Epstein & The Occult
Due to the sensitive nature of this article, we included numerous citations to support its academic validity and allow readers to draw their own conclusions. It should be understood that this text does not mean to conflate actual Jews with Sabbateans or Frankists. This is a nuanced distinction since, to operate, they may present as Jews, Christians, even Muslims. This isn’t a criticism of Jewish culture or heritage, but rather an inspection of secular cults with practices that invert Jewish laws. Criticism of Sabbateans/Frankists doesn’t equate to criticism of Jews or Israel. Secondly, when reading, don’t forget the distinction between Sabbateans, followers of Sabbatai Tzvi, and Sabbatists, those who strictly observe the Sabbath.
During the 19th century, the radical Christian philosopher Søren Kierkegaard wrote extensively about the public’s relationship with the press. Press opinion offered a window into an abstract “phantom public,” stretching a single person's anonymous opinion across the pages of investigative journals. He hated this, and you should too. Take the time to consider the facts within this article and reflect on how they affect your sense of moral responsibility. Without that personal reflection, the public becomes a mass of conformity, and justice becomes hollow.
Epstein’s apparent suicide in 2019 kickstarted what became national interest in both him and his connections to several world leaders and prominent figures. Without diving too deeply into that history, a few key things stand out. Firstly, Epstein, with help from longtime partner Ghislaine Maxwell, was leading a sex trafficking ring involving various powerful people from at least 2002 up until his death. Secondly, the US government dedicated serious resources to muddling, misleading, and otherwise censoring a large majority of the information related to the investigations involving Epstein. This behaviour began in 2006, when a grand jury gave him an incredibly light sentence. They charged him with soliciting prostitution when he was charged with unlawful sex with a minor. I don’t have to tell you that this is a weird decision. It’s suggested, based on evidence from the released Epstein files, that he was a co-opted spy for the US and Israel, but also had relations with other eminent figures from other countries. This spy claim stems from his lasting relationship with former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak. Lastly, for years, American politics have heavily integrated their identity with Zionism. This stretches all the way back to before World War I. Louis Brandeis was the first Jewish Supreme Court Justice in the US, famous for legitimizing the Zionist movement among American Jews. He also inherited a picture of Eva Frank after his mother died. You may not know why, but this is a dreadfully important piece of history in the relationship between Israel and the United States.
In case you didn’t know, Israel as a country began as a direct result of a deal between British forces and chemical manufacturer Chaim Weizmann, who also happened to be the president of the British Zionist Federation and later the first president of Israel. Zionism meant “the desire for a Jewish homeland,” and in exchange for acetone, an essential ingredient in British explosives, the Brits agreed to help carve out a state for European Jews in Palestine. This had an ulterior motive, however, as the Allies also wanted the United States to get involved in the war. They thought they might accomplish this feat through the promise of a new Jewish state, enticing Zionist Americans to push for the US to enter the fray.
Let’s take a look at Epstein’s bookshelf, as I believe it’s a key into his psychology, interests, and ideologies. Multiple purchases relate to Kabbalah, Thelema, sex magick, and tantra. These are a lot of terms, so I’ll break them down one by one. Kabbalah is ancient Jewish mysticism which forms the basis of Thelema and “Western sex magick” as described by Donald Michael Kraig in Modern Sex Magick: Secrets of Erotic Spirituality (one of Epstein’s purchases). Many Kabbalah practices are part of Jewish tradition, such as holidays and liturgical practice, though most ancient rites have been phased out. Thelema is an occult order founded by Aleister Crowley through writing The Book of the Law. The main precept of Thelema is “Do what thou wilt (shall be the whole of the Law),” which isn’t meant to invite hedonism, but to invite the individual to follow their “True Will,” their authentic purpose in life. Much of Thelema's basis came from Aleister Crowley’s interpretation of Kabbalah and Hermetic tradition. Kabbalah and sex magick are closely intertwined, and it’s important to remember that there are very distinct differences between Jewish faith and the Kabbalah. Sex magick specifically refers to rituals or practices involving sex that are performed for a specific purpose, either spiritual enlightenment or manifestation rituals. On their own, sex magick and Kabbalah rituals are a valid, if esoteric, tradition practiced by regular people. What leads to people like Epstein, however, is the misinterpretation and corruption of these ideas.
Sabbateanism began in the 1700s as a Jewish messianic movement (messianic means relating to a messiah) and was led by Sabbatai Tzvi, who proclaimed himself the Jewish Messiah, and Nathan of Gaza, Tzvi’s prophet. Through various means, these two took an antinomian approach, meaning redemption through sin and the inversion of Kabbalah and Jewish law. Nathan of Gaza proposed that the Messiah must “descend into the realm of darkness” to redeem “divine sparks” trapped in shells of evil. Without getting into whether or not this had any basis, it meant that Tzvi and his followers were justified in breaking and often directly inverting Jewish law. Tzvi, for disputed reasons, converted to Islam, and the Sabbateans followed. This led to generations of crypto-Sabbatean Muslims spread out through the Islamic world, especially in Turkey, where they were called the Dönme. The Dönme were not allowed to mingle or intermarry with the rest of the Muslim population. Through the secret Committee of Union and Progress, largely made up of Dönme members, they played a pivotal role in the Young Turks revolution. Eventually, a later figure would take this antinomianist attitude even further.
In 1755, Jacob Frank returned to his homeland of Poland, claiming to be the reincarnation of Sabbatai Tzvi after studying with the Dönme in Turkey. He came back presenting as a Muslim, though he was really a Sabbatean in secret. You will see that Sabbateans commonly do not publicly claim to be Sabbateans. For them and their practices, it’s essential to have a private inner self while presenting a distinct outward personality. Jacob Frank took the inversion of religious law even further than Tzvi. He commonly held secret ritualistic orgies, reportedly involving children. This is where Kabbalistic law was fully inverted, and those practices were corrupted to serve evil ends. In 1759, Frank orchestrated a mass conversion of his followers to Christianity, winning him favour among the Polish Catholic Elite. Frankism would continue after Jacob Frank’s death through his daughter Eva Frank.
To Frankists, she was both the female incarnation of God, the Shekhinah, and the reincarnation of the Virgin Mary. Statues and iconography of Eva Frank became important symbols of crypto-Frankists. With secretly Sabbatean Muslims in the Middle East and secretly Frankist Catholics in the West, esoteric practice became widespread all the way up to the highest levels of society.
A 2025 article by Israeli news site Israel Hayom revealed multiple cases of organized rape and sexual abuse under a ritual pretense. These cases portray only a small portion of a widespread practice. Most of these cases are in Israel’s ultra-Orthodox communities. To give you an idea of scale: Israel Hayom interviewed Dr. Joanna Silberg, an international specialist in treating dissociative disorders, who guided the treatment of 70 children who experienced organized sexual abuse over the course of five years. Curiously, despite coming from separate instances and different communities, many of the cases follow the same course and share similar features. Of the more than ten women (ages 20-45) interviewed, all of them recall a common ritual framework: Victim, Sacrifice, Punishment, Correction, Transcendence, Redemption. Examining ritual sexual abuse worldwide, these themes are common, usually serving to justify the abuse. However, while the Israeli cases also used ideology to justify violence, it also served to form the foundation of the abuse. Ritual abuse is cruel and frequent, according to a private ultra-Orthodox court, happening as often as every two weeks and often led by an important Rabbi. Victims also recall their abusers recreating “The Binding of Issac” directly prior to the sexual abuse happening. I won’t describe the extent of the abuse here, but I implore you to read the full article, titled “Bottom of Darkness.”
These actions point to a continuation of Frankist and Sabbatean ideology, which also aligns with Epstein’s trafficking ring. These practices might not have been Sabbatean or Frankist; their structure and ideological drive of purity through sin are the same. While I can’t say that Epstein is expressly subscribed to either, he was clearly a sadist in real life who had an intense interest in various religions that sanctified his desires and actions. While Epstein’s interest in the occult may have been innocent, emails and objects found throughout his estate hint at his direct involvement. An email chain speaks of Epstein dressing as Jesus to sexually assault a young girl as an effort to mock her devotion to Christianity. There’s a building on Little St. James, his infamous private island, modelled after the Kaaba in Mecca and topped with a gold dome like the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem. A bookshelf inside features both a straight and a twisting pillar, directly related to the Freemasonic Pillars of Boaz and Jachin. He clearly had a passion for esoteric beliefs, but to what end? Overall, it’s a mishmash of pagan, Jewish, Christian, and other symbolism, its purpose unknown.
We don’t have the information we need to determine his deeper motives; censorship has buried it. Who else has it buried? Who else is wearing a mask over their ideologies?
Associated Press. 2026. “A timeline of the Jeffrey Epstein investigation and the fight to make the government's files public.” PBS, February 6, 2026. https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/a-timeline-of-the-jeffrey-epstein-investigation-and-the-fight-to-make-the-governments-files-public.
Barkan, Noam. 2025. “'Bottom of darkness': Children raped in ritual ceremonies expose the horrors.” Israel Hayom, April 23, 2025. https://www.israelhayom.com/2025/04/23/bottom-of-darkness-children-raped-in-ritual-ceremonies-expose-the-horrors/.
Cohen, Gerson D. 2011. “Dönme | Ottoman Empire, Crypto-Jews, Sabbatai Zevi.” Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/topic/Donme.
“The Great Pillars of Freemasonry.” 2020. Grand Commandery of Virginia. https://vatemplars.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/The-Great-Pillars-of-Freemasonry.pdf-Reviewed-Approved-RWB-4-14-2023.pdf.
Klayman, Elliot. 2010. “The Life of the First Jewish U.S. Supreme Court Justice, Louis Brandeis: Exploring “Privacy Issues” and Ancestral Cultic Connections.” Kesher: A Journal Of Messianic Judaism, (July 4).
Muhammad, Bilal. 2025. “Jeffrey Epstein's Occult Bookshelf – Berkeley Institute for Islamic Studies.” Berkeley Institute for Islamic Studies. https://bliis.org/essay/jeffrey-epsteins-occult-bookshelf/.
My Jewish Learning. n.d. “Shekhinah: The Divine Feminine.” My Jewish Learning. https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/the-divine-feminine-in-kabbalah-an-example-of-jewish-renewal/.
Singer, Saul J. 2025. “The False Messiahship Of Jacob and Eva Frank.” The Jewish Press, September 3, 2025.
Time. 1966. “The Press: The Lowest Depthsv.” Time, (May).
Wikipedia Contributers. n.d. “Hermetic Qabalah.” Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hermetic_Qabalah.
“The Zionist Movement in America | Historical Topics | Articles and Essays | The Library of Congress Celebrates the Songs of America | Digital Collections.” n.d. Library of Congress. https://www.loc.gov/collections/songs-of-america/articles-and-essays/historical-topics/zionist-movement-in-america/.