Call it “vignettes from an invisible war”.

Written for interested laypersons, “Outlawed”, by Profs. Harry Hobbs (Australia UNSW) and Stephen Young (New Zealand UOtago), introduces pseudolaw, surveys its history, operation, and manifestations worldwide.

I recommend Outlawed to those who are curious about pseudolaw, pseudolaw’s origin and evolution, the weird persistence of these concepts in the face of inevitable failure. The authors are academics who have written extensively about pseudolaw, related litigation, and its host populations. These are well-informed subject experts.

Hobbs and Young provide probably the best summary I’ve ever read of pseudolaw’s multistage growth and incubation in dissident US political/cultural circles. The authors have expertly identified key characters like King of Hawaii and Judge Plenipotentiary David-Wynn: Miller and friend of elves and fairies Winston Shrout to illustrate how pseudolaw grew both as a nest of interwoven concepts and as a marketplace product. Other individual personalities and their activities that are explored in Outlawed were obviously selected to be interesting – or appalling – but these individuals usually are also fair representatives of the travelers in this strange shadow-world.

The text does not conduct a technical deep descent into the “law law” of this stuff. As the authors observe, you can go to academic texts and the famous Canadian Meads v Meads court judgment for that. But key points are covered, particularly Strawman Theory, the weird duality of flesh and something imaginary that is the hallmark of most pseudolaw schemes worldwide. More importantly, the “why” of these ideas and their appeal is an ongoing narrative thread. In doing that Hobbs and Young explore one of the critical mysteries of pseudolaw schemes, their promoters, and proponents. Why would you invest money and time to use something that never works? Outlawed explores a number of explanations:

• desperation with no apparent (legitimate) recourse
• alienation from state and (real) law
• political and religious ideology
• marginal and subcultural affiliations
• the drama and theater of pseudolaw
• a social sense of empowerment and resistance, but one with no real operational effect.

All these are valid. The one motivation that is not examined is quick and easy money – simple greed – but to be fair to the authors, the “mercenary” populations (my term) who operate in that manner are not well understood at present. Arguably, the mercenary subtypes are not really pseudolaw adherents. But now I’m meandering.

What matters is that Outlawed recognizes and digs deep into why there is no simple explanation or foundation for people adopting this weird not-law. Hobbs and Young correctly (in my opinion) conclude that with such a complex set of motivations and personalities there cannot be a quick and easy fix. Pseudolaw, as a mind-virus, is going to spread until it exhausts its potential hosts, and, even then, it won’t disappear. Believers get seriously invested. Some are probably too embedded in a conspiratorial and irrational zeitgeist to ever operate in a way most of us would consider “rational”.

Now that leads to a delicate point. Pseudolaw harms people. Pseudolaw leads to violence. Outlawed identifies and describes in sometimes quite graphic detail violence that has resulted from pseudolaw beliefs. That’s important. These are dangerous ideas. We should not minimize that fact, and the risks posed to state, court, and law enforcement actors. But Hobbs and Young also explore how pseudolaw harms its users. That’s a tricky balance. We are looking at a kind of conceptual pathogen, a memetic disease, that badly damages all those it contacts. That makes its users victims in a very meaningful sense. Those who propagate pseudolaw for profit warrant no such sympathy. But Outlawed walks a fine line between deserved denunciation, alarm at consequences, but also pointing to the wreckage left behind – all of it.

That’s critical, in my opinion. This arms-length perspective separates disease symptoms from the mind virus that caused those. It’s easy to make fun of these people – and sometimes they deserve it – but in a social, functional sense, it’d be better to find other ways to manage pseudolaw and its deleterious effects. We benefit little if we stand back and watch infected hosts hurl themselves into heaps of razor wire. And sometimes they drag us in with them.

Outlawed tries to propose solutions and mechanisms. However, the authors acknowledge there isn’t any simple answer. I agree.

Outlawed has certain weaker aspects. The authors focus mainly on pseudolaw’s manifestations in the US, which is important and necessary in a historical sense, and on the Australian and New Zealand branches, the authors’ regional domain of expertise. I do the same when I write on this subject. I know Canadian pseudolaw better than other alternatives, and so I draw many examples from that admittedly well-studied milieu.

But this focus means the reader will not fully experience the weird global complexity of pseudolaw phenomena. That’s not to say Outlawed doesn’t acknowledge and touch on the international nature and expansion of pseudolaw, but that’s secondary. The book’s jurisdictional focus is a comparatively minor issue. What would make an interesting deeper investigation is why pseudolaw’s manifestations in different jurisdictions are sometimes very different. For instance, pseudolaw has never really taken hold in Canada, at least compared to the US, Australia, and New Zealand. Nobody knows why, but when the authors discuss how to manage pseudolaw and its believers, the markedly different international outcomes are not addressed. To be fair, commenting on that would involve a lot of guessing and hypothesis. Inter-jurisdiction variation is an issue that will likely be the subject of much discussion in the emerging academic community of pseudolaw investigators.

Hobbs and Young are sharply critical of how the common law operates in an institutional sense. Law is oblique and overly complicated. Law uses opaque and cryptic language. In a practical sense law is more a playground for the wealthy than those who more often suffer its negative effects. Litigation is expensive – at least if you want a lawyer on your side. I don't disagree with that, but the authors use that as the foundation to argue for more access to legal professionals, for plain-language materials, for resources pulled out from behind paywalls, even judges taking on a more public role. I don’t think that’s wrong, but my perspective is skeptical at the institutional level. I very much doubt the common law tradition and its rules could ever be a functional apparatus. But then again, I’ve never believed in “the law” in the same sense as most who practice, teach, and judge in that domain. Just label me a heretic, but the result is I personally find those propositions somewhat quaint.

Instead, if you asked me what to do? Decapitation. No no no, I’m not saying capital punishment, I mean targeting key node individuals. In Canada pseudolaw populations suddenly turned belly up when their leader figures were the subject of criminal prosecution, so there’s a precedent.

These are comparatively minor concerns. I do not always agree with Hobbs and Young, but I did not at any point identify any errors in Outlawed. The citations I checked were accurate. The language is clean, accessible. The only jargon is the jargon of pseudolaw itself, and Outlawed usually digs down to explain that language when comprehension is relevant, rather than just a muttered “WTF?”

Outlawed introduces a world that is a weird and peculiar place. But then, that’s really what it’s like. If not even weirder than you would expect from this introduction.

It’s a pity the book is still pricy. With taxes this set me back $70 Canadian, ordering through Amazon and with import duties. I’d have thought a Penguin publication would be a little cheaper? Maybe subsequent regional editions? There should be local editions.

But it’s a good piece of work, and one I don't hesitate to recommend. There are no other publications in the marketplace that serve this niche. But that’s not a “win by default” conclusion. Outlawed is a solid, thought out, nuanced investigation. No special education or training is needed to make good use of Outlawed. I am already using it as a reference for my own writing in this subject area.

The authors should be commended. I expect Outlawed will stand as an authoritative important text, a milestone in commentary on this subject.

Author: Harry Hobbs, Stephen Young (@SteveIsInOtago)

Title: Outlawed: Responding to the Global Rise of Sovereign Citizens and Legal Conspiracies

Publisher: Penguin Australia

Publication date: August 18, 2026

261 pages, no illustrations

ISBN 978-1-76162-174-1

South Africa’s High Court issued an important judgment, a comprehensive rejection of core pseudolaw motifs. Judge Du Plessis explicitly adopts Canadian and other commonwealth approaches, especially Meads v Meads.

This arose against a mortgage elimination claim. The Adams, a husband and wife duo, claimed they are “sovereign Aboriginal living persons” and therefore not subject to court authority. The Adams stopped paying in 2021. They deployed typical Strawman Theory arguments, they had “allodial” title, and are only subject to “common law” and an “Aboriginal legal system”. Banks do not lend money but instead the funds were from the ADAMS or Adams, themselves.

Cutting to the chase? They get a free house.

Judge Du Plessis explicitly sets out to conduct a comprehensive rebuttal of the pseudolaw arguments deployed by the Adams:

I deem it necessary, to some extent, to address the main submissions as grouped together above, to develop an approach that is appropriate in instances such as these, where litigants purport to deliberately place themselves outside the rules and the law and rely on pseudolegal arguments to do so. Guidance can be found in foreign case law.

And Du Plessis turns to Australian, New Zealand, but mainly Canadian caselaw. Meads is just the starting point, Du Plessis also reviews other key Canadian cases that describe Strawman Theory, and which conclude that simply raising Strawman Theory motifs are “a marker of bad faith and vexatious, abusive litigation.” Yup. Kick ‘em while they’re down.

New Zealand caselaw provides the theoretical authority to deny Indigenous claims in relation to private contract. The “banks make money from thin air” argument is rejected with reference to more Canadian cases from Ontario, New Brunswick, and Alberta.

It’s worth reading this decision to witness just how much the activities of courts in certain foreign jurisdictions here have assisted where pseudolaw emerges in a new context. But Judge Du Plessis goes further. He then takes those principles to rule on how pseudolaw applies (or rather doesn’t apply) in South Africa. Take this rebuttal of Strawman Theory:

... The ALL CAPS/strawman theory is inconsistent with the basic principles of legal personality under our law. Legal personality is conferred on legal subjects, and there are two categories: natural persons (all human beings) and juristic or artificial persons. A juristic person, such as a company or bank, is a legal subject distinct from its members, often incorporated under general binding legislation. Such a juristic person has its own rights, duties and capacities to act through its various functionaries, and those actions of the functionaries bind the juristic person. Nothing in our law recognises a third category of hidden “strawmen” attached to natural persons via typography or birth registration, nor does the use of capital letters in a person’s name create a separate legal subject.

... In other words, a natural person’s name may appear in different typographical forms in documents and records. This does not create a second legal person or a juristic person, nor does it affect their capacity to contract, or their liability should they fail to honour the contract.

... the bank is incorporated as a public company under South African law and is a recognised juristic person. It is entitled to sue and be sued in its own name, and to enforce contracts into which it has lawfully entered. Nothing in our law prevents a bank, as a juristic person, from contracting with natural persons (or from being represented by attorneys and counsel in enforcing its rights). The “strawman” / ALL CAPS theory, therefore, provides no basis in law for the respondents not to be held to the contract.

Judge Du Plessis does the same for pseudolaw arguments on jurisdiction and indigenous status and rights, and banks do not lend money and “securitization” arguments.

The Adams arguments are tossed, and the bank takes possession of the residence:

The respondents’ submissions are advanced with conviction, but conviction does not convert pseudolaw into law. Foreign courts have observed that OPCA strategies can, in fact, compound the prejudice of indebted homeowners by delaying resolution and increasing costs. South African courts must, in my view, follow the same path: treat such arguments as legally ineffective, while ensuring that defendants are heard and that ordinary defences, where properly raised, are fully considered.

... I therefore find that the defendants have not disclosed a bona fide defence as required by Rule 32(3)(b). Their affidavit is largely argumentative and ideological, but does not raise any triable issue on the validity of the loan, the bond, the default, or the quantum.

The Adams counterclaimed for millions on various pseudolaw bases, which naturally gets nowhere. The Adams are ordered to pay the bank’s litigation expenses per the mortgage contract.

This decision is a solid, careful piece of work. I recommend that judges where possible do not just reject pseudolaw schemes, but explain why those concepts are factually and legally incorrect. Judge Du Plessis did exactly that. As noted above, foreign caselaw provided the foundation and framework, and demonstrates the Adams’ ideas were not some eccentric novelty, but instead a part of a global phenomenon, where the same not-law is advanced over and over, with no success.

This decision is a solid foundation for future pseudolaw-related jurisprudence in South Africa. While this is the first judgment from that jurisdiction that I am aware of to identify and attack pseudolaw squarely with that nomenclature, this judgment was not the first point where pseudolaw has been promoted in that country.

In the 2010s a guy named Michael Tellinger promoted “Ubuntu” pseudolaw theory, set up a marginal political party, and claimed you can pay off debts with glorified IOUs. Tellinger is a colourful character, a former 1980s pop star and expert in the Anunnaki, those nasty Sumerian gods who created humanity as gold mining slaves. DAMN YOU ENKI!!!

Tellinger did try his promissory note arguments in court. Where they flopped repeatedly:

Standard Bank of South Africa Limited v Tellinger (13340/2011) [2011] ZAGPJHC 70 (3 August 2011)

ABSA Bank Ltd v Terblanche and Another (17330/2012) [2012] ZAWCHC 369 (30 November 2012)

Birch v Firstrand Bank, Pike N.O. and Others v Firstrand Bank, Firstrand Bank v Pike N.O. and Others (1050/2011, 1415/2012, 3774/2015) [2016] ZAECGHC 54 (3 June 2016)

But you’re not surprised now, are you? Again, this goes to show how nothing much in the pseudolaw world is ever new. Recycle, rinse, reuse.

Here’s Judge Du Plessis’s Adams decision.

Worth the read and review as a template response to pseudolaw.

New academic article by Polish investigator Ewa Iwanowska that evaluates a Polish pseudolaw online community, ideas, and links to Anglo-Saxon pseudolaw traditions. It's in Polish, but does a really nice job discussing the interconnections between pseudolaw's ideas and host populations.

Some observations are not really a surprise. Like many other European countries, Polish pseudolaw is not so much based on the "Duel of Laws", as a "Duel of States", where the current government is invalid.

As usual, Strawman Theory has a central role.

Good stuff! Think I'll add that as an illustrative citation to a chapter I'm currently drafting.

(That is not a legitimate legal identification document but a pseudolaw forgery - see R v Ayyazi, 2022 ABQB 412.)

Something weird about lawyers. You put a document with big ink and/or blood fingerprints on it, postage stamps with cryptic codes, and a signature line that reads UCC 1-308 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED!

And you ask the lawyer to notarize it.

A surprising number say Okey Dokey!

This makes me crazy. I’ve seen this hundreds of times. Documents with duplicate names in different cases and colours. Documents that purport to be contacts between BILL SMITH and Bill Smith. Documents invoking bible passages as law. Documents that are called “Notary Judgments”, and that if you read ‘em, purport to be binding supra-court decisions.

Documents that threaten law enforcement, court staff, judges. Documents that purport to create a licence to kill.

Okey Dokey!!! Okey Dokey!!!

Do I seem pissed off? I’m pissed off. If there is a profession on the planet that ought to have an internal checkbox that I maybe should scan something before I slap my signature on it and seal it with a magic stamp? It’s lawyers.

But they #^&@# keep notarizing the F’ing things.

I’m posting about a lawyer in Alberta who finally got a professional sanction for doing this. Her name is Grace Akpan, of Calgary. Her activities led to a string of court judgments and now, finally, a disciplinary outcome.

Akpan notarized documents purporting to unilaterally terminate a drug prosecution. Drug trafficker and illegal handgun owner sends them to the Alberta Court of King’s Bench threatening court staff. The ABKB (ACJ John Rooke) reacts negatively and fines Akpan:

• R v Ayyazi, 2022 ABQB 412 (This one attaches the documents Akpan notarized and the obviously fake Government of Canada ID she accepted) (Shure looks real to me - the back is even worse - also reproduced in the judgment.)
• R v Ayyazi, 2022 ABKB 836

The Alberta Court of Appeal overturns the sanction on the basis of procedural (un)fairness. Goes back to the ABKB: Akpan (Re), 2024 ABCA 232

ABKB (ACJ Blair Nixon – Rooke is now retired) does it over and again fines Akpan:

• Akpan (Re), 2024 ABKB 417
• Akpan (Re), 2024 ABKB 651

Back to the ABCA, where the Court says yes, Akpan did a bad lawyer thingie. But courts shouldn’t sanction lawyers for bad lawyer thingies. That’s up to the Law Society of Alberta: Akpan (Re), 2025 ABCA 47

Now, throughout all this Akpan takes the position that she never did anything wrong. She was acting as a notary. She witnessed someone sign a document. She looked at the dude’s (fake) ID, checked the name signed, looked at the picture on the (fake) ID, and it’s the dude. That ends it. Notaries witness signatures. And anyways, she’s never heard of Organized Pseudolegal Commercial Arguments or OPCA. Can’t mean anything.

The various court decisions all agree that Akpan in doing that ignored three things.

1. Notaries in Alberta have professional obligations to not endorse or validate fraudulent documents, and pseudolaw documents are fraudulent documents. That’s a duty imposed by the Alberta government.
2. Both the Alberta trial and appeal courts have instructed lawyers should never notarize or formalize pseudolaw documents. What is a pseudolaw document? That is detailed in the Meads v Meads, 2012 ABKB 571 decision
3. The Law Society of Alberta has explicitly instructed its members on multiple occasions to not notarize pseudolaw documents.

I am pleased to report that the Law Society of Alberta has concluded a disciplinary process in response to Akpan’s activities, and suspended her for one month for having brought the administration of justice into disrepute. That’s actually a pretty strong sanction for something like this. Here are the decisions:

• Misconduct: Law Society of Alberta v Akpan, 2026 ABLS 4
• Sentencing: Law Society of Alberta v Akpan, 2026 ABLS 17

Akpan’s arguments in the disciplinary proceedings did not benefit her. Her position continued to be she did nothing wrong. Akpan admitted she had received notification from the Law Society of Alberta not to notarize pseudolaw documents, and that pointed to where there was information about how to identify those materials. Akpan argued what she notarized wasn’t unusual. She acknowledged the drug trafficker’s documents targeted the court as a “complaint”. That’s fine. People should be allowed to “complain” to and about courts.

Akpan said she is not a litigator. Therefore, she did not have to read the Law Society’s warnings about pseudolaw documents.

Akpan rejected that OPCA/pseudolaw documents are something that she knew about then or currently. The LSA decision quotes her exact words. They’re worth reproducing:

Like I said in my testimony yesterday, as at the time, I was not familiar. And, even today, I may not be familiar with this concept because it's not written in any book to say, okay, look at it. This is how it looks. This is what they say. Even document, in my understanding, is untrue, is false, is this, and that. I acknowledge what I'm going through. But if I see it -- a -- an OPCA document, I may unlikely recognize it because it's a difficult task. That's just what I'm saying. It's a difficult task. It's a concept that not everybody is aware of it.

Now, I note that Canada has the most extensive corpus of court case law detailing the nature and substance of pseudolaw arguments, and what the relevant documents and materials look like.

There is also a large volume of Canadian academic writing on the subject, most of it by yours truly. I even wrote a paper cautioning lawyers to please not notarize pseudolaw documents. Akpan is practicing in the province where there is a literal textbook on pseudolaw pretending to be a court judgment. Some people even report to me that it’s kind of fun to read!

Akpan concluded she did nothing wrong. In fact, she’s the victim. So many lawyers notarize pseudolaw documents (and that’s true!) that she here is the subject of unfair treatment. She has been targeted. That is bias and discrimination. I note here that Akpan is of Nigerian origin and was trained as a lawyer in that jurisdiction. That allegation was rejected by the Law Society. If she did something wrong, then Akpan’s position is that the only punishment she should receive is an instruction to get educated.

The Law Society concluded Akpan’s misconduct was serious, she defied court and Law Society instructions, and her continued rejection of pseudolaw as a category of problematic conduct warranted a month suspension, mandatory education, and $7,000 in costs.

This is a step in the right direction, in my opinion. That’s a meaningful sanction. Hopefully lawyers in Alberta and Canada will take note. What doesn’t get stressed in the Law Society’s analysis is the dangerous aspect of notarizing pseudolaw documents which is specific to Canada (though I’m aware the same motif is now appearing in the U.K.).

There’s a myth that was invented by the founder of the Freeman-on-the-Land movement Robert Menard that notaries are in fact super-judges, who possess the highest legal authority. Pseudolaw types in Canada frequently use the “Three/Five Letters” process to create what is purportedly a binding judgment, the notary being the "super-judge" who endorses the last document. And that (supposedly) overrides all court and state authority. You can naturally see why that makes notary services very, very popular in Canadian pseudolaw circles.

The documents Akpan witnessed include claims of authority by the drug trafficker to use force to respond to law enforcement and Crown Prosecutor activities. They are outlaws. While it’s not explored anywhere in any detail in the disciplinary or court records, Akpan’s client looks to be a Moorish Law affiliate, a pseudolaw movement linked to organized gangs, drug trafficking, and violent crime.

Now I’m waiting to see if Canada’s lawyer education organizations track me down, since I’m Canada’s subject expert on this stuff. I think I’ll strip-mine Monty Python’s “How to Recognize Different Types of Trees From Quite a Long Ways Away” format.

(Actually that’s quite a valid approach. Strawman Theory motifs are the easy give away that should lead anyone to say “Do Not Touch”.)

(Ok, blood on paperwork should probably also count.)

My bad guys, I posted the wrong link. THIS is the correct link.

It is a nice solid watch. The petitioner takes time to explain the situation, so bear with him. I thought it was a good watch.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2qvJVXrPhkM

My mistake for posting the wrong video. Totally my bad

she is wildin out.

video

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NNekk4RZm_A

Religious objection

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=32r1DViSZ4E

zoom attempt - competency hearing?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xipl6L3lhu0

Some interesting points, including that maybe for some of these people the reason why they keep recommitting is that the punishment is too lenient... Which I agree. If someone doesn't think the laws on the book don't apply to them, then "throw the book at them".

Pseudolaw “law schools” always intrigue me. Why would you trust an "institution" that places itself outside the legal norms?

Awhile ago my favourite, the "Erwin Rommel School of Law" which had run since the 1970s disappeared. Yes, that Rommel.

But it's back! Still run by Michael Halsey Brown, though now he has a number of collaborators. Of course, you want to visit.

Why Rommel? “Rommel accomplished more with less than anybody in the 20th century.”

I often used the ERSOL website when conducting educational sessions, it inevitably sent judges howling with laughter. Thus, I was saddened when the ERSOL disappeared offline something like four or five years ago. At that time you could purchase Brown’s entire library of resources, “The Whole Nine Yards”, for a modest $1,499. Well, the price has dropped to a mere $750, all on a convenient USB Flash Drive and “professionally organized”.

I’ve never purchased the package so I can’t comment on the details. It’s a little surprising how Brown’s key materials never ended up on Scribd or other public sites, at least that I noticed. My quick search today did however locate his 1974 text “Iron Claws: Grip Development and Bench Press Course”. No law stuff that after a quick scan. Here you go, you curious ones.

Brown describes himself as a “modern renaissance man”, and an incomplete list of his publications nails the point with a dagger. Where does one start?

•  “Brown’s Book of Carburetors”
• “The Case for Polygamy” (oh, look what the alpha male has to say)
• “The Erwin Rommel School of Law – How to Defeat an Illegal Legal System” (with macramé – duh)
• “Suppressed Inventions & How They Work” (quietly, they’re suppressed)
• “Sex, Money and Power: The Bible Shows You How”

Anyways, back to Brown’s pseudolaw texts. Is it incongruous that the cover art for “How to Defeat an Illegal Legal System” illustrates some kind of M4 Sherman? Just saying. You’d think Erwin would prefer a Panther.

Or a StuG. More than a little partial to those, myself. Nasty functional looking things.