The Hidden Priesthood of Sacrifice – The Crooked Ledger of Loyalty
Aug 28, 2025
What makes this more insidious is that people almost seek it. They throw themselves into sacrifice as if compelled by an inner priesthood, chanting mantras of loyalty, family, duty. They give more for less—not once, not twice, but repeatedly—hypnotized by ritual, blind to the fact they’re underwriting their own ruin.
Sacrifice is celebrated as noble, yet the ledger tells a darker story. This is not heroism; it is a scam dressed in virtue, a moral masquerade that drains accounts and spirits alike. You are not advancing; you are serving a system designed to profit from your obedience. Every “noble” act compounds the theft.
The insidious part? They want it. Humanity is wired to perform, to kneel, to believe there is purpose in suffering. Yet when devotion is monetized, when the altar is wealth instead of god, the ritual loses transcendence—it becomes extraction. And still, they line up, paycheck in hand, eager to tithe.
The Priesthood of Mutual Funds – Altars Made of Prospectuses
Religion once demanded candles, hymns, and kneeling. Today, it demands fees, quarterly reports, and a passive surrender of agency. The mutual fund industry has perfected the priesthood model. It sells ritual—not results—through allocation models, rebalancing sermons, diversification chants.
The faithful contribute month after month, never pausing to ask the single question that would shatter the trance: why trust strangers to shepherd your wealth when you wouldn’t trust them to babysit your children?
It is hypnosis in daylight. Terms like “balanced portfolio,” “capital preservation,” and “growth with income” are liturgical, not tactical. You are not invited to win—you are invited to believe. Ouspensky called ritual a narcotic, a loop where repetition masquerades as truth. Target-date funds? The perfect modern incantation: set it and forget it. Investors assume automatic contributions are benevolent, yet the machine is engineered to extract quietly.
The Infinite Fees of Faith
The bleed never stops. Expense ratios, even a sliver of 1%, compound into a decades-long theft. Fund managers thrive whether you prosper or flounder. Discipline becomes obedience; patience substitutes for results. Ask why your portfolio underperformed, and the ritualized reply is always the same: patience, patience, patience. Faith has replaced evidence, loyalty has replaced scrutiny, and the altar is your account.
Sacrifice, once sacred, promised cosmic returns. Now it offers nothing—no favor, no protection, no payoff. Whether to spouses or funds, the result is identical: you bleed. Ayn Rand’s verdict was harsh but clear: martyrdom is not virtue; it is a surrender. The only morality in exchange is victory, not loss.
Markets Without Priests
Contrast the raw trader. No priest. No intercession. You win or lose, stripped of ceremony and soothing lies. A bad trade is yours alone. No hymn, no incense of diversification, no quarterly ritual to numb the pain. Naked exposure terrifies, which is why most cling to priesthoods. Comfort is not wealth.
The oldest trick in civilization is at play. Egyptian priests hoarded knowledge of the Nile, demanding tribute in fear of famine. Medieval indulgences promised salvation in coin. Modern finance replaces cathedrals with skyscrapers, hymns with quarterly guidance, rituals with funds. The con is unchanged: sacred fear of loss monetized.
Han Feizi, the ruthless Legalist, would smirk. Systems are tilted to exploit weakness; rules exist to bind, not protect. Mutual funds? Codified sacrifice. You follow because others do. You bleed because ritual commands it. Compliance becomes religion.
Everywhere the ledger is crooked. Investors worship index funds as peasants once worshipped relics, terrified of exclusion. Billionaires—apex predators in theory—fold back into sacrificial traps, paying half their empires in divorce or funneling fortunes into funds that underperform. Sacrifice is not efficacy—it is obedience. It maintains order by ensuring compliance, not success.
The Altar Must Burn
Sacrifice is not sacred. It is a ledger with no ledger-keeper but your own submission. The priests of finance—mutual fund managers, “advisors,” institutional intermediaries—smile behind their spreadsheets while you bleed. Every quarterly report, every automated deduction, every ritualized contribution is a coin dropped into their chalice. You are the lamb, and they are the architects of your obedience.
This is not guidance. This is performance art masquerading as prudence. The language is lyrical, almost seductive—“diversification,” “rebalancing,” “capital preservation”—yet beneath it all lies a simple truth: the ritual exists to extract, not protect; to pacify, not empower. The altar is invisible, the chains invisible, but both are real.
And yet, we continue. We nod, we tithe, we believe. Fear of heresy—the terror of leaving the flock—keeps us kneeling, our eyes fixed on a sky filled with promises of compound interest and steady returns. But look closer: the sky is empty. The only power is the one you surrendered. The only divinity is in your own vigilance.
Burn the altar. Reject the ritual. Strip away the ceremonial fees, the hypnotic language, the illusion of benevolent machinery. Own your wealth. Own your choices. Do not hand your life to the priests, whether they wear robes or suits. Victory, not martyrdom, is the only moral ledger worth balancing.
Let this be a manifesto: to kneel is optional. To sacrifice blindly is a crime against yourself. To give without question is not virtue—it is surrender. Tear down the gilded cathedral of finance. Light a fire under it. Watch the smoke rise, because the only god worth worshipping is the one that answers to your courage, not your compliance.
We are not lambs. We are architects. We are the ones who set the terms. The altar exists only so long as we allow it. Burn it. And when the flames clear, we stand free—no priest, no ritual, no chains. Only the raw, unvarnished market and the undeniable power of choice.
