What is the new materialism? Sounds like new age jargon and a fancy way of re- imaging the same old iniquitous structures?

If we are willing to take a little time to look deeper we can avoid a superficial dismissal of this phrase, and discover a whole new way of looking at the science of money, economics and our relationship with the natural kingdoms in nature – particularly the mineral kingdom.

With the incoming seventh ray steadily gaining power, there is a growing realisation of the divinity that exists within the visible, tangible world of the human, animal, vegetable and mineral kingdoms.”1
In the books based on the Ageless Wisdom teachings, written by Alice Bailey, the Tibetan Master DK tells us that, “the sign of man’s spiritual unfoldment lies in his ability to include in his consciousness not only the so-called spiritual values and the power to react to soul contact, but also to include the material values, and to react divinely to the potencies which lie hidden from him in the custody of the other forms of divine life, found in the three sub-human kingdoms.”2

What potencies lie hidden in the most concrete and materialised of all: the mineral kingdom? We are familiar with the phrase, money is concrete or crystallised prana. If we drill down we find that prana is, “the life-essence of every plane in the sevenfold area which we call the cosmic physical plane,” 3and the “sumtotal of the cosmic energy”. 4
This means that gold and silver; coins, notes; plastic cards, figures on a computer screens, stocks and shares, bonds and derivatives; are all essentially pranic substance. The prana of atomic substance is governed by the first systemic Law of Vibration, and the third Cosmic Law of Economy – the adjuster of all to the best possible advantage. Under the Law of Vibration atomic matter moves and rotates, and on the seventh or lowest plane of the mineral kingdom, its vibration is, “slow, clogged and lethargic,”5 hence the need to build finer matter as evolution proceeds.

While the Ageless Wisdom teaching tell us that, “The aim of evolution for us is love dominated by intelligence – or intelligence dominated by love”, and the radiation of love-wisdom, we also find that the purpose for the mineral kingdom is crystallisation, and the radiation of colour, light, and electromagnetism.6,7 We can see that the human and mineral kingdoms share a similar purpose in radiation. Both kingdoms respond to fire, heat and pressure to reveal light and beautiful radiance – whether of a diamond or a world server.8

We also find that the mineral kingdom’s evolutionary task is to form, “the central or turning point in the degrees of the ‘Monadic Essence,’ considered as an evoluting energy,”9 sitting in the fourth place between the three involutionary and three evolutionary kingdoms above – mineral, plant and animal. Again humanity shares a similar task with the mineral kingdom as mediator – both situated at a turning point between the three lower and three higher kingdoms.

Since February, 2008, the first ray’s destructive and transformative power of Pluto,10 channelling change, darkness and death entered Capricorn. We are told that, “Capricorn connotes density, firm foundations, concretisation, the mountain of karma that holds down the struggling soul, or the mountain of initiation which must eventually be climbed and surmounted”.

“In this particular world cycle it is Capricorn which is producing the moment of crisis – a crisis of initiation plus a crisis of destruction (related primarily to the mineral kingdom) paralleled by a crisis of mental perception, precipitated by Mercury focussing the fourth ray of harmony through conflict. It is this mental perception plus world participation in the “crumbling of the mountain load of karma” which heralds the vision of the new day from the top of the mountain. 11
To assist humanity at this time of dismantling, we know that “…the Lord of the seventh ray is taking over the control of affairs and the ordered working out of the Plan, so as eventually to restore stability to the planet and give the incoming Aquarian influence a stable and extended field in which to work.” 12

As the most concrete expression of power and order, the mineral kingdom is the foundation of the ordered physical structures of planetary life.13 The creation of money, and the mineral kingdom are keys to help humanity deepen its understanding of planetary purpose as it expresses through each atom of matter, to better assist in the manifestation of the new world of order and beauty on Earth.

Libra rules the whole mystery of, and the creation and production of, money.19 Through the relation of the three aspects of the third divine manifestation – law, affinity and concrete energy – money is created.
In Esoteric Astrology we are told that money will unveil the secret of the mineral kingdom when the activity of Venus in Taurus, Libra and Capricorn is better understood,14demonstrating the karma and destiny of this kingdom.15
We also know that Libra is the sign that helps us understand money as concretised energy as the externalised symbol of the bringing together of spirit and matter on the physical plane.16 It’s interesting that the Romans called the pound the Libra (£). 17

Libra rules balance with its keynote, “I choose the way that leads between the two great lines of force,” and the development of discrimination by using the fifth ray to discern the real.18
We also find that Taurus governs the mineral kingdom – the ‘diamond-eye’ or consciousness of the buddha20 and that, “the radiation of the mineral kingdom steadily increases as the cycles come and go”. When the seventh ray more strongly manifests we are told that certain changes take place in the mineral kingdom on seven levels conforming to the seven subdivisions of the influencing rays.21

So we have Capricorn, Libra and Taurus, all ruled by Venus as the, “source of the intelligent mind, acting either through desire (in the early stages), or love (in the later stages). In Taurus this means the mind expressing itself through intelligent desire, for that is the goal of knowledge for ordinary man. In Libra, the point of balance or equilibrium is attained between material personal desire and intelligent spiritual love, for the two qualities of cosmic desire are brought to the fore in the consciousness in Libra and balanced one against the other. In Capricorn, it stands for spiritual love, expressing itself perfectly when the work in Taurus and Libra has been accomplished.22

As Humanity, governed by the fourth ray of harmony through conflict takes the battle into the densest matter facilitated by Pluto’s visit in Capricorn, perhaps the fifth energy of the discriminating mind, ruled by Venus, will gradually force a clearer revelation of the beauty and power available to humanity to create, as a group, the envisoned goal.23
We often hear that it’s the love of money that’s the root of all evil,24 but perhaps it’s rather the desire for things and the use of the third ray of active intelligence to think prana into forms to satisfy desire that is evil. History shows us the effect of desire for things, in the ingenious methods employed by human minds in creating money to transact the products of the mineral, vegetable and animal kingdoms.25

By crystallising the energy of Active Intelligence into money, attracting the slow, lethargic vibrations of devic substance through selfish and separative thought motives, human intelligence has served the old materialism built on the illusion of separateness. The new materialism of spiritual values based on the fact of oneness and brotherhood26 will attract a faster, more evolved vibration of matter and, “The greater the realisation and expression of love, the freer will be the inflow of money and resources for the work.”27

It’s human desire that has clogged the channels of the flow of atomic substance known as the divine circulatory flow, rather than money. The Divine Circulatory Flow is akin to the free circulation of all that’s needed in human bodily terms. It is the “free interchange, free sharing, free circulation of all that is required for right human living (which) will characterise the world to be.”28 It’s love as the will-to-good, that holds the key to clearing the planetary arteries so that resources can flow for the highest good of the greatest number. We are told that need, love and magnetic power are the three things required to attract money.29

The prana flowing from the sun permeates the planetary etheric vehicle and then enters humanity through the etheric vehicle, colouring it with individual quality before transmitting it to the lesser lives in the human body. Similarly, prana is transmitted from the planet to every atom in manifestation demonstrating the interconnectedness of all kingdoms.30
As humans use thought to create, so is prana crystallised, harshly grasped with intentions stemming from the astral realm, forming the devic substance into items and money which are then cornered for human use. The flow of prana is no longer free to flow, resources are not shared, and human pain, suffering and ecological destruction is the result.
By using the fifth ray mind – the revealer of reality – humanity is gradually seeing more clearly, the fact of brotherhood and oneness revealing the principle of sharing as a practical, and moral, necessity.

Using the divine energy of the creative imagination, humanity can consciously relate physical need and physical supply in service of the soul and Logoic Purpose.31

By consciously monitoring our thoughts so that nothing is desired for the separated self, we can assist the mineral kingdom in its purpose, direct prana to spiritual activity, and further humanity’s purpose as radiator of divine purpose and redeemer of matter in the three lower kingdoms. Then by dispelling the illusion of separateness the resources founded upon the mineral kingdom will be used to create the new structures, institutions, and belief systems that will shape our New Age.

Like Hercules’ labour in Aquarius, the river of resources that now flows into dead-ends of material over-abundance and congestion, will be re-directed to cleanse outmoded practices and institutions. Humanity will no longer be subject to the arbitrary patch-up strategies known as the business cycle, in its attempts to prevent the boom-bust, inflation-recession cycles of an out-of-balance circulatory flow. As the Law of Economy is permeated with the Second Cosmic Law of Love, it will act to make, “perfect each atom of time and each eternal period, and (carry) all onward, upward and through with the least possible effort, with the proper adjustment of equilibrium, and with the necessary rate of rhythm.”32

As harmony emerges from conflict, humanity begins to consciously direct the seventh ray of magic and ceremonial order to build the structures that will better reflect the divine consciousness in all forms and substance. These structures will express the new materialism, based on the Principle of Sharing in recognition of the oneness of all humans with the three natural kingdoms. As we work individually and in our groups, to usher in the new global and economic financial order, we are using our creative imagination for the benefit of all.

References:
1. Lucis Trust, Three Spiritual Festivals, 2010.
2. Bailey, A. Esoteric Psychology I , p. 230-231
3. Telepathy & the Etheric Vehicle, p. 155
4. The Light of the Soul, p.218
5. A Treatise on Cosmic Fire, p. 575
6. Esoteric Psychology I, p. 413
7. Theosophy. Science and the Secret Doctrine: The “Atoms” in the Kingdoms, Vol 24, No 7, p. 303
8. Bailey, A. Esoteric Psychology I,p.230
9. Blavatsky, H. The Secret Doctrine, Vol 1, p. 176
10. Bailey, A. Esoteric Astrology, p. 187
11. Ibid, p. 437
12. Esoteric Psychology I, p. 228
13. Ibid, p. 228
14. Esoteric Astrology, p. 245
15. The Externalisation of the Hierarchy, p. 60
16. Esoteric Astrology, p. 244
17. Bernstein, P. The Power of Gold, John Wiley & Sons, Canada, 2000
18. Bailey, A. Labours of Hercules, p. 131
19. Esoteric Astrology, p. 246
20. Esoteric Psychology I, p. 230
21. Ibid, p. 225
22. Esoteric Astrology, p. 244-245
23. Ibid, p. 448
24. Timothy, 6:10 The Bible
25. Bailey, A. Esoteric Psychology II, p. 192
26. The Externalisation of the Hierarchy, p. 645
27. Ibid, p. 334
28. Ibid, p. 128
29. Ibid, p. 334-335
30. A Treatise on Cosmic Fire, p. 102
31. Esoteric Astrology, p. 246
32. A Treatise on Cosmic Fire, p. 568

In popular new age parlance, money is the sun’s pranic energy crystallised into forms we use like coins. It’s also limitless, abundant and there for us all.
So why can’t we get our hands on more of it?
Those who wrote ‘The Secret’ and other popular books about the Law of Attraction may have brought an aspect of the ageless wisdom into popular culture, but in my opinion they forgot one important aspect. Or maybe they mentioned it, but it’s a bit tricky and not very sexy.
As we know from the GFC, when the money flow becomes congested, the supply dries up. So what’s the trick to getting some of it when resources seem monopolised?

We’ve been told, and we try really hard, to believe that we’re worth it, and that if we aren’t getting it then it’s because we’re not valuing ourselves enough. So we visualise with all our heart and stick pictures of lots of money and things we want on story boards.
But still no manifestation of the kind we hoped for. Where is all the limitless flow of prana gone?
Here’s my theory: there are two ways to attract money and things – desire or love. If we strongly desire things for our personal self only, we’ll attract money and things because money and stuff have no morals, they’re not discerning in human terms. This concrete prana flows to whoever exercises the strongest desire to get it.

Examples of this abound in our society. The people who, either in this lifetime or previous ones, really sweated for the lucre, were delivered of it.
But once on the spiritual path many of us become confused about what we should desire. We struggle with mixed messages created by our conflicting values. The relationship between money and spiritual living become confused in our mind and heart. We forget that money is spirit in a very desirable form. We stand at a midway place between the old way of thinking about how to look after only ourselves, and the new way of wanting to do much more than this. So we block the supply of money energy. It can’t flow to us when our messages are bobbing round like a message in a bottle in a stormy sea.

But all’s not lost. The money we need to attract when we’re Creative Change Makers comes from a different bank. Which bank?
It’s a bank for everyone. It’s the bank that holds, in trust, all the resources we need to manifest our soul’s purpose. It releases its funds to us only when the intensity of our love to serve humanity and the planet is so intense – as intense as a parent’s love for their child – that nothing can stop it.
There’s no greater personal love than the instinctual love of a parent for their child. Somewhere programmed within us we know that this is our creation and if we don’t make a good job of it, who will?

It’s this depth and intensity of love, this drive and capacity for endurance known only to parents, that we need to feel for our project, cause, business, plan, or any positive change maker activity. This love is the only force, on a higher level, that is equal to the force of desire for the self that makes some people very rich.
Then we’re in the same league, drawing from the same bank account with the same clarity of purpose.
With this level of commitment to our higher/soul purpose, the bank vaults will open.
Why? Because the Law of Attraction is the Law of Desire, or of Love (on a higher level), and like attracts like. Once we really clarify our thoughts and set our hearts and mind to the same task, nothing can stop the money flowing because we have created a smooth path, clearly signposted, “Love bank money this way”.
All the time we believe and never doubt, the energy can flow. This is a huge ask. The bank is really a ‘Trust’ account, where all the resources we need are just waiting for us to make the necessary commitment to our unique task.
Now where’s my storyboard…

If you’re interested in using a meditation helps to redirect the flow of money for spiritual work go to: http://www.lucistrust.org/en/arcane_school/meditation/two_redemptive_meditations

For Caroline’s writing services go to http://wwwcommunicatewrite-caroline.blogspot.com

What Caused the Global Financial Crisis?
We are collectively bumping into the other side of our long-time enjoyment of the treats and treasures of the physical world. The Global Financial Crisis (GFC) is the painful realization that it hurts when we’re hit in the face. So we recoil, rubbing the spot, whimpering at being caught unawares. That’s how many of us felt about the 2008 collapse in the financial markets.

But there is a positive side to this apparent ‘downturn’ as the economists call it. Many of us are familiar with the phrase, ‘there’s always another side to it’. This is great news when you’re not liking the experience, but bad news when you want it to go on for ever. But as we know, for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. This is commonly referred to as opposites attract, the law of karma, you get what you give, reap as you have sown, give and take, cause and effect, and now, as the law of the pump.

“The process of intensification of energy is similar to a pump. Thus, the upward striving of energy is absolutely conditioned by the downward pressure. People usually regard this pressure as misfortune, failure, whereas, this is the physical threshold of ascent.”1

There’s the answer – simple isn’t it? We can see the world as a giant pump and the ups and downs of life being the effect of pumping water. In technical terms when the pump lever is lifted up the water is drawn into the pump and when the lever is pushed down, the water is expelled.

What causes the water to be drawn into the pump? A vacuum. The air flows out making room for water to flow in because, as we have been told, ‘nature abhors a vacuum’.

If we apply the law of as above, so below, we can say that the vacuum is another word for change or that point of critical mass where events take on a different hue.

What is the Sustainable Solution?
If the water can be equated with resources, money, things we want, stuff we desire, items we ‘must have’, then we’ve been pumping it happily for aeons. The business cycle of boom and bust is like changes in the pump’s flow as business and governments try to control it to their benefit. But as many know, this is neither sustainable nor equitable.

“The dark forces have brought the planet into such a condition that no earthly solution can restore its conventional prosperity. None can regard the earthly standards of yesterday as suitable for tomorrow. Hence, humanity must understand anew the meaning of its transitory sojourn in an earthly state. Only through a fundamental defining of one’s existence in the carnate form and through an understanding of the Subtle and Fiery Worlds can one strengthen one’s own existence. One should not think that the delusion of trading can even temporarily insure a secure existence. Life has been turned into trade, but who of the Teachers of Life has ever been a shopkeeper? You know the great symbol of driving the moneychangers out of the Temple; but is not Earth itself a Temple?”2

As nations and citizens we are becoming inextricably entwined in a global market and the GFC is affecting us all. The pump can’t be as readily controlled and instead of continuing to deliver a regular supply of good, clean water, at our command, the handle’s ceased and the water’s unreliable. Is that because we’ve squandered the water, hoarded by the few at the expense of the many, forgetting to maintain the source from whence it flows?


Cause and Effect
Perhaps it’s our familiarity with the law cause and effect or karma, and its workings, that causes many world-weary economists, short sighted politicians, hopeful traders and greedy brokers to repeat the mantra, ‘it’s only another cycle; it will right itself all we need to do is …’. What else can they say?

So some economists see the solution in more growth – but it’s got to be sustainable.
“The lesson from the GFC is that this was an unsustainable financial system, based on shonky assets, accelerated by poor information and allowed to burn through under-regulation. In short, it was unsustainable. So too are the majority of our economic activities in the west, and it is this point that pushes us to finding ways of doing economic activity that will be sustainable, and not just with regard to oil, but with regard to the big elephant in the room — the forgotten environment. We need to find economic practices that continue the progress of growth and prosperity dispersal around the world which will be sustainable for the next 50 or 100 years.”3

If the answer to the GFC is to continue growth but do it ‘sustainably’, how is this to happen? At present we are conditioned to filter life through financial eyes meaning that everything – money, food, clothing, housing and resources – our basic needs plus, are a commodity to be traded.
The GFC is like a blockage in the arteries of the world. It’s the pump, offering us information about our state of health. We find that we may be on the brink of a heart attack, and the pump appears to be running out of water, so why do we keep on band-aiding the symptoms?

The Hanged Man
In the 1960s James Lovelock presented the western world with a new perspective based on an ancient and indigenous belief: that our world is a dynamic, living entity – called Gaia. The theory asserts that living organisms and their inorganic surroundings have evolved together as a single living system that greatly affects the chemistry and conditions of Earth’s surface. Some scientists believe that this “Gaian system” self-regulates global temperature, atmospheric content, ocean salinity, and other factors in an “automatic” manner. Earth’s living system appears to keep conditions on our planet just right for life to persist.

The only trouble is that since the release of Lovelock’s initial theory he’s published another book, The Revenge of Gaia, Lovelock asserts that our planet’s homeostasis is now being disrupted by our brief binge of fossil fuel consumption, which has released a huge amount of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. He believes that we’re pushing our planet over the brink.

Lovelock’s Gaia hypothesis was a step towards helping us see with a new vision. But as with all theories, it is part of a stairway of knowledge upon which others can build. Now another step is due; a new way of seeing must emerge. This next step takes us beyond the limitation of planet-bound homeostasis, beyond the scarcity of an enclosed system based on laws of thermodynamics and gravity.

The new theory could be called, Fohat or the Fohatic principle and it basically contends that electric force is everywhere, and it influences all matter, from subatomic particles to galactic clusters. Rather than being an insulated sphere, our earth is part of an electric circuit within the Milky Way solar system alive with ever moving electrical excitement. The universe and planet earth are not limited by the laws of lack and scarcity but rather, by the laws of abundance and never-ending galactic electric energy.4,5,6

How Does This Help Us?
With this way of looking at things we can see that the pump’s not really running out of water and we’re not really running out of resources, or money. We’re not really in debt nor do we really need to starve or work ourselves into a grave, or suffer the inequities of our current system that is based on the law of scarcity.

This is because electricity underpins all life including our planet’s resources. In essence, there is enough for everyone, but because we haven’t understood the law of the pump, we’ve cut ourselves off from that divine flow of universal energy that’s free to all.

That’s why conversations around sustainability are so important and need to be widened to take in this broader perspective on planetary and cosmic life. Obviously there are many entrenched interests who are not going to let go the reins without a battle. An electric universe paves the way for a money-less world where all have access to all resources, where work is no longer required, leaving time for pursuing and participating in the real meaning and purpose for life.

We don’t want a bloody battle – that’s the way of the old age. The new way is now being paved for a bloodless coup. Alternatives to the current systems are being built from the ground up, based on this electrical, unified, infinite way of looking at life.

The law of the pump shows us the problem and the solution. By our own actions in line with evolution, we have basked brilliantly in the sensuous enjoyment of all things physical. Only trouble is it’s been only a small percentage of the world who have benefitted from the orgy. But we’ve done such a good job of greedily indulging, raping the environment and brutally pillaging our fellow man, that we’ve fulfilled the law of the pump. Now it’s time for the other side of the equation to kick in.

Changing Perspective
It’s time to change our perspective and see life as a continuous flow of life-sustaining electric energy with the capacity to nurture all necessary growth, provide all necessary power, and give real meaning to our often jaded sense of who we are and why we’re here. In so doing, the sustainable down flow of life-giving water is assured.

This new way of seeing the world is based on the law of synthesis – that everything is connected, all is in abundance, and all are equally unique, important and divine. Flowing from this it’s clear that everything needed for an equitable world for all humans and all kingdoms in nature is available. In other words, life is not sad, painful, cruel or unjust; life is benevolent, nurturing, fair and joyful.

There are already many groups experimenting with sustainable ways to take the world and all its people into the next age. Examples include:

In science & environment – the Venus Project and Findhorn Foundation
In education – Arcane School and Robert Muller School
In politics & government – World Government of World Citizens and World Resources Forum
In arts and culture – New Earth Creations and World Spirit Forum
In spirituality and religion – Lucis Trust and The Global Interfaith Movement.

These individuals and groups have heeded the vision; they have understood the trumpet call of their own heart connected with the heart of humanity, to recognize their power as the heart of the planet. They are visioning and creating positive, viable alternatives that are sustainable socially and environmentally. They have understood the law of the pump, and they are applying that law with wisdom and great intelligence to the problems and challenges of our time.

References:
1. Heart, Agni Yoga Society. Sutra 45
2. Fiery Worlds 1, Agni Yoga. Sutra 83.
3. Lessons from the GFC for the GEC, Dept of Economics, Monash University. Melbourne, Australia 7 April, 2009. http://www.econnow.com/wp/?p=53 retrieved 18.6.10
4. The Electric Bridge, Lucis Trust. http://www.lucistrust.org retrieved 28.6.10
5. The Electric Universe, 2007. http://www.thunderbolts.info/resources.htm retrieved 28.6.10
6. NASA’s Dim View of the Stars 22.12.08. http://www.holoscience.com/news.php?article=b8zgwr0h retrieved 28.6.10

Is there a way we can pay for our basic needs – a home, fridge, TV and car – without having to pay back the principle and interest on our purchase? How does interest fit into current thinking about what constitutes just and sustainable societies?

Interest is the price we pay for the money we borrow. Those who lend us the money see themselves as giving up the advantage of having that cash – the liquidity advantage of money – so they charge a percentage on the principal loaned to us to compensate themselves for losing the benefit of having the cash to use.

So interest creates money for the lender without their actually producing anything for it. According to some thinkers, charging interest, or usury, violates natural law.

The theory of a natural law was put forward by Thomas Aquinas who said that this type of law is found in nature. Therefore, humans, being part of nature, have an innate sense of what’s right and wrong for both themselves and when acting towards others.

When interest is charged on the original amount of the loan, it has a compounding effect. This maximises returns for the lender at the expense of the borrower because your interest to be repaid is compounding. The financial economy operates on the basis of compound interest, whilst nature works in harmony with simple interest.

Money deposited in a bank grows from the interest added, but an apple tree can’t guarantee it’ll produce a harvest with compound interest. There is disjuncture between the natural and financial economies because each sees life from a different perspective.

Some commentators assert that the result of these two different approaches to growth – by living within natural limits and by creating man-made limits – is not sustainable. They claim that in living with arbitrary limits devised by humans to satisfy their need for greater growth, nature is being destroyed, and social justice is trodden into the dust of over-exploitation.

At the root of it, this clash is the result of two very different ways of valuing life – ‘mine’ and ‘yours’ – and as we know, this difference in values and perspective is the history of our human growth and evolution.

From a financial perspective, some commentators suggest that this difference is now intensified to such an extent that the recent 2008 Global Financial Crisis (GFC) was the first indication, in a now global context, that some values can no longer be accommodated in our changing world.

As the cost and demand for goods rises, many need to borrow money to pay for them, and many are feeling increasingly doomed to live out their whole life chained to work to pay off this compounding debt.

Is it possible for humanity to sustain such a diversity in its values, or are there some values now outmoded and a result of a dying industrial age? Can we continue on our current trajectory of extremes in wealth and poverty, in lush irrigated lands and drought-ridden deserts? How can we sustain a comfortable lifestyle, not just for the few but for us all – by making changes in the way we view life and its purpose, so that all humans can be set free to live according to their potential?

It is the responsibility of being a human to choose. How will each decide from this day on? Some can’t see the problem because it doesn’t impact on them – yet. Or they can see it but the fear of change, of being too small, of having nothing to offer, petrifies any ability to act.

The speed of change is so rapid that nothing of the past is assured. Will enough choose use their creative power – their intelligence and will – qualities inherent in all humans, to assist this process? Many will not for reasons discussed. But there are enough, a seed group, that can see the bigger picture and want no longer to be, as Rousseau put it, born free but in chains.

This seed group, the pioneers, the social entrepreneurs, the visionaries and the practical idealists, are the Creative Change Makers. Those who have captured a glimpse of the future are questioning whether sacred cows like bank interest or usury, will be relevant as attitudes to equality and sustainability gain momentum.

Many are instead choosing to use their unique skills, knowledge, personality and creative genius, to experiment with ways of running a business, making a scientific discovery, devising new building methods or raising a family, without an interest debt burden. For instance bartering and local currencies allow people to purchase and sell items without interest-bearing loans, and they encourage local business.

This is one example, and by no way a perfect solution, but being an innovative race, humans are busy experimenting with lots of alternatives to the current system. These Creative Change Makers believe that positive, sustainable, enjoyable and just social and environmental change can come about from the grassroots, with minimum disruption and maximum benefit. So that one day, those monthly loan repayments with interest won’t be needed, and perhaps they’ll just go out of fashion – like the routine labotomy did.

Reference:
Jean Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract
French political philosopher (1712 – 1778)

In March, 2009, co-host of CNBC’s The Call, Larry Kudlow, lit a U.S. dollar note, destroying part of it.  He claimed that the burning dollar represented the value of our money.

Kudlow was introducing a segment on the U. S. Government’s new Term Asset-Backed Loan Facility and he said that the program – aimed at energizing the asset-backed securities market that  subsidizes loans to consumers and businesses – would result in “a lot of people lighting flame to the U.S. dollar which is going down in flames.”  http://thinkprogress.org/2009/03/19/kudlow-burns-money

Did he really believe that the burning note was in fact, burning money?

Modern money is not really a thing at all; it’s just an agreement made between us all, that makes it real.

Historically, we’ve seen money evolve: from barter of objects, to coins, and then into paper money in AD806 in China.  Then in the 1990s electronic-money developed out of the use of the telegraph in the 19th century.

Electronic Funds Transfer,  fiat or faith money,  securities and bonds, are all based on nothing tangible – magic? Our much loved, hard earned money holds its value only because we all agree that it does. And the agreement could be to use anything – the dollar, Yen or a local exchange currency.

In the U.S. the dollar currency is protected by federal law. Indeed, were Kudlow to be convicted of defacing the dollar he’d be eligible for up to six months in prison.

But there’s another, perhaps deeper reason why many of us gasp when we see a national currency defaced: it’s like burning an effigy.  It’s what that dollar note represents in the psyche of those who live in countries using the dollar as legal tender, rather than the piece of paper itself.

It’s the same feeling if we lose our credit card – instant panic – not because we love the piece of plastic, but because of the implications to our security, lifestyle and identity. Not to mention the hassle of cancelling the card and getting a new one.

So it’s not the bead, coin, paper or plastic that we love and protect, but the value these represent.  Money is a construct of our human ability to agree on the worth of something – an object, experience or thought – that we desire to have.  So we create a collective story about money and how it can get us what we want.

The more meaningless the tokens we exchange in terms of actual physical things, the greater our reliance on trust and our shared sense of money’s reality.

When we see the dollar note burned, just for a moment, the token of our trust has disappeared or been made worth-less. Of course, if we lived on an island with coconut trees as our only food source, then coconuts become the agreed value of exchange.

Currency is relative in its value, depending on where you live and in what time. This means money has no fixed value. It changes to suit the place and times in which it’s used.

In the recent event of the Global Financial Crisis (GFC) which really started to show its effects in the middle of 2007 and into 2008, the world stock markets have fallen, large financial institutions have collapsed or been bought out, and governments in even the wealthiest nations have had to come up with rescue packages to bail out their financial systems.http://www.globalissues.org/article/768/global-financial-crisis

Conversations previously on the fringes are now centre-stage – global currency, local currencies and the future of money. It’s as if there’s a shift in consciousness that’s challenging our collective agreement about how we value money.

With the G20 Summit about to start in London on April 2, 2009, a United Nations panel of economists has proposed a new global currency reserve that would take over the US dollar-based system which has been used for decades.

The panel says that a new global reserve would be “feasible, non- inflationary and could be easily implemented”.  http://news.theage.com.au/breaking-news-business/un-proposes-new-global-currency-reserve-20090328-9egx.html

But what would a global currency look like – and who would administer it?

On the other side of the coin, Bernard Lietaer, currently a Research Fellow at the Center for Sustainable Resources of the University of California at Berkeley suggests local currencies are viable complimentary currencies that can, and are, being used alongside national currencies.

In The Future of Money: Beyond Greed and Scarcity, Lietaer points out that barter transactions are occurring in 1,900 local communities in the world, including over a hundred in the US. They are issuing their own currency, independently from the national money system.

This local currency doesn’t need to be small-scale. Like BerkShares, a local currency for the Berkshire region, dubbed in 2006 a “great economic experiment” by the New York Times, BerkShares “are a tool for community empowerment, enabling merchants and consumers to plant the seeds for an alternative economic future for their communities”. There are now over two million BerkShares in circulation.

Another example of complementary currencies is frequent flyer points issued by airlines and Lietaer says that anybody with access to a PC can start legal currency system.

For more information on starting a complementary currency go to The Access Foundation (link below).

Lietaer says that our biggest problem with money and currencies is unconsciousness. “We are not aware of what we are doing around money.We haven’t really thought about what money does to us. We believe
it’s neutral, so it doesn’t matter. But it’s not neutral: it deeply shapes us and our societies.”

Is an awakening consciousness around money the GFC’s silver lining?  Could it be that a three-tiered global/local system is evolving with a global currency, national currencies and local complementary currencies all happily co-existing?  If so, how would it work?

The idea is fascinating. If you have thoughts you’d like to share on this please go to our forum.

Or email Caroline: caroline@creativechangemakers.com.au

Sources:

http://research.microsoft.com

http://www.transaction.net/money/book/index.html

http://www.smallisbeautiful.org/local_currencies.html

Access Foundation – http://www.accessfoundation.org

Caroline Fisher©2009

How Can We Help Channel Money for Positive Purposes?
Did you know that by using your mind in directed meditation you can attract money for spiritual work?

Many of us are already doing inspired work making large amounts of money and then redirecting it for philanthropic projects all over the world. Here we have humanity aiding humanity – something never done before in our history on such a large scale.

As soon as we trust ourselves to use thought, words and actions harmlessly and for the higher good, money will flow to us. We are custodians of this abundance, given to us in trust, we can channel this resource for planetary healing.

The mantram below assists the free circulation of energy which can break up the crystallised money energy in the world, passing it out of the control of the forces of Materialism and into the control of the Forces of Light.

Use it everyday to help you tap into the light, use your thoughts to think about how to better the world, and the necessary resources will flow to you.

I know, O Lord of Life and Love, about the need.
Touch my heart anew with love,
That I too may love and give.

http://www.lucistrust.org/en/service_activities/e_mantrams/noontime_recollection