-Caveat Lector-
THE BABYLONIAN WOE
Chapters I-III by David Astle
CHAPTER
I. "In the Beginning was the Word."
II. The Temple and the Counting House
III. "Per Me Die Regnant!"
"By using a mirror of brass, you may see to adjust your
cap; by using ancient times as a mirror you may learn to
foresee the rise and fall of empires." Emperor T'ai Tsung
627 A.D. - 650 A.D. [pii]
The intellectual faculties however are not of themselves
sufficient to produce external action; they require the aid
of physical force, THE DIRECTION AND COMBINATION OF WHICH
ARE WHOLLY AT THE DISPOSAL OF MONEY, THAT MIGHTY SPRING BY
WHICH THE TOTAL FORCE OF HUMAN ENERGIES IS SET IN MOTION.
Augustus Boeckh; translated; The Public Economy of Athens,
p7; Book I, London, 1828 [piii]
A study of the Origin of Certain Banking Practices, and of
their effect on the events of Ancient History, written in
the light of the Present Day. by David Astle Published as
a private edition. Orders for this book and all
communications to be addressed to: Box 282, Station P,
Toronto, Canada, M5S 2S8. [pv]
Demoralized our men; small pride now left!
Two useless wars! With racial kith and kin,
In battle of our Gods were we then reft...
Yes, Those who steered the wasted years of strife
Brought to the true, in death the end.
Now few their ashes watch or tend...
Who then is left to stay our natural rule?
And who shall say to weakness: "No more show!"
You sheathe the sword? None but a wishful fool
Thinks thus! One world for us who were One World?
Alas! Our Gods are gone forever! So
Who then shall fight the Babylonian Woe.
PREFACE
"For money has been the ruin of many and has misled the
minds of Kings." Ecclesiasticus 8, verse 2.
When I originally approached my study as best I might,
dealing with the growth in pre-antiquity and antiquity of
what is known as the International Money Power, and the
particular derivative of the money creative activities of
such International Money Power that might be defined as the
Life Alternative Factor, I did so with some diffidence.
Perhaps I was overly conscious of what seemed to be the
inadequateness of my preliminary training in these matters
and that in no way could I describe myself as deeply
conversant with the languages of ancient times, or, in the
case of Mesopotamia, their scripts.
However, in my preliminary studies involving checking
through the indices of a number of those standard books of
reference dealing with the ancient civilizations, I soon
found that any feelings of inferiority in so far as the
adequacy of my scholarship relative to my particular
subject was concerned were unwarranted, and that qualms in
these respects were by no means justified...
In almost all of such books of reference, except those that
classified themselves as economic or monetary histories,
was practically no clear approach to the subject of money
and finance, or to those exchange systems that must have
existed in order that the so-called civilizations might
come to be. In the odd case where the translations of the
texts might reveal some key clue, no more special emphasis
was placed herein than might have been placed on the
mention of a gold cup, a ring, a seal, or some exquisite
piece of stone work.
In Jastrows's "Assyria" there was no reference to money at
all; in Breasted's "History of Egypt," a volume of six
hundred pages or so, only brief mention on pages 97-98. In
"A History of Egypt" by Sir William M. Flinders-Petrie, in
the records of Sir John Marshall and E.J.C. McKay in
respect to the diggings at Mohenjo-Daro, and in the
writings of Sir Charles L. Wooley and others on their
findings from their studies of the exhumed archives of the
city states of ancient Mesopotamia, little enough
information exists on the matters referred to above. In
Christopher Dawson who wrote widely on ancient times,
particularly in the "Age of the Gods" which dealt with most
cultures until the commencement of that period known as
antiquity, there is only one reference to money, casual and
not conveying much to the average reader; this reference to
be found on page 131... In Kings' "History of Babylon"
there was practically nothing on these matters.
Thus in almost all of the works of the great archaeologists
and scholars specializing in the ancient civilizations,
there is a virtual silence on that all important matter,
the system of distribution of food surpluses, and surpluses
of all those items needed towards the maintenance of a good
and continuing life so far as were required by climate and
customs.
In all these writings of these great and practical
scholars, the workings of that mighty engine which injects
the unit of exchange amongst the peoples, and without which
no civilization as we know it can come to be, is only
indicated by a profound silence. Of the systems of
exchanges, of the unit of exchange and its issue by private
individuals, as distinct from its issue as by the authority
of sovereign rule, on this all important matter governing
in such totality the conditions of progression into the
future of these peoples, not a word to speak of...
While it is true that the average archaeologist, in being
primarily concerned with the results of the forces that
gave rise to the human accretions known as civilizations,
has little enough time to meditate on these forces
themselves, especially since so little evidence exists of
what created them, or of how they provided guidance to men
in earlier days, the widespread character of these omission
borders on the mystifying.
Virtual failure to speculate on those most important
matters of all; the structure of the machinery of the
systems of exchanges which undoubtedly had given rise to
the ancient city civilizations, and the true nature of the
energy source by which such machinery was driven, whether
by injections of money as known this last three thousand
years or so, or by injections of an exchange media of which
little significant evidence or memory remains, is cause for
concern.
The truth of the lines as quoted herein from Boeckh's
"Public Economy of Athens" (page ii) is immediately clear
to all and that the physical force underlying all
civilizations must have been the system whereby surpluses
were allocated to the people according to their place in
the pyramid of life and to their needs; thus, when being
controlled by the benevolent law of a dedicated ruler,
maintaining at all times the true and natural order of
life.
It must not be supposed, therefore, that there is a lack of
understanding of the importance of these matters; nor that
there is any special conspiracy of silence, even though
there might indeed be the temptation to arrive at such a
conclusion.
(According to "Tragedy and Hope," the important and
compendious work of Dr. Carroll Quigley, an outstanding
scholar of liberal outlook, (as interpreted by the
reviewer, W. Cleon Skousen), such conspiracy certainly
exists, and is vast in scope to say the least.)
Rather it were better to accept things as they appear, and
assume that these scholars merely present the fragments of
fact as they unearth them; leaving speculation of the true
significance of such fragments of fact in relation to the
weft and warp of life, to those considered to be
particularly specialized in various fields represented. In
the case of money and finance, the scholars concerned would
be classified as economic or monetary historians.
Thus little enough seems to be available on the subject of
money and finance in ancient days. Nor seems to exist
examination of the significance of such money and finance
relative to the progress about which so much has been
written in modern times.
Apart from Alexander Del Mar who wrote in relatively recent
days, and apart from that of the philosophers of antiquity
such as Plato, Aristotle, Socrates, Zeno, etc, almost no
speculation seems to be available from scholarly sources in
regards to the unprejudiced PHILOSOPHY of money, in ancient
times.
On the all important subject of the consequences of the
creation and issuance of money by private persons as
opposed to its creation and issuance according to the will
of a benevolent, instructed and dedicated ruler, almost no
speculation seems to exist in ancient or in modern times.
Of those forces that sought throughout history to undermine
any ruler who may have been firmly in the saddle because of
his exercise of that prerogative which is the foundation of
the State Power or God-Will of which has is the living
evincement, insomuch as he maintained firm control of the
original issuance of money and its injection into
circulation amongst the people as against State
expenditures, almost nothing seems to be known. Very little
information is available of the means those forces employed
towards this purpose through injection into circulation
amongst the peoples of silver and gold, and of instruments
indicating possession of the same.
Practically no information seems to exist of the growth of
private money creation in the days of ancient city states
of Mesopotamia, of which, because of their records being
preserved on fire-baked clay, more is known than of more
more recent civilizations; and the gap must necessarily be
filled by a certain amount of speculation. Little is known
of the beginnings of the fraudulent issuance by private
persons of the unit of exchange, as in opposition to the
law of the gods from whom kings in ancient times claimed to
derive their divine origin; nor is there any information on
the significance of such practice relative to the continued
stability of the natural order of life in which obtained
that system wherein the fount of all power was the God;
such power descending to man by way of king and priesthood
and directing him as he proceeded about his everyday
affairs, content that God is in His Heaven and all's right
with the world.
The use of tools of hardened iron in the mining industry
about the beginning of the first millennium B.C., together
with a changed attitude towards slave labor in which the
slave, so far as mining was concerned, was assessment at
cost per life, must have brought relatively a very flood of
silver into circulation of the cities of the Near East.
Such flood of silver injected into circulation largely by
private business houses who no doubt controlled the mines,
however distant, especially after the institution of
coinage in which a piece of silver of known weight and
fineness passed from hand to hand, must finally and forever
have broken that control of exchanges previously exercised
by the god of the city through priest king and priest.
Thus all, priest-kings and priests, came to forget that the
foundations of the power given to them from on High towards
the maintenance of the right living and tranquil procession
through life of their peoples, were the laws of
distribution of surpluses as written on the scribes tablet;
laws instituted by the god himself, each ordering a
specified dispensation from the surpluses in his warehouses
in the Ziggurat, to the holder of the tablet. They too fell
into the error of believing that silver with value created
as a result of its being used as a balancing factor in
international exchange, could become a perpetual storehouse
of value... They themselves became consumed in the scramble
for this gleaming metal, so conceding it, through its
controllers the power to set itself up in opposition to the
law of the gods; to raise itself up in its own right, a god
in itself.
In its exercise, the fiat of the internationally minded
group of merchants and bullion brokers that arbitrarily
dictated the exchange value of such silver, being in
actuality determination internationally of the value of
money, place such groups controlling silver exchanges above
and beyond local laws of the local god, and indeed
conferred on them the power to influence kingly
appointment. It made of them the servants of one god, a god
above all gods; thereby somewhat relegating the god whose
order on the state warehouses as inscribed on clay by the
scribe or priest, had been the law governing exchanges, to
the place of their servant, their instrument...
"I have, however, kept before me as a guiding principle, in
this as in other historical works I have written, the
maxim that the complexity of life should never be
forgotten, and that no single feature should be regarded as
basic and decisive," wrote Professor Rostovtsev, scholar
and Economic Historian of renown. (Mikhail I. Rostovtsev:
"A Social and Economic History of the Hellenistic World, p
viii, Vol I, Oxford; 1941)
It is true that while no single feature in the progression
of history might be regarded as basic and decisive, it is
certain that neither money nor treasure will protect the
weak and disarmed in the face of a brutal and determined
conqueror beyond those successful achievements, can be no
decision more final. It is also certain that the money
accumulation mania injected by fame into the minds of
people as a replacement to their concern with those natural
qualities endeavoring to color the current of human life
through time, amongst which are numbered virtue, honour,
and godliness, destroys equally as another debilitating
disease, and will surely and speedily drag any people down
to a degeneracy and decay... A great army could not be more
efficient in its power of destruction. 8
The main discussion of the "Artha-Sastra" of Kautilya,
Hindu classic instructing kings and rulers as to their
proper conduct towards good government, was as to whether
financial or military organization came first of all as the
root of strength and power in any organized state.
(Sarvepalli Radhaakrishnan and Charles Moore: "A Source
Book in Indian Philosophy" p219-220. Princeton; 1957)
Clearly in that day no less than this day, financial
organization preceded military organization; therefore,
there is not much point really in discussion of so obvious
a fact and truth.
While an effete people, though money as it is known, is in
their hands, soon give way to vigor; nevertheless vigor,
without strict organization of its finances, which, while
constituting strict organization of its labour, also
enables it to create, or to obtain by purchase from
elsewhere the finest of weapons, will not much avail...
Thus and it has been demonstrated through history over and
over again, it is clear there is one feature basic and
decisive in the progression of human life; certainly during
the latter years of which memory exists. That feature,
particularly in relatively modern societies from the bronze
age onwards, and during that period of the rapid perfection
of the mass production of weapons, is monetary
organization, and what precious metals are available for
purposes of international exchange as against the purchase
of those finest weapons and essential materials of wear
only obtainable abroad, and as wages for the most skilled
men at arms from wherever obtainable, abroad or
otherwise...
The gates of Egypt stand fast like Inmutet
They open not to the Westerners
They open not to the Easterners
They open not to the Northerners
They open not to the Southerners
They open not to the enemy who dwells within.
(Ancient Egyptian poem; Christopher Dawson: "The Age of the
Gods" p 148)
Much of history as we know it is the record of
civilizations to counter and evade destruction of
themselves from ithout or within, or is the record of
their efforts to destroy other seemingly competing
civilizations or peoples attacking them from without or
within.
War is as inevitable as is peace as the result of the
exhaustion of war, and there are few peoples that escape;
but wars of the last three thousand years have not been
relatively infrequent occurrences and have been an
incessantly recurring evil... It is no chance that the
growth of warfare into a very cancer eating into the vitals
of mankind, and more particularly the white races is
parallel to the growth of that other cancer which is
private, and therefore, irresponsible, money creation and
emission...
It seems that almost none of the scholars make any serious
effort to throw light on the real meaning of this matter of
private monetary emission, and the disastrous effects that
it has had, and in finality, will have, towards the
defining of the remaining period of time of man upon this
earth, as being brief and uncertain.
Those strange decisions of kings signaling the opening of
wars as frightful and disastrous to the European peoples,
as the last two so-called "World Wars," decisions so
abnegatory of self, but more than that, abnegatory of the
best interests of the peoples they represented before God,
far from being the directives of a benevolent force, are
the directives of a force which cannot but be described in
any way but as being wholly malevolent.
(For example, the folly of Britain in letting itself and
the Empire be stamped into these last two so-called "Great"
wars, may be compared to that of the man described by the
Emperor Augustus who goes fishing with a golden hook; he
has everything to lose and little to gain. [Suetonius: the
Twelve Caesars II, 25.])
The great engine which is the international control of
monetary emission and regulation, driven as it was until
recently by the catalytic fuel of gold alone, is not
almost world embracing in the scope of its operations. It
seems there is no change in the attitude of those its
guides, nor any admission of the folly of their misuse of
this God-power which they direct towards the good of
themselves and their friends. Their obsession, despite ruin
for all looming on every horizon, seems to remain the same
narrow vision of the day of their own world supremacy
wherein they will rule as absolute lords over all; although
by now it should be apparent to them, no less than to all
thinking people, that if this madness concealed within the
much talked about conception known as progress is not
brought to a complete arrestment, nothing remains but an
end wherein shall be silence and no song, for indeed there
will be no singer, nor any to sing to...
As it looks today, it may be the end of the Indo-European
peoples whose diligent labours made so much of this world
of today... It may be the end, final and absolute for all
men for that matter... it may be the end for this our
Earth, our only place and home and hope in the awful
endlessness of space and time.
It should be more than apparent that in the relatively
recent day when kingship and god-ship were one, so far as
the simple souls were concerned, and the god and his
viceroy on earth, the priest-king, were creators and
controllers of the economic good, exchanges were created in
order that the people might live a fuller life, and not so
much to benefit any secret society or interlocked group
standing aside from the main paths of mankind, but to
benefit all who kneeled humbly before the Almighty, each
fully in acceptance of himself as part of the god-wish,
eternal and infinite; each one in his time an integral unit
carefully placed in the pyramid of life itself.
History over these last three thousand years particularly
has largely been the interweaving of both a witting and an
unwitting distortion of the truth, with all the inevitable
consequences which have been expected and now are but a
little way ahead.
(Much of this was predicted in the "Revelation of St. John
the Divine.)
Kings largely became the mouthpiece and sword arm of those
semi-secret societies that controlled the material of money
as its outward and visible symbols came to be restricted to
gold, silver, and copper. The fiat of the god in heaven
which had been the decisive force behind that which brought
about an equitable exchange, was replaced by the will of
those classes controlling the undertones of civilization,
leaders of the world of slave drivers, caravaneers,
outcasts, and criminals generally, such as was to be
discerned on the edges of the ancient city civilizations,
and followed the trade routes between them...
The instrument of this will was precious metal, whose
supply was controlled by the leaders of these classes
through their control of the slave trade, since mining was
rarely profitable in the case of precious metals except
with slave labour, even after the development of hardened
iron tools and efficient methods of smelting.
The power of these men, indifferent and alien to most
cities as they were, relative to that power it was
replacing, which as the will of the benevolent god of the
city had been made absolute by sowing in the minds of men
over the thousands of years the idea of such metals having
a specially high value relative to other goods and services
being offered for exchange; indeed that they were a
veritable store house of value.
The law of the ruler previously exercised towards the well
being of the people in that they might live a good and
honourable life accordingly became corrupted. It became
merely a symbol raised before their gaze in order that they
might not look down and see the evil gnawing away at the
roots of the Tree of Life itself, destroying all peace and
goodness. Nor could those semi-secret groups of persons be
seen who so often were the sources of such evil. In their
contemptuous indifference to the men of the states who
found meaningfulness and tranquility through life lived in
natural order under the law of the King, they constituted
hidden force deeply inimical to the best interests of
mankind.
Through stealthy issue of precious metal commodity money
into circulation amongst the peoples, replacing that money
which represented the fiat or will of the god of the city
and which was merely an order on the state warehouses
through his scribes, this internationally minded group,
from the secrecy of their chambers, were able to make a
mockery of the faith and belief of simple people. The line
of communication from god to man through priest-king and
priest was cut, being replaced by their own twisted
purposes such as they were; not however guiding mankind
into heaven that could have been and where all would be
life, and light, and hope, but into such hell as to escape
from which men might gladly come to accept the idea of Mass
Suicide. Bibliography: 131 citations
CHAPTER I: IN THE BEGINNING WAS THE WORD
Every conclusion in respect to money and its creators in
the world of the Ancient Civilizations indicates the
existence of a far reaching conspiracy in respect to
monetary issuance influencing the progression of man's
history. It was parent to that acknowledged and most
obvious conspiracy such as exists today. (According to the
review of Tragedy and Hope, Dr. Carroll Quigley; New York
1966, as contained in the Naked Capitalist published by
Leon Skousen, Salt Lake City 1970)
The whole notion of the institution of precious metals by
weight as the common denominator of exchanges cannot but
have been disseminated by a conspiratorial organization
fully aware of the extent of the power to which it would
accede, could it but maintain control over bullion supplies
and the mining which brought them into being in the first
place.
As far back as Neolithic times, values (and by inference
money) were already expressed in terms of silver by weight
at the time of the Azug-Bau Dynasty at Kish in Mesopotamia
(3268-2897 B.C.) [p2]
That sales are recorded in the 4th Millennium B.C. means
that even at that time, there was a clear conception of the
significance of that abstract monetary unit for sales were
in terms of money. The true meaning of such a concept being
largely incomprehensible to most even as in this day,
except they were the truly initiated, those controlling the
internal exchanges, namely the priesthood and scribes,
might well be excused if they early fell into the error of
expressing values in terms of the standard of values in
international trade. This serious error brought about
finally not only the collapse of that power through whose
medium the god kings were best able to serve their peoples,
but also the collapse and fading of the meaning and
benevolent purpose of the god kings themselves.
With silver bullion controlled by an international and
conspiratorial minded group, as indeed it is obvious it
must have been, considering the main sources of silver
supply as being far away from those centers of civilization
whose money depended on it, and yet with people coming to
equate money, in actuality the law of the rules, then it
becomes quite clear that scarcity or plenty in money
depended on the manipulations internationally of that group
controlling the distribution of precious metal bullion, and
the plenty or scarcity they created, as was convenient to
them.
If there was no silver, why then, there was no money and
prices fell. Substitute gold for silver, and history
seeming to fast repeat itself, we have the condition of the
European world of the last 2000 years. If there was no
gold, why then again, there was no money. [p3] Hence was
able to develop that conspiracy against mankind most
exemplified by a continuous propaganda of hate against all
authority.
As those controlling totally the economic life of a state
through monetary creation and emission must have felt that
kings and gods were more of a nuisance than anything else,
the instigators of this conspiracy in whatever place and
era, obviously were those who first did the business of
bankers; the controllers of values, and consequently the
economic life of the states wherever the precious metal
standard was used.
According to Sir Charles Wooley, the excavator of Ur, the
unit of exchange in the 4th Millennium was the measure of
barley. Salaries of government officials of Hammurabai,
King of Babylon, were assessed in barley but paid in
silver.
The notion of the numerous officials of Babylon waiting in
line to have silver cut off from the bullion bar, although
offered with sincerity, patently is as erroneous as that
conception of the every day use in the exchanges of the
"aes rude" in a similar way in which classical scholars and
numismatists would have us believe; and which implied that
the foreman and his laborers in ancient Rome also waited in
line to have a fragment of copper weighed out in order that
their wives might be able to go to the market to purchase
the evening meal. [p4]
Clearly the word silver in the texts means no more than the
word "Plata" in modern Spanish, or "Argent" in modern day
French. These words literally translate as silver, but as
money, they may be anything from a grimy tattered paper
note, to a silver peso, to the brass coin. Similarly, the
word from the texts denoting silver may be safely said to
have meant that which passed for money, be it clay or wood
or glass or leather or papyrus or stone. (In his book "La
monnaie dans l'antiquite" Francois Lenormant commented "We
have proof of the use of glass money in Egypt from the
beginning of the time of the High Empire.")
Thus once money had come to be more of an abstract unit of
account based for its value in desirable goods and
services, on the barter power of a certain weight of silver
bullion related to the constant value of barley, it was no
major advance for those who benefited most from this
conception, namely the bullion brokers, money changers and
bankers, to find a weak king and a corruptible priesthood
who could be brought to lose sight of the total control of
the city which was the right of the god they served and who
might turn a blind eye to those other more sinister
activities by which the power of the Ziggurat was further
undermined.
In the Age of Gods, Dawson remarks:
"The temple was the bank of the community through which
money could be lent at interest and advances made to the
farmer on the security of his crop. Thus there grew up in
Mesopotamia a regular money economy based on precious
metals as standards of exchange." [p5]
This information from Dawson is most illuminating; but of
the undertones, he seems to see little, or he just does not
choose to speculate as to their nature.
Principal amongst those undertones, and quite possibly the
force that brought these changes about, may safely presumed
to be the secret and private expansion of the total money
supply effected primarily by the issuance into circulation
of false receipts for silver and other valuables supposedly
held on deposit.
Such receipts would be accepted by merchants instead of the
actual metal, and would function as money, and would be an
addition to the total money supply, though not understood
as such by the rulers who would thus easily be inveigled
into lending their sanction to seemingly harmless
practices; or at least into turning a blind eye; especially
if priesthood and scribes so advised.
According to Wooley, trade seemed to extend from the city
of Ur over the whole known world as far afield as Europe,
being carried on by means of letters of credit, bills of
exchange, and "promises to pay" (cheques), made out in
terms of staple necessities expressed in terms of silver at
valuation of barley. (On page 124 of his book Abraham
(London 1936), Wooley comments: "A trade which involved the
greater part of the then known world was carried on with
remarkable smoothness by means of what we should call a
paper currency based on commodity values.) [p6]
The merchant loaned money to his customers, such money
merely being an abstraction indicated by the figures on the
clay tablet; in earlier days being backed by the will-force
of the god of the city, and in latter days by the promises
of silver.
Thus, the caravaneer or traveling merchant gave credit.
Whether his own or that of the merchant for whom he was
agent or directly from the Ziggurat itself, it functioned
as a form of foreign aid similar to foreign aid today.
Considering that the merchant operated solely with the
credit of the temple that raised him up, while the temple
remained supreme, such foreign aid was instrument of state
policy, maintaining the servility of lesser states while
maintaining the steady working capacity of the home
manufacturies, and a contented people in consequence. [p7]
With the growth of silver in circulation, that which had
been total economic control from the gods through his
servants in the Ziggurat was bypassed and merchants were
now able to deal privately using their own credit or powers
of abstract money creation. They were able through the
control of distant mining operations to afflict a
previously dedicated priesthood with thought of personal
possession; and through the control of the manufacture of
weapons in distant places, they were able to arm warlike
peoples towards the destruction of whosoever they might
choose.
Those merchants who were the main sources of precious
metals came to realize that they could actually create that
which functioned as money with but the record incised by
the stylus on the clay tablet promising metal or money.
Obviously, as a result of this discovery which depended on
the confidence they were able to create in the minds of the
peoples of their integrity, provided they banded themselves
together with an absolute secrecy that excluded all other
than their proven and chosen brethren, they could replace
the god of the city as the giver of all. [p8]
Some evidence of the knowledge and previous existence of
such practice of issuance of false receipts as against
supposed valuables on deposit for safe-keeping clearly
exists in the Law No. 7 of the great Hammurabai Code.
According to Professor Bright, the Code of Hammurabai was
but a revision of two legal codes promulgated in Sumerian
by Lipit-Ishtar of Isin, and in Akkadian by the King of
Eshnummua in 1950 B.C.
The severity of the penalty and the placing of this law so
high in the code leave little doubt that it was directed
against an evil that was by no means new, and, who knows,
may have been one of the deep seated causes of the
invasions that devastated Ur from the Gutim, the Elamites,
the Amorites, and the Hittites; for no doubt of old, just
as today, Money Power was as busy arming the enemies of the
people amongst whom it sojourned, as that people
themselves.
While scholars do not appear to have paid any special
attention to this particular law, or to have attached any
special significance, its true intent and purpose is clear
to anyone conversant with the origins of private money
issuance in modern times, as indicated by the familiar
story of the goldsmith's multiple receipts. [p9]
"If a man buys silver or gold or slave or ox or sheep or
anything else from a free man or has received them for safe
custody without witness or contract, that man is a thief;
he shall be put to death."
The requisite witnesses and contract attesting to the true
facts of valuables on deposit would to some extent obviate
the danger of the goldsmiths creating receipts for
valuables that did not exist.
Provided a corrupted priesthood turned a blind eye to this
practice and loaned their sanction thereto, such fraudulent
money or, in the misleading euphemism of a corrupted world,
"credit", would be equally effective in foreign markets as
in the home markets.
The severity of the penalty would have been an absolute
deterrent to such practice that since that time, and more
especially in modern times since the 16th Century A.D., has
become so indurated to a fixture. [p10]
At the time of the promulgation of the Law of Hammurabai,
both private property and private issued money seem to have
been well established. It is to be assumed that ignorant of
noble caste or otherwise were already deferring to that
magic known as money in much the same manner as they did at
all times through latter history when faced with the
necessity of compromise with private money creative power
whose activities had been permitted by foolish kings and to
whom such kings had even committed the finances of the
realm such as during the last four hundred years in
England.
In the time of Hammurabai, merchandising was by no means
regarded as an end in itself, and a means whereby it was
the right of ignoble men to proffer any corruption to the
people so long as it made "profit" for them, and "interest"
for the so-called bankers who supplied the original
"finances" out of his secret and costless money-creative
processes.
Money lending still had not come to be a means whereby man-
hating and therefore corrupt secret societies might seek to
overturn the tree of life itself by way of sowing the seeds
of decay in that true and natural order of life which had
been ordained from time immemorial.
Private money creators had at that time by no means arrived
at that point where they might conspire to present complete
defiance to the gods and their appointed and install
jackasses in the places of the mighty, as too often was the
case in the latter days. [p11]
CHAPTER II: THE TEMPLE AND THE COUNTING HOUSE
Out of the vague shadows of war and power and peace emerged
that force known as Classical Greece. Much of the
revitalization derived from the increased availability of
silver as a result of the expansion of the mining industry
due to the increasing use of tools of hardened iron.
This flood of precious metals gave rise, with the
consequent strengthening of the shift of money creative, or
total power center, from the god and the temple to what
some might describe as the devil and the counting house,
enabled those conspiratorial groups who undoubtedly
controlled precious metal bullion supplies, the "Apiru" who
seemingly belonged to no city, yet were to be found in them
all, to set up a supra-national god as the fount of their
secret power, a god who should be contemptuous of all other
gods; living in no idols, he would be in all, and over all;
unseen, but all pervading.
(According to Professor W.F. Albright, "There was a large
and apparently increasing class of stateless and reputedly
lawless people in Palestine and Syria to whom the
appellation "Apiru" was given. They were a class of
heterogeneous ethnic origin and spoke different languages,
often alien to the people in whose documents they appear."
Apiru must mean "dusty ones" from the fact that the bearer
of the designation trudges in the dust behind donkeys,
mules and chariots. Thus it would appear that the restless
"Apiru" of later times, mercenary soldier, bandit or
smuggler, was the descendant of the donkey caravaneers who
maintained the trade between the cities of the known world.
Samuel Mercer refers to the use of the name "Habiru" at
Babylon in the times of Hammurabai. The secret societies of
a group known as "Haburah" seem to have existed beyond the
times of the destruction of Jerusalem by Titus.) [p12]
If the god of such secret society or confederacy controlled
movements of silver bullion internationally, he might well
be contemptuous of all city gods other than himself, for
when money values were based on his silver in such
international exchanges, then he and his acolytes knew that
all prosperity in the kingdoms depended on him, and whether
he ordained through his servants that silver should be
plentiful or otherwise; whether indeed there would be no
money and hardship, or plenty of money and prosperity.
In the latter days of declining temple power, prosperity
would also depend on whether rulers turned a blind eye to
that privately created ledger credit page entry money whose
use the international money changers were undoubtedly
promoting as facilitation to exchanges between select and
secret groups of persons and so would strengthen themselves
and their one-God all-powerful, all omnipotent... [p13]
The ruthless and stern edicts of such princes as Hammurabai
of Babylon, while perhaps effective in Babylon, would not
avail in all those cities to which the money changers
undoubtedly carried their arts, especially if they were not
subject to the rule of Babylon. Who knows to what extent
the seizure of Ur by Hammurabai was the result of his
determination to extirpate the source of this attack on
kingly power.
That close to the throne were those who secretly held in
contempt the god-king is clear from the following excerpt
from Wooley in respect of his discovery of the tombs of the
kings of the IIIrd dynasty at Ur:
"The tomb had been robbed just as the earth was about to be
put in; nobody would have dared when the pit was still in
use, nor, if such sacrilege had been done, would the bricks
have been left scattered on the floor and the breach
unfilled. The robbers must have chosen their moment when
the inviolable earth would at once hide all traces of the
crime and they could afford to be careless."
On the ramp leading down to the king's tomb would have lain
the bodies of those who had elected to accompany their Lord
into the regions beyond. It would have been almost
impossible for such carefully timed robbery to have taken
place over the bodies of those who would be amongst the
first ladies of the court and certain officials without
there having been a well planned conspiracy. [p14]
When the robbery was effected, it is clear they were
already dead, there had to be connivance of certain persons
in high places to whom this great devotion was without
meaning. Such gold and silver would have been useless and a
dangerous possession except to those to whom it meant money
and power internationally and by whom it could be melted
and rapidly transformed abroad.
The famous temple of Solomon was not only used as a
treasury but, as in Babylonia, as a bank. The arts of
banking were in no way as developed as they were in
Babylonia and Assyria. Amongst the Apiru, undoubtedly
confederates of the Israelites in later times, were clearly
many refugees from the cruel debt slavery existing in
Babylonia during the 2nd Millennium. Apart from the firm
laws in respect to the taking of interest, the Jubilee of
the 50th year (Leviticus 24.II), if fully enforced, would
render any efforts to create monopoly ineffective. Thus it
can be seen that the God in his holy shrine ruled in the
same way in that ancient Hebrew kingdom. [p15]
The Greek sanctuary owed existence to similar forces that
had given rise to the temples of Mesopotamia and to the
temple of Solomon. Functioning in like manner, clearly it
originated from those distant days when the priesthood
considered themselves as the direct representatives of the
gods on earth, the shepherds appointed to the flock. [p16]
The temple of each small city in Greece may have functioned
as did the great temples of the powerful city states of
earlier days, and money, that is the law controlling
exchanges as to a common denominator of values, may have
come into existence as entry in the temple ledger, although
how represented in the circulation does not seem to be
clearly known. The notion of exchanges being conducted in
terms of cattle cannot be accepted as that which created an
exchange amongst the common people of the city
civilizations.
It is clear that local tribes such as the Bushmen of South
Africa have been conversant with the basic principles of
money as pieces of certain shell, cut according as
tradition demanded. [p17]
It may reasonably be expected that the intelligent Indo-
Europeans from whom stemmed the Greeks were equally
conversant with such principles; even if later they came to
forget them. According to the Cambridge Ancient History:
"Ivory beads in countries now devoid of elephants suggest
either wide range of movement or some form of exchange."
The graves of Sungir reveal similar mammoth ivory beads
proven to be 23,000 years old or more. During the old
kingdom of Egypt when "numberings" of all accepted as
wealth and possession were taken every two years, and
therefore books kept, a most refined system of distribution
of surpluses and therefore creation of exchanges must have
existed. The connection between such system and the
"scarabs" seems to have been generally dismissed. That
scarabs have been found in their hundreds in places far
removed from Egypt indicates significance far removed from
their use as ornaments.
The agents of Babylonian Money Power would themselves have
promoted establishment of the temple nucleus to the city
state. It was the form of government they understood best
and they knew how to control and subvert it if necessary.
Just as the similar secret money creative force heads
directly for the seat of government itself in this day and
age, and once it becomes fully lodged and acknowledged, in
the same way as with the establishment of the Bank of
England in 1694 and the Federal Reserve Bank in 1913, two
instances with which we are most familiar, it penetrates
right into the heart of the treasury, so it was in that
day. [p18]
As amongst the original aristocracy of Greece would be
little enough sympathy for the smooth subtleties of those
newcomers originating from the countinghouses of the
Phoenician, Aramean or Babylonian Cities, it would not be
to the natural political leaders that these newcomers would
address themselves in the first place, but to the
priesthood, those who controlled the temple, the advisors
and guides to such rulers. Just as in today, such
priesthood is too often composed of men of little
understanding of the realities of financial life and who
lend themselves almost eagerly to any power with sufficient
front to offer them more than the god they represent, so it
was in that day.
Thus the cities that rose out of the industrial awakening
of Greece had all the appurtenances of the sacred city
state of more ancient days.
However, too often during the last three hundred years,
kingship has become little more than a front giving
legality to such money as circulates, bearing as it does,
the profile of the ruler who so often has been unwitting co-
conspirator, if only as essential instrument, with that
money power, totally international in character, which has
nowadays largely replaced kingly power as the true ruler,
so it was that the temple became a front for the
international money creative force of that day and age;
connected closely with the trade in precious metals and
slaves as it must have been. [p19]
Thus, as the distant heir to this temple of ancient days,
the temple of the Greek city state in the 1st Millennium
B.C. was still a place looked up to as the abode of the
gods; even if that economic power by which, as the
expression of the benevolent will of the god, it had
controlled the total existence men, was now exercised by an
external and indifferent force, alien to Greek and with
whom it connived against its own adherents.
The temple of Apollo at Delos had become merely a front for
the economic purposes of a secret fraternity whose concern
was money changing, silver bullion and the slave trade.
[p20]
These persons had conducted their business in the shade of
the temple courtyards from ancient days as might give
sanctity to their activities which so often were exercised
against the well-being of the people who sheltered them.
Such activities were frequently concerned with the
movements of bullion, the factor most of all giving rise to
instability and therefore so necessary to the full
exploitation of the people.
The island of Delos, although virtually infertile and
without special advantages such as natural harbors, due to
gifts of pilgrims visiting the temple of Apollo and the
deposits of the cities, "trapezitae" and leading citizens,
became very rich; a great center of trade and banking, and
above all, a center for the great slave trade from which
almost none were safe.
(Plato was reputed to have been sold as a slave for 20
minae.)
Oskar Seyffert, in Dictionary of Classical Antiquities
wrote:
"Delphi, Delos, Ephesus and Samos were much used as banks
for loans and deposits both by individuals and
governments."
Therefore, the great sanctuary functioned very much the
same way, from the economic standpoint, as the central bank
in this day. The agents of International Money Power, as
used by the priesthood to take care of the fiscal dealings
of the temple and to whom was farmed out the credit of the
temple, must have fully understood that the priesthood had
betrayed their high calling. These agents would have lurked
as only faintly discernible shadows behind the temple
facade although they instigated much of what came to pass
in those days. By maintaining the position of the
priesthood, they maintained themselves and their secret
power for whatever they brought about, especially if of
evil, it may safely be assumed, the priesthood would be
held responsible. [p21]
Hence the people never questioned the existence of the
temple but as the place where the will of god was exercised
through his servants. That it had come to function more as
instrument in the capacity of front for an international
power concerned largely with money creation and the control
of the slave trade was something they never came to fully
understand. No more in this day do those who toil on
through the few years of their lives realize that the
governments that they so naively believe are theirs are but
a wavering shadow. The absolute reality of sovereign power
only obtainable through total control over monetary
creation and emission and cancellation is not theirs. They
but function as standards but which international money
creative forces create the world's money in a given area.
Therefore, this economic power would not only derive from
those loans in precious metals but also from the fact that
those very secret fraternities understanding fully the
principles of Ledger Credit Page Entry Money, operated
under it's patronage. There can be no doubt that the
principles of monetary inflation, or better put, abstract
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