The Netherlands was a haven for printers and publishers who largely escaped the religious restrictions of the rulers and clergy in effect in other countries. This until Baruch Spinoza published his Tractatus calling into question the viability of miracles. For this philosophical gambit he earned himself a most complete excommunication from his original religious community as well as an equally harsh condemnation from the civil authorities. Today his foresight about the extreme danger of sectarian belief in competition with civil authority could not be more apt. These ideas, which critiqued the reigning ideas of platonism and dualism and paved the way for the secular state are what earned the description “A Book Forged in Hell.” His enterprising publisher stayed one step ahead of the authorities by issuing the book under different titles.