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We will probably be hearing more from the Epstein files for years. Given three million pages, it will take some time for folks to mine it all, even if no more files are released. There will be books written, on different aspects and on the paticipastion of different figures. Already the files seem likely to topple one world leader, Kier Starmer.
A few initial comments from this seat in the peanut gallery.
I see the claim online that Epstein worshippedor ironically pretended to worship the pagan Philistine god Baal. His strange blue and white island temple structure was referred to by some as a “Baal shrine,” and he had some bank account using “Baal” in the name.
Here I can contribute a bit of knowledge other commentators seem not to have; although it seems simple and obvious enough. This is not conclusive, because Epstein was Jewish and so knew basic Hebrew. “Baal” in Hebrew is a title, not a name. It means “lord” or “master.” A Christian praying in Hebrew would pray to “Baal.” A courtier would call his king “Baal.” We cannot tell from this what god Epstein intended, if any. He might have been referring to himself.
My next observation at this early point is simply to note that “pedophilia” used to be represented as a problem virtually unique to the Catholic church. While it was indeed a problem in the Catholic church, there was never any reason to suppose it was more common there than elsewhere. By now we know it was at least as common in sports leagues, the Boy Scouts, the public schools. It seems to have been everywhere, at every level of society, and especially common among the loudest critics of the Catholic church.
Perhaps Catholics deserves some reparations; for all the reparations they have already paid out. Why were they charged and persecuted, including the entirely innocent laypeople in the pews, and no one else?
My third observation is deep suspicion to hear that aside from the notorious island, Epstein also owned a remote ranch in New Mexico. It was apparently here that the worst things happened.
That rings a bell.
I have long theorized that Kubrick’s Eyes Wide Shut was an expose. Kubrick wanted to blow the whistle, but did not feel it was safe to say it outright. And perhaps it was not. He died unexpectedly soon after finishing that movie.
I indeed have previously pointed out that Eyes Wide Shut also did not seem to be the first time Kubrick was trying to blow the whistle on some Hellfire Club among the elites. His 1961 film Lolita was also about pedophilia. In the film, the underage Lolita is spirited away by a group of Hollywood pedophiles—to a remote ranch somewhere in the West. Perhaps New Mexico?
Here is the passage from the book:
“Curious coincidence—…took her to a dude ranch about a day’s drive from Elephant (Elphinstone). Named? Oh, some silly name — Duk Duk Ranch — you know just plain silly — but it did not matter now, anyway, because the place had vanished and disintegrated. Really, she meant, I could not imagine how utterly lush that ranch was, she meant it had everything but everything, even an indoor waterfall.
…He was a great guy in many respects. But it was all drink and drugs. And, of course, he was a complete freak in sex matters, and his friends were his slaves. I just could not imagine (I, Humbert, could not imagine!) what they all did at Duk Duk Ranch. She refused to take part because she loved him, and he threw her out.
‘What things?’
‘Oh, weird, filthy, fancy things. I mean, he had two girls and two boys, and three or four men, and the idea was for all of us to tangle in the nude while an old woman took movie pictures.’ (Sade’s Justine was twelve at the start.)
‘What things exactly?’
‘Oh, things… Oh, I — really I’ — she uttered the ‘I’ as a subdued cry while she listened to the source of the ache, and for lack of words spread the five fingers of her angularly up-and-down-moving hand. No, she gave it up, she refused to go into particulars with that baby inside her. That made sense. ‘It is of no importance now,’ she said pounding a gray cushion with her fist and then lying back, belly up, on the divan. ‘Crazy things, filthy things. I said no, I’m just not going to [she used, in all insouciance really, a disgusting slang term which, in a literal French translation, would be souffler] your beastly boys, because I want only you. Well, he kicked me out.’
… ‘Fay had tried to get back to the Ranch — and it just was not there any more — it had burned to the ground, nothing remained, just a charred heap of rubbish. It was so strange, so strange —'"
This seems an odd coincidence. Surely Kubrick, and indeed Vladimir Nabokov before him, could not have known then of Epstein’s “Zorro Ranch”? The novel was published in 1955. Epstein reportedly bought his “Zorro Ranch” only in 1991.
But Epstein might not have been a one-off, some solitary evil mastermind. More likely he was raised and groomed to his role, plucked from obscurity, by some pre-existing group or invisible institution. He might have been following an established template.
From 1957 to 1960, Kubrick was under contract to Kirk Douglas. By 1960, they had a bitter falling out.
Recently, following his death, the sister of Natalie Woods has publicly claimed that Douglas sexually assaulted that actress in 1955, when she was only 16.
Was this a one-off? During the pedophilia scandal in the Catholic church, we were assured that pedophilia was never one-off. Pedophiles were incurable. This was why it was culpably wrong of the church to accept claims of repentance and simply reassign accused clergy. The only solution was chemical or physical castration, we were told.
So it seems fair to assume the same of Kirk Douglas. He was presumably a serial pedophile, and a member of a pedophile ring in his day.
Probably then there was some attempt, while Kubrick was under contract, to introduce Kubrick to the ring and its activities. As with the Epstein operation, this would have been a kind of initiation, allowing for blackmail later if anyone strayed from the established path. And so Kubrick became aware of what was going on.
Kubrick broke with Douglas, as noted, in 1960. The next year he filmed Lolita—then left for England, never to return. That move to England might have been career suicide—he deliberately took himself away from all the action in Hollywood.
Perhaps out of disgust. Perhaps fearing for his safety.
An interesting timeline.
