Trigger Warning       This article examines the lives, writings, and legacies of Jacob Frank and the Marquis de Sade, including their engagements with sexual transgression, religious antinomianism, coercive practices, and violence. It discusses explicit themes such as sexual exploitation, ritualized power dynamics, and philosophical justifications of cruelty within historical contexts.     The analysis is scholarly, but the material may be disturbing or overwhelming for some

Between Messiah and Monster: A Brief Biography of Jacob Frank   Jacob Frank — born Jakub Lejbowicz in Podolia in 1726, then a province of Poland and now part of Ukraine — was the son of Leib Buchbinder and Rachel Hirschl. Through his father he inherited a link to the scandal‑ridden Sabbateans, the heterodox Jewish movement that continued to uphold the messianic claims of Sabbatai Zevi, the seventeenth‑century Ottoman rabbi, Kabbalist, and apostate whose doctrine of redemption

Spinoza’s Hatchet and the Ethics of Objecthood      By Richard Mather       “For the only perfection and the final purpose [...] of an instrument is to duly fulfil the duties that are assigned to them. For instance, when a carpenter finds himself best served by his hatchet in the construction of a piece of work, then has his hatchet attained its end and perfection; but if he were to think, ‘This hatchet has now served me so well that I will let it rest and not require any mor