Let us rebuild the idea that has spoiled our senses all these months and severed our souls to the core. One direly feels the need to reset the brain’s processor after such a mess of our mind by the obnoxious audio-visuals from Epstein island. This has been held as one of the most demonic and dirtiest scandals of 21st century catching global attention more than that of the war news. Conscious minds are simply not able to process it all. Sex abuse of minors, human trafficking, cannibalism, paedophilia, incarceration of adults, blazing of babies, churning of human flesh; some for the purpose of cooking and some for dissolution in sulphuric acid and God knows what more shall come out from the island of Epstein to unnerve us.

In countries where citizens have more than the required amount of freedom for open and free sex, all kinds of foods and beverages and for all modes of enjoyment, one wonders why does it need an isolated island to have the feast. This is because Epstein files are not as much about crime and celebration as they are about bizarre belief in BAAL, a Canaanite deity who stands at the centre stage of all the satanic acts performed on the island just for him to get pleased and them to get bestowed with bounties of this world especially leadership and the associated leverages. The ancient work namely Wisdom of Solomon (composed around the 2nd century B.C.E.), accuses the inhabitants of Canaan of having “cannibal feasts of human flesh and blood.” Even in the Bible and Torah, Baal was a constant source of apostasy for ancient Israelites, who were forbidden from worshipping him. The Hebrew Bible portrayed this as the conflict between monotheism (Yahweh) and polytheism (Baal/Baalim). Worship of Baal was therefore considered a major transgression (e.g., Judges 3:7). So does the Quran warn in Surah As-Saffat ( Chapter 37: verse 125), “Do you call upon ˹the idol of˺ Ba’l and abandon the Best of Creators?”. This verse is part of the story of Prophet Ilyas (or Elias) addressing his people who worshipped an idol named Ba’l. It highlights the absurdity of abandoning the Creator of all things for a fashioned idol.

Apart from sin and belief, something more surprising that has creeped in the discussions is Physics which is puzzling for anyone who has ever learned it. In his interviews, Epstein candidly mentions that he is not impressed by the people in great positions but by the people of great ideas, perhaps one of them being Stephen Hawkings. Why were those, behind Epstein interested in the pursuits of gravity, cosmos and space-time? To my understanding, this is because some people play with a provocative thought experiment that if modern cosmology suggests that about 95% of the universe consists of invisible components often called dark matter and dark energy, then perhaps our cultural habit of associating light with goodness and darkness with evil may be misleading. In that strange line of thinking, if “darkness” dominates the cosmos, then the real path to worldly power may be to honour what we traditionally fear rather than what we praise. Perhaps for the same reason, Epstein calls soul as the dark component of conscience. Of course, this idea is more philosophical satire than serious belief. It highlights how human symbolism, like equating light with God and darkness with the devil, can clash with scientific descriptions of reality. The paradox invites reflection: the universe may be mostly “dark,” but that darkness in physics simply means unknown or invisible, not morally sinister, reminding us that our myths and metaphors don’t always map neatly onto the workings of the cosmos.

One more takeaway from Epstein files, is what women should seriously consider. The crimes are overwhelmingly perpetrated by powerful men against under privileged women and girls, revealing not merely individual pathology but a psychology rooted in objectification of women, since times immemorial. Strangulation during sex is what the Arabs have especially cherished and confessed the same in emails about those torture videos. Psychologically, some men appear to experience sexuality not as connection but as conquest; the thrill lies partly in the asymmetry of power and the erasure of the other’s autonomy. Several influential thinkers such as Aristotle, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and Arthur Schopenhauer have also perceived women primarily through the lens of sexuality and reproduction. Women have been historically constructed as “the other” rather than as full subjects in their own right.

The inferences from Epstein files are many, but the immediate conclusion is that in the so called high societies, education has simply not been so enlightening to be able to eradicate the absurd or irrational beliefs rather it has merely reshaped how such beliefs are expressed. This is why Epstein has been able to make people fall in his trap from minors to majors. Even during covid pandemic we have had charismatic figures such as Andrew Wakefield being able to catalyze damaging myths like the debunked vaccine-autism link demonstrating how authority can be misused to legitimize falsehoods.

Epstein case illustrates that a mere literacy and technological sophistication do not automatically translate into critical thinking or epistemic humility giving huge scope to crafty people like Jeffrey Epstein to plan and execute their polluted agendas.

Though not necessarily the outcome of Epstein horror, yet a welcome decision from the Russian Supreme Court following the request by the Russian Prosecutor General’s Office and the Ministry of Justice, has been to officially designate the “International Satanism Movement” as an extremist organization. This ruling effectively bans all activities associated with the group within the country. The court’s decision aligns with recent calls from both state lawmakers and Patriarch Kirill of Moscow to suppress “Satanic sects.” Government officials and religious leaders have argued that such movements pose a threat to Russia’s traditional values and social fabric, accusing them of promoting hostility toward Orthodox shrines and recruiting young people. This legal move mirrors the 2023 ban on the “International LGBT Movement.” The verdict serves as a legal tool for the state to target various fringe groups and ideologies it deems contrary to national interests and traditional morality.

At this point in time, let me call upon all those who have a hard time in believing in the God of a well designed and diverse creation, all up and around us. In a world where devils are donned and decorated and presented with the sacrifice of minors, GOD is automatically necessitated to exist. Devil presupposes God and this is a valid dependency argument. The doomsday seems the most inevitable for the good and evil to meet their logical destinations of heaven and hell. Nothing that ever happened in this world shall remain unresolved or unheard or unfinished.

Scientists may be diffident about a kind of personal God to whom we pray or worship but bulk of them have definitely believed in the God responsible for the harmonious order of this Universe. Newton had in fact delved into the pursuits of Physics to prove that Bible is right.

Most of the well-known physicists have expressed their belief in a higher order intelligence underlying such an ordered Universe, call it a God or a Lord. For instance, James Clerk Maxwell who developed the equations of electromagnetism was a committed Christian who saw scientific discovery as understanding God’s creation; Max Planck, the founder of quantum theory spoke positively about religion and believed science and faith were compatible; Werner Heisenberg and Paul Dirac the founders of quantum mechanics expressed openness to religious and philosophical interpretations of reality; John Polkinghorne the quantum physicist turned Anglican priest was a strong advocate of harmony between science and Christianity; and Abdus Salam, a Nobel Prize–winning theoretical physicist saw scientific inquiry as part of Islamic tradition. So did Einstein believe in the God of Order and Beauty. The only member of this fraternity who has surprised us to the core is the erstwhile great Stephen Hawkings. Today we realize why he would defy God though the theories of Physics do not. All it was, is BAAL. And all fall down.

Dr. Qudsia Gani, Assistant Professor, Dept. of Physics, Govt. Degree College, Pattan Baramulla J&K.

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