Game Theory #12: The Law of Eschatological Convergence (Transcript)

But I introduce you to him now.

This is the year 1990, and he is talking to Benjamin Netanyahu, who is a young and upcoming politician in Israel. Let’s look at the conversation.

VIDEO CLIP BEGINS:

RABBI SCHNEERSON: [Speaking with Netanyahu]

VIDEO CLIP ENDS:

PROFESSOR JIANG XUEQIN: So what’s going on here? As an up-and-coming politician, Netanyahu is going to a rabbi — and the rabbis are the most powerful people in Jewish society. He basically says, “Will you give me your blessing? Will you support me in my political endeavors?” The rabbi says yes. They also talk about how things are progressing.

So another way of saying this is that there’s almost like a plan in motion to achieve certain religious objectives, and things are going well. But Rabbi Schneerson says, “Ah, but they’re not going fast enough, because we need the Messiah — the great leader of the Jewish people — to come, and we can set in motion things that will force the coming of the Messiah. So let’s speed things up, Netanyahu.”

I’ll explain this later on, but I want you to be aware of who these people are. Rabbi Schneerson is very important for our story. And Netanyahu, of course, is the current Prime Minister of Israel.

# Netanyahu on “Jews Against Rome”

VIDEO CLIP BEGINS:

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: We want to know what you’re reading now.

NETANYAHU: What I’m reading?

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Yeah.

NETANYAHU: It’s called the Jews Against Rome.

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: What made you pick it up?

NETANYAHU: Well, we lost that. I think we have to win the next.

VIDEO CLIP ENDS:

PROFESSOR JIANG XUEQIN: So that’s a very quick exchange. A journalist is asking Benjamin Netanyahu what book he is reading now. And he says, “Jews Against Rome” — sorry, “Rome versus the Jews.” It’s a book by Barry Strauss, a historian. It goes on about the three wars that the Jews fought against the Romans. And it was essentially a Holocaust for the Jews. A lot of Jews either died or were enslaved. The Romans burned down the Second Temple. So there’s just historical animosity of the Jews against the Romans.

But what Benjamin Netanyahu said is that he read this book because “we lost that war against Rome, but in the next war against Rome, we must not lose.” The question then is, who’s Rome? It’s not Iran. It’s probably not Russia. It’s probably America — the great empire.

So this is strange, because Israel is the ally of America in this war. But Netanyahu is saying that our real enemy is Rome, and that’s what we must prepare for. I want you guys to keep this in mind.

# Pete Hegseth on the Third Temple

PROFESSOR JIANG XUEQIN: Alright. This is Pete Hegseth, who is Secretary of War for Donald Trump. And this is the year 2018, where he is in Jerusalem, and he’s talking to Christian Zionists and Zionists. Who these people are, I’ll explain later on. But let’s listen to his speech.

VIDEO CLIP BEGINS:

PETE HEGSETH: And I had a chance to go see the Western Wall of the Temple Mount, the Western Wall tunnels, so much of the old city. And as you stand there, you can’t help but behold the miracle before you. And it got me thinking about another miracle that I hope all of you don’t see too far away. Because 1917 was a miracle. 1948 was a miracle. 1967 was a miracle. 2017, the declaration of Jerusalem as the capital, was a miracle. And there’s no reason why the miracle of the reestablishment of the temple on the Temple Mount is not possible.

VIDEO CLIP ENDS:

PROFESSOR JIANG XUEQIN: So he is a Christian — he’s not a Jew. But what he’s saying is that he’s come to Jerusalem and visited these Jewish holy sites, and he can’t help but be amazed, be awed by the beauty and spirituality of the Western Wall.

He also goes on to say that there’s been a series of miracles. 1917 was the Balfour Declaration, when basically the British Empire permitted the Jews to found the nation state of Israel. 1948 was when Israel was founded. 1967 was when Israel fought a war against its Arab neighbors and won. And 2017 was when Donald Trump transferred the American embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, thus recognizing Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.

What he’s saying is that if this is a series of steps to achieving a divine plan, then the next miracle should be the rebuilding of Solomon’s Temple — the Third Temple — and that means destroying the Al-Aqsa mosque.

# An Israeli Rabbi on Destroying the Al-Aqsa Mosque

So if you want to build the Third Temple, you need to get rid of the third holiest site in the Islamic world. And how do you do that? Well, there are some options.

VIDEO CLIP BEGINS:

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Missiles will hit the mosque and clear the place. That could also be a miracle. If it was up to me, the last time when they shot hundreds of missiles, I would pretend that one missile came from Iran and shoot it down. Then all the Arabs will go against Iran. It will be the end of the problems. You make them fight with each other, this bunch of lunatics. Never too late. Deal with a bunch of cowards.

VIDEO CLIP ENDS:

PROFESSOR JIANG XUEQIN: So this is a rabbi in Israel. He’s saying how last year, during the twelve-day war in June, Iran was firing missiles at Israel. And what he’s saying is, “You know, that’s an opportunity for us to pretend that an Iranian missile hit the Dome of the Rock, the Al-Aqsa mosque, thus destroying it. And then the Arabs will blame the Iranians, and the Arabs will go to war against the Persians. And then we can just sit back and laugh at these lunatics.”

So, again, this may be confusing to you as to who these people are and why they are saying these things.

The Religious Angle: What Is Really Going On

But now what I’m going to do is explain to you what is really going on. I keep on saying this, but it is hard from a geopolitical perspective to explain this US-Iran war. You have to look at the religious perspective — the religious angle — and that’s what I want to focus on today.

So, again, this is the third holiest site in the Islamic world. This is Saudi Arabia — Mecca, Medina — and this is the Dome of the Rock, the Al-Aqsa mosque, which is where Mohammed was supposed to ascend to heaven. And the Jews and the Christian Zionists believe that this must be destroyed so that they can build the Third Temple, or Solomon’s Temple.

Alright. So this is the big question in this war. And I keep on saying this, but I need to be right in my prediction if my analysis is to be correct. If they do not destroy the Al-Aqsa mosque and if they are able to achieve peace, then my predictive model, my analysis — it’s completely wrong. Just ignore me for the rest of my life, and I can go back to teaching great books or something.

The Law of Eschatological Convergence

Alright. So let us examine why this is important. Today, I want to introduce you to a new theory of game theory called the Law of Eschatological Convergence.

It sounds complicated, but it’s not. Eschatology is a story of how the world ends. And it’s very compelling for people because, as human beings, we have three questions: Where do we come from? Why are we here? Where are we going? And eschatology provides a story that answers all three questions — why God created us, what our mission on earth is, and what God has planned for the end of the world.

Different traditions will have different eschatologies. And what’s important to figure out is in what aspects do these eschatologies converge — meaning, where is the union of these eschatologies? And why is that important? Because it allows you to predict how they will behave.

Think of a story as the operating system of a society. And as such, it’s a script that they will act out. And if you’re able to figure out the different scripts and see how they converge together — where the union of these different scripts are — then you can actually predict how the world will turn out.

The Universal Law of Game Theory

Alright. So how do I explain the law? I’m going to go into some theory to help us understand why this works.

So the first thing to understand is something called the Universal Law of Game Theory. And the Universal Law of Game Theory states this: whoever wins a game is able to do this —

The Formula: Mass, Energy, and Coordination

Mass times energy times coordination. So these are the three things you want to look at to understand how well a player would do in a game. Mass is just the number of people involved on the team.

Energy is just how much attention, focus, motivation there is. Think of it as attention or motivation or action. Any of these words will do. Basically, how invested are you in winning the game? And how hard are you willing to work to win the game?

And coordination is just the idea of synchronicity. What I mean by that is how well do the teammates work together.

Something that you need to appreciate is that the most important thing in winning a game is actually coordination. In fact, I would say it’s four times more important than just mass. So you can have a lot of people, but if they don’t work well together, you’re defeated by another team with few people, but they work well together. And then energy is twice as important as mass.

Let me give you an example. Let’s just say that you’re playing a game by yourself. For example, you enter a ping pong competition or a chess competition. Well, mass and coordination don’t really matter because you don’t have any teammates. And so what matters is energy, how motivated you are to win this game, how much time do you put in practice, how much time do you put into studying and improving yourself, how focused are you in winning?

In a team sport, mass is constant, and so what matters is energy and coordination, how well the team works well together.

Now, what’s interesting is that there are different ways to improve or increase, augment the energy and coordination. Maybe a leader. If someone is a really inspiring leader, that will make people much more motivated, and that will allow them to work well together because all they have to do is listen to a leader. The problem with a leader, of course, is that eventually he will die.

Then you have a family. Blood. They work well together because they all share similar blood, but we cannot account for the differences within this family. The conflict within this family.

The Power of Narrative and Eschatology

So, historically, in the long term, the force that allows teams to beat other teams is the idea of narrative. Narrative or a story. Why? Because it implants in the minds of all those who believe in the narrative a series of actions that they must take in order to win the game. Think of it as a script. And then in a script, you know what part you play, so you just have to act it out. And that allows for you all to work together to achieve the outcome that you desire.

And in narrative, the most powerful form of narrative is the idea of eschatology. Because eschatology is a complete script, a complete script in which everyone knows what he or she must do in order to achieve the desired outcome. Eschatology is also able to transcend both time and space, meaning that you can actually spend centuries acting out the script because everyone knows his role anyway. And it can transcend borders as well. You can go beyond ethnic identity and family. So the most powerful mechanism in history is eschatology.

What Is Eschatology?

So what is eschatology? Most religions are similar. Most religions require you to be a good person. Be humble, be kind, be generous. But there are certain aspects of religions that are extreme. We can call them eschatologies.

The classic example is the Jewish religion. In the Jewish religion, what you believe is that you no longer live in Israel because a long time ago, the Israelites angered God by disobeying him. God told the Israelites, “Do not worship false idols.” But the Israelites sinned, they disobeyed, so they were kicked out of Jerusalem, and they were forced to wander the earth in the diaspora for centuries.

And so what they believe is that they each need to engage in an act of redemption, of humility, of submission, of piety to God if they are to redeem the whole Jewish people. And when that happens, when they recognize their own limitations, when they recognize how inferior they are to God and submit to God, then God will send the messiah to redeem them and lead them back to Jerusalem, defeat the enemies of the Jews, bring all the Jews from the diaspora back to Judaism, unify the Jewish people, and then build the third temple so that God can come to earth and live with all the Jews and create heaven on earth.

That is the Jewish religion that most Jews believe. There are a lot of differences, but I’m just trying to simplify it for clarity.

The Accelerationists

But then you have these extremes, fanatics, who have a different eschatology. These people, we’re going to say, are accelerationists. And their point is that this is fine, but it’s way too slow, and it dissolves us of individual responsibility. If you have faith in God, then you should want to hurry things up and force the return of God as soon as possible.

And you do that by recognizing that, before the messiah comes, if you actually go and create the nation of Israel, bring all the Jews back, build the third temple, defeat all the enemies, then the messiah will come naturally.

Of course, most Jews hear this, and they think that this is blasphemy. It’s heresy because you are defying the will of God. You think you can manipulate God into action. That is wrong. That is the opposite of redemption. That is the worst possible sin you can make.

And so this eschatology is considered a fringe, an extreme, something to be ignored. The problem, though, is that if you think about it, what an eschatology really is doing is creating a vector to force the religion to move in a certain direction.

Also, if you think about it, if this is a case where there is a vector that forces the mainstream to move in a certain direction, then whichever eschatology is the most extreme, the most violent will be the one that wins out.

In other words, what we’re doing today is look at the most extreme versions of different eschatologies because, quite honestly, even though these extreme versions are shared by only a few people, they’re the ones who are working the hardest to achieve their eschatology, and therefore, they’re forcing the religion they are in to move a certain way.

Rabbi Schneerson and Chabad Lubavitch

So, you hear this and you think this is all confusing, but what I want to do now is I’m going to share with you a passage from a biography of Rabbi Schneerson. Remember, we had a look at Rabbi Schneerson talking to Natalie Allen saying, “Hurry up. Let’s hurry up the return of the Messiah.”

He is in charge of Chabad Lubavitch, which again is an extreme eschatology. But again, because they are so extreme, they’re willing to work as hard as possible to achieve their vision, and therefore, they are forcing the Jewish mainstream in a certain direction.

So, this is a biography of Rabbi Schneerson. The Chabad Lubavitch movement was founded in modern day Belarus, and over time, it went over to America because there’s a lot of persecution by the Russians. And today, they are a global movement, and they are powerful in Russia, in America, and in Israel. We will discuss Chabad Lubavitch as we move along, but I want to, with this passage, show you how coordination among eschatologists works.

Rescuing Rabbi Josef Yitzchak: A Case Study in Eschatological Coordination

So the year is 1939. Nazi Germany, who are antisemitic, they hate Jews, they want all Jews out of Europe, they are overrunning Europe. And by 1939, they have conquered Poland, Warsaw.

Now Poland, Warsaw is where the head rabbi of the Chabad Lubavitch movement is, and his name is Josef Yitzchak. He’s the father-in-law of Rabbi Schneerson. And he’s an old man, and he’s from Warsaw. The Nazis are overrunning the city, so his followers in America want to save his life.

The question then is, how do you do that? Because America and Germany are not best friends. The war is breaking out in Europe. And Josef Yitzchak is a very old man. There are no commercial air flights that you can take. So it’s going to be a very long, arduous journey across many borders. Plus, he will need a visa not just for himself but for his whole family.

Now what I will show you is how powerful these people are. And again, this is an eschatology where they all share a similar vision, and therefore, they’re willing to make the necessary sacrifices in order to help each other achieve this vision.

So this is from the biography. An ocean away in America, Yosef’s followers were working to secure visas for Josef Yitzchak and his family. In other words, even though there may not be that many followers, they have a wide political circle. And a lot of the reason why is that they pool their resources together. And when they pool their resources together, they’re able to invest in real estate together, they’re able to invest in business together, and they’re able to generate a lot of money, which they can then use to influence politics in America. They can buy politicians. They can do a lot of things.

The first part is easy, getting visas for the rabbi and his family. Now the problem is how do you actually get to him? Because there are no telephones. There’s no Internet. There are no airplanes. How do you find him when there’s a war going on in Poland, when there are Nazis everywhere?

Josef’s followers also reached out to attorney general Benjamin Cohen and Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis. This man is very important. He’s what I call a Frankist. What I will show you later on is that the Frankist and the Chabad Lubavitch movement are very much aligned. So even though they’re not part of the same movement, they are sympathetic towards each other. And he’s the most powerful Jew in America at this time, in the 1930s and 1940s, whom Yosef Yitzchak had met during his fundraising trip of 1929.

The Lubavitch religious efforts in America were successful. They’ve won over the Americans. They’ve won over the entire American political apparatus, and they are dedicated to helping the rabbi escape Europe and come to America.

Now the second part is, how do you deal with the Nazis? The Lubavitch’s efforts in America were successful. On October 2nd, Cohen wrote to Robert Pell, a senior official in the State Department, asking for help. The next day, Pell contacted Hellmuth Wohlthat, a German and a member of the Nazi party, a Nazi, who specialized in national industry and economics, to see if he would be willing to save one of the leading Jewish scholars in the world.

This is a guy, an American, writing to a Nazi and saying, “Hey, I know you’re a Nazi, but we need your help to save a Jew.” And the guy says yes.

Wohlthat was strategically chosen. He had studied at Columbia University in the early 1930s and had forged a relationship with Pell after the Evian Conference on Jewish refugees in 1938. Seeing an opportunity to curate goodwill of the United States, Wohlthat secured secret conduct with Admiral Wilhelm Canaris, the head of German military intelligence. The head of German military intelligence, and say, “Hey, let’s help this guy.”

Canaris, a skeptical Nazi who disapproved of SS atrocities and thought the invasion of Poland a mistake, enlisted Major Ernst Bloch, a distinguished veteran of World War One and one of the most trusted officers. Bloch was a Mischling. A Mischling just means a German who had some Jewish ancestry, but because he was so valorous in World War One, he was considered a German. He had been declared of German blood by Hitler in 1939.

Along with three other soldiers, two of whom were also Mischling, Bloch was instructed to find Josef Yitzchak and bring him to safety. The Nazis dispatched their own soldiers to find this guy and bring him to America. And this is, again, during war.

But how do you find this guy? Bloch and his colleagues had to maneuver through the ruins of Warsaw without arousing the suspicions of the SS to find a rabbi who did not know of their mission and did not want to be found. This rabbi is hiding from everyone. He’s understandably afraid of all German soldiers because he sees them as just Nazis.

There’s another problem. Jews in the city were naturally unwilling to divulge the location of a Hasidic leader to a Nazi officer. Eventually, the information came from the Americans. Brandeis was informed of Josef Yitzchak’s address by the Chabad lawyer Arthur Rubinowitz and relayed it via Cohen and Pell to the US chargé d’affaires in Germany.

This requires the coordination of dozens and dozens of people who are supposed to be on the opposite side of a war, and they’re working together to achieve a goal.

At the end of November, Bloch found Josef Yitzchak’s apartment and after some confusion convinced the residents he was there to help. Once he had obtained fuel coupons, train tickets, and military clearances for SS checkpoints, Bloch loaded Josef Yitzchak and his family under a truck and headed for the train station. There, the family received first class tickets and boarded a train filled with Nazi officials and soldiers.

And that’s how they got them out. In other words, they are able to work above the bureaucracy of different nation states in order to achieve their eschatological goal.

The Law of Eschatological Convergence

JIANG XUEQIN: Okay? Alright. Does it make sense? Alright. So now what I’m going to do is I’m going to go into the idea of eschatological convergence.

Because once we know the different eschatologies and we know how they converge together, we can actually make certain predictions about how this war will progress.

Zoroastrianism: The First Eschatology

JIANG XUEQIN: Okay. So the first major eschatology I want to look at is called Zoroastrianism, and this is the first eschatology, and it’s an eschatology of the Persian empire. Okay? And this eschatology is very simple.

In the world, there’s truth and a lie. The light and the darkness. And it is our responsibility as humans to live for the light, to die for the truth against the lie. And at the end of days, there will be a final battle and a day of judgment.

Okay? So light versus dark, and then you have a day of judgment. Where the god, Ahura Mazda, will come down and he will create a paradise for everyone. So what matters is to live a noble life and await the day of judgment where eventually heaven on earth will manifest.

And this is important because if you think about how the Iranians are fighting this war, the Iranians refused to take initiative and destroy too much. They refused to be the villains in this war because for them, in their eschatology, it’s important to die for the light, to fight for the truth.

Jewish Eschatology and Redemption

JIANG XUEQIN: Now, Zoroastrianism has a major impact on Jewish eschatology. And Jewish eschatology, again, I’m only talking about the most extreme version of this eschatology.

And in this eschatology, the idea is that the Jews disobeyed God. Disobedience. And in order to repair the world, to save themselves, to create heaven on earth, they need to engage in redemption. Redemption is really about spiritual alchemy, improving yourself as a person, being good to yourself, being good to others, loving your neighbor as though you would love yourself. That’s a mainstream idea.

But in the most extreme version, redemption just means acting out God’s plan to compel the return of Messiah. And this plan is basically: create Israel, return Jewish diaspora, build third temple, and this will start something called the war of Gog and Magog. And then when the Jews are most threatened, the Messiah will come to save them from their enemies, and this will create something called the messianic age. When God rules over the earth through his Messiah who comes from the house of David.

Alright. So, again, this is a simple version. There are lots of different versions. This is the most simple version for our purposes.

Christian Zionism and Premillennial Dispensationalism

JIANG XUEQIN: Now what’s interesting is that this Jewish eschatology would go on to influence the Protestants. And this creates a movement called Christian Zionism. The technical word for Christian Zionism is called premillennial dispensationalism.

And this sounds very complicated, but it’s not. All it means is that God has a plan for how to create heaven on earth, and we have a duty to fulfill his plan by following his instructions.

So what Christian Zionism is doing is that it takes this Jewish eschatology and makes certain changes to it. For example, the first change that it makes is, okay, this plan is fine, but rather than say that the Jewish Messiah is the representative of God, what they say is that, no, he’s actually the representative of Satan. So the Messiah in the Jewish tradition becomes the Antichrist in the Christian Zionist tradition.

And why is this important? It’s important because for the Christians, the Messiah must be Jesus. So the Antichrist, what he does is that he rules over the world. He’s very charismatic, and he rules the world in Jerusalem. And he starts a war of Gog and Magog in order to conquer the world and destroy the Jews. At this point, Jesus will return to save God’s chosen people, the Jews. And when Jesus returns, there’ll be something called the rapture where all Christians will immediately ascend to heaven.

So, again, Christian Zionism is working off Jewish eschatology, but it’s making some important changes. Another way of saying this is, in the beginning, Zionists and Christian Zionists will work together to reach a certain point of history — what we call the greater Israel project — but then they will diverge and fight against each other. So they’re allies now, but eventually, they’ll turn against each other.

The Freemasons and Pax Judaica

JIANG XUEQIN: So now I want to talk about the Freemasons. We’ll talk more about the Freemasons later. The Freemasons are also working within the Christian Zionist context, but they are much more focused on actually how to implement this.

So what they want to do is they want to take the Antichrist and turn it into a system. And this system, which we discussed last semester, is called Pax Judaica. What is Pax Judaica? Pax Judaica is that Israel controls the world through AI — an AI surveillance state. Or their exact words is “holy empire.”

And perhaps Pax Judaica, they actually state one thing such as the mark of the beast. And what is the mark of the beast? It is digital ID. And this digital ID will also lead to digital currency, and they can actually put a microchip or a QR code in your forehead, and this will be considered the mark of the beast. And it’s all part of the Christian Zionist eschatology.

Another really important thing about the Freemasons is the idea of a one world government. Because remember, the Antichrist is the leader of a one world government, and it’ll be based in Jerusalem. And so the headquarters will be Solomon’s temple, or the third temple.

Islamic Eschatology: Sunni and Shia

JIANG XUEQIN: And then you have the Islamic eschatology. Islamic eschatology is a response to all these other eschatologies, where they say that when the system is created, it’ll be called Dajjal — the Antichrist. And when this happens, then Jesus will return to defeat the Antichrist. That’s the mainstream Islamic eschatology.

Then you have the Shia. The Shia — remember — are the Iranians, where they believe that it will be the twelfth Imam Mahdi who will lead the followers — the Ummah. Ummah just means community of believers. The believers into victory against the Antichrist, the Dajjal.

So you can see how these eschatologies are basically lining up together. The Shia are the Iranians. The Islamic is the entire Arab world.

Catholic and Orthodox Eschatologies

JIANG XUEQIN: Now there are two more eschatologies I want to look at. And I know this is a lot. I know this is too much information, and we’ll go over these eschatologies specifically as we move along. But I just want to introduce the different eschatologies.

Another eschatology that’s very important is the Catholic eschatology. The Catholic eschatology we can call the “City of God,” which is the church, which is Jerusalem. And so Saint Augustine talks about this, about how the Catholic church is the millennium. It is the messianic age because we represent God, and we bring peace and prosperity to the world.

Now what’s important about the church is that it became the dominant power in the world because Rome fell. The Roman Empire collapses. But this is all part of God’s divine plan because the Roman Empire — Rome — was the city of earth: of power, of money, of wealth. And what matters is Jerusalem, the city of God, of spirituality, of divinity.

Now the city of God came to an end because of the rise of the Protestants and the Anglo-American empire. So for the Catholic church to achieve its eschatology and establish, again, the city of God, what they need to do is also see the Anglo-American empire destroyed, just like the Roman empire.

The last eschatology I want to discuss is the Orthodox eschatology. The Russians. This is called the third Rome prophecy. The third Rome prophecy is basically that Moscow will become the third Rome. The first Rome was Rome. The second Rome was Constantinople. The third Rome will be Moscow.

And what’s really important to appreciate is that there will be no fourth Rome. So when Moscow becomes the third Rome, history ends. And peace and prosperity will come to the world.

So what does this mean? It means that Russia will unite the Orthodox world. Right now, the Orthodox world is split into Eastern Orthodoxy and Greek Orthodoxy. And something that is very important that this prophecy says is that the Russians will defeat Türkiye in a war and then have the Greeks return to Constantinople, which is modern day Istanbul. That’s what the prophecy says.

Points of Eschatological Convergence

JIANG XUEQIN: And so you look at all these different eschatologies. And again, guys, this is the majority of the world. If you actually look at their convergence points, you come to some startling conclusions.

So let’s look at the convergence. Where do they converge?

Well, first of all, where they converge is that the greater Israel project will be achieved. Pax Judaica will be achieved. It’s a one world government. That is one major convergence.

If that’s true, then another convergence is the Al-Aqsa mosque will give way to the third temple. All these eschatologies either say this or are indifferent to saying this. They’re not opposed to this. So that’s why I predict the Al-Aqsa mosque will be destroyed because they need to build a third temple.

Another thing where they converge is the rise of antisemitism. Why? Because that will force the diaspora — the Jewish diaspora — to return to Israel. This is very important for this eschatology.

Another important convergence point is the war of Gog and Magog. We don’t actually know what this is, but this war is supposed to be the final war before the return of God, before the end of history, before the end of the world. What this war is, we don’t know yet, but another thing to add is that this war in Iran will lead to the war of Gog and Magog at some point.

Another thing that’s very important is that the US and China are not part of this eschatology. This is where everyone agrees. For whatever reason, the United States is not going to partake in future events, neither will China, which means that something will happen in these two countries that will make them not significant anymore. And the best prediction for the United States then is civil war.

And this is where all these eschatologies converge. So in other words, this war in Iran is happening so that these different eschatological traditions can achieve heaven on earth from their perspective.

Predictions for the Next Two to Four Years

JIANG XUEQIN: So given this convergence, we can actually predict certain events that will happen over the next two to four years. Because they all want these things to happen together.

So let’s look at some quick predictions.

First prediction, of course, is that the US will use ground troops because using ground troops will create a national draft. And what does a national draft do? It creates a civil war. A lot of young people are going to refuse to fight in this war, and this is going to create protest. Then America will have no choice but to deploy the National Guard, and this will create the recipe for a lot of civil conflict in America.

Another thing that will happen is because you use ground troops, you will lose the war, and then CENTCOM — which is the American military in the Middle East — will then transfer over to Israel.

What’s happening in this war is that the economies of the GCC are being destroyed, and that’s part of the plan. Because for Israel to achieve the Greater Israel Project, it needs to absorb the GCC and parts of Türkiye and parts of Egypt. So the other way of saying this is that the GCC is basically finished. The intention is to collapse their economies and make them irrelevant.

The third thing we can expect is that Türkiye will enter this war and Saudi Arabia, actually, will enter the war because you want to use this war to weaken opposition to these eschatologies as much as possible. So Türkiye and Saudi Arabia will enter this war, and they will suffer tremendously because of their participation.

Again, the Al-Aqsa mosque will be destroyed.

And then you have the rise of Persia. Why is this important? Because you need the Arab world to unite against Israel for the end of days. So you don’t mind if actually Iran wins this war because by winning this war, Iran will activate its Persian identity. And this is important for eschatology because in the war of Gog and Magog, people are interpreting Gog and Magog — which will march against Israel — to be Persia and Russia. Together, they will march against Pax Judaica.

Number six is that in Israel, you will achieve the Pax Judaica and the Greater Israel Project. The Greater Israel Project and Pax Judaica are not the same thing. Greater Israel is basically the territory that the Israelis believe that God had promised their ancestor, Abraham. Pax Judaica is a one world government based on AI surveillance and the mark of the beast.

So what will happen is that Israel will use this war to expand its territory, and then what will happen is that capital and technology will then start to flow to Israel in order to create Pax Judaica. So think of companies like NVIDIA, Oracle, Microsoft, Google — they will probably transfer themselves to Israel because that is where the power will rest.

Then you will have Russia winning a war in Ukraine, and then the return of the Greeks to Constantinople.

The Law of Eschatological Convergence and Current Geopolitics

PROFESSOR JIANG XUEQIN: Basically, I know we’re saying this is it is possible that the Greeks go to war against Turkiye, and then Russia supports the Greeks and return the Greeks to Istanbul. Okay? But then you’re like, wait a minute. Turkiye is a NATO member. Well, we can also expect destruction of Europe.

Okay? The end of NATO, basically. So this war in Ukraine, it’s not just about Russia protecting its borders. This war in Ukraine is also meant to achieve Orthodox eschatology, to destroy Europe, to destroy NATO so that Russia can achieve the third Rome prophecy. That means the destruction of Europe.

So I will discuss the Russian Ukraine war later on as we go along. Okay? But what I’m trying to show you is that just by analyzing the most extreme eschatology of different religious traditions, you can then, from this analysis, pick out points in which they agree. Okay? And at these points, you can figure out then how they will affect current geopolitics to make certain predictions about how the war will progress, about how the world will transform itself in the next two to four years.

Okay? So this is called the law of eschatological convergence. It gives us tremendous insight into why things are turned out the way they are. Okay? Because, again, I keep on saying this, but purely from a geopolitical perspective, purely from a realpolitik perspective, this war in Iran makes no sense. But if you look at it from an eschatological perspective, then it makes perfect sense. Okay? Any questions?

Student Question: A Political Explanation for the US-Iran Conflict

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Yes. But I think, if we look into the war between America and Iran, I think Trump is trying to destroy Iran the same way that he destroys Venezuela, but it fails, which let Iran to fight back. So I think this could also explain it in a political way, but not religious.

PROFESSOR JIANG XUEQIN: Okay. Alright. That’s a great point in that. Listen. There’s an explanation, which is that Trump is just stupid. He’s arrogant. They had too much success in Venezuela. They go into Iran. They think it’s the same thing, and now they’re losing. Okay? And because they’re losing, they are just panicking.

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Okay. That’s true.

Why the US Cannot Simply Walk Away

PROFESSOR JIANG XUEQIN: And if this explanation is true, then what we can expect to happen is that Trump declares victory and goes home. Okay? That’s what we expect. And if the US does go home, then you’re right. So we can expect — but sorry. The question then is what happens the next few months?

Alright. What you need to understand is this. War is that simple. Once you start a war, you can’t end the war. Alright? So let me explain very quickly why. Okay?

So you have Iran, and the main thing, the main advantage that Iran has over the United States is the GCC cannot defend itself. Okay? Because it’s just a desert. And Iran, it’s a mountain fortress, so it can shoot rockets. It can shoot drones at the GCC, and the GCC can’t defend itself. Okay? Before they thought these US bases could defend against Iran, but now you recognize these US bases can’t defend themselves either. Okay? Alright?

So the other thing that Iran did was close off the Strait of Hormuz. Okay? They closed off a straightforward move. And this is important because the GCC then exports oil to Asia and gets back food. Okay? So the GCC basically requires just a straightforward move in order just to survive. Okay?

Now let’s just say that Donald Trump’s like, “You know what? Screw this. This is a stupid war. The Middle East is stupid. We’re going to go home.” Okay? What happens now?

What happens is that Iran says to the GCC, “Hey, man. You attacked us. You destroyed our infrastructure. You destroyed our economy. You have to pay a compensation.” Okay? Right? Also, “Hey, man. Now we control the Strait of Hormuz. So do you want to use the Strait of Hormuz? You have to pay us a toll. You have to pay us a tax.” Right?

So all this money of the GCC, before it’s going to the United States to fuel the US economy, now where does it go? It goes to Iran. Right? That’s a lot of money, man. We’re talking about trillions and trillions of dollars.

And what will Iran use with this money? It will use this money to repair its economy. So in five, ten years, this is going to be an economic miracle where now Iran is able to industrialize really fast. And as a result, what’s going to happen? What’s going to happen is that if that state leaves the Middle East, Iran becomes the superpower and controls the entire Middle East. Right?

Now, Israel has nuclear weapons. And so what’s going to happen is that Israel and Iran will sign a peace treaty. Okay? But the United States won’t be involved. The United States goes home, it doesn’t get any money from the GCC. What’s going to happen to the US economy? It’s going to collapse. Why? Because the entire US economy is based on the stock market, on finance, on AI, on investment from the GCC. Right?

So the question then is, can Americans go home? The answer is no. They can’t. Because if they go home, their economy’s going to collapse, and the people are going to have a revolution anyway. So you’re better off sending people to Iran than have the people in America cause a revolution. Right?

Intentional or Accidental — The Outcome Remains the Same

PROFESSOR JIANG XUEQIN: Okay? So you’re right in that it’s possible that Donald Trump made a mistake, but it doesn’t matter if it was intentional or accidental. You have the same outcome. And strangely enough, this outcome that you have matches, aligns with these different eschatologies in the world. Okay? Does that make sense?

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Mhmm.

PROFESSOR JIANG XUEQIN: Alright. Any more questions? Alright. Okay. So we’ll continue this next week, guys. Okay?

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