Local nilpotency of the McCrimmon radical of a Jordan system

Using the fact that absolute zero divisors in Jordan pairs become Lie sandwiches of the corresponding Tits–Kantor–Koecher Lie algebras, we prove local nilpotency of the McCrimmon radical of a Jordan system (algebra, triple system, or pair) over an arbitrary ring of scalars. As an application, we show that simple Jordan systems are always nondegenerate.