To be blunt, I’m currently going through a really rough patch. So rough that I
feel as if I were hanging over a bottomless pit, with only the strength of my
arms to hold me up.
Naturally, I don’t have a parachute. And I don’t work out either.
Gravity only makes things worse: light as a feather though I may be,
everything weighs on me. Like a dead weight. Everything and everyone
are letting me down. And I’ve got nothing left to let go of. Apart from
this slippery ledge above the void.
Those who have already experienced this feeling will surely understand. Or at
least, some will. That’s what I thought, anyway.
And then comes another seismic shock: not believing, just seeing… and taking
the blow.
Fortunately, my arms haven't fallen off—not yet.
Rage, despair. It’s like screaming into a black hole with no sound echoing
back. No one wants to listen. No one wants to see. No one wants to believe.
It's normal: the Real hurts like hell. So you might as well believe in
anything… except that. And the bloody pot isn’t about to stop calling the
kettle black any time soon. The road to hell is paved with white lies, while
heaven serves as a waiting room. That's precisely why you can't take anything
there with you.
Between what I think, what I want to say, what I think I’m saying, what I
actually say, what you want to hear, what you think you hear, what you
actually hear, what you want to understand, and what you actually
understand, there are ten ways for communication to go wrong. But let’s give
it a try anyway…
Bernard Werber
Some will undoubtedly find it hard to resist offering advice when what all
you're actually asking for is someone to listen and hear you out. Because at
times like these, all you need is attention, empathy and compassion. Not
know-it-all egos trying to score karma points.
Sometimes, just being there and saying nothing is good enough. Even though
when it comes to presence, many are conspicuous by their absence. Obviously,
we all prefer a comforting lie to a harsh truth. Except when we find ourselves
with our backs against the wall… of the Real. Or at least, hanging off the
ledge.
Three major sources of solace were offered to me: faith and invisible realms,
where you cling to a spiritual, esoteric or religious belief system to make
sense of the chaos; the ‘that’s life’ resigned pragmatism, where passive
acceptance allows you to armour yourself and lie low, even if it means getting
numb; and toxic optimism, where the pursuit of positivity at any cost is akin
to the sudden spikes in insulin levels following the consumption of simple
carbohydrates, inexorably followed by equally sudden drops in blood sugar
levels.
These illusory comfort zones are like trees. The higher you climb in complex
thought systems, doctrines or promises of personal transformation, the safer
you feel, above the scrum. But the very nature of the simulation makes jolts
inevitable. And the branch always ends up snapping under the weight. It is not
so much a question of ‘if’ but of ‘when’. The higher the perch, the harder the
fall. That’s why we're all clinging to the branches in an attempt to break our
fall.
I am currently in this phase. In limbo. Between the branches of illusion and
the thorns of the Real.
To be honest, I no longer want to choose between a brutal collision with the
Real and the fleeting numbness of illusion. What’s the point since no matter
how hard we try to erase everything, traces remain and we end up unable to
unsee?
So perhaps the way out lies in this in-between space? In this precarious,
uncomfortable and deeply painful position, yet ultimately beyond polarities?
Like a zone of electrified barbed wire that only the most badass manage to
make it through? In any case, we won't know until we cross it. Or not.
In the meantime, thank you for being around. It makes things a bit easier to
get through.
Satanic to some, pagan to others, commercial to most, the celebration of Halloween leaves no one indifferent. If only because it has become impossible to ignore. Especially in towns and cities, where local businesses and residents alike participate in these increasingly macabre displays (as seen in my neighbourhood: a door splattered with ultra-realistic fake blood). Shop windows and house facades are adorned with cobwebs, ghosts, bats, and grimacing pumpkins. Witches and demons are out and about, though next month they'll make way for angels, Father Christmases, and nativity figurines. Same figures, different costumes to honour the polarities.“As above, so below; and as below, so above.”
This song is thus more than perfect for the occasion. Spot on for the mood, right on the nerve. For rather than resorting to cheap thrills through clichés and theatrical ‘boos’, it instead opens a window onto a brutal reality that neither faith nor hypocritical allegiance—whether to the blessed or the cursed, the ascended or the fallen—can possibly cover up. I must therefore warn you about the violent and explicit nature of these lyrics. Not for the faint-hearted, of course. But you'll get your turn anyway. For we are all fuel for the gods or the demons.
Ey@el
Witches Burn
Welcome back to the days of old Where the men are men and the women are sold Unwilling sacrifice, I'll fuck you for a price They kill 'em young so they never get old
They lock the doors and pull down the shades After the dark they are always afraid But I go out at night, I won't apologize There's a price I'll pay
For this I'll burn For this I'll burn One thing I've learned, you'll get your turn All witches burn All witches burn All witches burn
Don't know much about a pagan god If you think you're better than me, I know you're not But I'll do what you say, I'm learning to obey Down on my knees when you call me a dog
'Til I get close enough for a blade To stick it in, then I'll spit on your grave I'm smiling all the while, you won't be at the trial But there's a price I'll pay
For this I'll burn For this I'll burn One thing I've learned, you'll get your turn All witches burn All witches burn All witches burn
Down and down and down we go Scatter the ashes in the shape of the soul The dark will have its day But there's a price I'll pay
For this I'll burn For this I'll burn One thing I've learned, you'll get your turn All witches burn All witches burn All witches burn
All witches burn All witches burn All witches burn All witches burn All witches burn
It took me six years to get round to reading The Ickabog at last. My excuse: it’s a story aimed at children aged 7 to 9. What’s more, I must admit I wasn’t particularly keen, at the time, on The Tales of Beedle the Bard, published after the Harry Potter series.
But whilst listening to the audiobook this summer, during a particularly dark and painful period in my life, I was pleasantly surprised and even completely enchanted by this fable with its political parallels, adapted for children and set in a fairy-tale world—with no fairies, but very human monsters. It’s worth mentioning that this story bears no resemblance whatsoever to the world of Harry Potter. Indeed, there’s no magic involved apart from J.K. Rowling’s lively, inventive prose and her sharp humour. A real favourite and a delight as delicious as Mrs Beamish’s pastries.
Originally conceived as a bedtime story that the author would read to her two youngest children every evening, the manuscript was consigned to oblivion before being rediscovered and dusted off a dozen years later, in the spring of 2020, during the first lockdown. J.K. Rowling first decided to publish it for free on her website, chapter by chapter. Later, the royalties of the book sales were donated to charity.
It should be noted that in the United Kingdom, Hachette employees attempted (fortunately without success) to boycott the publication due to certain statements by the author that were deemed transphobic.
From Fable to Political Allegory
Once upon a time, there was a tiny country called Cornucopia . . . The king at the time of which I write was called King Fred the Fearless. He’d announced the ‘Fearless’ bit himself, on the morning of his coronation, partly because it sounded nice with ‘Fred’, but also because he’d once managed to catch and kill a wasp all by himself, if you didn’t count five footmen and the boot boy.
J.K. Rowling, 2020 - Little Brown - 282 pages (7h52)
The story is reminiscent of Andersen’s The Emperor’s New Clothes, which tells of a cowardly and vain monarch who is duped by his advisers. In Andersen’s tale, the illusion is based on gullibility and the fear of ridicule; in Rowling’s, it becomes an instrument of domination with very real consequences for the entire population.
Here, then, the scam is not about clothes but about a popular legend: a monster said to inhabit the marshes, with everyone seemingly having their own version of the story. Then the Ickabog becomes a threat that certain people have a vested interest in making it seem credible and, ultimately, a pretext for the two manipulative advisers to impose their tyranny and bleed a prosperous nation dry with increasingly exorbitant taxes, whilst the king, blinded by his own vanity, fails to realise what is going on under his rule.
Lies upon lies upon lies.
The initial lie is no longer enough: further lies must be concocted to protect it, and those who challenge it in turn become enemies who must be silenced or made to disappear. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is not necessarily coincidental.
It was the joyful faces that upset him most.
A regime that thrives on fear needs a population that is anxious, docile and convinced that it is in danger. Laughter and joy then become almost subversive.
From Bogeyman to Human Monster
“Mind you don’t leave the garden while I’m working,” parents all over the kingdom would tell their children, “or the Ickabog will catch you and eat you all up!” And throughout the land, boys and girls played at fighting the Ickabog, tried to frighten each other with the tale of the Ickabog, and even, if the story became too convincing, had nightmares about the Ickabog.
Fear is the perfect tool for tyrants: once it has taken hold, people pass it on to one another, sometimes without meaning any harm (the road to hell is paved with good intentions, as the saying goes). Those in power therefore no longer need to impose their narrative constantly: society starts repeating it of its own accord.
Daisy wished that she too believed in a monster in the marsh, rather than in the human wickedness she’d seen staring out of Lord Spittleworth’s eyes.
And the most frightening danger is not always the one we are told to fear. It is sometimes easier to believe in an external monster than to acknowledge human cruelty, especially when it is concealed behind institutions and official rhetoric. Even today, some people prefer to see incompetence where malice is, in fact, glaringly obvious.
When the Energy of Despair Opens Our Eyes
Sometimes—I don’t know how–people who live many miles apart seem to realise the time has come to act. Perhaps ideas can spread like pollen on the breeze.
Hope does not come from the miraculous disappearance of evil, but from the moment when people stop blindly believing what they are told. Without giving away the plot—since this is a fairy tale (without any fairies), in which nothing is glossed over (murder, violence, abuse), courage and truth ultimately triumph over evil when those who have allowed themselves to be blinded by power or caught up in its workings finally open their eyes.
Through humour, fantasy and caricatures, J.K. Rowling shows in The Ickabog that fairy tales are not necessarily naive or disconnected from reality. Their imaginary worlds can sometimes expose mechanisms that are otherwise difficult to recognise in everyday life.
A wise man had a son who was afraid of what people might think. He said to him, “Tomorrow we shall go to the market together.”
They set off, the father riding on the donkey and his son walking alongside. People cried out: “Have you seen that heartless man travelling on a donkey whilst his son walks!”
The next day, they did the opposite. This time, they heard people say: “What an ill-mannered child! He lets his father walk while he rides!”
On the third day, the two of them walked, pulling the donkey behind them. People said, “How silly of them not to use their mount!”
The next day, they rode the donkey, and the indignant onlookers pitied the poor beast for the burden it had to bear.
When they finally arrived in the village, carrying the donkey on their backs, people exclaimed: “Goodness, how foolish of them to carry the donkey instead of letting it carry them!”
“You see,” the father said, “how stupid people are! Do as you think best, and don’t listen to them.”
It happened out of the blue… I’m neither the first nor the last to be on the receiving end of the algorithms, for no particular reason.
Since when do you need a smartphone to access social media? And how does that prove you're not a bot anyway? As far as I know, ‘bot farms’ mainly operate on social zoos using SIM cards, don’t they?
After digging around on Reddit, I discovered that the so-called verification process via the X app requires a facial scan or a fingerprint scan, which, incidentally, still fails to unlock the accounts of thousands of people around the world.
As far as I’m concerned, going along with these demands is out of the question. They make social media virtually essential for content creators to gain visibility, and then they hold you to ransom over your biometric data. It’s the well-honed ‘foot-in-the-door’ technique.
And as you need to be able to access your account in order to delete it, I had to invoke Article 17 (on the right to be forgotten) and Article 12 (on the transparency of information and communications and the procedures for exercising data subjects’ rights) of the GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) to request the complete deletion of my account and my data on X.
Ultimately, it may well be a blessing in disguise, given the high level of toxicity on X, where everyone twists and takes facts out of context to make them fit their ideology (or propaganda) rather than reality, which is usually much more nuanced and rarely black and white. That, in fact, is the whole art of decontextualisation: justifying extremes in order to generate as much friction as possible and maximise loosh production.
And it’s not as if it made much difference to the visibility of my work. Whether here or elsewhere.
Nowadays, on major platforms such as Facebook, the organic (unpaid) reach of a post is less than 5%. In other words, if you have 100 followers, the algorithm will only show it to 4 or 5 people.
This explains why quantity and pre-packaged thinking prevail over quality and authenticity. Most social media users are unwilling to make the mental effort needed to engage in deconstruction and analysis whilst scrolling through their feed. Whereas artificial emotional triggers that flatter cognitive biases drive clicks and thus more ‘available brain time’ to serve ads. Put simply, on social media, it’s only quantity that brings in the money. Not quality.
That said, I’ve been writing for as long as I can remember. Long before personal computers and the internet even existed. As a university student, I would publish an international music fanzine—the paper-based precursor to blogs—produced with a simple typewriter, a pair of scissors and some glue. My printing and postage costs were covered by subscriptions, and any remaining copies were sold through independent record shops and by word of mouth. All the money was reinvested in producing my fanzine, and on top of that, I was able to meet my readers in real life.
In other words, seeing the numbers of my imaginary followers and ‘friends’ rack up more and more zeros is absolutely not what I’m after. They don’t know me from Adam and, let’s be honest, most are only looking to boost their own visibility rather than read what I write. I'm happy to leave this false sense of glory and recognition to all the great thinkers by proxy and I'm so pleased to have a few but genuine readers who read my articles by choice, rather than because an algorithm or an influencer has suggested they do so. A huge thank you to this handful of ‘explorers’ of the lesser-travelled paths for spreading the word and supporting my work.
Popularity is as fleeting as the wave it rides. Authenticity, on the other hand, is rooted in the depths, where the noise from the surface can no longer be heard.
AI: everyone knows what this acronym stands for by now. Since the introduction of ‘chatbots’, artificial intelligence has permeated our daily lives and become an integral part of them in just a few years. So much so that many are questioning the implications—and even expressing alarm about the future of humanity—in the face of the rapid, uncontrolled deployment of cutting-edge technology that remains largely misunderstood.
Artificial intelligence is going to change everything in the world, except
how men think and behave.
Warren Buffett
Meanwhile, our attention is deliberately diverted by other forms of invasion—more immediate and more vociferous, yet just as anxiety-inducing. The good old trick of distracting us from one thing by drawing our attention to another. The Matrix saturates our mental and physical space for one purpose alone: to prevent any breakthrough of the Spirit (flash of insight).
You’ve all seen at least one sci-fi movie in your life, or read dystopian
classics such as
Nineteen Eighty-Four,
Brave New World,
This Perfect Day and a couple of
Asimov’s stories—the list is by no means exhaustive. So there’s no need to explain
how technological advances serve human slaves just as much as their masters,
albeit to vastly different degrees.
Ghost in the Machine
Too much information running through my brain Too much information driving me insane
Today, this dangerous trend is no longer merely theoretical: it is creeping into classrooms where laziness has replaced effort, into our ears through a deluge of artificial music, and into our numbed minds, which no longer read but demand summaries of everything—just like that Gen Z influencer who publicly complained about books containing ‘too many words’.
The findings of the latest OECD PISA survey1 are unequivocal: we are facing a historic decline in young people’s reading comprehension and reasoning skills. Teachers see this on a daily basis: critical thinking is being delegated to algorithms, attention spans are dwindling, and cognitive laziness is taking hold.
This intellectual atrophy is by no means accidental; it goes hand in hand with the systematic destruction of what elevates us as human beings: art and nature. Both are essential to our mental balance.
But it's the same ‘logic’ everywhere: forests are cleared to make way for rows of solar panels or data centres; trees are replaced by surveillance camera poles; and centuries of human creativity are plundered to feed algorithms. The living world is destroyed and replaced with concrete, silicon and control.
And it is but a short step from the disfigurement of our natural environment to that of our cultural landscape: the machine is now striking at the heart of our entire creative ecosystem. In just a few years, platforms and social networks have been overwhelmed by a synthetic tidal wave: music churned out in vast quantities by plundering the voices and works of artists, whether signed to record labels or working independently; videos mass-produced ad nauseam with haphazard dubbing; images generated in two clicks… cultural theft is now global and unabashed.
Ghostwriters in the Shadows
On this moonlit night, my friend GPT
Lend me your quill to churn out an essay2
The publishing world is where the decline is most noticeable.
Every aspect is affected: algorithm-generated covers, shoddy machine translations, audiobooks read by bots... Publishers who still value the human touch now feel compelled to label their products as ‘human interpretation’. How long before we see ‘written (or translated) by a real person’ labels on books in our bookshops?
But there's worse to come: this ease of production gives rise to a host of ‘fake authors’ who, after typing in a few prompts, mistake the ability to generate text for a genuine calling to write books or poetry.
This system not only further reduces their tolerance for frustration by offering the illusion of immediate results (without the months or years of hard work that go into creating a genuine work), but also inflates their egos. Buoyed by the applause of a gullible audience, they delude themselves into thinking they are creators, when in fact all they do is operate a machine that they could not do without. Some are so trapped by their own pretence that they are unable to hold a live conversation or answer questions about their own books without outsourcing their thoughts to an algorithm first.
Intellectual Onanism and Hacked Prose
Dear Sir or Madam, will you read my book? It took me years to write, will you take a look? It's based on a novel by a man named Lear And I need a job, so I want to be a paperback writer
The price of this collective delusion is the systematic flooding of the self-publishing market. On Amazon, in particular, this ceaseless stream of soulless texts, published for prestige, profit, or both, stifles authentic creativity and drowns out emerging authors amid a cacophony of empty words.
In response to this invasion, the industry's safeguards are proving to be nothing but a farce: their so-called ‘AI detectors’ are just blind algorithms, incapable of distinguishing between synthetic prose and human-written text—to the point of classifying the US Constitution of 1787 as a machine-generated text3!
For aspiring writers, the consequences are twofold. Not only is their work lost in the mix, but overwhelmed publishing houses may also reject it after turning to these ‘detectors’ as a stopgap measure, lacking the time and resources to review every submission.
Playing Along or Being Played by ‘I’?
Can't you see anything on the horizon? Stranded souls who dropped anchor with their pens here And stopped writing...
Algorithms never doubt. They know neither the anxiety of a blank page nor the exhaustion of having bled to extract every word from the depths of our wounds. They merely calculate the most probable sequence, polishing the sentences with a veneer of unsettling perfection.
But is it really perfect? What is perfection? Don’t they say that ‘better is the enemy of good’?
What AI regurgitates after siphoning off our writers (and our artists) is nothing but a slick, soulless pastiche. After all, it's our imperfections, our rough edges, our wounds put into words and our words made flesh that contribute to our inimitable signature (what some, like Stephen King, call the ‘author’s voice’, and others the ‘vibrational signature’). The famous crack in everything through which the light gets in, as Leonard Cohen put it.
Writing is not simply a matter of recycling one’s cluttered thoughts by dumping them into a machine in the hope of giving them form, but rather a—often therapeutic—wrestling match with language. By outsourcing this effort, we abandon our most precious asset: critical thinking.
Whispering Isn't Playing
Anyway, I’d like to tell you That everything I’ve ever written I’ve drawn from the ink of your eyes
It is precisely this intimate connection that Stephen King describes in On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft. For him, writing is a form of telepathy that enables the same scene to be conjured up in the reader’s mind without direct communication. Whilst algorithms can certainly reproduce (rather than create) the form of a text, their lack of lived experience prevents them from capturing its essence.
Because AI feels nothing. And it is precisely in order to feel that people read. And write, too.
What about humour, puns, those double or triple meanings and other semantic twists—which, for me, have almost become a hallmark? I don’t think AI is capable of that. At any rate, not of genuine humour—the sort that enchants the mind, releases endorphins and neutralises negative energy, thereby lifting our spirits and freeing us from what weighs us down.
For genuine humour is a form of creative intelligence. It elevates us and brings us closer to our Spirit. After all, don't we say of those endowed with such humour that they are ‘witty’ or that they ‘have a sharp wit’?
For that to happen, AI would need to become capable of self-awareness, as Christelle Dabos, author of The Mirror Visitor, recently pointed out: “Perhaps it will have this capacity for spiritual awakening that we have failed to achieve, and perhaps it will transform itself into a great Buddha?”
I wouldn’t be that optimistic, but I wouldn’t dismiss the tool altogether. When I entrust it with the task of untangling the knots in my inconsistencies, it leaves me free to comb through the details and pick out the nits.
I love a challenge, and there’s no better fuel for dispelling the prevailing gloom than showing the machine what we’re made of.
Whispering isn't playing. We only get the upper hand by crowning our pieces. The machine will not replace humans… at least, not those who remain sovereign. The others? They will replace the machine. Look around you: it’s already happening.
As the late French comedian Coluche used to say, “You can’t make people blind without breaking their eyes”. Personally, I prefer omelettes—shells and all! Because, in the long run,
spending your life watching every word you say, polishing every sentence, and
strategically placing every comma with the right emojis, so as not to unleash
a tsunami among fragile egos, is exhausting.
You know, the ‘self-centred’ individuals who feel ‘under attack’ by the
slightest nuance of analysis, which they interpret as a full-scale assault on
their little egos. You see, they’re obviously important enough in your
‘no-life’ for you to devote all your energy and attention to targeting
them—you, the ‘agents of the Matrix’, the ‘know-it-alls’ or ‘whatever’, to
keep it short.
The very same people who, incidentally, have absolutely no qualms about
hammering their ‘truths’ home with all the delicacy of a 40-tonne lorry. It’s
actually the big trend these days on social media:
selective victimisation. The rule is simple: “I’ve got the right to criticise and trample all over your convictions, but
you don’t.” The reasoning is straight out of the school playground. What about
reciprocity? Never heard of it.
What a circus! And then there's the ringmaster. He runs the arena, makes the
announcements, preaches kindness and listening, but as soon as a performance
goes beyond compulsive ‘liking’, he wastes no time unleashing his beasts—his
armies of closed minds.
French singer Jacques Dutronc had it right: “Life is full of cacti. I pride myself on knowing it. Ouch! Ouch! Ouch!”
I hope you enjoy this deceptively light-hearted little song with its tangy
bite and the accompanying music video. I put my heart and soul into it without
any help from AI (apart from the music, of course).
Les Armées Psychorigides
Spending your life walking on eggshells Tiptoeing on self-righteous
egos Fragile Fragile
Beating about the bush Tying yourself up in knots Agile Agile
Out there on the web of social media On my feed, I come crashing down To
the muffled echoes of the void Of the armies of closed minds
Out there on the web of social media Viral posts scroll by, The
unwavering mantras Of the armies of closed minds
And on my tightrope Suspended above these bubbles Fragile Fragile
Always playing the acrobat Between humans and bots Hostile Hostile
Out there on the web of social media On my feed, I endure the
onslaught, The insidious ravings Of the armies of closed minds
Out there on the web of social media I watch the dance of egos From
free-thinkers to guides Of the armies of closed minds
Out there on the web of social media On my feed, I come crashing down To
the muffled echoes of the void Of the armies of closed minds
Out there on the web of social media Viral posts scroll by, The
unwavering mantras Of the armies of closed minds
As mentioned in my previous review, this new two-part series by Leigh Bardugo, also set in the Grishaverse, more than fulfils all the promises that the Grisha trilogy failed to fully deliver. Somewhat more than that, even. I absolutely love it!
The Six of Crows duology—whose title both refers to card games and the Crow Club, the gambling house run by Kaz Brekker—takes place two years after the events of the Grisha trilogy (unlike the Netflix TV series, which set them at the same time, whilst deviating significantly from the original storyline) and focuses primarily on Ketterdam, the capital of Kerch, an island nation inspired by the 19th-century Dutch Republic and, to a lesser extent, by New York (New Amsterdam), Las Vegas and Victorian London.
Leigh Bardugo, 2015 - Macmillan - 1059 pages
Welcome to the Crooked Kingdom
The underworld of Ketterdam is ruled by rival gangs. Kaz Brekker, the youngest and most ambitious player in the local mob, who combines intelligence, secrecy, charisma and danger, is best known for being a master thief. Willing to do anything for money, he is tasked by wealthy merchant Van Eck with rescuing a Shu scientist from the Ice Court, an unbreachable stronghold in Fjerda. The prisoner is the inventor of jurda parem, an extremely addictive and deadly drug that greatly enhances the abilities of Grishas. Should it fall into the wrong hands, it could have devastating consequences.
For this heist of a lifetime, in great Ocean’s Eleven style meets Game of Thrones (according to the author), Kaz aka Dirtyhands—quite an ironic nickname for someone who never takes his gloves off—starts recruiting his dream team: a spy who defies the laws of gravity, a runaway with a privileged past, a sharpshooter who can't walk away from a wager, a convict with a thirst for revenge, and a powerful Grisha.
The storytelling is structured around the different points of view of the Crows—a motley crew of battered teens who, at first glance, may have nothing in common, but are driven by a shared desire: taking revenge on life.
Crows remember human faces. They remember the people who feed them, who are kind to them. And the people who wrong them too.
Not only does such a narrative choice provide the essential psychological depth to understanding the characters and their interactions by allowing us to get inside their heads, it also enables the author to withhold certain details in order to preserve the element of surprise surrounding her many plot twists.
And despite these glimpses into their past and wounds, the story never loses momentum and maintains a brisk pace. For in Ketterdam, anything can be traded. Not just blows. People too.
When Everything and Everyone Has a Price
Ketterdam is, quite literally, a city built on trade, but one in which commercial logic ultimately comes to encompass even human beings.
Kerch had been built on trade, but how much of that trade had been the human kind?
Young Grishas, snatched from their families in their homeland by Kerch slave traders, are sold into brothels in Ketterdam; while others, fleeing the civil war in Ravka, get exploited in different ways, under the guise of contracts and unrepayable debts. And the more one pays, the more they believe they own the other person.
The Menagerie was one of the most expensive pleasure houses in the Barrel, but its customers were no kinder than those who frequented the dollar houses and alley girls. In some ways, Inej came to understand, they were worse. When a man spends that much coin, said the Kaelish girl, Caera, he thinks he’s earned the right to do whatever he wants.
A child unfit to take over the business empire? No problem: you get rid of them as if they were a faulty appliance and father a new one to replace them.
Sickening political correctness and corruption go hand in hand. Wealth breeds impunity. The Merchant Council governs in the name of prosperity, with the blessing of the gods. Any resemblance to our present-day society may not be entirely fortuitous.
A minister of Ghezen might stand at that altar and rail against slavery, but how much of this city had been built on taxes from the pleasure houses? How many members of his congregation employed boys and girls who could barely speak Kerch, who scrubbed floors and folded laundry for pennies as they worked to pay off a debt that never seemed to grow smaller?
In te, Domine
The gods in this series are not mere symbols. In the Grishaverse, every society has its own beliefs, and these can be used to justify behaviour that ultimately has little—if anything—sacred about it.
Thus, whilst in the Grisha trilogy Leigh Bardugo explored how faith could transform people into saints or monsters, in Six of Crows she pushes this much further by showing how beliefs can serve as a moral veneer for a deeply corrupt system.
Sacred is Ghezen and in commerce we see His hand.
Not only in Kerch, but also in Fjerda, where faith is used to breed and legitimise hatred.
What stands before you is the next generation of drüskelle, the holy order charged with protecting the sovereign nation of Fjerda by eradicating your kind.
In te, Domine. Who truly dominates? Djel through the Drüskelle, or the Drüskelle in the name of Djel to justify their savagery?
For hatred is a poison. A fiery blaze that consumes from within and requires constant nurturing, like an insatiable demon, forever demanding more offerings to keep it under control.
An illusory sense of control that traps you in a spiral of violence and pain until the vessel implodes. Hell is an inner prison that we hold within.
The Prisons We Hold Within
What wounds had his commanders exploited to put that look in his eyes?
Of all the things that hold us captive, hatred is rarely innate. It often stems from a wound that is exploited to fuel this dependence.
So as mentioned in my review of the Grisha Saga, behind the hatred for Grishas is envy, a sense of being deprived of something, and the need to destroy what one cannot possess: “What did it mean to aspire to serve Djel, only to see his power in the gifts of another, to know you could never possess those gifts yourself?”
And, of course, drugs as a literal poison—jurda parem, which alters perceptions and disrupts the body’s chemistry, ultimately destroying it.: “Once the drug has run its course, it leaves the Grisha’s body weakened and the craving is intense. It’s quite debilitating.”
But addiction does not arise solely from a poison, whether real or metaphorical, that enslaves the individual. One can also get hooked on something that momentarily gives them the impression of regaining control.
Thus, the characters spend their time trying to break free from something, whilst stuck in their own wounds, obsessions or needs, which they seek to numb or channel: violence for the gangs, gambling for Jesper, or revenge for Kaz. “Brekker, his Wraith queen, his rotten little court of thugs. A fearless breed, hard-eyed and feral, hungrier for vengeance than for gold.”
And, of course, the most powerful of them all: fear—particularly the fear of death.
Zoya used to say that fear is a phoenix. You can watch it burn a thousand times and still it will return.
No Mourners, No Funerals
The Crows' motto is a cynical reminder of their invisibility in the eyes of society. Outcasts who struggle to survive, against all odds, in the lawless grey areas of the underworld, and who, upon their death, are piled up like dregs onto a funeral barge.
We learn to hold our heads as if we wear crowns. We learn to wring magic from the ordinary. That was how you survived when you weren’t chosen, when there was no royal blood in your veins. When the world owed you nothing, you demanded something of it anyway.
“Stop treating your pain like it’s something you imagined”, Inej tells Jesper. “If you see the wound is real, then you can heal it.”
It is only by taking a clear look at the Real that we can free ourselves from the illusion.
Wounds and scars are not exclusive to the nobodies. Kings bear them too, as King of Scars—the title of the next instalment in the Grishaverse which I’ve only just started reading—already suggests.
New Age spirituality teaches us that we choose. That there's no such thing as
fate. That we are responsible for everything that happens to us. It calls this
‘empowerment’. A promise to reclaim our sovereignty, under which we are led to
believe that, since we are the cause of our own ‘misfortunes’, we also have
the power to ‘turn things around’.
In theory, it’s brilliant. But in practice, there’s a snag. A serious pitfall.
Indeed, assuming that we are living within a vast simulation—a structured
matrix rather than a cosmic accident—the idea that we are the architects of
our own programming is a futile illusion. A dead end that can only wear us
down in an endless loop. We are not the action; we are the reaction.
And whilst we struggle with guilt and discouragement, whilst we waste
considerable energy trying to ‘fix’ things, accepting our fate as ‘karma to be
paid off’—we are merely powering the dynamos of the system, like hamsters in
cages with invisible bars. In believing that we are working towards our
liberation, we are simply providing the emotional fuel—the famous
loosh—that keeps the simulation running.
On the one hand, some look for esoteric drama behind the slightest pain, in
order to peddle decoding and guilt. On the other hand, in reaction to this,
others prefer to reject all dogma, shifting to a cold, mechanical view in
which the body is nothing more than a vehicle needing an MOT, thereby denying
what science itself recognises about the links between mind, body and stress.
Moving from blind faith to the cynicism of a dehumanised engineer is by no
means a form of empowerment. Quite the contrary: it is simply swapping one
mask for another. Once again, extremes are nothing more than poles activated
to power the circuit. The Real lies elsewhere.
So what should we do?
Wrong question! Don’t wait for external solutions. Become aware and start
thinking for yourself. I know this is a worn-out cliché, but nothing is black
and white. So don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater on the pretext that
everything is corrupt.
Offering a turnkey method for flattering a spiritual ego or posing as a
spiritual guide would be a complete sham. In fact, I have no solutions to
offer you—only an observation. Providing you with set answers would mean
substituting myself for you and thereby fuelling the system. In the long run,
this could only be detrimental to both you and me.
Ultimately, trust yourself and let your own judgement sort things out.
This sorting doesn't involve your mind (which is itself a programme designed
to doubt and analyse), but your spirit. No need for meditation or lengthy
introspection. Mere fractions of a second of raw clarity that hit you like a
lightning strike and cut through the scene before the mind even has time to
step in and start decoding.
Dare to break out of your echo chambers to hear the silence of the Real.
In these troubled and uncertain times, most people are overwhelmed by
confusion and anxiety and no longer know who to turn to. This is a godsend for
self-proclaimed gurus of all kinds. Remember, there’s no shame in being
fooled. The key is to accept the times when we lose our way, and move on.
Move on, okay—but where to?
Moving from devoting ourselves to a spiritual figure or guru to relying on AI
to do the thinking for us, or rejecting New Age to embrace a new,
pseudo-scientific dogma, is by no means breaking free from control, but merely
changing the narrative or the master.
The question we need to ask ourselves is: have we really developed our own
discernment? Or have we simply swapped one crutch for another?
Also, when a dogma or an external tool begins to think for us, it always comes
with its own defence mechanism, labelling any criticism as ‘cognitive
dissonance’, ‘Matrix attack’, ‘egoic reaction’—or even 'animic'reaction'. And
ultimately, the individual refrains from examining the consistency of the
facts for fear of being ‘invalidated’.
But recognising a factual trap is neither a sign of victimhood nor of
cognitive dissonance: it is simply a matter of using common sense.
True autonomy does not lie in adopting complex jargon in order to create the
illusion of knowing, nor in redefining dictionary terms to suit one’s purpose.
It begins on the day when we no longer need any filter or third party—be it an
entity, an AI or a proprietary concept—to validate what we observe for
ourselves.
After suffering from a severe bout of literary indigestion caused by cheap, disposable domestic thrillers, immersing myself in Leigh Bardugo’s Grishaverse was truly delightful. This rich world, which I discovered through the Netflix series Shadow and Bone, comprises a trilogy and two duologies, along with a handful of short-story collections and a graphic novel. A fictional world largely inspired by early 1800s Europe—particularly Tsarist Russia as the model for Ravka, where most of the Grisha trilogy takes place.
Grisha are considered sorcerers, although they themselves refer to their gifts—which they call Small Science—as extensions of the natural world, since they cannot create anything, but only use and alter what already exists. Both feared and revered, they serve the war-ravaged kingdom, fighting in the Second Army under the command of the Darkling, a Shadow Summoner. Ravka is cursed. It is split in half from north to south by the Shadow Fold (or Unsea), a swath of malevolent darkness populated by monstrous creatures known as volcra, which feast on human flesh.
While crossing the Unsea with her First Army regiment to resupply the eastern part of the country—which has been cut off from its shipping ports—Alina, a young orphan and cartographer, discovers her power as a Sun Summoner while trying to save the life of her childhood friend, Mal. A discovery that will change her fate—and that of the entire nation—forever. For what do we do when faced with something we don’t understand? We either fear it, fight it… or turn it into an object of worship. And in the Grishaverse, these three different responses can sometimes overlap.
Leigh Bardugo, 2012 - Macmillan - 1248 pages
Otkazat'sya and Grisha
Alina goes from being an ordinary citizen to becoming a Grisha and discovers what goes on inside the Little Palace, where members of the Second Army—regarded as an elite force by the Ravkan masses—are trained and prepared.
One thing did stand out to me: the word the philosophers used to describe people born without Grisha gifts, otkazat’sya, “the abandoned.” It was another word for orphan.
Certainly, the term Otkazat’sya, used by Grisha to refer to the ‘ungifted’, speaks volumes about how this minority views the majority. But this distinction works both ways, thereby creating a grey area that allows for a better understanding of the motivations and stakes of both opposing forces. For while Grisha consider themselves a class apart, their difference also becomes, in the eyes of others, a source of mistrust and fear, even as defects to be eradicated: “When they were in their cups, some of the nobles made it clear they think all of the Grisha should be rounded up and executed.”
Except for Ravka (and for a very specific reason that I cannot reveal without spoiling the plot), reactions range from rejection to persecution, including exploitation, slavery, and human experimentation, but the underlying mechanism remains the same: the other becomes a thing simply because they are different—a difference that inspires both fear and envy.
Most rogue Grisha ended up in Novyi Zem. Aside from Ravka, it was the only place where they didn’t have to fear being experimented on by Shu doctors or burned by Fjerdan witchhunters. Even so, they had to be cautious about displaying their power. Grisha were valued slaves, and less scrupulous Kerch traders were known to round them up and sell them in secret auctions.
The Fjerdan Drüskelle take this logic to the point of absurdity by justifying their barbarism in the name of faith, even though their behavior contradicts the moral principles they claim to defend: “There are witchhunters who don’t eat animals, won’t wear leather shoes or kill a spider in their homes, but they’ll burn Grisha alive on the pyre.”
The Lives of Saints
But faith isn't just about targeting enemies. It can also produce saints. And when Alina herself becomes the object of a cult, the line between belief, devotion, and manipulation becomes much harder to define.
Peasants love their Saints. They hunger for the miraculous. And yet they do not love the Grisha.
Once again, the polarising clichés of good vs. evil and light vs. dark are brought to the fore. Alina becomes the chosen one, the object of a collective projection of hope, fear, faith, and a longing for miracles: “There is a fine line between fear and veneration.”
Ultimately, deifying a person is not so different from demonising them. In both cases, the human being disappears behind the symbol. This is illustrated by the account of the martyrdom of Sankt Ilya, who was drowned in the river by the villagers for bringing one of their own children back to life after a tragic accident while ploughing: “Maybe it was not just horror or righteousness that drove them, but anger as well.”
Likewise, this so-called devotion to Sankta Alina is also beginning to take on predatory overtones: “The bodies pressed tighter, pushing and shoving, shouting at each other, each wanting to get nearer. My feet lost contact with the ground. I cried out as a chunk of my hair was ripped from my scalp. They were going to tear me apart.”
Faith does not merely produce saints. It can also become a powerful means of mobilising crowds, for good or for ill, ultimately transforming sacrifice into a virtue and death into a reward. As the Apparat points out: “They will make war without fear and die rejoicing. There is no greater power than faith, and there will be no greater army than one driven by it.”
The Black Heretic
What is infinite? The universe and the greed of men.
The lust for power does not stem solely from those who lack it. Those who hold it may, too, come to crave more, as illustrated by the Darkling’s journey—a man whom injustice transformed into a blind avenger, to the point of committing acts from which there is no going back. At the outset, however, his intention was both honourable and legitimate: he wanted to protect the Grisha, who had long been persecuted and forced to live in fear: “We would be Ravkans, not just Grisha. That dream was the seed of the Second Army.”
But in his determination to protect his own, the line between defence and domination eventually became blurred. And when power over matter was no longer enough, the temptation was to draw upon what is forbidden: Merzost.
In Ravkan, the word for magic and abomination was the same. Basic Grisha theory stated that matter couldn’t just be created from nothing. But that was a tenet of the Small Science. Merzost was different, a corruption of the making at the heart of the world.
However, it would be too convenient to reduce the Darkling to the embodiment of darkness in direct contrast to the Sun Summoner. His journey is also that of a man shaped by persecution, fear and anger, who ultimately ends up replicating some of the very violence he sought to combat. And here, we can clearly see the extent to which fiction mirrors the reality of the Matrix. Suffering may explain actions, but it does not justify them.
Shadow and Bone
Behind its apparent contrast between light and darkness, the Grisha trilogy ultimately questions our relationship with power, difference and faith. It is, however, a pity that the romantasyelements and the heroine’s endless dithering all too often prevail over the rest of the plot, at the expense of its narrative flow.
The Darkling would also have benefited from deeper characterisation and a greater presence in the story. But my judgement is probably biased by Ben Barnes’s excellent performance in the TV adaptation, which, for once, does the story justice, even if it doesn’t always strictly follow it to the letter.
I also think that combining the Grisha trilogy with the Six of Crows duology was a brilliant idea, even though Netflix ultimately decided to cancel the series after two seasons. Fortunately, Six of Crows—which I’m currently reading—fulfils all the promises that the Grisha trilogy failed to fully deliver.
In order to cope with its hosting costs, the Crowdbunker platform decided, without prior notice, to clean up its servers and remove videos that aren't financially supported. From an economic perspective, this decision is logical. However, it's difficult to deal with when you create content for free and then have to pay to host it.
Given that this isn't possible for me, I find myself with my back against the wall. So I simply pointed out that volunteer work already takes up a considerable amount of time, and that this situation raised a real question about the sustainability of what we share.
And then, surprise! Instead of a constructive exchange, here’s the completely off-the-wall response I received:
“Well, your personal life is going to be swept under the rug then! If you even have one, that is! Everyone decides how to manage their own time as they see fit. You could also sell all your belongings, your home if you have one, go begging, and flagellate yourself… At some point, I think it’s good to find a balance for yourself… Have a nice day.”
Just look at the reaction—which doesn't even try to be funny—consisting of twisting the other person's words, attacking them over their private life, and politely explaining that they have “an issue with balance” or “no life.” Always the same old story of that damned pot calling the kettle black.
From Audiard’s “jerks who’ll stop at nothing” to Dirty Harry’s “opinions are like assholes” (sorry for the vulgarity, I’m just quoting)—I’d rather picture myself as Obelix when he sees Roman soldiers. After all, if you hand me a whip to flagellate myself…
Don't worry, I remained polite and called him out on his hypocrisy by wishing him a good day as well (which I hope matched his level of crassness).
A classic case of apparent kindness that, in reality, masks deep toxicity and a form of unhealthy self-absorption.
This kind of cruel cynicism reflects a desperate need to believe that life is “fair” and that if somebody struggles, it must be their own fault. It’s a way of reassuring themselves about their own lot by belittling others.
People like this often claim to be system-resistant, spiritual, or awake. Yet, beyond forms and feelings, their cold judgment and total lack of empathy carry the same vibrational signature as the very predation they pretend to be fighting.
And of course, pointing this out to them will inevitably brand you as someone who’s oversensitive and imagining things. Unbeatable! There’s even a term for this particular kind of manipulation: “gaslighting.”
True balance (since he brought it up) doesn't mean imposing your definition of success on others. It begins with respecting each person’s path, with no judgment and no false compassion.
Sharp words may indeed reopen old wounds, but they do not cut through the fog of ignorance.
The light of your spirit, however, needs no eclipse to shine.
During this brief summer break, I'd like to share a yummy, healthy, low-calorie recipe you can make at home without an ice cream maker. Trust me, it’s absolutely delicious!
Ingredients
Makes 8-10 servings:
Ice cream
- 150 g cashews - 90 ml coconut cream (21% fat content) - 20 g coconut oil - 1½ tbsp peanut butter - 1½ tbsp agave syrup
Coating
- 125 g dark chocolate - 1-2 tbsp coconut oil
Instructions
Soak cashews overnight or for at least an hour in boiling water, then drain well.
Transfer to a mixing bowl or blender jug with the other ingredients and blend for several minutes until you have a smooth, creamy consistency that is not runny.
Pour into silicone moulds and leave to set in the freezer for a couple of hours.
Melt chocolate in a double boiler. Add oil to make it smooth and runny.
Unmould ice cream lollies and dip thoroughly in chocolate coating. Use a fork to drain and place on a sheet of baking paper.
Wait a few minutes for the chocolate to set completely, then put them right back in the freezer.
It’s best to take them out at least 15 minutes before serving.
NOTE: Feel free to adapt the recipe by trying other flavours. Personally, I’ve tried praline (using hazelnut purée) and coffee (using strong coffee), but definitely have a preference for the toffee-like flavour of peanut butter.
As for moulds, I’ve also tested different shapes and sizes, and it turns out that the cereal bar ones are the most convenient for me, since I don’t have any proper popsicle moulds with wooden sticks.
Thirteen valleys lying silent in the haze, Filled with promises And spirits that we raised. But the spirits all are ghosts Of the ones we hurt the most And they wander thirteen valleys crying out.
Considered ill-fated by some and magical by others, the number 13 undeniably carries strong occult symbolism.
For alchemists, it can turn lead (Saturn) into gold (Sun), matter into light.
Kabbalists associate it with the Hebrew letter Mem, the Great Mother or Mater—matter.
As for taromancers, it corresponds to the Card with No Name (related to Scorpio, believed to cover part of the thirteenth hidden sign of the zodiac). In modern versions of the Tarot of Marseilles, it is the Death card, which stands for nothing more than a change of state, a transformation—and, for occultists, purification.
To put it more simply, today (Transfiguration Day) marks the thirteenth anniversary of this blog. Having completed a twelve-year cycle of observing the mechanisms of illusion, reaching the thirteenth year is by no means a coincidence. It is the exact moment when you finally break the cycle, transforming leaden beliefs into golden silence—the voice of your spirit.
But thirteen is also the number of muscles it takes to smile—as opposed to forty-seven needed to frown.
Perhaps that is where the real treasure lies: observing the theatre of this world with the light-heartedness of those who are no longer falling for it.
Modern technology has reached a point where anything can easily be falsified. Indeed, even experts sometimes find it hard to discern what is real from what has been generated by artificial intelligence.
In everyday life, apart from social media—where fewer people are truly who they claim to be—you can all too easily be deceived. Not only by gurus or scammers, but also by manipulators, narcissists, or false friends.
However, there is a sure way to know who you’re really dealing with: the vibrational signature. It is recognised not by what you see, hear or feel, but solely by its vibration.
New Age circles are full of talk about raising frequencies, high vibrations, vibratory rates and vibrational signatures, often mixing up these terms as if they were all pretty much the same thing. So let’s set the record straight: your signature is not a frequency.
Vibration is the oscillatory motion of an object around a fixed point. Think of a guitar string being plucked: the motion of the string produces a vibration.
Frequency is the rhythm, pace, or beat of this vibration—the number of cycles of this periodic phenomenon per unit of time. For example, 440 Hz corresponds to 440 oscillations per second. This is the frequency of the note A. If the string vibrates slowly, you get a low-pitched note. If it vibrates quickly, the note will be high-pitched. The same applies to colours, where high frequencies produce cool colours and low frequencies produce warm colours.
Finally, a wave is the carrier through which vibrations and frequencies are propagated through a given environment.
As for amplitude—often wrongly referred to as the ‘vibratory rate’—this is the intensity of the resonance. The harder you pluck the string, the greater the difference between the maximum and mean positions on the vertical scale will be, producing a powerful sound. However, the number of cycles per second will remain unchanged, as the string will always vibrate at the same speed (or frequency).
And what about the vibrational signature?
It is the unique structure or pattern that defines an individual or an entity. A unique energy imprint.
This signature remains relatively stable. However, the frequencies it resonates with may vary depending on the individual’s condition, their emotions, environment or the influences they are exposed to.
Entities may mimic form, voice or behaviour, but they cannot conceal or falsify their vibrational signature. It is their hallmark, a subtle imprint that remains unaltered and recognisable to those able to read it.
That is why it is essential to train yourself to perceive the energy beyond all appearances and forms. For discernment, do not rely on your senses or first impressions.
Reading vibrational signatures is something you learn through practice. The secret to achieving pure perception relies on three basic principles:
1. Neutral observation
Do not get attached to or fixate on either form or discourse. Instead, focus on the density and consistency of the whole.
2. Stable presence
When you maintain a calm, non-judgmental focus, you create a natural alignment—an inner coherence that acts as a revealer. As soon as the form or discourse sounds false, this coherence is immediately lost.
3. No backstory
Don’t believe anything, ignore the stage setting, look at the structure. Just as software recognises a file’s signature regardless of its name, your presence recognises the quality of a consciousness even before your mind processes the words.
In order to develop your ability to read vibrational signatures, you must remain centred. In silence and with full awareness. That's when your spirit fills the whole space for a microsecond, before the emotions and beliefs injected by the simulation have even had a chance to create an impression. The so-called flash of insight.
This flash of insight might, for instance, make you notice a fleeting shadow in someone's eyes, a brief dissonance in their laughter, or a glitch in the tone of their voice…
Masks shift—signatures stay.
⚠️ Important note:
This video is back online after having been removed, a couple of months ago. I have suppressed all borrowed material, despite it having been properly credited and shared with the author's permission. I've also added some important clarifications about the fundamental distinction between frequency, vibration and vibratory rate—terms whose confusion is often deliberately maintained by those who benefit from it.
I encourage you to start following me on Crowdbunker (or Odysee) from now on, as from September 1st, I will no longer publish on platforms that require age verification.
Lately, I’ve been seeing a lot of social media posts from spiritual or supraconscious people expressing their 'I-don't-give-a-crap' about the matrix, its scripts, their persona, their emotional ties… whilst promoting emotional neutrality.
And these posts are generally wildly embraced by commenters eager to say that they, too, couldn’t care less.
Fair enough, they have every right to think so, and that's alright, I'd be tempted to say.
Except that hardly anyone seems to notice the huge paradox here: if you are so completely detached from the simulation, where does the urge to post almost daily to share this state of being come from? Wouldn't this be simply a quest for validation?
Also, whether you care about something or choose to ignore it has nothing to do with neutrality. These are two polarities stemming from the concept of attention.
Duality is the very fabric of the matrix. It cannot be ignored. Thus, neutrality is not about switching from one pole to the other or denying the concept, but simply about keeping all the sliders in the middle.
After all, shouting from the rooftops that you don’t care about the movie—that's still a way of playing your part in it, isn’t it?
Spiritual circles and so-called supramental movements both harbour a
formidable pitfall: they tend to substitute vibrational do’s and don’ts for
traditional religious dogmas.
Under the guise of deprogramming, some consciousness gurus advocate the
adoption of absolute austerity. We are taught to reject nature, which is
presented as an illusion; to turn off music; to banish movies; and even to
refrain from saying ‘I love you’ since love supposedly does not exist in this
density.
But just look at the result: instead of liberating humanity, this system
creates cold individuals, disconnected from life, and trapped in a new
conceptual cage.
It strangely reminds me of some evangelical channel where people would share
their experiences and explain how everything is copyrighted by Satan—music,
yoga, cinema, art…—and that you ought to put your life in the hands of Jesus
in order to be saved.
Just replace the names of Satan and Jesus with those of New Age or
supraconscious figures, and you get exactly the same scenario of spiritual
capture.
For as long as humans keep failing to own themselves, other structures will
seek to possess them through the promise of delivering them from their
predator.
But in reality, the struggle between good and evil is merely the horizontal
dimension of the manipulation. Above this duality, a vertical dimension is at
play: a genuine triality; a third party who no longer seeks to recycle
consciousness ad infinitum on the wheel of Samsara through endless wear, but
to take permanent possession via some deceptive escape route.
So let's keep that in mind: the enemies of our enemies are not necessarily our
friends, but merely cattle rustlers. And that cattle is us. At least, as long
as we keep failing to fully embrace our sovereignty.
True sovereignty doesn't mean numbing yourself to the world, but navigating it
without allowing it to possess you. Spirit doesn't try to avoid the stage set;
it passes right through it.
We're encouraged to stay away from polarities, but heat and cold are two
extremes on the same axis. Anger and hatred remain low vibrations, whether hot
or cold. You don't achieve neutrality or non-polarity through coldness or
rigidity. That's just moving the slider to the opposite end of the scale.
Centredness is not about going blank or numb. It's about bringing all the
sliders back to the middle. It's about being able to observe the stage without
any bias, to listen with complete objectivity, and to love consciously,
without rigidity.
Words are just tools meant for the mind; they can never make up for the silent
message from your own spirit. So you don't want to trade one prison cell for
another. Clear your space by filling it with presence, and let that silence
grow deafening.
With every major bestseller comes a host of copycats, eagerly welcomed by
publishers to keep the presses running whilst the hype lasts. Especially
when Hollywood jumps on the trend. So, after the plethora of wizards and
vampires spawned by the Harry Potter and
Twilight phenomena, the hype has now shifted to fast-read
domestic thrillers—inspired by Freida McFadden’s international bestseller
The Housemaid (also a major feature film)—stepping into the
breach she opened up.
The sincerest form of flattery is imitation, right?
Count My Lies, Sophie Stava (2025)
If only it added some additional value to the blueprint; a
touch of originality to the tropes; and a dash of substance to the archetypes.
It would be too much to expect, as fast reading obviously implies quick
writing. At least based on the five thrillers I’ve recently wolfed down—I
know, I just couldn’t help myself.
Guidelines
Imagine a ready-made template for novels, like the visual templates provided by some graphic
design platforms online. All you would need to do is fill in the placeholders
using a list of preset tropes: motifs, recurring themes, typical situations,
relationship dynamics, character archetypes, plot structures, narrative
techniques, storytelling conventions, and so on… And there you have it—a
bestseller that you may even turn into a series (just like
The Housemaid and The Perfect Marriage) to double the jackpot and keep topping the bestseller list of the Amazon
jungle, for as long as BookTokers are on your side.
1. Book Presentation
Pick a title that's simple, short and archetypal, along with a somewhat
clickbait-y tagline.
The Housemaid: "From behind closed doors, she sees everything." (Freida McFadden,
2022)
Count My Lies: "I'm your friend. But can you trust me?" (Sophie Stava, 2025)
The Waitress: "I was watching him. But he was watching me." (K.L. Slater, 2024)
The Perfect Marriage: "His mistress is dead. His wife is his only hope." (Jeneva Rose,
2020)
The Perfect Divorce: "Till death do us apart. Yours. Not mine." (Jeneva Rose, 2025)
Go for a simple, symbolic front cover design featuring a keyhole, a styrofoam
cup, wedding rings, a comb and a pair of scissors… but keep the colour scheme
to no more than two or three different shades.
2. Style
Preferably write in the present tense, in the first person, and alternate
characters’ points of view.
Although the basic idea is not a bad thing, it does have a few pitfalls when
the murderer takes part in the storytelling and certain details that might
give away the final twist need to be left out. However, authors tend to focus
too much on throwing red herrings while failing to provide genuine clues or
subtle psychological details as well. As a result, attentive readers, who could not
possibly have seen this coming (unless they figured out the underlying
mechanics), invariably feel betrayed by the far-fetched deus ex machina twist
in the final act. That's the fly in the ointment.
Oddly enough, in The Waitress, only the lead character speaks in the first person. Which breaks the
natural flow of the storytelling. This is even more noticeable in the audio
version, where all three points of view are read by the same voice
actress unlike in other similar audiobooks with multiple points of view.
Use short sentences, as you would in a screenplay or dialogue prompt. Avoid
metaphors, semantic fields, and overly literary phrasing as your target
audience might otherwise lose interest. What’s more, it will be all the easier
to adapt for film or television.
Incidentally, a TV series is in the pipeline for Count My Lies. And The Perfect Marriage is currently being adapted for the
silver screen.
3. Characters
Your lead characters must be in the same age group as your target audience,
namely firmly in their thirties. Not too young, as many tropes common to the
genre—such as marriage, property, careers, complicated divorces and
established neighbourhoods—wouldn’t work; nor too old, for the main
characteristic of ‘youth culture’ primarily involves trapping people’s minds
in illusory bubbles of timelessness, which are ultimately bound to eventually burst.
Readers should be able to relate and think: “This could be me”. Turning
everyday life into a source of anxiety is the very principle of domestic
thrillers.
First, it was the smell, the dead giveaway of the Chanel No.5, so classic,
so expected. This is matched with the monochrome outfit adorning her
well-maintained figure. Not a shred of personality in her outward
appearance, which itself tells you everything you need to know about her.
Her features are hard and are kept in place by routine visits to a plastic
surgeon, but the kind who does a superb enough job that only a well-trained
eye can even tell that the skin isn’t 100 percent natural. The entire
entrance is punctuated by the final click of a black Manolo Blahnik heel
(never Louboutin’s, “red is ostentatious”), announcing that she is here and
ready for her proper allotment of attention, which by normal tally is all of
it.
The Perfect Marriage, Jeneva Rose (2020)
Inject a touch of glamour with a strong emphasis on luxury and good looks,
which are more important than character depth. Don’t hold back on glitz and
glam, and don’t forget to remind readers just how incredibly hot husbands or
lovers are. Lust makes up for loss, and it's important for the narcissistic
mindset to hear that often.
Be sure to overdo on stereotypes: negligent cops who aren’t exactly bright;
sloppy coroners who’ve never heard of such a thing as DNA; abnormally
well-behaved, docile kids who do exactly as they’re told at all times…
4. Final Tips
When you tell the truth—at least, if the truth is boring, which it almost
always is—people begin to fidget, their eyes glazing as their attention
wanes. Eventually, they realize, snapping to with a sheepish Oh, I’m sorry,
what were you saying?, trying to feign interest.
Count My Lies, Sophie Stava (2025)
Once all the ingredients have been added, spread them out in the mould and
give it a final twist at the end of the cooking process. If the mix is too
thick, dilute it with irrelevant trivial details.
Also, do not hesitate to retell the same events from the other characters’ perspectives. It creates the impression that there are hidden clues, while saving you the trouble of having to plant any real ones.
Ethics Go Rat-a-Tat
The bully forgets they’re a bully. The victim never does.
One of Us Is Dead, Jeneva Rose (2023)
As I pointed out in
a previous article on Freida McFadden, “the most disturbing aspect is undoubtedly the moral ambiguity of all her
characters, which tends to normalise borderline personality disorder and
manipulation as the standard way of relating to others.” And the everyone’s-a-psychopath or borderline trope comes up
consistently, to varying degrees, in all the books mentioned above. This is
particularly true of Jeneva Rose, who seems to take perverse delight in
allowing the triumph of deviant ethics with total impunity.
You certainly do not want to show manipulators and psychopaths in a bad light.
After all, we ought to help shift the
Overton window
in favour of a completely dehumanised, predatory society governed by Ahrimanic
Intelligence, just as Rudolf Steiner prophesied. Some like to call it
‘alternative’, but what kind of alternative are we actually talking about?
The liar, the cheat who tried to ruin my life. It's all over for him. For me,
it's only just beginning.
The Waitress, K.L. Slater (2024)
Fundamentally, the reason these kinds of books are so popular is mainly because our souls get bored with the numbing routine of everyday life and long to experience the thrill of danger and the unexpected—without any consequences.
When we're saturated with information, we no longer have the desire to engage in deep thought, because everything brings us back to this distressing world. So we find comfort in the tales we tell ourselves, and these stories tell us in turn. Ultimately, vicarious fear allows us to gain perspective on our concerns and defuse our own fears.
FR
