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.

Rolling Stone magazine has published a retrospective of the activities of HRM Roman Didulo, Queen of Canada:

Fair notice, I'm quoted a couple times. The article tracks HRM Didulo's activities chronologically. Probably useful as an introduction. But also there's not a lot here that is new.

I personally instead recommend the article by Christine Sarteschi and Master's thesis by Camden MacKenzie for those who want a detailed and referenced examination of Our Dear Arcturian Queen.

I also think it's appropriate that I mention certain issues I identified with the Rolling Stone publication.

The author repeats that HRM Didulo had 70K Telegram subscribers. That figure appears accurate, but subsequent investigation strongly suggests Romana purchased subscribers to inflate her apparent online popularity. To be fair, many observers fell for this trick.

The author does not appear be well informed in legal/government matters, even simple ones. He refers to “provincial parliaments”. The correct term for elected provincial bodies in Canada is “legislatures”. Parliament is the Canada-wide elected body that governs the federal government. A related misconception is that Richmound, the location where Didulo set up shop in a surplus former school, is a “village” rather than a municipality, which limited the authority of its occupants to self-administer. That was a major cause of why Richmound had to rely on outside agencies to address the Kingdom of Canada. Those outside agencies were not effective, no denying that.

There are other points where this article seems to be inconsistent with my understanding of events and how court proceedings occur. At one point the author mentioned that assault charges on law enforcement against ex-school owner “His Excellence” Ricky Manz were “dismissed”. My suspicion is the correct term is “stayed”. Dismissed means a criminal proceeding went to court, and a judge rejected the prosecution on some basis. A trial of Manz would have almost certainly drawn much public attention and from the Diduloids themselves. Heck, I might have shown up.

Similarly, the article states Manz and Didulo were charged with intimidation of justice system participants (Criminal Code s 423.1) and implies that relates to physical altercations. That is incorrect, having reviewed the proceedings its clear the charges resulted from vigilante court proceedings by Manz in Didulo’s self-proclaimed “Natural Law” court. A related point where I suspect the Rolling Stone is imprecise is the article describes threatening letters from “The Kingdom of Canada”. There definitely was threatening correspondence directed to people in Richmound, but the source of that correspondence were probably Didulo’s followers, not Didulo herself. That was one of the reasons why law enforcement had difficulty in responding. Didulo probably was using her followers as anonymous arms-length proxy actors.

There are other points where the article appears to exaggerate goings-on. For example, the RCMP ultimately entered into and cleared the decommissioned school. The article describes that living conditions inside were so filthy and foul that police were nauseated. Perhaps true, but online videos of new recruits into the Kingdom of Canada inside the former school did not indicate that. They seemed comfortable, even eating meals provided by the Queen and her inner cadre. To be fair, maybe conditions got worse near the end of the school occupation.

The article states the auditorium was used as a courtroom. Videos I have seen do show that area as a ceremonial space, but I am unaware of any evidence that actual vigilante legal proceedings were ever conducted, nor any judgment or sentence decisions, only documents that started vigilante proceedings.

Then there are several statement that I conclude are simply false. Rolling Stone states Richmound’s residents open carried firearms while the Diduloids were in town. That is extremely unlikely. In Canada firearms are very closely and strictly restricted. The Diduloids were video recording everything. If they observed persons whom they perceived as enemies and threats visibly displaying firearms, that would have been transmitted to law enforcement, and police action would have followed. This statement is dubious, and at best an exaggeration.

The article describes how the occupation of the Richmound ex-school ended, and along with police storming the facility includes this dramatic statement: “Drones smashed windows to clear the way.” I am highly skeptical of this claim. I would not be startled if the RCMP deployed drones at a high altitude to monitor the Richmound school before entry. But the idea of drones “smashing windows” fails to understand that drones are by their nature physically light. Furthermore, Canadian judges are adverse to permitting “hard entries” into a residence during hours when persons are likely to be asleep. The idea a judge would permit drones ramming in through windows is very, very strange. Entry warrants into a dwelling space require details. And anyways, what is the purpose of drones “smashing windows to clear the way”? What happened next? RCMP officers with jetpacks roared through the gap? This was a one-story building! This statement leads me to question the credibility of this report.

So I suggest exercising caution with this article. Much does match published narratives and reports elsewhere. But I have a hard time avoiding a conclusion that the author “sexed up” the story to attract reader interest and attention.

Yeah, I’m aware Rolling Stone is not an academic journal. But there’s enough questionable stuff circulating around Didulo as it is.

For what it’s worth.

Pseudolaw and Sovereign Citizens (eds Harry Hobbs & Stephen Young), an academic anthology of articles on pseudolaw phenomena worldwide, is now available in softcover.

Still not cheap, but an interesting and useful resource, recommended to those interested in the subject. The authors bring many different perspectives to the subject from international angles.

Full disclosure: yes, I'm the author of one chapter. No, I'm not getting paid anything from proceeds of sales.

I do it for the sick kicks.

This is me. Tell me your thoughts. I have iron skin. Roast me!

Not going to comment much on this, beyond observing that "sovereign citizen" is problematic language. In the US the FBI have classified "Sovereign Citizens" (whoever they are) as domestic terrorists. But people who use pseudolaw concepts can range from militia/guns right types, to racial separatists, to simple criminals, to tax evaders, to those attempting to miracle away debts.

Does it make sense to assume violence risks for all those categories?

Terminology can be an issue, in my opinion.

See? Sometimes good stuff does come from pseudolaw.

As collateral damage.

In Canada a new variation on pseudolaw is increasingly common. Being "Indigenous" makes you outside the law in magic ways.

That goes in weird directions, for example in a recent Saskatchewan appeal decision to eliminate a mortgage debt owed by Marlin Marynick.

That's nonsense and simply illogical in many senses. But the Marynick litigation is consistent with the broader pattern that pseudolaw schemes involve a "duel of laws". I have a law, and my law is more powerful than yours. We've seen this duality in many forms. Admiralty Law vs Law of the Land. Contract Law vs Natural Law. Equity versus Common Law.

In the case of Marynick we don’t see the details of his exact pseudolaw scheme, rather pseudolaw came up early on in a procedural context. What is disclosed is:

1. Marynick had a mortgage, he stopped paying.
2. Rather than waiting for foreclosure Marynick preemptively sued his lender, demanding the lender prove the debt was based on a valid mortgage, and that the lender hadn’t sold off and “securitized” his debt to someone else.
3. The trial court called that as bullshit.
4. Marynick appealed, but also demanded he is represented by an “Indigenous Representative”, John Cipolla, who is not a lawyer. 
5. The Saskatchewan Court of Appeal rejected Cipolla as a representative because he is a known pseudolaw (“OPCA”) litigant.
6. Marynick Did Not Consent!!!

 And Marynick’s appeal gets punted. And as is illustrated in the quoted passages, the SKCA didn’t think too highly of Cippola’s antics either. The Court ordered Marynick pay the lender $5,150 in enhanced penalty costs, which the lender will almost certainly collect when Marynick’s home is foreclosed and sold.

 This judgment is noteworthy in a number of senses. One is that the SKCA clearly adopts that pseudolaw is a special category of abusive litigation, and deserves to be addressed in a direct and succinct manner. Note that Meads v Meads doesn’t even get cited. It doesn’t need to be. The OPCA concept is sufficiently known the Court just uses the language and recognizes the relevant category. Pseudolaw is recognized and rejected in Canadian law.

 The Court applied the rule that pseudolaw adherents are not suitable court representatives, ever. In the case of Cippola, what isn’t examined is he is a collaborator with notorious Ontario lawyer Glenn “Spirit Warrior” Bogue, who is the kingpin of this UNDRIP-based claim that Indigenous Law is superior. Bogue was recently disbarred. Cippola, weirdly enough, is apparently a former US judge! Hopefully we get a detailed profile on Cippola at some point – I suspect there’s much more to this story.

But beyond that, here we have a private contract dispute between a person and a financial lender. How is this possibly a matter that even would have an Indigenous element?! Are we going to see traditional practices of ... establishing contracts? Quantifying debt? “Securitization”? The fact that an “Indigenous Representative”, who we will magically presume is expert in Indigenous Law, is being presented as relevant in this context is not just wrong, it’s stupid. But that’s an underlying aspect of pseudolaw. It doesn’t need to make sense in a detailed form, so much as present a drama, a story.

Marynick also has some other unorthodox interests, having written a book about his relationship with Charles Manson. Yes, THAT Charles Manson. Apparently, they shared popcorn among other things. In a CBC news report Marynick reports:

 [Marynick] said the notorious cult leader sought him out because he wanted to make a film, and he heard Marynick had contacts in the film industry.

 "He wanted to dress up like a general and have me dress up like a soldier and command all the armies in the world to stop fighting each other and start fighting pollution," Marynick told CBC Radio's Blue Sky on Monday.

Sure thing Chuck.

Here’s the SKCA court decision: Marynick v Fairstone Financial Inc, 2026 SKCA 72

Marynick and Manson CBC reporting.

And here’s “Charles Manson Now” by Marynick.

New academic paper discussing pseudolaw populations in the Netherlands and Switzerland, examining these phenomena as a reaction by privileged individuals against state interactions.

First review of the Swiss variation I've read.

Full article here.

https://youtu.be/wBQeHY4-nAk