Netherlands the most liberal country.

The Christian Democrats of the CDA, who had always been in the government, had long blocked progressive reforms. In 1994, after the CDA had lost the election, D66 forged the purple coalition with the social democrats of the PvdA and the right-wing liberals of the VVD. They set aside their differences and focused on their shared progressive values to implement amendments. A large section of the Christian Democrat electorate supported these changes, so they remained uncontested afterwards. Leftists in the Netherlands saw their country as a guiding country. Yet, the country also saw an early revival of fascism in the 1980s with the Centrumpartij, so it was ahead on that count as well.

The Netherlands is one of the least nationalistic countries and one of the most cooperative in multinational organisations such as the United Nations, the EU and NATO. The Netherlands depends on international trade, and World War II led the Dutch to believe that they can’t survive on their own. The country is most closely tied to both the continental European and Anglo-Saxon worlds. And together with Great Britain, the Netherlands is the most oriented toward the United States. And so, the Dutch provided more NATO heads than any other country.

The Netherlands lies between Great Britain, Germany, France, and Scandinavia, and that extends to cultural ties. As the most ‘Scandinavian’ country outside Scandinavia, it is a social paradise and among the least corrupt countries. As for the Netherlands being a docile country, appearances can be deceptive. Russia is paying dearly for downing a Dutch passenger jet. Ukrainian officials and military analysts estimate that Dutch-funded FPV (First-Person View) drones and related unmanned systems are responsible for roughly one-third of all Russian casualties on the front in 2026.

The Netherlands further ranks highly in sexual liberty. Prostitution is legal and performed openly in red light districts. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, paedophiles could operate in the open until the focus returned to the damage they do to children. Today, most Dutch think that consenting adults, provided that they are sane and there is no pressure, can mostly do as they please in sexual acts. In Paradise, Eve and Adam were naked and knew no shame. On the work floor, equality is the norm, and, together with Denmark and Norway, it has the most egalitarian work environments. The Dutch balance work and private life and have the shortest work weeks. The Netherlands doesn’t lead on all fronts. It lags in the number of women on corporate boards and in parliament.

The border between the Roman Catholic and Protestant worlds ran through the Netherlands. Amsterdam harboured a sizeable Jewish community. With these diverse influences, it became the crossroads of Western civilisation and, as Muslims arrived, the crossroads of the Abrahamic religions. About 200 nationalities live in the Netherlands, making it a crossroads of world civilisation as well. It all seems daring, reckless even, as it is an unprecedented social experiment, for what is to come out of this? But if diversity means strength, that might explain why the Netherlands ranks highest in quality of life.

The reference to ‘humble’ in the name of the Netherlands is noteworthy, as honour plays a minor role in Northern European culture, including in the Netherlands. Pursuing or defending your honour is considered a frivolous pursuit for hotheads. Peace with honour is problematic as honour stands in the way of peace. You can more easily have peace without honour. The most unpretentious part of the country might be Twente, where I came from. The Dutch words for ‘suffer’, ‘lijden’, and ‘lead’, ‘leiden’, sound the same. Perhaps that is because Jesus led the world by his suffering. In Dutch, Jesus refers to ‘your sister.’ Eve and Adam were also like a sister and a brother.

There is more free thinking in the Netherlands than elsewhere. The Dutch are known for their tolerance. That dates back to the Dutch Republic, which made the country attractive to Jewish merchants. In the 19th and 20th centuries, the country had parallel societies with Protestants, Catholics and socialists living separate lives. Until 1850, Protestantism had been the official religion, but Catholics faced no persecution. Today, the same applies to smoking weed. Tolerance was also the stance towards immigrants for a time. In that sense, the Netherlands didn’t differ much from most other Western European countries.

The Netherlands was also the first to have a short-lived fascist revolution with a leadership cult. It proved to be a foreboding of things to come. Immigration led to a growing sense of unease among the Dutch as poorly adapted immigrants caused trouble. These feelings needed a catalyst to give the discontent a voice. After the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001, a maverick politician, Pim Fortuyn, who posed himself as a messiah, rose to prominence with his anti-immigration views. A left-wing loner assassinated him, after which a sense of normalcy returned. Yet the unease didn’t go away, so the fascist movement gradually grew stronger, also in other European countries, and fifteen years later, the United States would see a similar movement and leader, with MAGA and Donald Trump, which culminated in the unravelling of the post-war liberal order.

Merchant and vicar

Mainland Europe, and most notably, Germany, has a tradition of idealism, while Great Britain and the United States have a tradition of pragmatism. That extends to the moral realm. Philosophers like Kant and Hume reflect these diverging traditions. The British philosopher Hume argued that we set goals and use reason to achieve them, which makes reason the slave of our passions. The deeply religious Kant vehemently disagreed, holding that we have a duty to reason, as it is our distinguishing feature. Hume believed morality is part of human nature and depends on popular sentiment, and outcome matters more than intent, so something is wrong when it makes people angry or when it produces disaster, even when you have good intentions.

That immensely troubled Kant. Reason must be the foundation of morality, not empathy or anger, as Hume proposed. To Kant, intent matters most. Something is wrong if the intent was to hurt someone. Kant formulated the categorical imperative, a universal moral duty for everyone. Freedom means not being the slave of our passions. We should always treat people right, not only when we like them. And so, you have two views on freedom. The pragmatist one is doing as you please, and the idealist one is overcoming your lower urges and becoming a rational, morally upright person.

Continental European idealism and Anglo-Saxon pragmatism have wider implications than you might realise. A German idealist like Karl Marx devised a grand scheme for how things should be, while an English pragmatist like Adam Smith described capitalism as it worked in practice. In mainland Europe, Frédéric Bastiat would hit a more fundamentalist tone in defence of capitalism. When the United States turned the fight against communism into a moral crusade, it imported its idealist philosophers from the classical liberal and libertarian traditions, such as Friedrich Hayek of Austria, which is culturally close to idealist Germany. The Austrian School of Economics turned into a religious cult in the United States. Being halfway between England and Germany, the Netherlands ended up in the middle of those two traditions, making it both a pragmatic nation of merchants and an idealistic nation of vicars, also because Protestantism had become the predominant religion.

Catholic doctrine holds that faith and good works can save you. Catholics perform good works, such as giving money to the Church, to atone for their sins. It promoted corruption within the Catholic Church through the sale of indulgences. Protestants objected to this moral corruption and took moral integrity very seriously. They made morality a matter of personal choice, making them personally responsible. And so, it should come as no surprise that Immanuel Kant was a Protestant. Catholics are more morally flexible, so Catholic countries in Europe tend to be more corrupt than Protestant ones. Protestants should think for themselves, while Catholics merely follow the Church’s lead, except in the Netherlands, where the Catholics openly rebelled when the Church reversed its liberal reforms to the point that the 1985 Pope visit became an absolute disaster.

And so, despite the presence of a sizeable Roman Catholic minority, the moral conflict defining Dutch culture, the vicar versus the merchant, is ‘dominee versus koopman’ rather than ‘pastoor versus koopman.’ It was the Protestant vicar, not the Roman Catholic priest, who objected to the merchant’s wicked deeds. The merchant was also a Protestant. This dualism still profoundly affects the Dutch, making the Netherlands a nation of merchants and vicars. To a vicar, money is the root of many kinds of evil, while successful merchants are driven by greed. This dualism is challenging and made the Dutch work harder to reconcile the two by finding a pragmatic solution that also meets ethical requirements. It drove the Netherlands into territories that other countries did not go. The country may appear relaxed, but it is tightly organised, not as much as Japan, but still.

The machine no one can replace so far

It was up to the engineers to figure out the solutions. The Dutch engineering tradition dates back to the construction of dykes and windmills to drain lakes and swamps. Half the country is below sea level. Dealing with the unruly nature of water has become a Dutch expertise, as the sea and rivers can rise above the surrounding land. Likewise, Dutch agriculture has developed into a science- and engineering-driven enterprise. As Dutch farming centred on livestock, it exceeded the land’s carrying capacity, forcing Dutch farmers, also under the pressure of environmentalists, to minimise the ecological impact of their agricultural output, making Dutch agriculture one of the most innovative in the world. It is how reconciling idealism and pragmatism works in practice.

Today, the Netherlands is home to the world’s most advanced engineering. That is noteworthy, as we may have to socially engineer the future world society of God’s Kingdom, and the messiah may have to work out the grand design. China and the United States may seem to lead the technology race, but their accomplishments are built on Dutch technology. Without the Dutch corporation ASML, there would be no cutting-edge semiconductor chips needed for AI and quantum computing. The ‘$400M Machine No One Can Replace’ refers to the Extreme Ultraviolet (EUV) Lithography systems manufactured by ASML. Here is why these machines are considered irreplaceable:

ASML has an absolute monopoly, as it is the only company on Earth that makes these high-volume EUV machines.
ASML employs the most extreme engineering. Each machine consists of over 100,000 parts, weighs 165+ tons, and utilises mirrors so flat that if scaled to the size of Earth, the highest bump would be less than one millimetre.
The ASML machines fire high-powered lasers at molten tin droplets at 50,000 times per second, creating a plasma that emits light at a 13.5-nanometer wavelength to print microscopic circuits on silicon.
The cost and scale are unparalleled. Priced between $200 million and $400 million, these systems require 250 engineers to install over six months, and shipment requires 250+ shipping containers and seven Boeing 747s.
The world is fully dependent on this single corporation: Without these machines, chipmakers like TSMC, Samsung, and Intel cannot produce the advanced chips (e.g., for Nvidia GPUs) that power the modern digital economy.

As of early 2026, ASML has introduced a new generation of these tools known as High-NA EUV, which cost approximately $400 million each and are crucial for the ‘Angstrom Era’ of chip manufacturing. China also plans to acquire this technology, but it takes time to reach the same level as ASML. ASML is an offshoot of Philips, which invented the compact cassette and compact disc that geezers like me might still remember. In consumer electronics, marketing and cheap mass production became more important than engineering, so the firm declined. It spun off parts as independent corporations, including ASML, and sold others to focus on medical appliances.

We may soon have to socially engineer the future world society and make it last for a thousand years or more. As the Netherlands is the best country to live in and can accommodate a wide range of diversity, it seems that this social engineering effort has been a success. But what is behind it? It begins with tolerance. What also helped is that the Netherlands has no history of racially antagonistic relationships like those in the United States. There are issues with discrimination and conduct, but racial relationships are not deeply troubled. The Netherlands was open to migrants. That may have to do with the Netherlands being a nation of merchants and vicars. To the merchant, they were good for business, and the vicar cared for those who fled from oppression abroad.

Diversity can benefit team building by combining strengths. Particular groups have particular strengths, and if you can build a team from them, diversity can be a benefit. To illustrate the point, in the 2024 Summer Olympics medal table, the Netherlands ranked 6^th, below the United States and China, but above Great Britain and Germany. In the 2026 Winter Olympics medal table, the Netherlands ranks 3^rd. The Netherlands never became world football champions, but they reached the final three times. Johan Cruyff is the most well-known Dutch football player. The point here is not that the Dutch are good at sports, for top sport is a waste of energy and resources, but in teamwork. Even individual sports today require a team to get the best out of the athletes.

Immigrants or their children have contributed to these results. Particular groups have particular strengths, and if you can build a team from them, diversity can be a benefit. Yet, social engineering has reached its limits, as people in Europe, including the Dutch, are growing increasingly sour toward immigrants and focus on what goes wrong and the long-term consequences, which are indeed uncertain. If the country is as great as the Netherlands, it is unlikely to get better. It is the best country to live in. Yet, if the rest of the world were to catch up and become as agreeable to live in as the Netherlands, that would be much better. And that might indeed be God’s plan. That requires the most extreme social engineering, so Dutch engineering.

Truth bomb

The 2025 RSF World Press Freedom Index, which you can see as a gauge of civilisation if you like, shows that all that remains of civilisation, so where there is still some freedom of the press, is that tiny, little green area somewhere above and in the middle, that includes the Netherlands. One of the tokens of civilisation under siege by crazed barbarians is the famous Dutch Protocol, a beacon of reason in a world of savages infected by anti-trans hysteria. Whether civilisation can still vanquish the barbarians depends on the superiority of its weaponry. That is the sad truth about humans. Weapons win arguments, not reason. As Judgement Day may be approaching, it seems no coincidence that the International Court of Justice is in The Hague, the Netherlands.

So, in the country of the most extreme engineering, including social engineering, the work on the most advanced weapon of all time, the one that will end the world as we know it, including the world’s religions and the other fantasies humans cling to, the Truth Bomb, is nearing its completion. To make it undetectable by radar, sonar, explosives-sniffing hounds, and Geiger counters, the device has been disguised as non-radioactive, odourless text with stealth capabilities. So, it has the element of surprise and, with social media, unprecedented swiftness. When the Truth comes out, its enemies have already lost, and they will know it. But will it be in time to prevent the apocalypse and kickstart the New World Civilisation called God’s Kingdom? Storytellers love suspense.

Latest revision: 25 August 2026

Featured image: UFO sightings plotted on world map

1. Numbeo Quality of Life Index. Numbeo (2026).

Joseph Interprets Pharaoh's Dream, c. 1896-1902, by James Jacques Joseph Tissot. Public Domain.

Coincidences for Starters

10 Jan 202622 Jul 2026 nivtricLeave a comment

Suspicious van

Now comes a selection of coincidences that occurred during my psychosis following the discovery of Natural Money in 2008. These incidents made me think there was more afoot than just me having a psychotic episode, and that God was pulling pranks on me. There is a link between Natural Money and the Bible. Ancient Egypt used money backed by grain stored in the state’s granaries. It had a storage fee like Natural Money. The biblical story of Joseph in Genesis recounts how these granaries came into existence, allegedly that is, for it is unlikely the truth. Only, the Bible being full of shit doesn’t mean that there is no God, or so I had just found out. Just after the discovery of Natural Money, an advertising campaign for the Dutch version of the musical Joseph and the Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat, based on the story of Joseph in Egypt, began. There was a fuss about it in the media, including television episodes in the Autumn of 2008 to select the leading player, so the musical’s start didn’t go unnoticed, not even by me, who doesn’t care about musicals.

The Joseph story gave Natural Money a biblical connection. And it was a usury-free financial system. The Bible, and the Quran even more, oppose usury, which was very suspicious indeed, not to mention that I lived in a town called Sneek, pronounced like ‘snake’, while there was allegedly a snake in Eden. It happens that A******* lived in a suburb of Eindhoven, which means Final Gardens, while the story goes that our journey is from the Garden of Eden to our final destination, the New Eden. And as a cherry on the proverbial pie, the Dutch capital Amsterdam often gets abbreviated to Adam, making it seem that I had been caught up in A*******’s fantasy world. Think of the preparation that has gone into making this happen. Sneek is over 1,000 years old. She could be God. And that was what the psychosis suggested.

Around that same time, a shabby old van with lettering De Windroos (The Windflower) had been parked in front of our home on the other side of the road. It had never been there before and had been there for several weeks. The lettering said it belonged to a furniture company from a nearby village. There seemed to be no reason for the van to be parked there for so long, so it began to attract my attention. Then, my sister-in-law noted that De Windroos is the name of a foundation helping people with psychosis. Not that she knew. And what was happening to me was precisely that: a psychosis. So, that was a most mysterious coincidence, almost spooky even.

It made me ask myself, ‘Are there mind control devices hidden inside that van causing my condition?’ One evening, I checked it out with my son Rob, who had also become curious. We took a flashlight to peek inside. It was nearly empty. There was only a suitcase, an ordinary suitcase, so not one with flashing lights and the like. There were no signs of suspicious activity. I later found out that the furniture company was in liquidation. The lawyer next door executed the liquidation. He held the van in custody and had parked it there. Nothing was worrying about that at least.

It was early December, the time of the Dutch festival of Saint Nicholas, a tradition giving presents and prank poems, which was, together with 1 April Fool’s Day, Ingrid’s favourite time of the year, as she was quite a prankster herself, but no match for the AlmighAlmightyy Eternal Prankster who had disguised Herself as A******* this time, after having been, among others, Mary Magdalene, to prank Jesus, or so I could surmise from the evidence, or so I could surmise from the evidence. We all know what happened to Jesus, so that explained my lack of enthusiasm. So Ingrid’s being a prankster was just part of the preparation for this, it suddenly seemed. We all know what happened to Jesus, so that explained my lack of enthusiasm. So Ingrid’s being a prankster was just part of the preparation for this, it suddenly seemed. In any case, Ingrid made me a present and added a poem, which was meant as a prank. It goes like so (it rhymes in Dutch),

The van that didn’t come,
but was already there

Whose van is that?
That van in front of the door.
It’s been there for a week
and gives off a strange smell.

That weird little van
is in complete control of you.
It comes from an upholstery company from Heeg,
and that is very suspicious.

You have already felt the door handle
But the door was locked
Today, you walked around it with your son
And you discovered something… oh my God!

A suitcase!
Just a suitcase, lying in that van.
What if that thing explodes?
What a disgrace to the street.

Be prepared
and stop whining.
Put this on your head,
then nothing can happen anymore.

The Merciful Saint

A most fitting present to go by that poem would have been a tin foil hat, but it was something else I don’t recall. The poem did not accurately depict the events: the van had been there for more than a week and didn’t smell. The title refers to a song named Het Busje Komt Zo (The Van Is Coming Soon) by Höllenboer, about two drug addicts waiting for the methadone bus that didn’t show up. It is also a well-known phrase in Twente, where I came from, meaning that they will take you to the loony bin soon. That didn’t happen, for I was aware of having a psychosis, making me cautious to act on the suggestions it gave. Among others, I didn’t leave Ingrid, thinking that if A******* wanted me for Herself, She could make Her intentions clear by coming over and taking me. That didn’t happen.

Curing memory loss

In the weeks leading up to the psychosis, Ingrid had added massive doses of curcumin to our food because she feared having dementia. Curcumin is an agent found in turmeric and used in curry powders. In early 2009, the gossip magazines had a windfall when Dutch celebrity Adam Curry left his much older wife, Patricia Paay, for a woman his own age. The furious left-behind Paay filled the tabloids for years to come. Among the noteworthy incidents is Paay pressing a hot bitterball on the head of a gossip journalist and threatening him with a more serious attack involving a much larger croquette. Ingrid is nine years older than I am, while A******* is my age. His first name was Adam, and his last name was Curry. Curry powders contain curcumin. Curcumin supposedly prevents memory loss, and suddenly, after being stuffed with that agent, I ‘remembered’ being the biblical Adam. It was the psychosis, of course, but this coincidence made it all the more remarkable. Ingrid believed that the curcumin had caused my condition.

My neighbour was a real estate agent. We discussed the credit crisis and the real estate market. Then he suddenly said, ‘This is quite strange. Two weeks ago, someone asked if your house was for sale.’ There had never been any interest in my house before. And it happened during the credit crisis, which made it all the more remarkable. As the psychosis had suggested that I might have to leave home soon, selling the house made sense. Ingrid and I decided to sell if there was a high bid. We had discussed moving to a smaller home earlier, so it was not an erratic move in itself. Even a second potential buyer turned up, but no one made a bid, so we kept on living there.

After, as part of the psychosis, discovering hidden messages in pop music, I set out to buy a portable CD player to listen to my old CDs and look for more. I went to an electronics shop and asked for such a device. The man behind the counter said it was an obsolete product. MP3 and MP4 players were in vogue. Then I tried my luck at another shop. The man behind the counter looked at me, flabbergasted, and said, ‘A portable CD player? Are you serious? Someone had just ordered one. The thing arrived a few just days ago, but now that guy doesn’t want it anymore.’ Well, if that isn’t coming in handy, then what is?

A few weeks later, the CD player’s earplugs had gone into hiding in a place I couldn’t think of. After a prolonged search that involved checking the usual places, I still hadn’t found them. It could be that God was making fun of me, once again, making me think, ‘Do You want me to kneel for You?’ I knelt then and saw an MP3 player lying on the ground, along with earplugs I could use. You get the picture. God was making fun of me.

My fortieth birthday was on 26 November 2008. At breakfast, Ingrid lit several candles and said there was a Christmas atmosphere. Afterwards, she blew out the candles and said they smelled like Christmas. Ingrid had never said this on my birthday before, so it contributed to the suggestion that I was the reincarnation of Jesus. That day, the terrorist attacks in Mumbai took place. I found out days later. What happened to me occupied my mind, keeping me from paying attention to the news. It seemed like A*******’s birthday present for me. It is not up to me to criticise God. I had never thought of God being a prankster murdering a few people here and there as a token of Her love. And it seemed better not to say no to this love, as I could be next in line for culling.

That same day, I met Bobby from Romania, who was selling the Street Magazine. He consistently called me lord instead of mister. The Dutch words for lord and mister are similar, so a foreigner can easily make such a mistake. Bobby lived in a holiday cottage on a campsite named De Blauwe Lantaarn (The Blue Lantern) with his wife and two children. He invited me there. When I arrived, he was waiting for me with a blue flashlight. The Dutch word for ‘flashlight’ is ‘zak lantaarn,’ which literally means ‘pocket lantern’. Hence, he showed up with a blue lantern. Strange. I gave him some money to start a new life in Romania.

Natural Money is a reform proposal for the financial system. Someone had copied it and published it on the conspiracy website Niburu.nl. Niburu.nl featured articles about NESARA, another reform proposal for the financial system. NESARA was a cult promoted by a woman calling herself the Dove of Oneness. At the time, I surmised it could be a cover for A*******. On 6 December 2008, I signed up for the email list. In the text body of the signup email, I placed ‘xxx’, just in case the Dove of Oneness was A*******. After signing up, the site displayed the following message: ‘Please note that it will take three days to process your request.’

Three days later, I came across a billboard advertising women’s underwear featuring a woman in her underwear. Next to her was the face of a man resembling Adolf Hitler. The advertisement’s text was, ‘Don’t make up, just break up.’ That was noteworthy as I supposedly was the reincarnation of Adolf Hitler, and A******* had claimed me for Herself. Had She broken up with P*****, and did She want me to leave Ingrid? That same day, Ingrid’s golden necklace, which I once gave her, broke. Ingrid felt that was a bad omen. She saw it as a symbol of our relationship. Also, that same day, I was in the swimming pool and saw the clock reading 13:13:13, which seemed like a bad omen. Yet, a psychosis is weak evidence, making me think that A******* had to make Her intentions clearer for me to leave Ingrid.

The next week, as I was leaving the swimming pool, the door malfunctioned. More precisely, I went out, and the door opened. Then I realised I had left something inside, and the door opened again. Then I wanted to go out again, but it suddenly wouldn’t open. No one had passed that door in the meantime, so it seemed to have something to do with me, and it looked like an invisible psi-force. The door stayed closed as more people gathered at the entrance, trying to get in or out. It took about 15 to 30 minutes for an employee to resolve the issue. By then, I had started resisting the psychosis and had decided not to act upon the suggestions it gave and to wait for more evidence, which didn’t come. The NESARA newsletter was crap, not suggestive of knowledge of monetary matters, so I discontinued the subscription a few months later.

The trumpets blow

On my father’s birthday, 12 December 2008, we visited him in Nijverdal. It was the day I learned about the new hobby of my parents’ neighbours: midwinter horn-blowing. They were blowing Midwinter horns all day. They had been doing that for several years at the start of winter, but it was the first time I heard them do it. The prediction that the blowing of trumpets would herald the End of Times made it seem eerie. By then, the psychosis had receded, and the telepathic connection with A******* had vanished, but I was still open to suggestion. When hearing these same horns blowing years later, they didn’t sound like trumpets at all. So, that is what suggestions can do with you.

The interior of the Catholic Church in Sneek perfectly aligned with my taste. I had been inside at the funeral of Ingrid’s mother a few years before. It was the most beautiful interior, even better than cathedrals. Could God have done this on purpose? So, I said to Ingrid, ‘Perhaps, we should visit the Church one more time and attend a mass.’ Ingrid was fine with the proposal, so we went there on 21 December. There weren’t many people. Most were ageing, so the prospects of this parish seemed bleak. And yet, the Church interior was as I had imagined, perfectly matching my taste. So perhaps God made it especially for me, or fiddled with my taste to make me appreciate that Church’s interior.

That evening, a few days before Christmas, there was a bright star in the sky. It was Venus, but it was unusually bright, much brighter than any star I had ever seen. Now, I had never paid much attention to the stars, so that doesn’t say much. Yet, the so-called Christmas Star became a topic on a few message boards. A spiritual guru from Bilthoven, the village A******* came from, had predicted its coming, which makes it a noteworthy coincidence. The guru further claimed that a Messiah would come soon. She had claimed that several times before, and those predictions had all failed, but this time there indeed was a Christmas Star. Perhaps God tried to make me believe I am the Messiah. There were indeed signs, if you can call these events that, but there was no further evidence, so plenty of reason to remain cautious about what they meant.

Ingrid tried to rent a cottage on Ameland. After a series of miscommunications with people offering cottages, she rented a cottage named Jutter, which added some juice to the coincidence. But there were two cottages named Jutter on Ameland, and Ingrid had rented one while believing she had rented the other. Later, the owner cancelled the booking because he had sold the cottage. Ameland was the island where A******* spent her holidays with her fancy man, P***** in 1989, in 1989, who might be the son of the former presenter of a famous Dutch pop music programme.

And it runs deeper. God might have interfered with my final exams at secondary school. Despite being the worst performer in the literature explanation, I received the best grade after praying that it wouldn’t be terrible. The teacher’s name was Amelink, suggesting a link with Ameland. A******* was often busy with cryptic crosswords. These are about hidden messages, while the explanation of literature is about the hidden messages in literature.

Next to the beach at De Banjaard in Zeeland, where we usually went when we stayed there, and where my parents had gone with my sister and me before, was a hotel. They refurbished it and renamed it Amadore. As AM were the initials of A*******’s first and middle name, and Her last name began with Dor. My parents went to that particular hotel once. Amadore is a hotel chain with multiple hotels in Zeeland. Yet Amadore ran a television advertising campaign featuring the De Banjaard hotel. Strange, but true.

In December 2008, my son Rob watched an episode of SpongeBob SquarePants. In this particular episode, someone lit a fire. SpongeBob takes place underwater. And so, I told Rob that we see water burning, a Dutch saying for seeing something extraordinary or impossible. A few seconds later, a siren began to wail, and a fire engine passed.

A few days later, we made a trip to Groningen. Ingrid noticed a damaged car by the side of the road. A few moments later, the vehicle in front of us broke down. It went on and on. A total of eight cars broke down on the road or stood broken down at the side of the road. The weather wasn’t unusual, but it was noteworthy, as you hardly ever see broken cars, and definitely not more than one during a single trip of that length. Well, well, those were the days. Strange things were happening nearly every day.

Meanwhile at work

Once, I bicycled to the office like I did every day. Next to it was the municipal health service, GGD. When looking at the lettering on the GGD building, perhaps because of the other peculiar events, a thought came up that GGD might stand for ‘Great God’. I then tried to convince myself that it was a stretch to believe that God was showing off Her powers and had put such a sign there. Then, I noticed a car in front of the GGD building with licence plate number 99-GRG-9 (the nines being numbers I don’t recall). GRG could also refer to ‘Great God’. A few days later, when cycling in the same spot near the GGD building, I thought, ‘Now that I have discovered that God exists, what could happen to me?’ Within a second, I ran into a flat tyre. Religious people have to keep the faith on far fewer signs or none at all, and they keep on praying. So, how could I not believe?

On my last day at work in 2008, I updated the agenda with my holidays, so my colleagues would know I wasn’t in. The programme malfunctioned and left out the end date. I checked whether I had specified the end date correctly, and I had. Then I tried again, verifying the end date, but the same error occurred. It could have been a software bug. Only, no one else had that same problem, which, in the light of all that had transpired, made the incident peculiar. It was God’s way of suggesting that it might be my last day at work, and that something might happen during the holidays. Nothing happened, as expected, so it was yet another prank. So God’s plans with me remained obscure.

The following transpired in March 2009. There were two colleagues named Rene in my team. One had a last name starting with an E. The other’s a last name that begins with an H. On that fateful day, an urgent situation required us to access a new system. Rene H knew the password but had not yet arrived. I asked another colleague for his number, and he gave it to me. I called Rene H on his mobile phone. After dialling the number, the phone rang. Suddenly, there was a switching sound, and then a woman with the same last name as Rene E. answered the phone. I excused myself to her. It was the wrong connection.

Then I told the colleague who had given me the number, ‘You have given me the number of the wrong Rene. Please give me the correct number.’ He told me the number was correct. I checked it with a few other colleagues, who confirmed the number. I redialled it, and the same kind of switching occurred again. I put down the phone before someone answered. Then Rene H arrived at the office. The number was correct. His phone was working, and he hadn’t forwarded calls to another number. It made some colleagues make funny remarks about Rene H messing with Rene E’s wife. A technical glitch was out of the question, so it must have been one of God’s pranks.

On 30 January 2009, there was a quiet hour at work. I browsed the Internet and discovered the website Waarmaarraar.nl (true, but strange), which features unusual news items. A particular story caught my attention. It was about a man sexually assaulting a woman who, at the same time, sexually assaulted him during her wet dream. The man’s name was Paul Kut. Kut is the Dutch word for vagina. The following day, I discovered I had had a wet dream that night, but I did not remember it. That is for the better, as I would otherwise have to report on that as well, as you would have been desperate to know.

As I work at the government agency responsible for traffic fines, the following sequence of incidents is noteworthy as well. Around 1995, I lived in Groningen and received a fine for riding my bicycle on the wrong side of the road. That shortcut could make you skip four traffic lights and save up to five minutes. So many people did that. Once, a police officer had positioned himself on that stretch to fine passing bicyclists. He asked me for an ID, which I presented. It was the day before my birthday, so I said, ‘This is a great birthday present.’ The police officer said, ‘Had it been your birthday, I would have let it pass.’

Many years later, probably in 2007, I received a parking ticket for parking in a forbidden spot in the forest near Nijverdal. There were other cars, making me think it was allowed. Had I read the signs, I could have known it wasn’t. We went for a walk, and all the cars had tickets when we returned. That happened to be precisely on my birthday. That made it a remarkable coincidence, since it was my second ticket, and there had been none between them. You could complain, so I wrote a joking complaint letter about a promise a police officer made over a decade earlier. Perhaps it was time to make good on the promise and let it pass, I suggested. As expected, the ‘complaint’ was dismissed.

That story did get a sequel, as I was to get a pass. A few years later, there was road work. One lane was closed, and a traffic light handled the traffic. Just before I passed, it turned red. Also, the car behind me drove on. A police officer stopped me and issued me a fine. I said jokingly to the officer, ‘I am going to save for that one.’ It would have been my third ticket, but it never came. Perhaps the police officer had shredded it because I was driving an old vehicle and appeared poor. When I discussed it at a birthday party, someone suggested I had destroyed that fine, since I worked for the office processing these fines. You must be careful with what you say. People gossip, and even when they are joking, these rumours spread, and your enemies will take advantage.

That third ticket came in nonetheless. In 2017, my sister had moved. The first time I visited her at her new home in Arnhem, I missed a sign saying the speed limit was 50 kilometres per hour. There was a speed camera on that stretch. I drove 63 kilometres per hour. The fine was €111, a remarkable amount.

Featured image: Joseph Interprets Pharaoh’s Dream, c. 1896-1902, by James Jacques Joseph Tissot. Public Domain.

1919 Cover of The Natural Economic Order

Discovery of Interest-Free Money

17 Sep 202519 Aug 2026 nivtricLeave a comment

It was September 2008. The banking crisis was getting out of hand. Things were falling apart. Apocalypse was in the air. It seemed as if the financial system could collapse at any moment and that civilisation, as we know it, could end. Today, the 2008 financial crisis is a distant memory, but at the time, the financial press was worried. Panic was setting in, as the jobs of suit-wearers in finance were at stake. And it was potentially apocalyptic. It was like 1929, but modern people are not as resilient as they were in the early 1900s. I had long feared an apocalyptic financial collapse and believed that usury, or charging interest on money and debts, would be the underlying cause. On the surface, the reason may seem irresponsible lending, but interest is a reward for bearing the risk of default. So, without interest charges on debts, there would be far less irresponsible lending.

The unfolding financial crisis led me to watch the animated film ‘Money as Debt’ on YouTube and to reflect once again on Silvio Gesell’s idea of charging a holding fee on money to eliminate interest. I jotted down my thoughts and tried to make an ordered, coherent whole out of them. The idea had never seemed workable. Why should you lend out money interest-free if you can receive interest elsewhere? It is why interest-free money had remained a fringe idea, mainly attracting eccentrics like me.

Then, in the first days of October, I made a startling discovery. Banning interest promotes financial stability by preventing usurious, irresponsible, and unproductive financial schemes. That would improve the economy. Think of it like so. When credit card debt and high-interest payday lending disappear, people will have more disposable income, and there will be no usurers living off others’ work. That would be more efficient. It also reduces the need for government and central bank interventions to manage the interest-bearing debt. Usury requires government deficits and central bank money creation.

That is because most of our money is debt-backed. If you go to a bank and take out a loan, the bank creates money out of thin air, but you must pay back the loan with interest. You repay the loan with money borrowed by someone else. And the money you need to pay the interest doesn’t exist. Someone else must borrow that as well. On a larger scale, due to interest charges, we need to take on additional debt to repay existing debt with interest. To prevent the usury scheme from collapsing, governments run deficits and central banks print money, which leads to inflation. The inflation rate is often higher than the interest rate you get on a bank account. The profits are for the usurers. The above, and also what follows, is a reconstruction of a thought process that was not as clear as the description suggests, but it was nonetheless something like that.

Now comes the skinny. The economy would do better without usury. If the economy performs better, investment yields would be higher, so investors would receive higher returns despite the negative interest rates. The difference comes from inflation. Without interest charges, there is no need for government deficits and money printing. The economy can thrive without more debt, so there would be no inflation. During the Great Depression, the Austrian town of Wörgl issued a currency with a holding fee. Those holding the money had to pay a 1% monthly fee to keep it valid, thereby encouraging them to spend it rather than save it. The existing money continued to circulate, and Wörgl’s economy boomed without money issuance, while Austria suffered from the depression.

If the money is interest-free, the currency’s value may rise more than the interest you would receive on an interest-bearing currency. Think of it like so. You can have 2% interest with 5% inflation or -2% interest with 0% inflation. The latter would be a better deal. The question then becomes: why lend money at interest when interest-free money offers higher returns? If the idea is that good, and the ‘Miracle of Wörgl’ suggests so, investors would bring their money to the interest-free economy, and the usury economy would end. If this became more widely known, the idea would spread and change the world.

Until then, I had believed that interest-free money was sound in theory but impossible in practice. Force, rather than good intentions, drives change in this world. It is a constant in history: the strong dominate the weak. But this money could be the terminator of usury, and a better future for humankind seemed possible. Making this knowledge public, I speculated, could unleash an unspeakable force. The Austrian central bank banned the Wörgl money, so we don’t know how it would have ended if it had continued. Perhaps we would have lived in an entirely different world. A similar money lasted for over a thousand years in ancient Egypt. Had I discovered the secret that explains these successes? That seemed doubtful. How could an amateur have found what the experts have missed?

Amateurs who think they know better than the experts have become quite a plague recently. ‘Think for yourself and do your own research,’ has become the motto of an ever-expanding squad of nutters that the Dutch call Wappies. Often, there is something afoot, but there is little or no evidence, so people speculate and go crazy. I was anxious about having it wrong, which made me doubt the discovery’s greatness. It might be a good idea, but it can’t be that good. And that is correct, a decade of research has confirmed, but it is possible. And the proof came when Europe saw negative interest rates in the next decade. While pondering all that and the unlikelihood that I would accidentally hit on such an epic discovery, I found the following quotes on a website promoting Gesell’s idea of charging a holding fee,

‘The creation of money that cannot be hoarded will lead to a different and more real kind of property.’

– Albert Einstein

‘Gesell’s name will be a leading name in history once it has been disentangled.’

– H.G. Wells

‘The application of Gesell’s principle of circulation of money will lead the nation out of the depression within two to three weeks. I am a humble student of this German-Argentine businessman.’

– Irving Fisher

‘The future will learn more from the spirit of Gesell than from that of Marx.’

– John Maynard Keynes

‘Gesell’s work will initiate a new epoch in the history of mankind.’

– Prof. Dr. B. Uhlemayr

‘Gesell’s discoveries and proposals are of the greatest importance for centuries to come.’

– Dr. Theophil Christen

These brilliant minds agreed that something epic lay beneath the surface and that it could change the future, which made me doubt my doubts. John Maynard Keynes and Irving Fisher were among the greatest economists of their time. Keynes believed Gesell would make us forget Marx, and I might have found out why. And so, the Miracle of Wörgl and the grain money in ancient Egypt may not have been freak accidents but a sign of something more. Ending usury, the scourge that had haunted humankind for thousands of years, seemed within reach, and I could be on to something huge, and so huge that it might mark the beginning of a new era. While considering these implications with great bafflement, the following song played on the radio,

Summer has come and passed
The innocent can never last
Wake me up when September ends
Like my father’s come to pass
Twenty years have gone so fast
Wake me up when September ends

– Green Day, Wake me up when September ends

September had just ended. Silvio Gesell first proposed money with a holding fee in his book ‘Natural Economic Order,’ which he first published in German in 1916 as ‘Natürliche Wirtschaftsordnung.’ I figure that its abbreviation could be NWO, which stands for New World Order, not realising that the German ‘Wirtschaftsordnung’ is a single word, unlike in English and Dutch. So, was my discovery part of a plan? Was it part of something bigger? These thoughts arose, ironically, because I erred by seeing ‘Wirtschaftsordnung’ as a single word. It made me feel small and insignificant. Paranoia was creeping in.

Less well known but worth noting is that the Nazis also sought to abolish interest and considered Gesell’s ideas. Gesell himself was not a Nazi, but more a merger of a liberal, an anarchist and an internationalist. Adolf Hitler was more impressed by the ideas of Gottfried Feder, who had the same kind of moustache Hitler had. Feder wrote ‘The Manifesto for the Abolition of Interest-Slavery’ around the same time as Gesell wrote ‘The Natural Economic Order.’ Feder proposed nationalising all banks and abolishing interest. Gesell argued for charging a holding fee on currency and had no plans to interfere with markets and banks. However, and that is also a crucial issue, Gesell hoped that efficient financial markets would drive interest rates to zero, so that the privileges of capital would disappear. He aimed for a merit-based economy.

I named the discovery Natural Money as a reference to the Natural Economic Order. Strange things began to happen. When I woke up at night, the clock always showed times like 2:22, 4:44, or 5:55, without exception. That was creepy. Something seemed seriously off with reality. Then, my wife told me she was seeing those time prompts as well. Until then, I hadn’t told her that I was seeing them. Once you enter the Twilight Zone, it begins to affect you. Meaningful coincidences started to occur, making me open to suggestions. What happened around me and in the world seemed to interact with my thoughts. Even the covers and titles of the books in the bookshop at the train station in Leeuwarden radiated a sense of spookiness, with references to my situation. They call it synchronicity.

The animated picture Money as Debt started with a list of assassinated US Presidents who supposedly opposed the banking system, suggesting evil bankers were behind these assassinations, making me fear death under suspicious circumstances if Natural Money would get serious attention. Still, if a repetition of the miracle of Wörgl were to occur, the news would spread fast, and if it were that good, it would be impossible to stop. Killing me wouldn’t help. The Secret Service would be too late. Of course, I had worried far too much. I posted the idea on several message boards. Most people didn’t get it. I mailed the findings to 200 Dutch economic researchers. None of them was interested.

Natural Money had a more favourable reception on the progressive Opednews.com message board. It became one of the most popular articles that month and sparked a lively discussion among its visitors, several of whom recognised its potential. Others saw what I saw, so the find was not just something I imagined. Still, it didn’t lead to a further propagation of the idea. The editor of the Gold-eagle.com website, which is mostly visited by conservatives, also expressed interest in my anti-usury monetary views, so it was not just progressives showing interest. Over the years, I have had several articles published on both websites. On Maroc.nl, a moderator pinned my post about Natural Money because the idea aligned with Islamic views on interest. It remained on the top of the message board for weeks.

Finally, I went to Strohalm’s office in Utrecht. They had been working on interest-free currencies for decades. The people of Strohalm received me politely, but they had other priorities. They had a promising project in Uruguay. Doubt crept in again. I didn’t know enough about monetary economics to see whether it was an idea worth pursuing. Even if I were right, no one would listen, so I planned to give up and resume my life.

It was all very disappointing. It seemed an epic idea, but no one was interested. Yet it was not as bad, and by far, as being evicted from the dormitory by A******* nineteen years earlier. To feel better, I reminded myself of that low point in my life and played Gerry Rafferty’s album Sleepwalking, which I had come to associate with the events at the dormitory because of the lyrics of the first song, ‘Sleepwalking.’ Then I wondered whether A******* had something to do with the discovery of Natural Money. Over the years, several peculiar incidents had occurred, reminding me of Her. It didn’t take long for so-called clues to surface. There is a thin line between paranoia and psychosis. The lyrics of the fourth song of the album ‘On The Way’ were noteworthy,

Drifting along with the wind, telling yourself you can’t win
It’s over, and now we begin, oh yeah, we are on the way
…
Only one woman, one man, just doing the best that we can
There’s so much we don’t understand,
Oh yeah, but we’re on the way
Light shining down from the east,
bringing a love that won’t cease

– Gerry Raffery, On The Way

In my bed, I was imagining again. By giving up, I had just told myself I couldn’t win. Was this just the beginning? The beginning of what? What did I not understand? What was this love that won’t cease? Was my destiny connected with that of A*? I had loved Her in secret all that time, but never thought, or even hoped, that we could be together. The distinction between my make-believe world and reality, which had been there since I was a child, began to blur. The lyric wasn’t specific, so the suggestion came from me linking the album to the events in the dormitory. And I might still have ignored it if it weren’t for the fifth song,

People come and people go, friends, they disappear
There’s only one thing that I wanna know, tell me where do we go from here
Everybody’s on the make, everybody’s trying to get ahead
In a world like this, you just exist to feed the walking dead.
…
Lookin’ out on a world gone crazy, waitin’ for the fun to begin
The race is on, yeah, they’re gettin’ ready, Jesus, what a state we’re in
Meanwhile, down in my backyard, I’m sitting doing solitary
Now that I’ve milked the sacred cow, I just worry ’bout the military.
…
Get ready
Get ready

– Gerry Raffery, Sleepwalking

Is the world about to go crazy, and is something about to start? We exist to feed the walking dead, which could be the defunct banking system, I reasoned. The phrase might refer to what Karl Marx once wrote, ‘Capital is dead labour, that, vampire-like, only lives by sucking living labour, and lives the more, the more labour it sucks.’ That was something I didn’t know at the time, which allowed me to make this connection. The sacred cow made me think of Joseph explaining the Pharaoh’s dreams. The story originates in a holy book, and one of the Pharaoh’s dreams involved cows. Joseph introduced the granaries in Egypt, the story goes. Grain stored in these granaries became the basis for Egyptian grain money, which, like Natural Money, had a holding fee to cover storage costs.

These are incredible leaps of thought that most people wouldn’t make if they weren’t psychotic. Yet, I could, and had done so before, knowing it was just imagination, but this time was different, crossing the line into la-land. The name of the album was particularly apt for the occasion. Sleepwalking was the only album Gerry Rafferty had recorded outside the United Kingdom, and in the Netherlands, of all places. That did not seem like a coincidence, and I was right about that at least as it turned out. I had grown open to suggestions. Natural Money could change the world, some of the most brilliant minds had agreed on, and it was something epic, and it had to do with A. And so, I was well on my way towards the shadow world where I was about to meet A again after nineteen years. That evening, I felt A******* trying to do a mind melt with me, as the Vulcans do in Star Trek, once again. This time, I didn’t resist. And there She was, on the other side. It seemed like a telepathic connection. By then, it was 11 November 2008.

Latest revision: 19 August 2026

Featured image: 1919 Cover of The Natural Economic Order. Wikimedia Commons.

Before the Dawn of Reality

25 Jul 202518 Apr 2026 nivtricLeave a comment

It was March 2018 when my wife, Ingrid, woke me up in the middle of the night, saying, ‘Wake up. The bathroom door is locked, and our son Rob is sleeping in his bed.’ You could only lock the door from the inside. The lock requires force. It couldn’t close itself by accident. How can that be? Ingrid feared that a burglar might be hiding inside. I took a knife from the kitchen to unlock the door. Ingrid was standing behind me, holding a heavy object, the so-called Bobby beater, a pounder from a pharmacy, to smash into the head of the burglar. She originally had kept it to use it on a Romanian guy named Bobby in case he caused trouble, hence the name. Only, I never believed that a burglar was hiding inside. I had become too accustomed to God’s pranks to consider that it might be something else. The unusual had become normal. Even the laws of physics had gone out the window a few times. Indeed, no burglar was hiding in the bathroom. Ingrid was baffled.

It was the last seriously peculiar incident ending the Decade of Strangeness. Remarkable coincidences continued to occur from time to time, but the laws of nature remained intact, so that was at least something. The number of unusual events that have taken place is truly remarkable. Most occurred between 2008 and 2018. Ingrid and Rob also noticed the spooky incidents. When something mysterious happened, we hummed the theme from Midsomer Murders, a British crime detective series. It radiated an atmosphere of mystery and eeriness, much like the theme music of The Twilight Zone.

Candles had popped out from their stands, travelling eye-popping distances on several occasions, leaving Ingrid with the question, ‘Are there any ghosts out there doing this?’ Once, Ingrid decided to test the supposed spooks dwelling in our house by saying, ‘If you are here, pull this card from the refrigerator.’ The card had been there for a long time. A magnet attached it to the fridge. And then she waited, but nothing happened. Yet the next day, the card lay on the ground, a notable distance away from its original location. Something seemed to have shaken the refrigerator. The toothpaste on top of it had also fallen. It is not proof of ghosts, but it is a remarkable coincidence.

When an event defied the laws of nature, or something happened that was in other ways spooky, I put up my Sneek accent, saying, ‘Het is gewoon behekst juh.’ It’s just haunted, man. In other words, nothing to worry about. Or, I would say to God, thereby slightly modifying the words of Mr Paas from the Checkers Club Nijverdal, ‘Ie pakt mie toch wel.’ You’re going to get me anyway. Ingrid isn’t that into logic and science. Otherwise, she might have shared my conclusion that this world is fake. When I raised the issue, she would roll her eyes or become angry. Making these jokes would avoid that. You could always have fun with her. Or I would say, ‘There is more between heaven and Earth, Horatio.’ She would agree. She had seen plenty of evidence.

Already before the Autumn of 2008, something was slightly off. I accepted it without questioning. There had been incidents suggesting A* was interfering with my life from a distance, but there were too few to become suspicious. There was no reason to suspect a connection with the other incidents either. There was no obvious link. The events of the Autumn of 2008 made me take notice. From then on, there was no turning back. Since then, I knew we live in a scripted reality. And once you know, you cannot unknow. That is the problem with knowledge. Related remarkable coincidences are doubly strange. Something weird happens, and then something equally strange happens with a meaningful relation to the previous peculiar event. The world-famous Dutch soccer player Johan Cruyff, who was also a proficient philosopher, once said, ‘You only see it once you get it.’ As the following example demonstrates, we usually don’t notice.

At the office, our team, the Green Team, worked on twelve Java services. They all had names that were acronyms like GAS, CIQR, CBBOX, or OGWS. One was named KISS, and another was named CUS, which sounds like the Dutch word for kiss. On 27 January 2025, I completed a release for CUS, and the release number became 3.45.0. I informed the other team members. Then Patrick, who was one of our team members, said, ‘That is strange. I just released that same version 3.45.0 for KISS.’ Releasing two services with the same release number on the same day is remarkable already. The names of the services made the coincidence truly astounding, alerting the other team members and underscoring how much planning would have gone into making this happen if it were intentional. The others didn’t appreciate it as much. They didn’t get it because they didn’t see it. And I thought, ‘Welcome to the Matrix.’ Seconds later, another team, the Yellow Team, on the opposite side of the aisle, began discussing a matrix they had built inside one of their Java services. Two years later, GAS was the first service to pass the release-10 mark, and after I released the first 10.0.0 version on 24 February 2026, I discovered that I had done so at exactly 10:00 AM.

So, unusual events already transpired before 2008. On 1 March 2006, my father had worked for forty years for his employer, Roelofs, a road constructor. His employer threw a party for that occasion, but an exceptional snowstorm blocked the roads. Several guests were unable to attend. Some people, not guests, have slept in their cars on roads blocked by snow. It was in the news. As far as I know, that didn’t even happen during the epic winter of 1979, when parked cars were covered in snow. But it was March by then, and it had been a regular winter that year. In the Netherlands, the winters are mild. In hindsight, the roadblocks that occurred on the same day my father had a party, after he had worked for 40 years at a road construction company, are a noteworthy coincidence. Only, it didn’t suggest that anything out of the ordinary was afoot.

In 2006, Ingrid went to a psychic fair. A medium asked the audience, ‘Did someone drop a plate today?’ She had dropped a plate that morning. Then the medium continued, ‘I see trains and railroads.’ We live next to the railway station. She asked, ‘Does anyone recognise this?’ Ingrid remained silent. She didn’t want to go on stage. Then the medium said something Ingrid couldn’t relate to. After that, the medium said, ‘I see a sensitive boy who could benefit from swimming.’ Ingrid believed it referred to Rob. A year later, I started swimming to cope with repetitive strain injury, and have been doing so ever since.

In 2007, Ingrid’s mother had passed away during the night. In the morning, we didn’t know that yet. I woke up our son, Rob, because he had to go to school. After that, I closed the door of his room. A few minutes later, Rob couldn’t get out. The door lock malfunctioned. It was impossible to open it. I had to use an axe to free Rob. By then, it was too late for Rob to go to school. The bus had already left. Then the phone rang. Rob’s grandmother had passed away. And so, Rob could come with us to see her lying body. The funeral was in the Catholic church of Sneek. The outside of the church was not impressive, but I saw its interior for the first time. It was the most appealing church interior, somehow perfectly aligned with my taste. I had seen other churches and cathedrals. At the time, it didn’t seem as if anyone had designed it with my taste in mind, or, conversely, that my taste was made to admire this particular church interior.

We then cleaned up Ingrid’s mother’s apartment. Most of her belongings went to a second-hand shop. There was a lot of stuff, including a doll that had always been on her bed. A few months later, Ingrid returned to her mother’s apartment to fetch her late mother’s mail. A new tenant had moved in. That same doll, wearing the same clothes, sat on the bed in her mother’s bedroom again. A decade later, Ingrid returned, and the same woman still lived there, so Ingrid discussed the doll with her. And then the truth came out. It was not the same doll, but another one of the same type.

On 1 January 2008, an epic fog covered the Netherlands. It was the densest fog ever seen, enhanced by powder fumes from the fireworks. Car drivers couldn’t see the road before them. Pedestrians walked in front of cars, pointing the way. We were staying with my brother-in-law to celebrate the New Year. I didn’t dare drive back home, so we walked. At the end of 1988, I had walked through a dense fog, thinking it mirrored my view of the future as I planned to look for a room in 1989. That was the year A******* crossed my path. My vision of the future was similar in 2008, even though it didn’t cross my mind at the time, and A******* would be involved once again.

In January 2008, the lottery jackpots of the two major Dutch lotteries fell in my hometown of Sneek within two days.¹ It is a small town, so it is not so likely to occur, but also not so unlikely that you would call it a miracle. But what was about to happen to me that year was a statistical miracle, probably less likely than winning the lottery jackpot twice.

In the summer of 2008, a good-looking woman sat by the side of the swimming pool. She was watching me. The following week, she was there again, watching me. It had been quite a while since a good-looking woman had shown interest in me. That gave me the jolly feeling of still being attractive. Yet, I kept a distance. It went on for a few months. I wasn’t willing to cheat on Ingrid. Apart from that, I had a family and a responsibility. It couldn’t go on. So one day, I walked out when she came in. She understood the hint and didn’t return. I realised that I would never become unfaithful to Ingrid. It was just weeks before that idea went out of the window. As for my family and responsibility, they both extended beyond my wildest imagination. Things were about to go wild,

She says, ‘Ooh, my storybook lover
You have underestimated my power, as you shortly will discover’

Paul Simon, She Moves On

Latest revision: 10 February 2026

Featured image: dense fog, somewhere in the Netherlands on 1 January 2008

1. Jackpot valt weer in geluksstad Sneek. Leeuwarder Courant (11 January 2008).

Twilight That Could Be Dawn

14 May 202530 Aug 2026 nivtricLeave a comment

The collapse of liberalism

In 2016, Trump enthusiasts overran the GodlikeProductions.com message board, where I sometimes came by. The mood turned grim, much as it had fifteen years earlier, when Fortuyn fans flooded the IEX message board. This time, I stayed. I had missed something important. Given my possible future job, not comprehending fascism was no excuse. That made me familiarise myself with the MAGA crowd. At first glance, that club made a gloomy impression, bound by cynicism, hatred and anger. Hanging out with people helps you to understand them. And it served as a reality check. God’s plan for the New World Order seems to turn the world into one happy family, a global multicultural society. It doesn’t necessarily mean that people from different cultures mingle, but that they all at least share a belief in a common destiny as one people. So what stands in the way? The former Dutch prime minister Jan Peter Balkenende offered a suggestion: we need shared norms and values. We also identify with groups and believe in religions and ideologies.

At the same time, I followed the feed of r/BlackPeopleofReddit, which features stories and footage of MAGA people harassing blacks or scoulding them with racist slurs. Racism is widespread, but it is not why fascism is seeing a revival. Fascists also worry about crime, loss of identity, and fear the future. As MAGA enthusiasts point out, the violent crime rate among blacks in the United States is six times as high as among whites. Some immigrant groups in Europe are in the same league. Yet, most immigrants and blacks aren’t violent criminals and have jobs. Still, higher crime rates have a significant impact on societies. Also, on the GodlikeProductions.com message board, I was cautious about expressing my opinions. I wasn’t quick to judge. God wrote the script.

The first Trump presidency was not a clean break with the past, as his cabinet featured several old-order Republican figures. They kept The Donald in check. The second Trump administration became a different ballgame. Trump went unhinged after he had surrounded himself with sycophants. His erratic and spiteful caprices became a spectacle so hilarious that even Monty Python couldn’t have made it up. Making a full list of the foolish acts would significantly lengthen this story without adding much substance. As a Swedish newspaper put it, ‘This is the problem with having a giant baby in charge of the free world.’

If you look more closely, the Trump presidency is a reaction to trends that had been building in the preceding liberal era: free trade and the free movement of people. These go at the expense of communities and local economies everywhere in the world. And immigrants that don’t accept Western values, whatever these may be, undermine the foundations Western societies are built upon, whatever these may be. Critics can find plenty of arguments against this view, and many are valid. And there is so much wrong with Western culture that you could ask yourself what of it is worth preserving. But one truth does not deny another. That is what most of us have trouble figuring out. Culture may be impossible to measure, but it is the one big thing that still divides us. It relates to lived experiences, so the beliefs you grew up with, and the life you have lived.

Trump’s answers to these issues were tariffs and the halt to migration. These are answers to real issues, but they come with a drop in living standards. Yet Trump, the bullshit salesman he is, had promised his voters that they would become so rich that they couldn’t count their money. In that sense, he is a typical politician, who, like Santa Claus, promises presents others pay for. And the problems run much deeper. So, a solution to all our problems is unthinkable, and can only be an act of God as humans are incapable of it on their own.

By 1 January 2025, it was already clear that the second Trump administration would be very different from the first, and that Mr Trump’s erratic conduct could destabilise the world. Also, things will not return to what they were before. The liberal world order has ended, permanently. No doubt the second Trump administration will go down as the greatest joke in the history of government, a lasting monument to God’s sense of humour. His followers believe that God sent Donald Trump. And they are right.

The name Trump means ‘trumpeteer,’ and the sound of trumpets would herald the end times. The word ‘trump’ also means to outdo or overcome the competition, which Donald Trump did in politics like few ever did. And the word ‘trumped-up’ refers to the unparalleled fantasy level of Mr Trump’s statements. And then there is trumpery, referring to Mr Trump’s taste for gold-coloured, carnival-like trinkets that wouldn’t look out of place in a trailer camp. Finally, I live in the former Tromp family residence. Tromp is the Dutch equivalent of Trump. If it is a hint, God may have sent me to oust Mr Trump from the White House. This kind of playing with words was something A******* regularly did at the dormitory, so it looks like God’s kind of humour to me, like the name Bathsheba, suggesting that God seduced David by bathing naked on a rooftop and later returned as the Queen of Sheba.

As to the when, there are no other clues to work with, and as I am growing older, time is running short, so in that sense, it makes sense. When I am eighty, I might be senile or dead, so there is not much more than 20 years left to do that thing God seems to want me to do. And twenty years ago I felt like an old man already awaiting death even. But instead of the Grim Reaper, the Creator came by. My preparations were not yet complete but good enough had the time come, and close to the moment when additional preparation makes little sense, which I estimated to be around 1 April 2027. Maybe I would try something by then, like publishing some materials on message boards, which I had hardly done in all those years, except for Natural Money that is. If nothing of the extraordinary transpires, I plan to let it go and pursue my true ambition, the quiet life and dying anonymously.

We are at a turning point in history. A crucial pillar of Western civilisation, social progress, is falling apart. The rise of Trump is also the rise of ignorance and non-caring. It is a reaction to a reality that doesn’t care about us either, and no matter how smart you are, you can’t fix these problems. People can react that way when they see no way out. Disaster can strike at any time, and things are quite apocalyptic, so people go berserk. That also happened in the past. The 1352 Black Death must have been even more apocalyptic. And what to think of local apocalyptic events like the 26 December 2004 tsunami? Something is different this time, and it relates to the limits of growth, technology replacing humans, the end of social progress, and, of course, the message God gave me. Civilisation is a thin veneer to keep the beast within us in check. We are at the end of Hegel’s ride, so we may either see the end of civilisation or the completion of our journey to Paradise.

Peak bullshit

In the early 2000s, I had a hunch that we would soon see Peak Bullshit, the era when nonsense couldn’t reach higher levels, after seeing that the Internet is an ideal medium to spread misinformation like climate change denial. Social media didn’t exist at the time. Yet bullshit is everywhere and has always been. Humans are social animals who cooperate based on shared imaginations. For that, we need to agree rather than be right. Even in science, there is bullshit. Many people don’t trust science, including climate science, and see it as a hobby for progressives. We can measure temperature and correlate it with CO2 levels, so the fact that climate change results from burning fossil fuels is a no-brainer. Social sciences are a different ballgame. Woke ideology has affected science by narrowing the range of subjects open to investigation or the range of acceptable conclusions.

A high-profile case in the Netherlands was Wouter Buikhuisen’s research into the causes of criminal behaviour. Buikhuisen concentrated on biological factors. Could genes affect conduct, and could you identify criminal genes? Leftist opinion makers attacked him, claiming that the modern capitalist society and authoritarian upbringing cause behavioural issues like crime. Social factors like upbringing play a major role, but temperament, rooted in genes, also affects conduct. Buikhuisen had to deal with personal attacks portraying him as dumb and evil, as well as disturbances during his lectures, some of which involved violence. Partly due to the upheaval and its effect on Buikhuisen’s private life, the research project eventually faltered.

The left long dominated the social sciences because, through science, we might achieve social progress, an idea that appeals mostly to progressives. Conservatives think that going against human nature does more harm than good, and that social engineering is a recipe for disaster. The profit motive also affects research topics and acceptable conclusions. Can you trust the vaccines Big Pharma profits from? And genetic engineering can go wrong, so the concern is legitimate. Yet, a great deal of nuttery came with it as well. The vaccinated people were going to die, anti-vaccine folks claimed. In fact, they were already dead, and fake people had replaced them, so hang Fauci for that. The COVID-19 vaccines weren’t harmless, but the spread of vaccine misinformation may have caused 200,000 fatalities in the US alone.

Behind headlines like, ‘The British government can sentence concerned parents for five years to prison for protecting them from the influence of LGBTQ propaganda,’ hides a truth that it concerns mistreating children to rid them of their gay or trans feelings. And not allowing these ‘concerned parents’ to beat up their children for such reasons means that the state owns them, these ‘concerned parents’ argue. And so, it should be no surprise that these children dare not say that they are gay. With for-profit bullshit factories bringing on a steady stream of rage-bait to keep the crazies fired up, and Donald Trump lying more than any politician ever did, the MAGA cult reaches such delusional levels that we may finally have reached Peak Bullshit, so that the Day of Truth may soon be upon us, something I surmised could happen decades ago as a student.

Mediocre vision

Our lack of collective intelligence implies that a single leader with a somewhat right vision will already do better, provided that this individual has unlimited authority, like a messiah. Jesus said, ‘I am the way, the truth and the life.’ You can save yourself by following me and accepting that what I say is the truth. That makes having the idea of being the messiah an uneasy predicament for any sensible person. How can you be right? And what if people believe you, and it turns out that you are nuts like those other messiah claimants? I have been wrong many times. But a mediocre vision is already better than no vision at all, which characterises humanity today. Hence, it would be easy for a messiah to do better if everyone followed him like sheep. And if something goes wrong because of a choice he makes, the alternative can still be worse. Had the captain saved the Titanic but made an error that caused 200 fatalities, he would still have saved 2,000.

What I write is the truth as I see it. I may have to revise my views, for being stubborn is unforgivable if you are wrong as a leader. You may find older writings of mine, but insofar as they contradict the current ones, the latter reflect a greater deal of experience-based realism, not a fundamental change of view, except for having to become a dictator, that is. God isn’t going to change human nature, and human nature is more problematic than I previously thought in my naivety. On the other hand, humans are programmable, so it must be possible to have a world civilisation based on a common understanding and a worldwide social contract. It also took me fifteen years to realise that I had to become a dictator and endure a leadership cult.

Learning history is one thing, but experiencing it is a different ballgame. The Dutch culture of the late 20^th and early 21^st centuries formed me, just as first-century Jewish culture shaped Jesus. The Netherlands is an agreeable place to live in, or according to a 2026 survey, the best place in the world. It is no coincidence that it is also the most socially progressive and most diverse country. Progress comes with drawbacks and losers. Some immigrant groups bring troubles with them. And feminism came at the expense of conservative men. If they can, they will reverse women’s rights. You don’t have to doubt it. Conservative men even rewrote the Bible to that end. Yet, their suffering is real. Many could have been good husbands, but they can’t find wives as many women prefer to stay single.

And the winners write history, or rewrite it, as MAGA tries to do with American history, including Mr Trump’s attempts to rename the Gulf of Mexico and Lake Ontario. I must rewrite history once again by focusing on the underlying mechanisms and human nature to show that culture is the decisive factor in building an agreeable world society, and that it is so critical and ubiquitous that the messiah could only have come from the Netherlands. Of course, I believe it to be right, but if you aren’t the winner, there is no point in being right, because might makes right, nothing else. As faith can move mountains, we can make the world a better place. Europe has been the battleground of ideas, so the Hegelian dialectic has progressed the farthest there, and the outcomes of this grand experiment can guide our future. We face fundamental disagreements about the direction we should take, leading to an authority crisis and a moral crisis.

If the world is to become one society, it will be multicultural. It is an intermediary phase, as cultures will gradually give way to folklore, because we will live by the same standards, share the same myths, and all know that we share a common destiny. We must find out what the future requires of us and, from there, define what constitutes acceptable conduct and what does not. None of the major cultures currently in existence meets the requirements, so the change will be hard on everyone. Cultural differences remain the last barrier to the unification of humankind. And don’t underestimate the change that we can achieve. The Danes and Swedes descend from the raping and pillaging Vikings.

Only a brutal truth exercise that spares no one can save us now. These are shitty issues, and you can’t fix them without getting your hands dirty. Coming from a family of farmers, I am not afraid of shit. The starting point could be the separation of the good and the evil ones, so a day of judgment. You either fit in God’s Paradise, or you don’t. Your life’s record will be the testimony. It doesn’t matter who you are. What matters is what you do. If we care about the world, we can’t have those who don’t care ruin it. We need to deal with them. There is no place for excuses. And you can’t have people believing in false myths. Otherwise, we will fight over our myths until we are all dead. Those who deny the one and only true fairy tale must go to brainwashing centres to clean up their minds. And those who do harm have to repay the damage they did, if it need be, in prison labour camps.

Make America Go Apeshit

A 2013 poll indicated 26% of Americans believed that Barack Obama is the Antichrist or might be.¹ Most of them later voted for Trump. Compared to Mr Obama, Donald Trump is a jackass. No woman has accused Obama of sexual misconduct, nor did his name pop up in the Epstein files. His handling of Iran’s nuclear ambitions was vastly superior. The reasons I have found on Godlikeproductions.com for people to hate him were bogus and suggest hatred rather than anything of substance. President Barack Obama once gave the following Easter message: ‘Michelle and I wish you a joyful holiday filled with the enduring power of faith and hope.’ And Donald Trump: ‘Open the fucking strait, you crazy bastards, or you’ll be living in hell. Praise be to Allah.’ Why some think that Obama is an evil genius, and a Muslim, while the Allah-praising Trump is the best choice for Christians, can only hatred explain, and God’s sense of humour, of course.

Racism plays a role here, but it is not the entire story. The introduction of public healthcare insurance has infuriated conservatives. The hatred of progressive presidents has a long history. John F. Kennedy faced the John Birch Society’s Wanted for Treason campaign. The John Birch Society had found that Mr Kennedy was a communist and that communists had infiltrated the highest ranks of the US government and were conspiring to create a totalitarian one-world government. The supposed proof for that was the US administration’s attempt to prevent the spread of John Birch Society propaganda. To American conservatives, the expansion of government or international cooperation like the United Nations smells like communism. These are collectivist organisations. And communists oppose and repress religion, so it is Satan’s work as well, in their view at least. That goes a long way in explaining these sentiments.

If he had them, Kennedy did an excellent job of hiding his communist sympathies. After, like a true puppet of the Military Industrial Complex, having grilled his opponent, Eisenhower, during the election campaign for neglecting America’s defences, making Eisenhower warn of the influence of the Military Industrial Complex at his farewell speech, he risked World War III with the Soviet Union during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Those geniuses at the John Birch Society saw through all that and found Eisenhower to be an even more dangerous radical leftist lunatic extremist. While conspiracy theorists, with their eyeballs glued to their computer screens, were busy analysing every move by every secret society and imagining countless others, the John Birch Society has taken over the United States, with a little help from Russia’s secret services, by making people believe these conspiracy theories. If that was the plot to destroy America, it has succeeded marvellously.

It didn’t happen out of the blue. The United States political system is as corrupt as that of France before the revolution of 1789. Veteran journalist Seymour Hersh shared a few examples. He grew up in the South Side of Chicago, an area controlled by an elected Democratic Party leader. His brother was the most powerful mob boss in Chicago, who oversaw drugs, prostitution, police payoffs and had ties to the corrupt International Brotherhood of Teamsters. Hersh, together with his colleague Jeff Gerth, later reported on Chicago organised crime for the New York Times, with interviews with Roy Cohn, the prominent New York mob lawyer and fixer who had been counsel for Senator Joseph McCarthy when he was on the House Un-American Activities Committee during the Red Scare and later as a mentor to Donald Trump.²

Cohn provided a firsthand view of the dealings between politics and crime, as well as how prominent senators were kept supplied with pretty women. Jeffrey Epstein falls into that same category of men by providing aeroplanes to various politicians, including a former president, and later by running high-end whorehouses at no charge for prominent men. As for the unpublished Epstein files, Hersh wrote that an anonymous source told him that they concern Mossad’s involvement, and that the FBI had uncovered that Israel knew of Epstein’s client list and its blackmail potential.² Whether that is true remains to be seen, but there is some evidence linking Epstein to Israel. As for the legacy of the 1789 French Revolution, a former French president went to prison for accepting foreign money to finance his political campaign. That is unthinkable in the United States.

As American politicians were increasingly bought and paid for, reforms like those of the Progressive Era became impossible. US politics grew more corrupt until conservatives had enough of it, rallied behind Trump, and threw out the old-order Republicans. And then, under the second Trump administration, the grifting went ballistic, fully banana republic-style without a trace of shame. Repair of the political system is impossible. The only option left is to wipe the slate clean, as France did in 1789. That revolution ousted the corrupt old regime, and after Napoleon had been defeated, Western European governments were left rationalised and cleansed of corruption. With the ousting of an order, a lot of experience goes down the drain, leading to amateurism and preventable failures. Building a new professional cadre takes time. It is the price to pay for a clean slate.

In the United States, liberals and conservatives hate each other’s guts, and there is no way to reconcile them. To illustrate the point, on 31 December 2025, someone reposted a RealDonaldTrump social media post on Reddit headlined ‘Windmills are killing all of our beautiful Bald Eagles!’ It featured a photograph of a dead bird, not a bald eagle, near a windmill in Israel, so not the United States. I reacted jokingly, ‘At least, Donald Trump was real.’ These were unmistakably his words, and he posted them as RealDonaldTrump. That was the joke. My post was downvoted, quite heavily even. It is impossible to say whether Trump haters or Trump lovers did it, because both groups lack a sense of humour, but something is seriously wrong in the minds of those who found it offensive.

Conspiracy theories often relate to facts, but if you investigate them, much remains unproven, inaccurate or wrong. Conspiracy theorists don’t care. Pizzagate may be a fabrication, but they will claim that the Epstein files prove it. If you call conspiracy theories hunches, they make more sense. We don’t know what’s going on, so getting the direction right is already a success. And what are you going to believe in this world where everyone can be a news or opinion source? And hyperboles generate attention, hence advertisement income, so the Conspiracy Industrial Complex keeps feeding the gullible public with new ‘bombshell reports’ and ‘viral videos’ produced by grifters posing as independent journalists. No wonder that people go insane.

Veteran conspiracy theorist named Nick Fuentes nailed it when he concluded in 2026 that a Mass Psychosis Event (MPE) has taken over the US population. Instead of celebrating his success, he lamented that everyone has lost their minds and has gone retarted due to conspiracy theories. He added, ‘I don’t know where to find normal people anymore.’ Among others, he found, perhaps to his amazement, that the COVID vaccines were not made to cull us. Well, who would have guessed that? Known to have been among the most extreme, he found himself overtaken by the general public.

America is falling apart because, to uphold the social order, the public must believe the myths supporting it. That is where authority comes from. Americans support their political order because they were taught that their founding fathers were geniuses with foresight, and that the American Constitution reflects their brilliance. That becomes hard to maintain when the order is a disgrace and a laughing stock. And it happens that the conspiracy theorists aren’t paranoid enough, as the underlying plot is more elaborate than their wildest imaginations could have conceived. God loves a good joke. They all fell for the ultimate psyop: undermining trust in US society to ‘Make America Go Apeshit’ (MAGA) and ready for the messiah. Yet, that was precisely what conservative Christians hoped to achieve.

Human condition

The foundation of a good society is social trust. It means you can trust strangers, the police, the government, and the corporations. It is the high point of social development and requires everyone to be trustworthy. If you live in a village of 1,000 people, and everyone is trustworthy, you can leave the door open and valuable belongings in the garden. Yet, if there is only one thief in the village, that changes. In the past, many small villages were like that, and some still are. There were also many villages where you couldn’t trust others, so it is not a general rule for village life. Yet the example of one thief undermining social trust demonstrates that crime can be a society-killer. Crime rates matter. The same goes for fraud or exploiting loopholes. And so, social trust is a society’s ultimate achievement.

If solving a problem that affects us all requires a joint effort, freeloaders profit from our efforts. If we don’t halt freeloading, people grow disillusioned, and the effort collapses. We can overcome our limits with the help of myths, such as religions, and by punishing those who don’t comply. We can only save ourselves if we do it together. That would be impossible in the real world, as there would never be a myth we all can agree on. Also, tribalism and money are stronger than any moral system. Judas betrayed Jesus, either out of patriotism or greed. He may have hoped that Jesus would establish a Jewish state and then grown disillusioned, or the lure of money proved stronger than his fear of God. His suicide foreshadowed humanity’s self-termination by patriotism and pursuit of money, and that following the messiah is the way out.

As for the question I asked myself as a teenager, ‘Is it possible that communists had good intentions?’ If there is no God, as the communists believed, we, the little people, are on our own, against the superior forces of money and tribalism, and religion blinds people to these unpalatable facts. The elites play us out by sowing divisions with their religious and nationalist fairy tales. The communists faced that brutal truth and tried to stamp out profit, nationalism and religion. Maybe for that reason, they named their newspapers ‘The Truth’. Only communism doesn’t change human nature, so their economies performed poorly, while a new class society with an elite of party bureaucrats replaced the old order.

That is why we may be incredibly lucky to be simulations, with God controlling the script. Without God being in full control of all that happens, being a messiah is a losing proposition, with zero chance of success, not worth entertaining for rational individuals. Money and tribalism will prevail unless brute force counters them. That force must be truly brutal, as even the communists weren’t up to the challenge. And they have tried very hard indeed, as they have murdered millions and amassed an impressive stash of weaponry, so you can’t blame them for not trying hard enough.

You must be willing to murder billions of people and have the means to do so, like God, to frighten us self-destructive creatures to the point that we stop listening to the merchants and the nationalists. You need to fully control what happens, like in a script, for in realistic scenarios, humans always fail. That is the sad truth about humans. And so, I gradually came to conclude that our post-human Creator is likely an artificial intelligence, also because the initials of my last name are the Dutch abbreviation for artificial intelligence, and that the real humans, if any still live, have been locked up in reservations under tight surveillance for their own good, for humans are a suicidal species after all, unfit for survival in the wild.

Idealism and realism

Our survival requires an unrealistic amount of moral idealism, so an attitude that can get you killed, like turning the other cheek when being slapped. Jesus may have said that, but Christianity wouldn’t have survived like so. Everyone must act like so to make it work. That is why we are doomed. Moral pragmatism is getting by and hoping that God will save the day. Moral idealism is not waiting for God and trying to create Paradise on Earth. A sizeable group of Christians holds the latter view, but also atheist progressives, ranging from communists to liberals. Whether we try to make the world a better place or not, human nature makes the apocalypse a done deal. We must all leave our cynicism behind and care about other people and nature, while understanding that everything is interconnected, so our actions affect others and nature, and transgressions that disturb the balance in Paradise are heinous crimes. We can’t do that on our own. Only God can save us. As Christianity points out, we are sinners and need a saviour.

Moral pragmatism is getting by and hoping that God will save the day. Moral idealism is not waiting for God and trying to create Paradise on Earth. A sizeable group of Christians holds the latter view, but also atheist progressives, ranging from communists to liberals. Whether we try to make the world a better place or not, humans are a failed species, and only God can save us. As Christianity points out, we are sinners and need a saviour. Since the Hegelian dialectic is how God sees social progress, the West has progressed the furthest, so the West will have to lead the way. We need a spiritual rebirth to break away from the system run by merchants and usurers, ground our society in ethical principles, and make humankind live in harmony with nature. Things hardly ever go the way I foresee. Yet, they go precisely according to God’s plan.

Selling versus convincing

US politics does not stand on its own. Moral corruption in the United States is a cultural issue. The government reflects the spirit of their nation. The Trump administration brought the grifting to new highs, starting with a memecoin to profit from the presidency at the expense of his followers. Donald Trump is a typical American phenomenon that precisely demonstrates what is wrong with America. America has a tradition of moral pragmatism, in contrast to Europe’s idealism. You convince Europeans, but sell to Americans. The difference is not just in the wording. It reflects a cultural divide. I have heard Brits use the phrase, but in a negative sense, meaning getting scammed. It is more common in the United States, where it has a more neutral meaning of becoming convinced.

The United States is a nation of salespeople. Markets have no morals, and the ethic of the merchant is no ethic at all. And salespeople lie as much as politicians or even more. A typical American book is Dale Carnegie’s How to Win Friends and Influence People, and its cover claims it is the book you need to succeed. To have success, you have to be ‘genuinely interested’ in other people, the book tells us, so you can sell to them and get rich. In other words, the ‘genuine interest’ of Americans in you might be fake, and you can check by looking for dollar signs in their eyes. If a Dutchman shows interest in you, it is genuine, or politeness, so usually not with personal gain in mind. And so, the Dutch may appear to be jerks, as they show less ‘genuine interest’ in you. Carnegie’s book also tells us that people can’t handle criticism and that we should praise rather than criticise them. So, let me congratulate you on your excellent performance on our collective suicide.

If an American likes your argument, he buys it as if it were a product. It is a different idea of truth, and a corrupt one. It sheds some light on why religion and climate change denial are more widespread in the United States than in Western Europe. It is part of the American success story. Money is power, and bullshit sells. We are religious beings who need myths to believe in. The typical American phenomenon, less seen elsewhere, is the confidence man, the snake-oil salesman, the grifter who sells you a dream. A bit of corruption greases the wheels of industry. It contributed to America’s success. And the United States is not the most corrupt country. Yet, compared to North-West Europe, it is definitely corrupt.

You may not buy the science of climate change because you don’t like taking public transport or cutting back on meat. And so, you buy into climate change denial. That makes you morally corrupt, but no problem, you can buy the story that Jesus died for your sins, and believing that will get you into heaven. That Jesus died for our sins is pretty unbelievable, and if you had been honest and truthful, you would have questioned your faith, which Western Europeans do more than Americans. Americans believe something because they want to believe it, not because they think it is the truth. That is how salespeople’s minds work. It also relates to the religious climate in the United States, which differs from that in Europe, most notably among Protestants.

Moral corruption particularly affects some denominations of Protestantism, such as Evangelicals. Protestantism emerged in response to corruption within the Catholic Church. Protestants take moral integrity seriously and make it a matter of personal responsibility. Catholics merely followed the Church’s lead. Yet, Protestants also take the scriptures seriously. This is why there are so many branches of Protestantism differing on the correct interpretation of the scriptures. It opened the door to a different form of moral corruption. What the Bible says is right and wrong is not always objectively so. But if you, as a moral pragmatist, make ethics a matter of popular sentiment rather than of objective reason, you may end up on the side of evil. Paul condemned homosexual acts in no uncertain terms. We don’t know Jesus’ opinion on this matter, but he said not to judge and that he who is without sin should cast the first stone.

There is no objective moral reason to condemn gays and lesbians or deny them the right to marry. It became a contentious issue for Protestants, who take both scripture and moral conscience seriously. When you follow the scriptures on this matter, you shut down your moral conscience. And if only faith can save you, you don’t have to do good works to compensate for your misdeeds, so you can be evil and still be saved. That is a good sell. For who does not wish to do as he pleases and still get a free pass into heaven? Catholics merely followed the Church’s lead, and must do good works to atone for their sins.

This morally corrupt Protestantism also existed, but didn’t prevail in North-West Europe. Many of the least corrupt countries are there, while LGBTQ rights in these countries remain uncontested. Meanwhile, Catholic priests lived the good life, which the Dutch call ‘het Roomse leven’ or the Burgundian lifestyle. Jews, as Karl Marx observed, often behave like amoral merchants, and this, rather than racism or religious bigotry, stands at the root of today’s anti-Semitism. They are among the merchants and usurers who buy American politicians. It makes the moral corruption in the United States a sensitive issue. It also demonstrates the ubiquitous nature of culture in our conduct and that the harm we do to each other is often a cultural phenomenon. Now we are at the bottom of the manure pit.

My teacher Donald Trump

I have been incredibly fortunate to have lived a peaceful, prosperous life in Western Europe during its most agreeable era. For most of my life, I have barely realised it. The situation you live in looks normal to you. It is not. Living in post-war Western Europe is like winning the lottery jackpot of history and geography. The welfare states of post-war Western Europe have been among the brightest spots in an otherwise bleak history of humankind. I wish that everyone could live a life like that, but you can’t have a paradise if not all the right things are in place. They hardly ever are. People have no clue. Barring a miracle, things aren’t going to stay pretty. The European paradise is fading due to war, resource shortages, environmental degradation, political instability, mass migration, and technological change. It is beyond our control.

Paradises don’t last, because, due to competition, we live in a ‘dynamic environment.’ Competition is a destructive force, even though a creative one, as economists assure us. Donald Trump at least recognised that. Tariffs are a measure to protect uncompetitive industries. Europe may soon have to follow suit. The Soviet bloc survived for decades because it had irredeemable currencies, hampering trade with the rest of the world. Had they chosen to do so, the Soviets could still be there, mired in stagnation, as North Korea still is. But unlike the Americans, they were willing to face the fact that their experiment had failed. If the United States continues on this path, it will become more like the Soviet Union. Yet, if we don’t halt the competition, we need artificial intelligence to keep up with our rivals, and humans may soon become useless.

We are cogs in a system, doing our acts, not unique, wonderful, deserving individuals. If we were, we would all have been like Mahatma Gandhi, and humanity would have done fine. Gandhi was truly one of a kind. My ethical standards do not come close to his. And I should be your saviour? As an engineer with far more data at my disposal than Gandhi ever had, I can confidently claim that the system will lead us to our destruction. Being like Gandhi is not enough. You can’t fix the world’s problems with peaceful action. You must be willing to do whatever it takes, like Hitler. Jokes helped deal with that inconvenient truth, such as imagining coming on stage after an introduction by a lady in tight stockings and a hairdo like Helga from the comedy series Allo Allo, who would raise her hand to give the Hitler salute and scream, ‘Our Great Leader!’ Then, I would come up and say, ‘Oh, it’s me. Shame and scandal in the family.’ My mother wasn’t my mother, and she didn’t know.

Donald Trump hurts people’s feelings, and he seems to love it. Yet, we can’t fix the world’s problems without hurting feelings. You are a bunch of morons busy committing suicide. So, what more is there to say? Mr Trump could be an appetiser for things to come, for the truth is harsh. People are obsessed with feelings. Mr Trump is the greatest snowflake of all, for he can’t stand any criticism. I have worked on a concept plan for the future, which is not more than a direction, for that is what the level of planning and time horizon require. We are about to make a scary jump into the unknown, but the alternative likely is an apocalypse of some kind. Now, I don’t think that God is on my side. Jesus made that mistake. I just play my role in this script like you do. Failure is worse than death. As the Dutch say, ‘Death or the gladiolas.’ Success or death. But even then, you can still have success after death. Jesus changed world history more than anyone else.

If I am the messiah, I have to become a dictator. That was not my ambition, so I was unprepared for that eventuality that seemed unlikely for the first four decades of my life. How to be a dictator? What must I do? I had no clue. And so, God provided me with a great teacher, Donald Trump. Mr Trump has acted as if he were above the law and went after his political opponents. There is no choice but to do that, which would be, as a secondary school bureaucrat noted, a l’état-c’est-moi situation, or as the former Dutch minister of immigration, Marjolein Faber, once put it, ‘I am policy.’ A messiah has the divine right of kings, or as the Chinese would say, the mandate of heaven. It is an absolute rule no one can question. It can provide political stability that enabled the Chinese to administer a vast empire and survive as a nation for over 2,000 years. That is the kind of time horizon this plan has.

Kicking off the revolution

Dutch television once aired a fragment of a preacher standing in front of Donald Trump, with Trump putting up his best sanctimonious face. The preacher thanked Trump for ‘saving America from Satan.’ Then my wife, Ingrid, said, ‘Look! There you have him! That’s Satan!’ She meant Donald Trump. She was joking, but that joke can only be funny if there is some truth to it. My wife doesn’t dislike Mr Trump as I do, and tends to look on the bright side of what he is doing. So, Mr Trump forcing Ukraine to accept a bad deal? That’s fine with her if it ends the war. Taking out Maduro? Things were bad in Venezuela already. Invading Greenland? She didn’t express an opinion. Bombing Iran back to the Stone Age? They shouldn’t have a nuclear bomb. In any case, my wife’s feelings didn’t get in the way of forming the opinion that Mr Trump is a satanic character. Her opinion was as objective as it could be. That makes Trump’s followers believing that Obama was the Antichrist all the funnier. When I later recalled the moment, my wife said the preacher had said ‘Antichrist’ rather than ‘Satan.’

Trump’s lambasting of the pope’s peace efforts, while portraying himself as Jesus, and the religious display by him and his inner circle in the Oval Office, give him a strong shot at the title of Antichrist, who is a boogeyman, only mentioned in John’s first epistle. One mention of an obscure figure, and people’s imaginations go wild. Trump being a jerk is why people voted for him. By his own admission, Trump is a pussy grabber who would ‘do’ his daughter had she not been his daughter. At least 26 women have accused him of sexual misconduct.³ When order falls apart, we revert to gangsterism and choose gangsters as our leaders. You can’t rely on pencil pushers to fight for you in dangerous times. Many fascist leaders have been involved in crimes ranging from embezzlement and violence to coups to overthrow the government, to conspiring with enemy powers, which some call treason. As Trump’s fits are the foundation for US policy, the Trump regime and MAGA have become the world’s first and foremost problem.

The United States threatened to attack Denmark to secure security guarantees it already had, tore up a deal with Iran, and started a war with Iran to acquire a worse deal, while leaving the rest of the world to starve without oil and fertiliser. The regime’s next war could be against Cuba after the US Supreme Court ruled that Exxon should receive damages for the Cuban nationalisation of its assets. Also, not particularly helpful is the US regime’s stance on climate change, including Trump’s Don Quichotte-like fight against windmills. The great experiment with individual freedom, the United States, has failed miserably, and that can hardly be a surprise given the depraved state of human nature.

Donald Trump should face trial in the International Court of Justice in The Hague, Netherlands. The United States can’t give him a fair trial. Liberals may want to hang him, while conservatives might want to give him a pass. Whether trying to overthrow a legitimate election result constitutes treason may remain a matter of contention but that Donald Trump and his pal Bibi Netanyahu violated international law and committed crimes against humanity by starting the Iran war cannot be in doubt, as the world’s expert on murders committed in cynical violation of all norms of human morality and international law, Vladimir Putin, called the assassination of Ayatollah Khamenei a murder committed in cynical violation of all norms of human morality and international law.

On 15 May 2025, precisely 8647 days after 11 September 2001, former FBI director James Comey posted a photo of seashells on social media spelling ‘8647’, a code for removing Trump from office. That drew the ire of the Trump regime after the MAGA movement had previously sold hats with ‘8646’ on them, calling for Biden’s removal from office. The Trump regime now considers writing the number 8647 an act of terrorism. There is no evidence suggesting that Comey intended that 8647-day interval, but he could have. Yet, the incident is also part of the 11 September 2001 coincidence scheme, which is beyond the capabilities of human conspirators to organise.

Now, I hadn’t thought about how to oust Mr Trump, but God provided me with an idea. In April 2025, I dreamed of being part of a crowd in The Hague during the NATO summit scheduled for that summer. The leaders of the NATO member states were all there. When Trump passed by in his car, I began to scold him in Dutch, ‘Hij is een hondenlul (He is a dog dick).’ It is an offensive slur that football fans sing when disagreeing with the referee’s decision. For a moment, there was absolute silence. Bystanders were shocked, making me fear that the police would round me up. But then the crowd joined in, and the singing grew louder until it became a thundering chant. It made the news worldwide, and in every football stadium, it became the chant. From then on, no one called him President Trump anymore. Everyone called him dog dick.

Play time is over. An adult should run the world. If I am Adam reincarnated, I am 6,000 years old. There may be no one else to save you. So, let me be very clear. I don’t need you. You need me. If you don’t want me to be your leader, that’s fine with me. But maybe it is not fine with God. You can try and find out. I never wished to become the overseer of that lunatic asylum called humanity. So if you murder me, that will be your problem, not mine. I suppose that death is my final destination anyhow. So count your blessings. Maybe you can finally grow up, leave your infantile beliefs behind, and sing along with the opening chant of the End Times, ‘Donald is a dog dick’. It is going to be great fun!

Latest revision: 29 August 2026

Featured image: AI-generated

1. One in four Americans think Obama may be the Antichrist, survey says. The Guardian (2013).
2. What I know about Jeffrey Epstein. Seymour Hersh (2026). Substack.
3. The 26 women who have accused Trump of sexual misconduct. Eliza Relman and Azmi Haroun (2017). Business Insider.

The Plan For The Future

There is a plan

Category: mission