by Mark Matthews

[caption id="attachment_851" align="alignright" width="286"]Image credit: Flickr [/caption]

Pope Francis has called on world leaders to reform the global financial system and put an end to the "cult of money". As one of his first acts as the new Pope, he called for reform that respects human dignity, helps the poor, promotes the common good and allows states to regulate markets.

He called for Bitcoin.

Okay, not really, but from my point-of-view it will be a decentralized private money system that brings these changes into being. If the change comes, it will not be top-down but rather it will be bottom-up.

However, being a man who sits atop a throne, the Pope isn’t one who thinks in those terms. To his mind, like so many others in our society, change is expected to flow from the top down, but how often does it?

This May, in a 10-minute scripted speech to new ambassadors, the new Pope highlighted the root causes of today’s economic and social troubles.

He said free-market capitalism had created a “tyranny” and that human beings were being judged purely by their ability to consume goods. Money should be made to “serve” people, not to “rule” them, he said, calling for a more ethical financial system and curbs on financial speculation. Countries should impose more control over their economies and not allow “absolute autonomy”, in order to provide “for the common good”.

What the Pope had in mind is unclear- perhaps he was arguing for Sharia Law to be allied to banking the way it is in Muslim Countries like Iran? No, probably not. But why not? Isn’t usury as much a sin in the Catholic Bible as it is in the Koran?

In any case, I liked the point he made about how government policies and actions stem from a “gravely deficient human perspective" which is precisely why calling on them to “impose more control” is not the answer.

"We have begun this culture of disposal,” he said, where “human beings themselves are nowadays considered as consumer goods which can be used and thrown away.”

I’m glad he sees this as a problem. Too bad he doesn't see that “absolute autonomy” of the individual is the answer, and that government control is in direct opposition to this individual autonomy.

The Pope is correct when he says a major reason behind the increase in social and economic woes worldwide “is in our relationship with money and our acceptance of its power over ourselves and our society.” But it should be added that has a lot to do with how fiat money is created, who controls how it is issued, and to whom it is issued.

He also said, “We have created new idols” where the “golden calf of old has found a new and heartless image in the cult of money and the dictatorship of an economy which is faceless and lacking any truly humane goal.”

I agree, but I doubt the Pope has ever heard of Bitcoin.... must less been schooled in the principle of sound money. If he had, would he understand two things;

One, what a hugely disruptive technology Bitcoin is, and two, how sound money can do what the Constitution has failed to do, namely chain down the mischief of evil men.

The Pope may speak against the “cult of money,” but his Office is as much a symbol of this Money Cult as the golden calf was a symbol of the fertility cults that flourished 4000 years ago. The golden calf he spoke of is the symbol of the Age of Taurus, and points back to a very matriarchal and feminine age in which humanity began to master agriculture and survival needs. In contrast, the image of the Pope on his throne is a symbol of the money cult and their hierarchical authority over mankind.

One might compare the rise of crypto-currency and its effect on banks and insurance companies to the invention of the printing press and its impact of the Catholic Church. Back then they didn't like anarchy any more than governments do today.

In the days of Martin Luther the Catholic Church ruled the world. Were you to walk into any town or city in 1513 you would see that the spires of the Church towering over every other building. Five hundred years later the tallest buildings in any major city are either banks or insurance companies, thus it should be evident to anyone (who's is paying attention) exactly who rules the world today.

Its the golden rule- those who have the gold make the rules. In there is a sort of clue: it has always been those institutions that move money around. The church moved money (promising treasure in heaven as they sold a pardon for sin) then, and today its the bankers. As Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein still claims: “I’m Doing God’s Work.” Yeah, right. From my perspective, not a lot has changed in terms of money, corruption, and thinking that one’s own greed is part of God’s ordained plan for a better world.

Today’s Martin Luther is Satoshi Nakamoto. Luther publish his Ninety-Five Theses in 1517 and Satoshi revealed the open-source code for bitcoin in 2009. The German monk strongly disputed the claim that freedom from God’s punishment for sin could be purchased with money. Nakamoto wanted to give people the ability to move money without using a bank, and doing this is like talking to God without a priest.

In that old world, the concept of debt was linked to the concept of sin. Now, with Bitcoin, you have an asset based currency, and that sets you free from sin (i.e., the debt-based money). As Bitcoin is being taken seriously, we are seeing a seismic shift in the world of international finance such as the world has never known. Now watch our world radically change as we remove the greed-driven middleman who regulated the value of our legal tender from his ivory tower. These money junkies are in a race to rule the world, but the power these “elites” lust for is tied to an old money system and that false authority is house of cards… ready to fall.

The New Age of Man

The term New Age refers to the coming astrological Age of Aquarius, but for those who find solace in New Ageism it means "a spirituality without borders or confining dogmas" that is inclusive and pluralistic.

We must always be mindful of how evolution occurs within a cultural context – and how impactful culture is on us, and how much undue influence it has on our thinking. This pattern of ‘new ageism’ which looks for a Messiah or World Teacher is itself a product of the Age of Pisces, it represents our interpretation of a “new Aquarian energy” as viewed from our Piscean Age consciousness That is to say, from a limited and distorted perspective we create the New Age from our image of the old.

And as we are — the world is. That is, if we are greedy, envious, competitive, our society will be competitive, envious, greedy, which brings misery and war. The State is what we are. To bring about order and peace, we must begin with ourselves and not with society, not with the State, for the world is ourselves … If we would bring about a sane and happy society we must begin with ourselves and not with another, not outside of ourselves, but with ourselves. ~Krishnamurti [1]

There is an established school of thought that believes each age’s influences are also complemented by the opposite sign to the sign ruling the astrological age. For instance, the Age of Pisces is complemented by its opposite astrological sign of Virgo (the Virgin); for this reason, a few researchers refer to the Piscean age as the ‘Age of Pisces-Virgo’. Adopting this approach, the Age of Aquarius would become the Age of Aquarius-Leo.

Let’s be clear, the Age of Aquarius will not be a utopia or golden age on earth. It is an age of globalization that will forever shift the way we view nationalism and tribalism – you can already see this happening. We are struggling to become ‘citizens of the world’, not just Americans, French, or Chinese. But we are also struggling to break from from the undue influence of false authority, hierarchical power structures and what the Pope rightfully called the cult of money. Ironically, the Pope is a symbol of that old age as much as Bitcoin is a symbol of the one to follow.

I am sure there will still be people struggling with Ego/Soul issues 400 years from now…and perhaps countries still print fiat currency to pay for their wars of aggression, but I hope not. It is my belief that the technology we call Bitcoin can help create a new form of self-government in which individual autonomy trumps false authority.

Having said that, the Age of Aquarius does hold the promise of a dominant worldview in which the individual is allowed his/her freedom to actualize as an independently liberated being (Leo), yet still participate in group life in the spirit of altruism and humanitarianism (Aquarius). This stands in stark contrast to the current age of Pisces-Virgo (which is dominated by left-brain thinking and submission to authority).

I do believe our intuitive abilities and multi-sensory evolution will increase such that we honor the world of energy and spirit far more than the dogma of religion and politics. Most importantly, instead of a world leader, master teacher, or messiah; we’ll finally realize that we are the ones we’ve been waiting for. Perhaps this is what Max Keiser had in mind when he referred to Bitcoin as the "Cyber-Christ."

Alex Jones: Did you just say that Bitcoin is the “Cyber Christ?” Max Keiser: Satoshi Nakamoto is the name of the developer who released Bitcoin in 2009. I call them the “Cyber Christ” because, potentially, it is so much of a game change at this point. It’s such a quantum leap away from the Federal Reserve system that is killing economies around the world, that we are going to have a massive, global, coming-to-an-understanding, a revelation, that finally we’re going to escape the nightmare that is the central bank system.

[1] "Second Public Talk at Ojai (21 May 1944) J.Krishnamurti Online, JKO Serial No. 440521, published in Authentic Report of Ten Talks, Ojai, 1944 (1945), p. 7

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