Newspaper Reader.
Oct 21, 2025
The Reader has to wonder at The Economist being outdone by the Guardian !
Headline: The antichrist has long haunted American politics. Now it’s rearing its head again
Sub-headline: From Silicon Valley to Michigan, the biblical figure is in the headlines. The shift from pulpits to politics is familiar – and dangerous
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/oct/13/antichrist-peter-thiel-michigan
Let’s recall that Thiel believes:
July 4, 2025 :
Can The New Citizens, like Peter Thiel, associated with Asperger’s syndrome, a form of autism, now present an opportunity to view humanity within another frame? ‘The Straussian Moment’ is now superceded by men who are attached to how their brain functions, as outside ‘the norm’. ?
https://www.ft.com/content/82774b98-965d-4ed8-9876-cd250ed1448c
Political Observer.
Culture | Apocalypse now
The Antichrist: he’s back!
Evidence of him is everywhere—or so says Peter Thiel
Oct 16th 2025
https://www.economist.com/culture/2025/10/16/the-antichrist-hes-back
Editor: The first paragraph of this hysterical diatribe expresses the Oxbridger animus toword Greta Thunberg, twice! She a victim of Israel torture! Such is the way of a news magazine still attached to ghost of Walter Bagehot. An quotes from The Book Of Revelation and the final perenthetical smartssery !
The Book of Revelation, for some reason, forgot to mention Greta Thunberg. In its barnstorming final book, the Bible limns what will happen when the apocalypse arrives: earthquakes, sinister horsemen, and hail and fire mingled with blood. But now, in Silicon Valley, new words are being added to those ancient prophecies. Some say that the footsoldiers of the Antichrist are already here—and that they include Ms Thunberg, a Swedish activist, as well as “Brussels bureaucracy”. (For who has stood in a passport queue in Belgium and not felt that the End Times were upon them?)
Editor: Its hard to be patient with this collection of chatter! Reader resort to the final paragraphs of this essay, if you bear the cost to your patience and forbearance!
The Antichrist also appeals because the devil is so devilishly appealing, as generations of artists who have attempted to capture the glory of God—and ended up accidentally glorifying Satan—have found. Lots of people may find that, like John Milton, they are “of the Devil’s party without knowing it”. Had Mr Thiel given an open talk on how AI’s benefits might be lost by overzealous regulation, it would have been all but ignored. To give a secret talk is, he said, “a pretty good marketing shtick”; throw in the Antichrist and it is irresistible.
Accusations of Antichrist activity are also impossible to disprove. Mr Bostrom does not look much like an agent of the Antichrist (he is wearing a green cardigan). But, as he says, with a smile that it would be churlish not to describe as devilish, “You never know what I’m up to when I switch off the camera.”
These days such charges are notably unfashionable. Early Christian writings seethed with hallucinogenic apparitions, with demons appearing as lions, horned beasts and naked women. St Augustine’s “City of God” is also a city of demons. (The theologian didn’t take ketamine, unlike some tech types.) But ghouls became uncool in the Enlightenment as people sought rational explanations of evil.
Now, demons are on the march again: look at Google’s Ngram viewer, which tracks the usage of words, and mentions of the Antichrist rise steadily after 2000. Perhaps this is proof that this is an age of the Antichrist—or perhaps it is proof that this is an age of anti-Enlightenment thinking. That, even to the most rational mind, may feel a little apocalyptic.
Editor: Let me recommend this book:
Chapter 7 : ‘Not a Stone Left Standing’
The Second Epistle to the Romans , 1922
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