The 90 Installments In My 3 Essay Series on Antisemitism

Here's where we've been - and a preview of where we're going.

David Swindle 🟦

May 25, 2024

The Antisemitism and Culture Series, Part I

November 29, 2022 - January 15, 2023

The Antisemitism and Culture Series, Part II

January 2023 - October 10, 2023

Vladimir Putin possessed by demonic spirits

The Axis of Genocide Series

Oct. 14, 2023 - May 23, 2024

What’s Coming Next?

When I published the second installment in this series back on November 30, 2022, I offered an explanation of where antisemitism comes from. That theory would go on to guide my approach to the first two 30-essay parts of these three series.

I argued that whether someone embraces antisemitism - and to what degree - is based on one primary factor: the culture they choose. In the piece, I presented the global statistics that the ADL had gathered about rates of antisemitism by country. And it’s not hard to discern patterns in it - the people of some countries and regions simply embrace cultural values that inspire hatred of the Jewish people and others who refuse to conform.

In my conclusion to the series this week, I further argued that the experience of personal trauma plays a big factor in the development of antisemitism, too. So many people around the world choose to blame other people for the pain that they are in, rather than taking the much harder road of trying to figure out which combination of treatments might heal them.

However, my views have evolved a bit on this subject after spending more than a year writing as a journalist about antisemitism every day and continuing to try and understand what really causes people to become evil, hateful monsters.

And I suspect that a good number of people are not going to like my current working theory at all:

It is my hypothesis right now - not a dogmatic belief - that those who embrace antisemitic views are literally demonically possessed. Seriously: possessed in the manner shown in films like The Exorcist, or more accurately, what’s depicted in The Book of Job.

I used to just think that “spiritual beings” were just ancient, creative metaphors for phenomena which can now be explained in secular and scientific ways. The so-called “supernatural” world of angels and demons seemed like something only fundamentalist Christians believed in the modern age.

But I default to that interpretation no more. When you encounter such “entities” directly, then the metaphors melt away. And for those of you who have been lucky enough not to have had a direct experience with evil incarnate and think that I’m sounding crazy, just tell yourself this is only for creative, literary effect. It’s just more posts in the style of the satirical “J.K. Rowling is really a witch,” “I’m a member of the Illuminati,” and “Trump and Stormy Daniels are reincarnations of ancient Pagan sex-and-war gods” essays.

So right now, I have two series planned as direct successors to “The Axis of Genocide.” These will explore two of the central subjects we’ve seen as the Jewish state’s war to destroy Hamas has raged. And each will debut following a more formal announcement soon, including more details:

The Academic Inferno

So much of my journalistic time over the last six months has focused on the pro-Hamas protests at so-called “elite” universities across America and the reactions to them.

Now — as the students head home for summer break and the campuses grow quieter again — I’m going to focus on this subject in more depth through this “demonic spirits” paradigm. What did we really see this year in these “protests”?

Here I’m going to write about the state of academia today, the legitimacy of the longstanding libertarian-conservative critiques of college (Thomas Sowell’s Inside American Education: The Decline, The Deception, The Dogmas from 1993 holds up as the most authoritative exploration), which I still embrace today, and finally, what the religious and mystical traditions can tell us about which evil spirits result in which evil actions. I’ll draw from Jewish mysticism, the Western Esoteric tradition, the Bible, Jewish thinkers, Christian thinkers, and Muslim thinkers, too. There are so many pieces to this puzzle and no one has ever assembled them all coherently.

The Hostage Liberation Journal

In the “Axis of Genocide” series, I only wrote about the hostages in eight of the installments. This is unacceptable. Thus, I have decided to start a series focusing only on news about the efforts to liberate the hostages who still live.

This series will likely be much shorter in its duration, but with more frequent entries than The Academic Inferno. Rather than analyze these news updates in depth, I’m just going to try to keep track of them for everyone.

Any questions? Please sound off in the comments.