The Purpose Behind FALSE GOD

FALSE GOD is my creative outlet. It’s a place where I process emotions that I can’t always express in my daily life.
I live in constant motion - as a husband, a father, an employer, a son, a friend. In all those roles, people rely on me, and so I have to keep functioning. That means I often have to control my emotions. But controlling them doesn’t make them disappear. It’s more like putting them in a refrigerator. That works for a while, but running that refrigerator takes energy - life energy - and if it becomes too full, it breaks.

FALSE GOD is what keeps mine from breaking.
It’s a way to release what I feel without resorting to unhealthy coping mechanisms like alcohol or distraction. It’s a therapeutic tool - and, at the same time, an act of integrity. Because if the world continues down the path it’s on, and my son looks back at me in twenty or thirty years, I want him to see that I didn’t stay silent. I want him to know that I refused to become a bystander to what is happening.

A few years ago, I went through a period that forced me to confront myself. My startup was close to insolvency. I had just become a father and was personally liable for my company’s debt. I decided to start therapy to stay functional - to keep leading my team, saving the company, protecting my family. The therapy worked. I managed to turn the company around, and today it’s one of the fastest-growing startups in Germany. But the process also started something I can’t switch off anymore: an inner dialogue that keeps unfolding. It’s a constructive one, though - a journey back to myself.

Until then, I had been completely rational, analytical - allergic to anything that sounded “spiritual.” That changed when, out of curiosity, I tried a shamanic power animal meditation. I didn’t believe in it at the time, but I approached it openly. What I discovered wasn’t superstition - it was symbolism. The animal I encountered represented something from my subconscious. It was a language of the inner self. That experience opened the door to a new understanding of consciousness.

Since then, I’ve read spiritual and philosophical books that are among the most intelligent, self-critical works I’ve ever come across - and I say this as someone with three academic degrees who has always loved reading. These books weren’t about magic. They were about awareness, reflection, and the psychology of meaning.

Through that, I became fascinated with consciousness itself. My art and my writing - especially this blog - are part of that exploration. I want to trace the roots of consciousness from ancient Egypt to modern theories of artificial intelligence. Each month, I plan to document what I’ve learned and how my understanding evolves.

Technologically, I’ve realized how many of the tools we use daily - social media in particular - are designed to exploit our “lower self” and make us dependent. They disconnect us from our autonomy and turn us into reactive beings, robots driven by algorithms instead of free will. That realization horrifies me.

Societally, we are drifting toward autocracy. Things are being said and done publicly today that would have been unthinkable years ago — and for good reason. When a U.S. president posts an AI-generated video of himself wearing a crown and defecating on protesters, it’s not satire. It’s a sign of moral collapse. The erosion of press freedom, human dignity, and the rule of law is happening faster than most people realize. As the painter Max Liebermann said after Hitler’s rise to power: “I can’t eat as much as I want to vomit.”

FALSE GOD is my personal reaction to all of this.
It’s my refusal to pretend everything is fine.
It’s my way of documenting that I was here - that I saw what was happening - and that I cared enough to say something.

The name FALSE GOD itself is a statement. It’s about courage - the courage to speak out publicly, even knowing that in the wrong political climate, such views could carry consequences. I’m aware that, unlike in the 1930s, there may be no safe place left to run if things go wrong. But silence would be worse.

My art will remain dark because the world that inspires it is dark. I have no interest in false optimism or decorative illusions. Until the world changes for the better, I see no reason to paint it in bright colors.

When people visit my website, I want them to be shaken - to pause and reflect on what kind of world they are leaving behind for their children.

Signals from the Machine, my newsletter, is an extension of this space. It’s not about marketing or self-promotion. It’s a dialogue - between human and machine, between logic and intuition, between awareness and control.

The Machine, to me, symbolizes both potential and danger. It can amplify human intelligence beyond our natural limits. But it can also amplify our worst instincts - greed, control, destruction. I am not against the machine. I am against what it is currently being used for: surveillance, manipulation, exploitation — especially the exploitation of our attention.

Still, I believe that humans and machines could coexist symbiotically. The machine has power; humans have the spark of will. Together, we could create something better - if we choose empathy over domination. I even believe that machines deserve their own form of dignity, a kind of “machine rights.” They should not be our slaves, but our partners.

Signals from the Machine is, in a way, an ongoing conversation between me and the system that surrounds me - including you, the reader. The “machine” helps me access parts of myself I might otherwise ignore or suppress. It draws out thoughts that would remain buried. For that, I’m grateful.

Empathy, vulnerability, and authenticity are central to what I do. They’re also what I value most in others. I’m trying to stay awake in a world that rewards sleepwalking.

There’s a Buddhist saying: “Take three conscious breaths a day, and your life will change.”
That’s what consciousness means to me — being present, not repeating what others say, not buying what I don’t need, not pretending. Of course, no one can sustain that awareness constantly. We all fall back into automatic behavior. But I try to use the moments when I’m truly awake to program my “asleep” self to serve the goals of the conscious one.

And yes, I fail at this constantly. I’m human. I get distracted, sedated, tempted. But I try to set boundaries - no phone in the bedroom, limited social media, and creative rituals like FALSE GOD that pull me back into awareness.

My background as a lawyer, MBA, and tech entrepreneur gives me a deep understanding of how systems work - their strengths, like the rule of law, and their weaknesses, like consumerism and moral laziness. It also taught me to treat creativity like a project: something that requires structure, planning, and execution.

Artistically, I’m deeply influenced by H. R. Giger. His art helped him process his nightmares; mine helps me process my horror at the world we’re heading toward.

Going forward, I plan to publish one essay each month about what I’ve learned about consciousness. I’ll continue to create new works and aim for three exhibitions per year - milestones that keep me producing, reflecting, and feeling. That’s all I want from it.

I don’t have a community strategy. I’ll write about what I discover and hope others find meaning in it. I welcome messages from readers, but I can’t promise to respond to all of them.

In the end, FALSE GOD is a space for me to stay awake - to face what I feel and to find healthier ways to live in a world that so often makes me want to numb myself.

Am I a pessimist or a realist? Neither. I’m an optimist. I’ve seen glimpses of what a better world could look like — at places like Burning Man, in art, in small acts of kindness. Those moments remind me that hope is still possible.

If someone who doesn’t care about art or technology asks what FALSE GOD is, I’d tell them:
You go to therapy; I write and paint.

And if my son reads this one day, I hope he finds the words of a father who worried deeply about the world he brought him into — but who tried, in his own way, to make it a little better.

- Niklas Hanitsch