False kings and pleasant lies

When we encounter treachery and deceit it frees us and opens doors to growth

A joy of this information war is coming across other “digital missionaries” who pour out their wounded heart in their own medium and manner. One of my favourites is EKO (X, Substack), an illustrator who poignantly captures our journey in ways that I cannot rival in words, nor should I attempt to do so, as the competitive spirit is antithetical to the creative one. A recent post, “Betrayer’s Spark”, resonated with me. Using the story of Jesus and Judas as context, it explores the paradox of how the brutal torture and murder of the King of Kings leads us to discover the unsought “pleasant upside” of treachery.

Specifically, when we are betrayed we gain clarity over who people are, and freedom from the illusions they spin. EKO’s phrase that caught my eye most was “[Jesus] knew systems of power hide their true nature until challenged.” There is a moment when the betrayer makes their dominating move, and in doing so cannot roll back their commitment to lies and manipulation. As long as we do not succumb to the consequences of their malice, with the memory of their sly nature buried, then the hideous reality is exposed. The temporary setback in the 3D material world now serves the ends of the eternal 5D spiritual realm. Truth has advanced, and the natural decay of sin assures us the deceivers will not prosper in the ultimate reckoning.

In my personal life, I have experienced considerable betrayal over the last few years, and the “upside” of betrayal has taken me time to welcome. During the Covid nightmare, a (firmly former) friend with trusted access to my children hijacked my father role from me, putting my younger daughter in mortal danger, and cutting my older daughter spiritually adrift. I was left powerless as family closed ranks, protecting the interloper, and ostracising me for accurately stating the dangers. Now I am at peace — I only let people near me who treat me with respect. Once you abuse my trust, or deny me my own freedom of belief, then there is an inevitable distance that must grow between us. I no longer do one-way relationships, nor do I flatter performative social rituals for the sake of the appearance of peace.

As a child I used to be dragged down to the Kingdom Hall of the Jehovah’s Witnesses by my mother, denying my father his spiritual leadership. There was often a tasty quasi-bribe of fish and chips on the way home, from before the era of seed oils, so it wasn’t all bad. I knew some of what they were telling me was the genuine truth, not doctrinal The Truth™, but the religious dogma repulsed me. Now I am going full circle, as I can see that every physical act serves a metaphysical kingdom hall. There is no substantive difference in the “realness” of physical and metaphysical vibes, frequencies, and energies. Every kingdom has a king, and we are serving a spiritual lord and master of some kind, whether we know it or not. The only choice is which king to serve, and whether to betray that allegiance once made.

Last summer I suffered a particularly painful betrayal. A longtime American friend, separating from her estranged pastor spouse, came to see me in England. The shared expectation was for an amicable divorce upon her return. He had promised me to look after her teenage daughter while the mother was away, at least when the child was not having pre-arranged holiday visitation with her biological father. I was concerned that a new life path for her mother might disrupt the child’s life, so this assurance was critical to me. The idea that he might commit federal felonies, and later come to bear false witness in court against his wife, was unthinkable at the time. Why would someone who claimed to be a man of God violate a child, and betray people doing public immersions and preaching salvation in workshops?

Immediately upon the mother’s departure, this man (the child’s stepfather) started to deplete and dissipate the marital estate. The stepfather then colluded with the child’s biological father to kidnap the child, working behind the mother’s back, and moved her to the latter’s home in another state, so the former could complete the property heist. A false emergency motion, based on the stepfather’s lies, was filed by the biological father as cover — later described as “without legal merit” by a judge — and swiftly denied. But the damage was done. The child had been groomed to believe it was her idea to move (untrue); that her mother had abandoned her (untrue) and had gone for an affair abroad (untrue); that a child could override the custody order if she wished (untrue); and that any legal consequences for breaking it were on her (untrue).

This was not only a conspiracy to transport a child against the law, without knowledge or permission of the custodial parent. The biological father sought to relieve himself of his child support obligations, a wish that the civil court obligingly rubber stamped promptly after giving him temporary custody. The stepfather was attempting to oust the mother from her home, as well as take her savings for himself, and paint her as the betrayer of the marriage (against the facts) to avoid alimony. The financial motive was very clear, as well as revenge for the mother outing both men as spousal abusers. The child was only a means to the end of harming the mother’s interests.

This is textbook familial child trafficking, which is why I was raising emergency funds for travel and legal fees last autumn, in a delicate dance between the civil and criminal justice systems, trying to minimise trauma to the child. The situation I and the mother confronted closely reflects the State Department’s fact sheet on the subject:

When the family member or guardian is the victim’s trafficker, it may not be apparent that human trafficking is occurring, especially because the victim lives with or near the perpetrator. Whether the parent or guardian is the trafficker or sells the child who is then placed in the care of another trafficker, the trafficker is both that child’s exploiter and caregiver.

What seems on the surface like a simple custody dispute and messy divorce is in fact the theft of a child for financial gain, morally no better than any other kind of exploitation of juveniles for profit. The common supposition is that “child trafficking” is limited to sexual or labour exploitation, but this is not the case. The child abuse here is psychological, and it leaves no obvious bruises, but has lifelong consequences equally serious. The child has been taught disloyalty pays if you lie convincingly enough, and the legal system exists to help you get your own way, no matter what the cost to others. That the child (who knew nothing of the financial abuse) “wanted it” is the same excuse paedophiles use, and equally damnable.

In this instance, not only did two men collaborate to destroy a woman of faith and alienate her from her daughter, whom she had raised on her own. Also, a court was weaponised to “seal the deal” and sanction the interstate custodial interference and parental kidnap — crimes that carry hefty federal penalties. Worse, when the crime is endorsed by a court, the child is completely bamboozled about right and wrong. The specifics of the court hearings and orders can wait for another day, as that is yet a further betrayal by the authorities, who ought to protect vulnerable women and children, not predate on them. It can be summed up as civil rights violations and conspiracy to deprive rights under colour of law.

What I do want to highlight here is how these violators of trust carefully engineer a crisis for their victim, the mother being the target here, and then use “lack of stability” as their argument in court to cement in the injustice that they themselves caused. Narcissistic abusers thrive on inconsistency and intermittent rewards, so their victim seems unstable, as they cycle through the stages of the grief cycle, with occasional outbursts of anger in response to renewed attack. This “reactive abuse” is then weaponised by unscrupulous attorneys in court, falsely painting the victim as an unfit parent. Although not a party to the case, I personally have faced six months of chaos and distraction from other missions as a result of this criminal activity that went unaddressed by a civil court.

You may ask why this blatantly criminal conduct hasn’t been acted upon by law enforcement. The advice we received upon arrival into America in September was to let the civil process play out first, in the misplaced hope that a judge would uphold the law, and not reward child kidnappers, let alone aid them financially. However, once even a temporary custody order is in place giving control over the child to the violator, law enforcement won’t touch the original crime. In principle a civil court cannot give immunity for criminal conduct, but in practise this policy is business as usual. The sheriffs’ “hands are tied”; the District Attorney won’t act; and federal authorities will put the phone down on you for reporting a judicially-aided child kidnapping. The legal system isn’t just broken here, it is malevolent from what I have seen.

To give you a sense of the moral false equivalence in family court, the judge this last week stated “it isn’t as if one parent is bad — both of your would take the child to church”. The very essence of the breakdown of the marriage between the child’s mother and father was that the former kept and grew her faith, while the latter rejected it a few years after matrimony. After the mother raised her daughter as a junior Bible ninja, the father kidnapped the child to take her away from that spiritual sanctuary. The core of Satanism is to invert truth and falsehood, righteousness and wickedness. Based on what I have seen, there is no question that the kingdom being promoted in these legal venues is Satanic. Betrayal of the oath to serve the Constitution is standardised and normalised; the ungodly parent is given naked preference.

The silver lining of this cloud of betrayal has been a growth in my own faith and fortitude. Every trashing of trust has a greater purpose, and it is discharged by exposure and testimony, such as this very text you read. In this familial child trafficking case, there is an unusually clean and clear chain of evidence showing how the system “works as intended” to punish the victims of iniquity. I need not engage in any vengeful act, only pass on the evidence file to yet higher authorities, who are still acting in their godly remit. The perpetrators believe they are beyond accountability, but they are always accountable to God, and will face worldly judgement in time. Meanwhile, we endure and persevere, knowing that our clean hands mean we carry no shame in our persecution.

A day is coming when there are treason and war crimes trials on TV, and the mass awakening to systemic betrayal occurs. Violating trust, especially of the young, will no longer be seen as risk-free by opportunists; there is no protected class of functionaries beyond the reach of justice when it comes to trafficking children. For now, honest and honourable men and women are being dangled into the civil court system as a kind of “bait” to lure out the corrupt, with federal or military justice in parallel proceedings. Deep inside me I know that those who perpetrate these “micro cartel” trafficking crimes, be they ordinary villains or enablers from the judiciary, will be held to account. The season of deception is finite; those who come to kill, steal, and destroy cannot operate without consequence forever.

The ending is not pleasant for false kings.

🙏

A playground for the young and young at heart in Pigeon Forge, TN