There. I said it.

Life as a Jehovah’s Witness was heavily constrained. The most intimate parts of my identity were closely monitored and configured by a New York-based group of aging men in suits and their network of goons.

My sexuality was filtered, moderated and distorted. I skipped all the usual fun and innocent experimentation most people go through in their 20s.

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My ambitions and aspirations were throttled, with any tangible success in “Satan’s system” strictly off the menu. Even though I was allowed by my parents - as a rare exception - to spend two years in art college chasing what would turn out to be a meaningless qualification, this was on the strict understanding that I would somehow leverage it to get a better part-time job so that I could pioneer.

Life As a Cult Drone

As a pioneer (a volunteer 70 hour-per-month door knocker and people botherer) I bounced from part-time job to part-time job, doing everything from fertilizing lawns to filling envelopes. I was perpetually broke.

For the first two years of my married life we cashed cheques to get by and didn’t really pay too much mind to our mounting debts because… y’know… Armageddon was “just around the corner.” If we ‘put the kingdom first’ our negative bank balance would be rendered meaningless once the wave of fiery carnage had abated, leaving all non-believers (including our bank managers) as smoldering hunks of bird food.

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I had every reason to resent each moment as a drone in a collective that was exploiting and controlling me over the first three decades of my existence. And yet, somehow, I was mostly happy.

Yes I made many sacrifices - some of which continue to sting to this day - but I was raised to believe those sacrifices were for a higher purpose. I was storing up my “treasures in heaven.”

Mum’s Final Wishes

At 21, when my mother died from breast cancer, I drew comfort from knowing that I would see her again soon if I only remained faithful. She made me promise shortly before she died that I would film my MTS so that she could watch it after her resurrection.

To the extent possible, I fulfilled her wishes. My first ever video production was a homage to the 29th Class in Britain of the Ministerial Training School (a faux academic course for committed believers), which I graduated. I even distributed it as a DVD among my classmates. It all sounds preposterous now, but that’s how certain I was in my convictions.

After getting married, moving to another country and ultimately losing my faith, for a while I convinced myself I was still happy. My then-wife and I got our finances back on an even keel. We started a family. But there was a gnawing emptiness in the back of my mind that never went away.

Secular Positivity

I would make videos talking about how life was even more meaningful as an atheist because one could fully embrace how rare and fleeting it is.

“What are the chances of us even being alive?” …etc.

I argued that instead of chasing some future afterlife that would never materialize, we could all just enjoy living in the here and now. We could join the grand project of humanity and work towards leaving the universe a slightly better place than we found it.

I wish I could embrace that mindset, but I’m not sure I was ever a true believer.

As a Jehovah’s Witness, I had the luxury of outsourcing my thinking - including all existential questions - to an organization. I could conveniently defer to their boundless optimism, total certainty and utopian outlook for true believers whenever I had moments of private anguish or despair.

But once the curtain was pulled back and the floundering con-artist at the controls was unmasked, all I had to lean on was… me. My own brain.

It’s certainly true that life doesn’t need to have an objective higher purpose to be cherished and enjoyed. A subjective reason for living is reason enough. Despite all their vitriol against ‘worldly’ hedonism, Jehovah’s Witnesses and other fundamentalist groups decry it only because it’s a viable and appealing competitor to their ideology centered around fear and control.

And yet here I am, in my late 40s, wondering if or when I’ll ever be truly happy. For whatever reason, the pieces of the puzzle resolutely refuse to fall into place.

Chasing Happiness Post-Cult

On paper I have everything I could wish for in the form of my two gorgeous daughters. I’m beyond grateful that they’re happy and healthy. I bask in their unending love and affection. They are all the reason I need to keep buggering on.

And yet even with their love as a reliable source of at least some joy, I still feel incomplete. The truth is, since casting aside my crutch of cultish wish-thinking, I’ve been wandering silently in a wilderness of struggle and tedium - never quite finding my way out of the sands. Never quite finding my way home.

I’ve convinced myself that if I can only work harder, if I can only stick it out a bit longer, if I can only wait for the pieces of my life to settle into their proper place, everything will be fine. But I’ve finally come to the realization that there’s no reason this will ever happen.

Why should it? The universe owes me nothing. As Christopher Hitchens so eloquently put it:

“I know what’s coming you see. I know no one beats these odds and I know it’s a matter of getting used to that and realizing that you are expelled from your mother’s uterus as if shot from a cannon towards a barn door studded with old nail files and rusty hooks. It’s a matter of how you use up the intervening time in an intelligent and ironic way; and try not to do anything ghastly to your fellow creatures.”

This grim but honest assessment of the nature of existence follows me constantly. Only for me, the outlook is even more bleak. I think there are inbuilt limits to how we “use up” our time. Just when I think some fleeting happiness might be attainable - a momentary distraction enroute to the barn door - the universe has a funny way of yanking it away.

I call it “The Dangling.” We are never quite allowed to have what we want, neither are we quite allowed to lose everything.

In recent years I’ve found myself gravitating towards philosophers and thinkers like Donald Hoffman and Nick Bostrom who say (or at least infer) that nothing is real; that the universe might even be some simulation.

That certainly fits with my lived experience of constantly chasing just to keep my head above water, and being surrounded by others who seem to be doing the same. It also squares with intuitions I’ve gleaned from my spiritual journey over recent years.

The Hamster Wheel

Ex-Jehovah’s Witness will often refer to their former lives as like being on a hamster wheel - an endless circle of duty and ritual. And yet that is precisely how I see my life now.

I go through periods of frantic ‘productivity’ where it feels like I’m finally making headway; just one final burst and soon I might break through the glass ceiling and ‘arrive’. A shred of the opulence and success of celebrities and billionaires - near-mythic creatures who float in the distance taunting us all to do better - seems a little closer to my grasp.

But sooner or later I’m forced to step off the wheel to catch my breath. As I glance around, exhausted, I find the cage of my reality looking suspiciously precisely how I left it.

In Conclusion - Just Chill

As a writer, I feel almost duty-bound to leave you all with an uplifting ending, but that’s a little beyond me at the moment. Life is shit, I’m afraid, and there’s no getting round it.

The only positive I can share from my current bleak outlook, as I will flesh out in my forthcoming book What I Believe To Be True But Cannot Prove (for those of you who love a good meltdown / existential crisis), is that if nothing is truly real then at least we don’t need to care quite so much when things inevitably go badly.

If you fear rejection romantically or otherwise - stop it. Those who are rejecting you might not be real, and even if they are real they can never know whom they’re rejecting and you will most likely never see them again anyway. Don’t be an over-confident asshole about it and go around harassing people, but never be afraid to take a chance with relationships. You have literally nothing to lose. Eventually, someone will always say “yes”.

If you fear poverty and destitution - stop it. There’s a good chance at least some of the money you need will find its way to you eventually because you are no use to the system with empty pockets. Keep doing the best you can. No matter your predicament I highly doubt you will end up on the street with bags on your feet living from a trolley if you exert minimum effort, which is all the system seems to want from us.

If the game is truly rigged (I think it is, and I think I know why), and we are all supposed to be constantly chasing something, then it would seem the game needs us in it. Just as we are never allowed to soar and truly thrive, neither are we allowed to fully plunge into ruin.

Once you know it’s just a wheel designed to keep you running, you also know your water, straw and seeds will be there waiting for you when you jump off.

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By a majority of three to two, the Court ruled that the government’s decisions to deny state funding, revoke registration, and refuse re-registration were invalid.

This is a significant win for the organisation. It will be framed internally as vindication, perhaps even evidence of divine backing. It will also likely be presented as proof that criticism of Jehovah’s Witnesses is exaggerated or unfounded.

But when you look closely at the reasoning, the ruling does not say what the organisation would like its members to believe it says.

What it actually reveals is something else entirely.

What the Court Accepted

One of the most striking aspects of the judgment is how much it openly acknowledges negative aspects of Jehovah’s Witnesses’ practices.

The Court does not deny that shunning exists. It does not treat it as an allegation. It treats it as a fact.

For example, the judgment states:

“Members are not to associate with former members, whether excluded or withdrawn. This also applies to close relatives, unless they belong to the same household.” (translated from HR-2026-1009-A, para. 41)

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It further acknowledges that:

“For family members outside the household, contact is generally limited to necessary family matters, and the threshold for such contact is relatively high.” (para. 41, translation)

This is not ambiguous. This is not a misunderstanding. This is a Supreme Court describing, in plain terms, the reality of shunning.

And yet, when it comes to the legal conclusion, something strange happens.

The “No Coercion” Problem

The majority ultimately concludes that Jehovah’s Witnesses do not subject members to “undue pressure” that would violate their right to leave.

At the heart of that conclusion is this reasoning:

“The pressure that may be experienced arises from the religious doctrine itself… Members are aware of this when they join. I therefore find it difficult to regard this as undue pressure that prevents free withdrawal.” (para. 130, translation)

This is where the logic underpinning the judgment begins to fall apart. Because what the Court is effectively saying is that coercion is not coercion if it is doctrinal, expected, and not delivered in the form of a direct threat.

But that is precisely how cults and high-control groups operate. They do not need to threaten you explicitly. They construct a system where the consequences of leaving are so severe that the “choice” becomes largely theoretical.

The Court acknowledges the pressure. It simply declines to call it coercion. That is not a resolution. That is semantics — a definitional workaround.

A Gap Between Law and Reality

The majority leans heavily on the notion that family ties are not severed. This is one of the most misleading aspects of the judgment — one that will infuriate countless former members for whom severed family ties are a daily reality.

Yes, in a narrow, technical sense, a parent remains a parent, a sibling remains a sibling, and a grandparent remains a grandparent. The Court notes that family bonds are not formally broken.

But in every meaningful, lived sense, those ties are severed. The removed or disassociated member is to be treated as though they don’t exist.

The judgment itself describes a system in which members must avoid former members, including close relatives outside the household, and where contact is reduced to what it calls “necessary family matters,” with a “relatively high” threshold for such contact.

That is not a functioning family relationship. That is a controlled, conditional, and heavily restricted version of one.

Normal conversation disappears. Emotional closeness disappears. Spontaneous interaction disappears. Shared life disappears. What remains is a hollowed-out connection that exists in name only, contingent on the former member’s willingness to return.

To describe this as “family ties not being severed” is an affront to the entire concept of what a family is. It is the legal equivalent of saying a bridge still exists because the structure is standing, even though it has been closed to all traffic with roadblocks either side.

For those who have lived it, the reality is not ambiguous.

If you grow up as one of Jehovah’s Witnesses, your religion is not just a set of beliefs. It is your entire social ecosystem. Your friends, your routines, your support network, your identity, and often your family life are all intertwined with the organisation.

When you leave, you do not simply lose doctrine. You lose your environment. You lose your community. And in most cases, you lose your family in every meaningful sense of the word.

The Court acknowledges that shunning can have significant social consequences. But it stops short of recognising what those consequences actually are. And the consequences are everything. Once you truly acknowledge them, the idea that this does not amount to pressure becomes very difficult to defend.

The Dissent Gets Closer to the Truth

The two dissenting justices offer a far more grounded understanding of the situation. They emphasise that shunning is not incidental. It is intentional.

They point to Jehovah’s Witness literature explaining that the purpose of shunning is to create a tangible sense of loss that encourages the individual to return.

As the dissent notes:

“The loss of contact with family and friends is intended to be felt… so that the person realises what has been lost and changes course.” (paras. 187–189, translation)

This is crucial.

The pain is not an unfortunate side effect. It is an intended mechanism.

The dissenting justices also highlight the impact on young people, noting that for minors and young adults raised in the religion, leaving can mean a significant reduction in contact with family and a collapse of their social world.

In other words, the dissenters recognised what the majority couldn’t bring themselves to state plainly. This is pressure. It is just not the kind of pressure to which courts are accustomed, or are comfortable categorising.

The Court Contradicts Itself

Perhaps the most striking feature of the judgment is how it undermines its own conclusion.

On the one hand, it describes a system in which:

• Members must avoid former members

• Family contact is heavily restricted

• Social consequences are significant

• Psychological pressure exists

On the other hand, it concludes that there is no undue pressure. At one point, the Court even acknowledges that the practice of shunning has “major social consequences” for those affected.

You cannot have it both ways. Either those consequences matter, or they do not. Either the loss of meaningful family and social contact constitutes pressure, or it does not.

The majority attempts to resolve this tension by focusing on the absence of “direct” coercion. But this distinction collapses under scrutiny.

Indirect coercion is still coercion. If anything, it is often more effective.

What This Case Has Already Proven

Before this ruling, I wrote about the Norway case in my Fear brochure.

At the time, we did not know how the Supreme Court would rule.

What we did know was this:

“By late 2025, the dispute had reached the country’s Supreme Court with hearings in February 2026, ensuring that the final outcome would be determined at the highest judicial level. Regardless of how the case ultimately concludes, one fact remains clear: shunning was considered sufficiently harmful to warrant government intervention. That intervention was not an attack on religious belief, but a response to practices objectively viewed as coercive and damaging to family life.”

That statement still stands.

The Norwegian government did not bring this case lightly. It examined the evidence and concluded that shunning was serious enough to justify intervention. That conclusion has not been overturned in any meaningful sense.

The Court has simply said that, under current law and the high threshold required, the government could not act in the way it did. That is a legal limitation, not a moral exoneration.

A Victory That Changes Nothing

Jehovah’s Witnesses have won this case. They will regain funding. They will retain or restore their legal status as a religion. They will gloat and present this as a triumph. But the underlying issue has not gone away. If anything, the abuses of shunning have been more starkly highlighted than ever before.

A Supreme Court has now examined the practice of shunning in detail. It has described its mechanics. It has acknowledged its consequences. It has recognised the psychological pressure it creates. And two justices concluded that it crosses the line.

That is not the end of the conversation. It is the beginning of a more informed one.

What Happens Next

The most important takeaway from this ruling should not be that Jehovah’s Witnesses are now to be considered harmless. It is that outdated legal systems built around deference to religion are still struggling to adapt and deal with psychological harm when it is embedded in religious practice. But that struggle is changing.

Governments are paying attention. Courts are being asked to engage with these issues. Public awareness of mental health and coercive control is increasing. The old assumption that religion operates in a separate, untouchable sphere is starting to buckle.

The Governing Body has won this battle, but it has not won the war. Because the central question remains unanswered: What happens when a religion maintains control not through force, but through the deliberate use of coercion and emotional trauma?

Until that question is properly addressed, cases like this will keep coming. And each time, the gap between legal reasoning and lived experience will become harder to ignore.

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At first glance, this may sound like a compassionate and pragmatic adjustment—an attempt at reconciling medical necessity with religious conviction. But when we move beyond the wording and examine how this would work in real life, serious practical—and even physiological—problems emerge.

This is not simply a theological issue. It is a question of how medicine and human anatomy actually works.

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A “Clarification” — Without Acknowledgment

The announcement presents this development as a “clarification” rather than a change, strongly implying that there has always been some flexibility in this area.

It also offers no acknowledgment—let alone apology—for the many Jehovah’s Witnesses over the decades who refused blood under previous guidance and lost their lives in circumstances where different guidance might have led to a different outcome.

More importantly, Watchtower publications do not support the idea that this has long been a grey area. They have consistently and firmly drawn a clear line against storing one’s own blood in advance. For example:

“Today, through further processing, [blood] components are often broken down into fractions that are used in a variety of ways. Could a Christian accept such fractions? Does he view them as “blood”? Each one must personally decide on this matter. The same applies to such medical procedures as hemodialysis, hemodilution, and cell salvage involving one’s own blood, provided that it has not been stored.”
Keep Yourselves in God’s Love (2008), pp. 78–79

More recently, in the Bible study aid currently being used and circulated by Jehovah’s Witnesses, the following wording can be found:

“There are medical procedures that make use of a patient’s own blood. Some of these—such as a person donating blood or having his own blood stored in advance of surgery—are not acceptable for Christians.”
Enjoy Life Forever!—An Interactive Bible Course (2021), p. 255

In other words, the prohibition on storing one’s own blood was not ambiguous. It was explicit. Hence this is no “clarification.” It is a rule change.

But this is only the tip of the iceberg in exploring the problems with this latest announcement. The main issue is one of practicality.

The Problem of Unpredictable Emergencies

Most situations in which blood transfusions are needed are not planned.

Car accidents, internal bleeding, childbirth complications, and sudden surgical emergencies happen without warning. In these moments, there is no opportunity to draw, store, and prepare a patient’s own blood in advance.

This immediately limits the usefulness of any policy based on pre-stored blood. It is not a general solution—it is a niche one.

How Much Blood Would Be Needed?

To understand the scale of the problem, we need to look at typical medical requirements.

A single unit of red blood cells—the most commonly transfused component—is roughly 450–500 millilitres. In practice:

• Minor procedures may require 1–2 units

• Major surgery often requires 2–4 units

• Trauma cases can require far more

A realistic “buffer” for an emergency would therefore be at least 2–4 units—around 1 to 2 litres of blood.

That is not a trivial volume to extract from the human body, especially not on a routine basis.

Blood Does Not Keep

Storing blood is not the same as storing water. It expires—fast. Even if someone were able to store that much blood (we will come to that problem later), its shelf life would require it to be constantly replenished.

Red blood cells expire after about 42 days. Platelets—essential for clotting—last only 5 to 7 days.

This means that any stored supply becomes unusable in a matter of weeks.

This raises the obvious question: how do you maintain a usable supply over time?

The Frequency Problem

Under normal medical guidelines, a person can safely donate one unit of blood approximately every 8 to 12 weeks. This allows the body time to recover.

But maintaining even a modest personal reserve of 2–4 units (assuming no emergency trauma cases) within a 42-day window would require donating far more frequently—potentially every few weeks.

This is well beyond what is considered safe.

The Health Consequences

Frequent blood withdrawal has predictable effects.

When the body does not have enough time to replace red blood cells and restore iron levels, the result is anemia. This can lead to:

• Fatigue and weakness

• Reduced oxygen delivery throughout the body

• Dizziness and impaired concentration

• Slower recovery from illness or surgery

Ironically, the individuals most likely to need transfusions—those who are ill, elderly, or undergoing major medical procedures—are the least able to tolerate repeated blood donation.

A Deeper Irony

There is a striking contradiction at the heart of this approach.

To maintain a personal blood supply, an individual would need to undergo repeated blood withdrawal at a frequency that risks weakening their body and depleting their blood levels.

In other words, the very act of preparing for a potential medical emergency could increase the likelihood of needing the treatment one is trying to prepare for.

The Infrastructure Problem

Modern healthcare systems are not designed to support this kind of arrangement.

Hospitals and blood banks operate on shared supply systems. Blood is donated, tested, stored, and distributed as needed. They do not maintain long-term personal reserves for individuals “just in case.”

Autologous blood use—where a patient’s own blood is collected and later returned—is typically limited to planned procedures, such as scheduled surgeries. Even then, it is carefully managed within a narrow timeframe.

Furthermore, the availability of Personal Autologous Blood Donation (PAD) services varies greatly from country to country. In most poorer countries, there will be no such provision available. Either you accept someone else’s blood, or you’re on your own.

In short, the new rule change anticipates healthcare infrastructure that doesn’t exist. Even if it were physiologically possible to donate the required volume of blood at the needed frequency (it isn’t), there is no widespread capability for maintaining rolling personal blood stockpiles. The new provision is not just biologically impossible, it’s also entirely at odds with what healthcare providers can support.

Who Actually Benefits?

When all of these factors are considered together, the scope of this policy becomes clear.

It may be useful in limited, highly controlled situations:

• Planned surgeries

• Known medical conditions with predictable timelines

But it offers little to no help in the majority of real-world emergency scenarios where transfusions are needed.

The Pattern of “Clarifications”

This is not the first time the 1945 ban on blood transfusions has been tweaked.

In 2000, a distinction was introduced between major blood components and smaller “fractions,” allowing certain derivatives as a matter of personal conscience. That change saved lives—but it also raised new questions about consistency. How is the medical use of blood somehow permissible once it is broken down into various components?

This latest development follows a similar pattern. A restriction is softened in a way that appears to address a problem, while introducing new ambiguities and limitations.

As I point out in my new Fear brochure, wherever important decisions are left as a matter of “personal conscience,” any ambiguity feels like danger. Some will always want to err on the side of caution, even if the consequences turn out to be deadly.

A Policy Born From Panic

This announcement, expected in a Governing Body Update video tomorrow (Friday, March 20), will be heralded as progress among Jehovah’s Witnesses.

On paper, granting the use of one’s own stored blood will seem like a meaningful concession. But in practice, it is constrained by biology, logistics, and the realities of modern medicine.

To maintain a meaningful personal reserve, a person would need to:

• Store significant volumes of blood (without the infrastructure to enable them to do so)

• Replace it every few weeks due to short shelf life

• Undergo repeated blood withdrawal beyond recommended limits

• Do so without knowing when—or if—it will ever be needed

• Vast quantities of unused donated blood would need to be discarded, despite being drawn at risk to the health of the donor

That is not a realistic or well thought out medical strategy. It smells of panic—an organization headed by men completely unversed in medicine desperately scrambling to soften an objectively outrageous and controversial stance, and arriving at a compromise that doesn’t actually work in the real world.

And when the change is presented as a mere “clarification,” without acknowledging the death toll from those who loyally followed the previous stance, assuming they were pleasing God by doing so, it raises deeper questions.

Not just about doctrine—but about accountability.

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Postscript: Click here to watch me discuss this development with former HLC (Hospital Liaison Committee) elder Chaka Yumba.

This could be a game-changer.

Until recently, child safeguarding, coercive religious control, mandatory reporting, shunning, and institutional secrecy have been niche ex-member concerns. That is now changing. They are rightly becoming public-interest issues. And in the current climate — with fresh public anger over elite protection networks, institutional abuse, and the fallout of the Epstein scandal — this is exactly the moment for the government to act.

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Carling’s testimony is striking not just because he is an MP, but because he is speaking from lived experience. As he told the BBC:

“You’re very much taught from a young age that we’re not part of this world; that we are God’s true group of people,”

Carling also described a culture in which members are pressured to remain socially enclosed:

“you’re very much encouraged not to make friends outside of the religion.”

Those two observations go to the heart of why abuse and coercion can be so hard to challenge inside high-control groups.

When a tight-knit, insular community conditions members to distrust the outside world and ties identity, belonging, and morality to obedience and conformity, reporting wrongdoing becomes far more onerous.

A Warning That Can’t Be Ignored

In the House of Commons, Britain’s biggest political arena, Sam Carling has not minced words. Of Jehovah’s Witness communities, he said there was a:

“culture of non-reporting and forgiveness for child abusers”

with abusers:

“remaining at large.”

Carling also rightly told the House:

“There is ample evidence that religious leaders regularly stop victims or their parents reporting abuse to police because it will bring reproach on God’s name,”

and he described the wider pattern as:

“a systemic cover-up on a catastrophic level”

Sam Carling is not pulling any punches.

These are strong claims, but they are not the mere rantings of a disgruntled former member who happens to now have a voice in politics. They are all defensible, factual statements reinforced by decades of investigative reporting, public inquiry material, court cases, and the organisation’s own documented policies.

The Notorious Australian Royal Commission 1,006 Figure

When probed for evidence by the BBC in support of his claims, Carling correctly pointed to the single most devastating number ever uncovered about Jehovah’s Witnesses and child sexual abuse: the infamous 1,006 figure from the Australian Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse (ARC).

As Carling mentioned, the ARC uncovered Jehovah’s Witness records pertaining to 1,006 alleged perpetrators in Australia alone, of which not one had been reported to police by the organisation.

That statistic should have changed everything. Governments around the world should have been banging on the doors of branch offices, demanding their stash of criminal evidence.

Instead, since 2015 the organisation has mostly slipped away from further scrutiny. It continues to insist that it “abhors child sexual abuse” while resisting the structural reforms that would make such assurances carry any weight.

The UK Figures: Tightly Curated — But Still Damning

What many are unaware of is that the ARC 1,006 number is not the only hard, numerical evidence of the gargantuan cover-up. There is also UK-specific evidence. It’s just been mostly ignored by successive governments.

In 2019, Paul Gillies — then head of the organization’s Public Information Department (PID) and former head of the Britain Branch — submitted written evidence to the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA). The dataset was heavily curated. It covered only:

• a ten-year period, from 2009 to 2019

• England and Wales (not Scotland or Northern Ireland)

• only men in positions of trust, namely elders and ministerial servants

• only abuse connected to a “place of worship” setting, i.e. kingdom halls and assembly halls

In short, this was by no means a comprehensive snapshot of abuse among Jehovah’s Witnesses in Britain. It excluded ordinary congregation members, abuse in private homes, abuse outside the selected timeframe, and any case outside that narrow institutional filter.

Even so, the figures were deeply troubling.

Gillies’ evidence acknowledged 67 individuals accused of child sexual abuse within that narrow UK dataset. These included 25 elders, 32 ministerial servants, and 10 others connected to congregational settings.

Of those 67 cases, only 37 were reported to secular authorities (all but two by the victim or family themselves, not the elders or branch).

That means 30 allegations in this already filtered dataset were not reported to police by the organization. For all we know, the individuals are still at large.

Even on the organisation’s own carefully limited terms, Gillies’ numbers pointed in the same direction Carling is now describing: internal handling, restricted reporting, and serious safeguarding failures.

Disappointingly, despite the above information being volunteered as evidence to IICSA by Jehovah’s Witnesses themselves, there was barely a raised eyebrow.

Paul Gillies’ figures were not referenced in IICSA’s final report. No action was taken. After the IICSA investigation was over, Gillies was promoted to the Governing Body’s Coordinator’s Committee.

The Fear Brochure: Why Jehovah’s Witnesses “Keep Getting It Wrong”

The same pattern of cover-up and failure to protect children is laid bare in Section 6 of my new brochure, You Should Not Fear Him, titled “Child Abuse—Why They Keep Getting It Wrong.” The section summarizes Jehovah’s Witness policy on child safeguarding as follows:

“Despite public assurances that the organization ‘abhors child abuse’ and ‘recognizes it as a crime,’ elders are still required to contact the legal department for permission to report abuse to authorities, effectively making lawyers the gatekeepers of whether crimes against children are investigated or prosecuted. That alone places institutional self-interest in direct conflict with child safety. ”

As an example of how the organisation approaches the problem of known abusers circulating in congregations, I describe the practice of appointing elders as informal probation officers:

“Even when the two-witness rule is satisfied and abusers are disciplined internally, elders are then tasked with monitoring their interaction with minors after reinstatement. This places untrained volunteers in the role of informal probation officers, responsible for policing the movements of known or confessed abusers within congregations that include children.

Whether parents are informed is at the discretion of the elders or the branch. Restrictions may or may not be enforced by elders who are often already stretched with various other tasks and assignments. What is certain is that responsibility for safeguarding is shifted away from professionals and onto men whose primary training is religious, not clinical or legal.”

It’s worth stressing that the above policy isn’t a secret. It’s described proudly and openly in the organisation’s own publications. And yet, the organisation is allowed to hold on to its charitable status in the UK, including its tax exemption, and receives zero government scrutiny.

Crime First, Sin Second

One of the most important points in Section 6 of the Fear brochure is this:

“Child abuse is not just a theological problem. It is not purely a matter of doctrinal interpretation or congregational discipline. It is a serious crime requiring immediate reporting, professional investigation, and survivor-focused care.”

That is exactly the point lawmakers need to grasp.

Too often, abuse inside religious settings is treated as a matter of belief, conscience, pastoral care, or internal discipline. There is a pronounced “look the other way” narrative informed by societal religious deference that has dominated for generations. But child sexual abuse is not about religious autonomy and doctrinal tinkering. It is a crime and should be treated as such.

Why This Political Moment Matters

The timing of Carling’s intervention, both in parliament and in speaking to the BBC, is significant. Britain has arrived at a crossroads of heightened awareness around institutional protection, elite impunity, child safeguarding, and the way powerful organisations close ranks when scandal looms.

The Epstein scandal has sharpened public sensitivity to one central question: what happens when systems protect themselves instead of the vulnerable? What happens when power and status are allowed to interfere with protecting minors?

Now is the moment to broaden the conversation and ask the same question of high-control religious groups.

Carling is right to push on mandatory reporting. He is also right to press on accountability gaps where religious volunteers may escape meaningful sanction. As he told the BBC:

“There are going to be [in the bill] professional sanctions for people who are DBS (Disclosure and Barring Service) regulated, but that’s not the case in some religious organisations.”

And for Jehovah’s Witness elders and any proposed duty to report, he warned:

“there’ll basically be no sanction for not complying”

If that remains true once legislation is enacted, then Parliament will have left a glaring loophole in one of the very areas where the risk of non-reporting has already repeatedly been a concern.

A Conversation Long Overdue

For years, former Jehovah’s Witnesses, survivors, journalists, and campaigners have been saying the same thing: this is not just about a few bad apples. The problem is not only individual abusers. It is the culture, the policies, the secrecy, the distrust of “secular authorities,” the pressure not to bring “reproach,” and the structural incentives to keep matters inside the congregation.

Now a sitting MP is saying it too.

That should focus minds in Westminster. Alarm bells should be ringing in Kier Starmer’s Labour government.

This is not about targeting religion. This is about protecting children. If existing laws leave room for abuse allegations to be quietly managed inside high-control religious groups, then they are not fit for purpose.

Sam Carling’s BBC article is well timed because it lands in a political environment where excuses for institutional failure are wearing thin. The public is growing impatient. The evidence is already overwhelming. And the question is no longer whether this issue deserves to be taken seriously. It’s when that will finally happen.

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This new brochure explores this idea and is now available digitally and in print.

This is where fear ends.

lloydonline.org/fear

#jehovahswitnesses #Jehovah #bestlifeever

Why can’t ex-Jehovah’s Witnesses have at least one?

As I went down the rabbit hole with this idea it occurred to me that not only was it feasible (I’d already written two books about Jehovah’s Witnesses — surely a brochure was doable), but I had a secret weapon at my disposal for this particular vision.

His name is Arthur.

Arthur and I have been friends and colleagues for years. He formatted both of my books — The Reluctant Apostate and How to Escape From Jehovah’s Witnesses. A frequent guest on my Last Days Livestream YouTube show, he happens to be one of the world’s foremost experts on Jehovah’s Witnesses — even though he has never actually been one.

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In 2019, Arthur first visited me in Croatia to share his fascinating story of how Jehovah’s Witnesses tried — and ultimately failed — to recruit him, whereupon he developed a deep fascination with the organization’s history and, in particular, the way it produces attractive literature in multiple languages.

Arthur has been tracking the Witness organization and its developments for so long that he even got to meet Raymond Franz prior to his death in 2010. (For those who don’t know, Franz was a former Governing Body member and arguably the most influential whistleblower in the history of Jehovah’s Witnesses after he published his explosive tell-all book Crisis of Conscience in the 1980s.)

In Arthur I had everything I needed to make this project not just successful, but potentially a phenomenon. He is probably the only person in the world capable of single-handedly producing literature that looks exactly like Jehovah’s Witness literature.

All I needed to do was write the brochure, and let him do his thing.

Writing the Brochure

In December I penned a brief, welcoming introduction. The idea was to make it as non-confrontational as possible. The focus would be on truth, and how real truth doesn’t fear scrutiny. I would avoid referring to Jehovah’s Witnesses in the opening paragraphs.

Having written the introduction I then needed a proof of concept for the cover of the brochure. At first I was extremely skeptical about using AI to produce imagery for a project of this kind, but after a few false starts I managed to create a very striking cover depicting a generic Governing Body-like figure being filmed on the JW Broadcasting sound stage.

The psychology of the image was clear: Jehovah’s Witnesses are seeing a curated version of the truth — not the full picture.

Arthur quickly applied my title: “You Should Not Fear Him” — Why It’s OK to Question “The Truth.” He used a font that had previously been used in Jehovah’s Witness publications (fonts are one of his favorite subjects to talk about).

As soon as I saw the title and the image coalesce so pleasingly — hitting the exact sweet spot of mimicking a religion while simultaneously undoing its fear-inspiring mystique — the creative juices began to flow.

This was a brochure I just had to write.

On Monday, January 5th I started out on what quickly turned into a writing marathon. Having mapped out the most important sections according to what a typical Jehovah’s Witness would need to know, I made it my goal to write as concisely as possible — giving the reader the information they needed but not getting lost in the detail.

Make a point. Move on. Make another point. Move on.

Cite scriptures to back up my arguments. Give citations from Jehovah’s Witness publications for any claims or facts that may seem too outrageous to be true.

By Friday, I had written sections 1 to 6 — as well as the conclusion — of the Fear brochure. I had done it in roughly 10,000 words. Some days later I added a seventh section — “Thought Stoppers” — addressing some of the most common defenses Jehovah’s Witnesses reach for when their beliefs are under fire.

Printing Day

Fast forward to Friday, February 27th and I found myself arriving at a printery that is conveniently located only a 13-minute drive from my home in Zagreb. Less than two months after properly starting the writing process, I was taking delivery of 1,000 copies of the completed brochure for my Kickstarter backers.

I was amazed at how sleek and sophisticated the printery was.

On a previous visit I had only seen the company’s reception and conference suite — fancy, modern corporate spaces strewn with sculptures and artwork — but this time I was led to the main printery floor. It was an immense, brightly lit space comparable in size to an aircraft hangar.

My only past experience of printeries was numerous tours of Bethels (Jehovah’s Witness facilities) as a believing Jehovah’s Witness. I’d always assumed that “worldly” printers would be noisy, grimy and disorganized. After all, surely only with Jehovah’s spirit could clean, efficient, large-scale printing be possible?

I got my needed jolt of reality.

All the equipment was clean and modern. Everyone looked happy and focused. The only difference was the workers here were all being paid.

I was ushered into a room to sign off on my brochures. I was slightly unnerved that I hadn’t been shown them yet. But having already seen some proofs a week earlier I knew I just had to trust everything was in order.

The brochures, all wrapped in brown paper, were wheeled out to my car. The printery foreman helped me load them into the trunk. I thanked him.

Once he was out of eyesight I quickly teased open one of the brown paper bundles and gingerly tugged a brochure out from inside, almost grimacing in case it somehow fell short of expectations.

To my relief and delight, it far surpassed them.

“Is everything ok?” asked the foreman.

“It’s just perfect, thank you!” I said, with a huge grin.

A Multilingual Operation

And so it seems I not only have a brochure.

I also have my secret weapon, Arthur.

I have a sleek, modern, cost-effective printery on my doorstep.

I even have a team of volunteer translators working in a WhatsApp group to get the brochure released in an additional 16 languages. (Portuguese is currently very close to completion—including a Brazilian version. I’m hopeful it will be ready by the end of the month.)

Watching this project grow has been both thrilling and slightly surreal. I set out to write a brochure, and somehow I’ve ended up coordinating what feels suspiciously like a miniature publishing operation — which has entailed thinking through the processes and building the infrastructure to support it.

There is a certain irony here.

For years I toured Bethel printing facilities — the nerve centers where Jehovah’s Witness literature is produced and shipped across the globe. Those places exist to distribute publications designed to reinforce loyalty to the organization.

Now, quite unintentionally, I appear to be building my own little “Bethel.”

Except this time the goal is not to spread fear or control. It is to give people information, reassurance, and permission to think for themselves.

Where to Get the Brochure

The Fear brochure is now available both digitally and in print on my website.

The digital edition is there for anyone who simply wants to read it or share it online. The printed versions are available individually or in bundles for those who want to distribute physical copies.

An audiobook version is also in the works and should be available soon.

None of this would have been possible without incredible support from kind, generous people who believed in the project early on.

To my Kickstarter backers, my Patreon supporters, and my YouTube channel members — thank you. Your support allowed me to dedicate the time, energy, and resources necessary to bring this idea to life.

What started as a small “what if?” publishing experiment has turned into something much bigger: a collaborative effort involving designers, printers, translators, supporters, and activists all over the world.

And if even a small number of people read this brochure and feel less afraid to ask questions — if it helps even a handful of people reclaim their freedom of thought — then every late night writing sprint, every WhatsApp message, every email, every conference call with translators will have been worth it.

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For years, maybe decades, your identity, your community, and your sense of purpose were mapped out for you. Then suddenly the map is gone. No meetings. No regimen. No rulebook. No script. No ready-made answers to the question: what now?

That question is where many people panic. And it is also where an unnerving, residual pressure creeps in. In the final section of my new Fear brochure, I try to address this moment head-on.

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One of the most weaponized verses in high-control religion is John 6:68 (NWT):

“Simon Peter answered him: ‘Lord, whom shall we go away to? You have sayings of everlasting life.”

It’s often used in some communities as a rhetorical dead end: “Stay, or there is nowhere else. Stay, or life becomes empty. Stay, or you lose meaning.”

What’s missing in that framing is context. Peter is speaking to a person, not an institution. Not an organization. Not a publishing corporation claiming exclusive access to truth. The verse is about relationship, not membership.

Over time, that distinction gets blurred. Loyalty to Christ becomes loyalty to an organization. Doubt becomes moral failure. Curiosity becomes pride. And fear fills the gap. Fear of isolation. Fear of meaninglessness. Fear of becoming the wicked “apostate” you were always warned about. The sad, angry, embittered wretch lurking in the shadows.

The reality is far simpler and far more humane. You are allowed to examine ideas. You are allowed to change your mind. You are allowed to believe differently or not believe at all. None of this makes you broken, dangerous, or lost. You have not failed just by asking questions. You have not fallen apart by walking away.

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One of the strongest reactions I see from people leaving high-control groups is the urge to do something immediately. Survivor guilt kicks in. Anger too. You want to climb back into the burning building and start dragging others out. You want to expose the lies, confront the injustice, reclaim the years that were taken from you.

All of that is normal. Healthy, even. But it can also become another form of pressure.

After more than fourteen years involved in activism, the best advice I can give anyone leaving a cult is this: Give yourself time to breathe. Debrief. Recover. Put on your own oxygen mask first.

If you later find ways to help others, that’s wonderful. Maybe you can be supportive to fellow refugees in online spaces. Maybe you can arrange meetups. Maybe you can contribute online resources. Maybe you simply become the kind of approachable, empathetic person you once needed when you were trapped.

All of that matters. But you do not owe the universe activism. Your time and energy belong to you now. Protect them.

You have already done something extraordinary just by getting out in one piece. The odds were stacked against you. These groups are designed to keep people in. In the case of Jehovah’s Witnesses, 9 million are currently under the thrall of God’s exclusive “channel.” And yet you made it. You have already won the hardest battle.

Anything you do beyond that, whether it’s helping others, rebuilding your life, exploring faith in a new way, or stepping away from religion entirely, is a bonus. Not an obligation.

If there is truth, it should not rely on intimidation to survive. If there is meaning, it cannot be monopolized. You are (and always have been) free to choose—without pressure, without labels, and without fear.

If you’re at that fragile, uncertain stage where everything still feels raw, I wrote the above words in the Fear brochure with you in mind. The brochure is there to steady you, not steer you. No agenda. Just reassurance that your life, your identity, and your future still belong to you.

Why Cult Recovery Takes Time

Leaving a high-control group is not just about exit logistics. For many, it involves untangling your sense of self from years of internalized rules, expectations, and emotional conditioning. Psychologists have increasingly identified this pattern as religious trauma syndrome (RTS), a framework that describes the psychological impact of prolonged exposure to controlling religious environments.

RTS is not an official clinical diagnosis in the DSM-5, but it is recognized in peer-reviewed literature and by clinicians who work with trauma survivors. It encompasses many common post-exit experiences: anxiety, guilt, hypervigilance, intrusive memories, loss of identity, and difficulties with boundaries and decision-making.

A 2019 article in The Journal of Humanistic Psychology explains that recovery from religious trauma often resembles recovery from complex post-traumatic stress, requiring time, safety, and supportive relationships both inside and outside therapy. (cf. The Journal of Humanistic Psychology, 2019)

Another paper in Traumatology highlights how people raised in authoritarian religious environments may struggle with agency and self-trust after leaving, precisely because obedience and fear were taught as moral virtues. (cf. Traumatology, 2021)

These insights matter because they validate what many feel intuitively: leaving the group is not the end of the journey, it’s the beginning of one.

You do not simply walk out of a controlling environment and instantly feel fine. You must learn to breathe again — emotionally, mentally, sometimes spiritually.

Reclaiming Choice

Part of that work is reclaiming decision-making. Cults and high-control groups often condition followers to outsource their choices — what to believe, how to act, and whom to trust — to an authority. In recovery, a central task is stepping back into your own agency.

That rarely happens overnight. It happens through small decisions: what to read, who to talk to, how to spend your time. It happens through setting boundaries. It happens through learning that curiosity is not betrayal. It happens through patience with yourself when the old fears still circle in the background.

If you choose advocacy, that is noble. If you choose privacy, that is equally valid. If you choose a new faith path or a secular one, your worth remains intact. You’ve already won by stepping out. The rest is about moving forward.

You are enough. And beyond that, yours is the freedom to choose what life you build next.

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Taken at face value, that claim suggests a willingness to confront history honestly — even the parts that turned out badly. And yet one of the most striking physical artefacts ever produced by the Watch Tower Society is barely acknowledged at all.

In a quiet residential neighbourhood of San Diego, there stands a Spanish-style mansion built in 1929 and once owned by the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society. Its name is Beth Sarim — Hebrew for House of the Princes — and its supposed purpose sounds straight out of some weird science fiction / The Passion of the Christ crossover.

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Once built, Beth Sarim was deeded to Old Testament figures — Abraham, Moses, David, Samson, et al. — who were expected to return to earth before Armageddon and assume control of human affairs.

This expectation did not emerge in a vacuum. Under Rutherford’s leadership, Watchtower publications boldly proclaimed that the year 1925 would mark the return of the “ancient worthies” — faithful figures from the Old Testament who would be resurrected ahead of Armageddon to form God’s visible government on earth.

This divine regime change operation was said to include patriarchs such as Abraham and Isaac, prophets like Moses, and judges like Samson — basically anyone who made it into the Apostle Paul’s “Best of the Old Testament” list in Hebrews chapter 11.

Their return was not presented as speculative or symbolic, but as a concrete event on the near horizon, tied to specific prophetic calculations and proclaimed with certainty from Watchtower platforms worldwide. The 1925 teaching was notoriously enshrined in a 1920 booklet bearing the arresting if poorly-aging title: Millions Now Living Will Never Die!.

It’s safe to say thousands of readers will never be able to claim a refund.

When 1925 passed without incident, the doctrine was not abandoned so much as quietly adjusted. Public certainty gave way to retrospective ambiguity. Responsibility shifted from prophetic failure to misplaced expectations on the part of believers. Yet the underlying belief in the imminent return of the ancient worthies lingered well into the late 1920s, long enough to justify building a house expressly for their use.

Beth Sarim was not conceived as a metaphor or a devotional illustration; it was intended as practical accommodation for resurrected Bible characters who were expected to materialize from thin air in suburban San Diego and be suitably recognizable for Rutherford to not just open the door but hand them their own set of keys.

The house still stands, but as history attests, the resurrection never happened. And the organisation that once owned it would much prefer you not dwell on why. Beth Sarim is not an obscure footnote. It is flawed theology poured into concrete. (A recommendation from personal experience: If you choose to visit, do not go ringing the doorbell asking if it’s ok to take selfies in the garden. The owner won’t appreciate it.)

Beth Sarim was commissioned during the presidency of Joseph Franklin Rutherford, the second leader of the Watch Tower Society and arguably the most authoritarian figure in its history. Under Rutherford, Watchtower doctrine shifted from Charles Taze Russell’s loosely mystical framework into something more rigid, more centralized, and far more confident in its prophetic claims.

One of those claims was the imminent resurrection of the “ancient worthies.” This was not speculative theology or fringe commentary. It was published doctrine, defended in print, and presented to believers as settled truth. Beth Sarim was the physical expression of that certainty.

According to the Society’s later retellings, the house was primarily a medical necessity. Rutherford, readers were told, had poor health and only “one good lung.” His doctor allegedly urged him to spend winters in the milder climate of southern California, far from Watchtower headquarters in Brooklyn.

This explanation appears repeatedly in Watchtower literature, including the 1993 Proclaimers book, where the entire Beth Sarim episode is confined to a tiny grey box — three paragraphs and a footnote — as though proportional minimisation might somehow defuse its significance. But when you examine the historical record more closely, the medical narrative begins to fray.

Rutherford had been wintering in San Diego for years before Beth Sarim was built, using rented accommodation without any apparent difficulty. The physician most often cited in Watchtower accounts, Dr. A. G. Eckols, was based in San Diego — meaning Rutherford was not sent there on medical advice so much as already there when that advice was given.

If “prudence and good common sense” truly dictated Rutherford’s relocation, there were obvious alternatives: reduce his workload, delegate authority, or step aside altogether. Instead, the solution was to build a mansion exclusively for his use.

Construction began in 1929 — the same year as the Wall Street Crash, at the dawn of the Great Depression. The cost was approximately $25,000, an extraordinary sum at the time. Neighbours later described it as one of the finest homes in the area. Rutherford is said to have declined an offer of $75,000 for the finished property.

Modest accommodation suitable for recuperation could have been purchased for a fraction of that amount. But Beth Sarim was never about necessity. It was about privilege and entitlement.

The funding of Beth Sarim is one of the murkier aspects of the story, and Watchtower literature works hard to keep it that way. Official statements insist that no Society funds were used directly in its construction. Instead, readers are told that “some brethren, out of their own personal funds,” arranged for its erection. Even if taken at face value, this defence raises more questions than it answers.

The property deeds placed Beth Sarim in trust under the Watch Tower Society. Upon Rutherford’s death, the house reverted to the organisation, which later sold it and retained the proceeds. Regardless of how the initial payments were structured, donated money was used to provide a luxury residence for one man, held under organisational control, and ultimately absorbed back into organisational assets.

Beth Sarim was a Watchtower property in every meaningful sense.

That distinction matters, because it exposes a familiar pattern: plausible deniability paired with absolute authority. Contributors were never told they were funding Rutherford’s personal lifestyle. They were led to believe they were supporting Jehovah’s purposes.

The disparity between Rutherford’s living conditions and those of ordinary Bethel workers is stark and difficult to ignore. Contemporary accounts describe factory workers living in cramped, unheated rooms, enduring harsh conditions while being told to embrace sacrifice as a spiritual virtue.

Meanwhile, Rutherford enjoyed spacious, well-appointed accommodation in multiple locations — including Beth Sarim — and the exclusive use of not one but two sixteen-cylinder Cadillacs. One remained in Brooklyn; the other was kept in San Diego.

To put that into perspective, a new Ford in 1931 cost roughly $600. A sixteen-cylinder Cadillac could cost more than $9,000. This was not modest living by any reasonable standard. It was opulence, justified by authority.

Rutherford made no attempt to hide Beth Sarim’s supposed prophetic significance. He framed its construction as an “act of faith.” Watchtower publications of the era openly stated that the house was built for the princes, planted with palm trees to resemble Palestine, and intended to welcome resurrected men who would soon assume leadership of the world.

When critics rightly mocked the idea, Rutherford doubled down. Beth Sarim, he insisted, was testimony — evidence that Jehovah’s organisation believed its own message strongly enough to act on it. In that narrow sense, he was correct. The problem was not insufficient faith. It was unchecked certainty.

Rutherford’s conviction went so far that he requested to be buried at Beth Sarim, facing east, ready to greet the returning princes (presumably after burrowing out of his casket and dusting himself off). On his death, that wish triggered a prolonged legal dispute with local residents, who objected to their neighbourhood becoming a religious burial site and pilgrimage hotspot.

The residents ultimately prevailed. Rutherford was buried elsewhere, or so the official record states. In a final twist, rumours have long circulated—particularly among former Bethel insiders—that his remains were actually interred at Beth Sarim in secret, allegedly beneath the driveway and sealed in concrete in defiance of the court ruling.

These claims have never been substantiated with documentary evidence and should be treated as hearsay rather than established fact. Even so, their persistence is revealing. In the decades since, it has become painfully apparent that Watchtower officials are more than capable of disregarding secular authority when it conflicts with what they believe to be a higher, divinely sanctioned purpose.

Within a few years of his death in 1942, Beth Sarim was quietly sold. The doctrine that justified its construction was abandoned. Later publications reframed the entire episode as a medical footnote rather than a gargantuan prophetic failure.

Today, most Jehovah’s Witnesses have never heard of Beth Sarim. This is not accidental. Beth Sarim is inconvenient because it resists reinterpretation. Failed predictions can be reworded. Timelines can be re-explained. Doctrines can be softened into metaphors. A house originally deeded to Abraham & Co. is harder to edit. It stands as a monument of what Watchtower leadership once believed with absolute confidence — and what it later chose not to explain.

That is why Beth Sarim still matters. Not because Rutherford was eccentric — that’s the default setting for most cult leaders — but because the organisational structure that enabled his certainty remains largely intact. To this day authority among Jehovah’s Witnesses is still centralised. Accountability is still absent. History is still curated rather than confronted.

The names have changed. The mechanisms have not.

In my book The Reluctant Apostate, I explore Beth Sarim in greater detail (showing all the receipts in terms of Watchtower publication references and contemporary media quotes) not as a curiosity but as a warning. It illustrates what happens when leaders become insulated from reality, surrounded by loyalty, and shielded from consequence. The result is not merely error, but entitlement — a sense that belief alone justifies privilege.

Modern Jehovah’s Witnesses are often told that past mistakes demonstrate humility and refinement. Beth Sarim suggests something else entirely. It reminds us that when prophecy fails, power rarely apologises. It simply sells the house, rewrites the story, buries the past, and hopes no one checks the deeds.

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Before there were YouTube videos, there were blog articles. Before reaction, there was research. Long before the Lloyd Evans channel became the most visible part of my work, writing was how I made sense of what I had experienced, how I documented what I was uncovering, and how I tried to create something durable out of anger, confusion, and loss.

Over time, video became the most effective way to reach people quickly. It remains important, and it isn’t going away. But it has also become increasingly clear to me that some of the work I care most about — synthesis, context, long-range analysis — simply doesn’t belong in that format. It gets rushed. It gets flattened. It gets pulled toward reaction rather than understanding.

Substack feels uniquely suited to the kind of work I want to do more of now.

This is a place for longer-form writing: pieces that draw together 14 years of research, documentation, and lived experience; essays that prioritize clarity over speed; and analysis that’s meant to be read, revisited, and cited rather than scrolled past. It’s also a space where I can revisit material that has existed in fragmented form across many years and platforms and give it proper, scholarly context.

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That shift doesn’t represent a break with my activism work, but a continuation of it in a form that’s more authentic and sustainable — both for me, and for the people who rely on these resources. Writing has always been my first love, and in many ways, it’s where I do my best thinking.

I’ve been fortunate to have the support of readers, viewers, patrons, and members who have made it possible for me to keep doing this work through some very turbulent years. That support is the reason projects like the new Fear brochure exist at all, and it’s also what makes this next phase possible. Substack gives me a way to honour that backing by producing work that’s more considered, more durable, and less tied to the rhythms of online outrage culture.

What you’ll find here won’t be constant updates or daily takes. Instead, you can expect essays and analysis that aim to be useful well beyond the moment they’re published — writing that looks backward as well as forward, and that treats the subject matter with the seriousness it deserves.

This is not me turning my back on other formats or platforms. It’s an acknowledgement that different kinds of work need different kinds of space. For me, this space offers something fresh, exciting, and more me.

Let’s explore it together.

Lloyd

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