From Moloch to Modernity

Carl Gustav Jung's teachings on the shadow psyche provide a profound lens for understanding the corruption inherent in unchecked authority. The shadow, as Jung described in works like Psychology and Alchemy and Aion, represents the repressed, unconscious aspects of the personality—primitive instincts, taboo desires, and moral failings that the ego denies or projects onto others. When individuals attain absolute power, this shadow emerges unchecked, manifesting as destructive behaviors. Jung warned that failing to integrate the shadow leads to psychological imbalance, where the powerful project their inner darkness outward, exploiting the vulnerable to affirm their superiority. In elites, this unacknowledged shadow fosters narcissism and depravity, turning repressed urges into ritualized acts of dominance. As Jung noted, "Everyone carries a shadow, and the less it is embodied in the individual's conscious life, the blacker and denser it is." This dynamic explains how power corrupts: it amplifies the shadow, eroding empathy and normalizing atrocities.

The adage "absolute power corrupts absolutely," coined by Lord Acton in 1887, encapsulates a profound psychological truth about human nature. When individuals or groups attain unchecked authority, the restraints of morality, empathy, and societal norms often erode, leading to increasingly depraved behaviors. This corruption manifests not merely in greed or tyranny but in the exploitation of the most vulnerable, often through acts that defy basic human decency. Throughout history, this pattern is evident in the worship of gods like Moloch, who demanded child sacrifice; in the excesses of Roman emperors who preyed on infants and children; and in the contemporary "Epstein class"—a term denoting the network of wealthy, influential figures implicated in pedophilic activities, echoing ancient rituals of power through exploitation. The cult of Moloch emerges from the ancient Near East, particularly among the Canaanites and Phoenicians around the 2nd millennium BCE. Moloch, often depicted as a bull-headed deity, was associated with fire and fertility but infamous for requiring child sacrifice as an offering for prosperity, victory, or divine favor. Biblical texts, such as Leviticus 18:21 and 2 Kings 23:10, condemn the practice of "passing children through the fire" to Moloch in the Valley of Hinnom near Jerusalem. Archaeological evidence from sites like Carthage, a Phoenician colony, supports this: tophets, or sacred precincts, contain urns with the charred remains of infants and young children, often accompanied by inscriptions dedicating them to the god (or his Punic equivalent, Baal-Hammon). These sacrifices were not random acts of barbarism but ritualized expressions of power. Rulers and elites, seeking to secure their dominance, offered their own offspring—or those of the lower classes—to appease the deity, believing it would grant them invincibility. Psychologically, this reflects Acton's premise: absolute power, embodied in kings who could demand such horrors, corrupted societal values, normalizing the unthinkable as a path to greater control.

Similar gods across ancient cultures underscore this pattern. In Mesopotamia, the god Nergal demanded human sacrifices, including children, during times of war or plague to affirm royal authority. Among the Aztecs, Huitzilopochtli required child hearts to sustain the sun, with emperors like Montezuma overseeing mass rituals where thousands perished. These deities served as proxies for earthly power structures, where leaders, elevated to god-like status, indulged in atrocities to maintain their grip. The psychological mechanism is clear: unchecked authority desensitizes individuals to empathy, fostering a narcissism that views others—especially the powerless—as mere instruments. As power concentrates, moral boundaries dissolve, leading to escalating depravity. In these cults, child sacrifice symbolized ultimate control, a defiance of natural instincts that reinforced the ruler's supremacy.

This corruption reached grotesque heights in the Roman Empire, where emperors wielded near-divine power, often descending into pedophilic excesses. The Julio-Claudian dynasty provides stark examples. Tiberius (r. 14–37 CE), successor to Augustus, retreated to Capri, where ancient historians like Suetonius and Tacitus describe a villa of horrors. Suetonius, in The Twelve Caesars, alleges Tiberius trained infants, whom he called his "little fishes," to perform oral acts on him while swimming, treating them as playthings for his gratification. This was not isolated; Tiberius reportedly assembled groups of young boys and girls for orgies, forcing them into acts that blurred lines between pleasure and torture. His absolute power—immune to Senate oversight or public accountability—allowed such indulgences, corrupting not just him but his court, where sycophants enabled the abuse to curry favor.

Caligula (r. 37–41 CE), Tiberius's successor, amplified this depravity. Sources like Suetonius claim he incestuously abused his sisters and prostituted noble children, viewing them as extensions of his imperial whims. Nero (r. 54–68 CE) allegedly castrated a young boy, Sporus, to "marry" him as a replacement for his deceased wife, parading the child in female attire. These acts were not mere rumors; they were documented by contemporaries as symptoms of imperial madness. The psychological corruption is evident: Roman emperors, deified in life, lost all sense of humanity. Power's isolation bred paranoia and hedonism, where exploiting children became an assertion of omnipotence, much like Moloch's sacrifices. In Rome , the cult was not to a god but to the emperor's ego, with pedophilia serving as a ritual of dominance over innocence, mirroring ancient offerings but personalized to the ruler's desires.

The Hadrianic era offers further parallels. Emperor Hadrian (r. 117–138 CE), while celebrated for his Hellenism, was accused of pederasty with young boys, including his favorite Antinous, whom he deified after death. Though less explicit than Tiberius's acts, it highlights how power normalized exploitation. These emperors' behaviors were enabled by a system where slaves and lower-class children had no rights, their bodies commodified for elite pleasure. The corruption extended beyond individuals; it permeated society, with laws like the Lex Scantinia nominally prohibiting pederasty but rarely enforced against the powerful. Thus, absolute imperial power created a de facto cult of abuse, where the vulnerable were sacrificed to sustain the ruler's god-like facade.

Today, the "Epstein class" represents a latter-day incarnation of this corruption—a shadowy network of the ultra-wealthy and influential who, like ancient Moloch worshippers and Roman emperors, exploit minors and even infants under the guise of untouchable power. Coined in reference to Jeffrey Epstein, the financier convicted in 2008 for procuring underage girls and who died in 2019 amid further allegations, this "class" includes figures like the former Prince Andrew and many others linked to Epstein's island, Little St. James, where trafficking and abuse allegedly occurred. Court documents from Epstein's cases reveal a web of private jets, lavish parties, and coerced encounters with girls as young as 14, often recruited under false pretenses of modeling or massage work. More disturbingly, allegations extend to even younger victims, with some claims involving infants in ritualistic contexts, though these remain unproven in court.

Epstein's operation bore cult-like elements: initiation through blackmail (via hidden cameras), loyalty enforced by wealth, and a hierarchy where the powerful preyed on the weak. Ghislaine Maxwell, his accomplice convicted in 2021, facilitated this, much like Roman courtiers enabling emperors. The psychological premise holds: absolute power, here economic and social rather than political, corrupts by insulating individuals from consequences. Epstein's associates—billionaires, politicians, scientists—operated in a bubble where laws bent to their will, echoing Moloch's tophets or Tiberius's Capri. Recent revelations, such as the 2023 unsealing of Epstein documents naming over 150 individuals, expose how this class allegedly engaged in pedophilic acts, including with minors and, in extreme claims, babies, as symbols of ultimate dominance.

Parallels abound. Just as Moloch demanded child sacrifice for prosperity, the Epstein class allegedly traded youth for networking and pleasure. Roman emperors' oral exploitation of infants finds echoes in modern allegations against figures like Epstein, where power's corruption manifests in sexual deviance. This is not mere hedonism but a psychological descent: unchecked authority fosters entitlement. In today's context, globalization and technology amplify this—private islands replace temples, encrypted communications supplant imperial decrees—yet the core remains: power corrupts by eroding moral inhibitions.

When the connection between Roman Emperor Caligula, Donald Trump, and the Jeffrey Epstein case is examined together, a chilling continuity emerges: the rule of law has been suspended, morality has evaporated, and impunity has become normalized. Caligula deliberately devalued the Senate and laws, reducing them to mere decoration while deriving legitimacy from fear, spectacle, and arbitrary cruelty rather than justice. Trump, in the era of show-business politics, hollows out democratic institutions—judiciary, media, elections—by declaring them illegitimate, sustaining power through perpetual crisis and scandal that energizes rather than destroys. The Epstein case transcends individual crime, revealing a structural choice: decades of unpunished trafficking and abuse, enabled by tacit alliances between elite power and criminal networks, where relationships with the powerful produced no legal consequences. Across these eras, shame loses its function, scandal normalizes rather than punishes, victims are rendered invisible, and power endures precisely because it no longer conceals its violations. Caligula, Trump, and Epstein thus represent faces of the same regime—one where law exists but does not bind, morality persists yet holds no force, and unaccountability becomes the ultimate safeguard of dominance. History warns that power grows most dangerous when it ceases to hide.

Broader examples reinforce this. Harvey Weinstein's Hollywood empire involved abusing young actresses, while NXIVM's Keith Raniere ran a sex cult exploiting women and branding them. The Catholic Church scandals, involving pedophilic priests shielded by institutional power, mirror ancient priesthoods offering children to gods. In politics, figures like Dennis Hastert, former U.S. House Speaker convicted of abusing boys, illustrate how authority conceals depravity, and how known pedophiles are appointed to high office, as they are easily controlled through the threat to reveal incriminating evidence. The Epstein class thus extends beyond one man, representing a systemic corruption where the elite form a modern cult, sacrificing innocence on the altar of influence.This psychological trajectory—desensitization, narcissism, depravity—transcends eras, warning that without restraint, the powerful will always devour the weak. Society must heed this, dismantling such cults through justice and humility, lest history repeat its darkest chapters.

In the modern context, the roots of the Epstein class trace back to the Italian-American mafia's blackmail of FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover over his homosexuality in the mid-20th century. Incriminating evidence, including photos, was gathered by mafia lawyer Roy Cohn, himself a closeted homosexual, who later became Donald Trump's mentor, imparting lessons in denial, aggression, and manipulation. This alliance shielded organized crime from federal scrutiny, embedding mafia tactics into elite circles.

During WWII, Allied intelligence services collaborated with Sicilian and Corsican mafias to facilitate invasions, forging enduring ties between governments and criminal syndicates. Post-war, Meyer Lansky's Jewish mafia aided in the ethnic cleansing of Palestine during Israel's formation, further cementing intelligence-mafia bonds across the US, UK, and Israel. Over decades, mafias infiltrated legitimate industries like real estate and construction, laundering power through economic dominance. The Soviet Union's 1991 collapse unleashed Russian mafias, evolving into oligarchs integrated into this network, trafficking impoverished Eastern European children westward. This fueled an international ring of billionaire pedophiles, with Epstein as a nodal point. Notably, Epstein associates like Trump, who owned the Miss Teen USA pageant, and the late Jean-Luc Brunel, who founded modeling agencies, exploited beauty contests to recruit and traffic underage girls, masking abuse as opportunity while supplying victims to the Epstein class. This evolution underscores how historical pacts between crime, intelligence, and power birthed a global cult of exploitation.

One hopes that the arrest of the former Prince Andrew (for passing classified information to Epstein) will lead to the arrest and prosecution of many more in the Epstein class, and the removal from power of such people.