Salome & the Archetype of the Seductive Girl Who Ruins Powerful Men

The Jeffrey Epstein headache just won't go away. Reviewing the story of the sexy girl who had John the Baptist's head served on a silver platter.

For years there has been a lot of consternation about the refusal of federal agencies such as the CIA and FBI to disclose what they know about Jeffrey Epstein (as well as about the assassination of JFK, the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the murder of Seth Rich, and countless other stories). Guys like me have also noticed how the U.S. government, including Congress, can’t ever quite seem to get to the bottom of the origin of SARS-CoV-2.

The truth of these stories carries incalculable liabilities—liabilities that would call into question whether the involved institutions should be allowed to continue existing.

Disclosing the truth could also instantly demolish the persistent naïveté that enables most people to maintain their allegiance to their governments and to believe the endless train of BS that we are told every day about everything.

Jeffrey Epstein continues to be a major headache for our ruling class because he was apparently running a blackmail operation using beautiful underage girls who didn’t necessarily look younger than 18. Presented with a beautiful girl who appeared to be 18, most men probably stopped short of asking to see her valid government issued ID before dallying around with her (with hidden videos all over the place). God knows how many immensely powerful men in the United States and Britain were compromised.

The Gospels of Matthew and Mark tell the story of Salome, who is manipulated by her mother, Herodias, to ask for the head of John the Baptist from her stepfather, King Herod Antipas.

After a dance for the king’s birthday feast, Herod promised to grant Salome anything she wanted up to half of his kingdom. Doing the bidding of Herodias, who hated John for disapproving of her marriage, Salome asked for John’s head on a platter. Though horrified and reluctant, Herod, felt bound by his oath had John executed. Salome then delivered John’s head to her mother.

For centuries Salome has been depicted as an archetypal femme fatale and symbolic of the extraordinary power of young women to seduce even the most powerful men. Caravaggio painted a dramatic portrait of her serving John’s head to her mom. During the 19th century, numerous artists and writers became fascinated by her story. Oscar Wilde’s play Salome and Richard Strauss’s opera are two notable examples.

To me, the most salient feature of the Epstein story is the extraordinary lack of sophistication of so many men who visited his island pleasure palace in the Caribbean. At the risk of sounding boastful, I am confident I would have detected what he was doing as soon as I was presented with the first pretty young girl on the island.

What can explain the extreme recklessness of powerful men? I wonder if the primary driver of the will to acquire power is man’s ancient drive to acquire physically attractive female mates. The famous molecular biologist, James Crick, the co-discoverer of DNA, once confessed that the entire reason he studied molecular biology was to achieve fame in order get an attractive girl. I think about this whenever I hear the complaint that Hollywood studio bosses have a long history of taking too much liberty with actresses. It seems to me that, for many of these guys, the whole point of becoming a film producer is to get beautiful girls.

Epstein was probably running the the same kind of trap that Mossad agent Eli Cohen ran against the Syrian political and military elite in the sixties and that bon vivant gangster Udo Proksch ran against the Austrian Socialist Party elite in the seventies.

Eli Cohen

Udo Proksch with his staff at Cafe Demel

The case of Udo Proksch is illustrative. Using an aristocratic girlfriend as his front woman, he acquired Cafe Demel—one of the most opulent coffee houses in Vienna and the former confectioner to the Imperial Court. He then converted the top floor of the building to house his CLUB 45, whose membership included all of the top ranking members of the Austrian Socialist Party, which held a virtual monopoly on federal power in the 1970s.

Proksch invited an old friend of mine to become a member, but my friend suspected that the clubhouse was a one-way mirror trap to which underage girls were invited to “entertain” Austria’s political and financial elite.

Cafe Demel, the former home of Club 45

In 1977, Proksch committed a massive insurance fraud and mass murder by blowing up a ship called the Lucona—whose cargo he had insured—in the middle of the Indian Ocean. The insurance company smelled a rat and launched an investigation, but was frustrated by the total lack of cooperation from Austrian authorities. It was as though Proksch was untouchable. The only reason he was eventually exposed—twelve years after he committed his crime—was because the West German foreign intelligence service (Bundesnachrichtendienst) and the CIA were unhappy with him for transferring western technology to his friends in the Soviet Union.

These intelligence agencies shared their information on Proksch with the independent, Austrian journalist, Hans Pretterebner, who self-published a book on the affair in 1989 titled Der Fall Lucona (The Case of the Lucona).

The lesson from the story was clear: unless the intelligence agencies—who control politicians and civil servants—want a big story with major liabilities disclosed, it won’t be disclosed. All evidence of the conspiracy will likely disappear, and people like Pam Bondi, Dan Bongino, and Kash Patel will be left looking like fools.