Rev. Laura George, J.D, serves as Executive Director of The Oracle Institute and author of The Light: And the New Human.
Since the dawn of consciousness, humanity has crafted false belief systems about God: mythological and anthropomorphic depictions of “The Light.” Today, many people seek a new theosophy and an integrated Godhead, worthy of our 21st Century minds and hearts. We are reexploring the Godhead – well beyond the New Age inquiry of the last century. Instead, “New Humans” recognize the many social, scientific, and spiritual forces that are shifting the Godhead toward belief systems founded on a genderful/genderless concept of deity.
The reason for our inquiry is clear: The ancient religions and antiquated holy books no longer suffice to provide meaningful, relevant answers to the primordial questions of human existence. Rather, it is the current merger of science and spirituality, coupled with the new concept of Holism, that provide New Humans with cutting-edge answers. Thus, while no new theosophy is yet on the horizon, the religion of tomorrow will be based on a “Tower of Truth” that includes the best of philosophy, psychology, physics, ethics, neo-humanism, and panpsychism.
The lingering issue will be how to placate (and possibly subdue) the old humans who still subscribe to outdated dogma that validates the barbaric “eye for an eye” moral code. We also have the issue of how to handle those who still believe God is a guy in the sky. Thankfully, the patriarchy associated with “Daddy Deism” is slowly losing ground, which is why we see the Culture War growing and the rise of White Nationalism – an ugly backlash akin to Custer’s Last Stand. The emerging “God Gap” in belief systems is just getting started, incidentally. Look for more mayhem during this “Great Cusp” – the period of intense socio-spiritual chaos that always accompanies a major paradigm shift.
In short: When the Godhead shifts, so does the paradigm. And since people of faith vastly outnumber atheists, expect new and novel theosophies. Let us hope that New Humans adopt increasingly more sophisticated and peaceful belief systems about the cosmos and our interrelationships. Over time, as the Spectrum of Consciousness continues to vertically expand, we should start seeing positive patterns of both individual growth and societal maturity – to the benefit of believers and atheists alike.
image of U.S. President Donald Trump is displayed on a digital billboard in Times Square in New York on April 8, 2026.
Trump is stuck between two realities. Neither serves the American people
Normally, I worry that events may overtake a column. But not so with the Iran war.
I don’t worry about running afoul of a headline or Truth Social post from the president because what is said about the situation is no longer very relevant to the reality.
On April 8, Nick Catoggio, my Dispatch colleague, dubbed an earlier stoppage with Iran “Schrödinger’s ceasefire.” This was a reference to the famous thought experiment by the physicist Erwin Schrödinger, who was trying to explain the weirdness of “superpositionality” in quantum physics. A cat in a box is both dead and alive at the same time until you open the box. Schrödinger meant to illustrate the absurdity of the idea that particles aren’t any one thing, but a “cloud of probabilities.”
The Trump administration is stuck in a word cloud of probabilities of his own making. The war is over. The war is on. The war isn’t a war. We have a deal, but we don’t have a deal, but we’re about to have a deal. We destroyed Iran’s military. No, we left it intact. We want regime change. No we don’t. We already accomplished it. We “obliterated” Iran’s nuclear program a year ago. We had to go to war in February to prevent nuclear war. The Strait of Hormuz is open, closed, or something in-between. No deal without “unconditional surrender.” Let’s make a deal!
This everything-all-at-once vibe can be disorienting, particularly since most Americans didn’t have a war with Iran on their bingo cards until the shooting had already started. President Trump didn’t prepare the country or consult with Congress beforehand because he thought it would all be a smashing success in a matter of weeks.
The miscalculation that started it all: killing Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and much of Iran’s senior leadership, on the first day of the war. To “the great proud people of Iran, I say tonight that the hour of your freedom is at hand,” Trump announced on Feb. 28. “When we are finished, take over your government. It will be yours to take. This will be probably your only chance for generations.”
I support regime change in Iran and shed no tears for Khamenei or his goons. But when you start a war by killing the regime’s top leaders, it’s not unreasonable for the remaining ones to conclude that you really intend regime change.
Khamenei was a murderous fanatic, but he was a fairly cautious one. He liked to threaten closing the Strait of Hormuz or attacking our regional allies, but he was reluctant to actually do it, fearing it would invite a regime change war. The mullahs and IRGC goons believed, not unreasonably, that if they lost their grip on power, they’d be lynched by the Iranian people they’ve brutalized for decades.
By starting with a regime change war, Trump removed any reason for the regime not to go for broke. When you have nothing to lose — particularly when you are a millenarian religious fanatic — a Persian Alamo strategy makes a lot of sense.
So Iran closed the Strait of Hormuz and attacked its neighbors.
But it turns out this wasn’t the Alamo. In the contest of wills, Trump blinked. The Iranian regime’s tolerance for punishment proved — so far — to be greater than Trump’s and that of our gulf allies. Militarily we could finish the job, but that would require ground troops and much greater economic turmoil. In a conflict Trump launched unilaterally without the prior support of Congress, NATO or the American people, Trump doesn’t have the political capital for that.
But that’s only half the problem. Trump wants the war over, but he doesn’t want to pay — militarily, economically, politically — what that would cost. So he wants to make a deal that ends it. But there is no deal available that wouldn’t come at an equally undesirable cost. Any deal that looks like what President Obama struck with the Iranians would be too embarrassing to bear. But the Iranians are convinced that they can get just such a deal, and they’re willing to drag things out as long as it takes.
The result: Trump’s in a box of his own making. He thinks he can talk his way out by simply asserting a reality that doesn’t exist. When the financial markets get nervous, he announces a breakthrough that is, at best, a possibility. When the Iranians agree to a deal that looks similar to one Obama might negotiate, Trump goes back to his threats.
It can’t go on forever. But I’m sure it’ll last until long after this column is forgotten.
Jonah Goldberg is editor-in-chief of The Dispatch and the host of The Remnant podcast. His Twitter handle is @JonahDispatch.