Stephen Escher

Stephen Escher is a British financier and Jon Dear's supervisor. In June 2012 he sent two hand-written letters pertaining to a book called Golden Truths by Myles de Selby.

On June 18th, in a letter to "Frances," Stephen describes the book as he found it--a paperback dating back to the 1970s with no ISBN or copyright information, save a note that it was a reprint of a work originally published in 1937. The book seems like standard New Age self-help palaver, describing the world as a vast Machine that one can manipulate to one's benefit, but Stephen notes that partway through de Selby literally begins to describe a Machine with detailed Infrastructure.

Three days later Stephen wrote a letter to Mr. Theleme describing a revelation he had while reading de Selby. The God-Machine is capitalism, Stephen claims, and thus he has always worshiped it. He now sees messages from the God-Machine everywhere, and believes that these messages will lead him towards tremendous profits. He mentions that he can force Jon to help him, because Jon is on the verge of getting fired.