"The first bodies of the Knights Templar, the mysterious religious order at the heart of The Da Vinci Code, have been found by archaeologists near the River Jordan in northern Israel.
- http://dailytelegraph.news.com.au/story/
The Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem was invaded by Saladin "the Great" in 1187, and Jerusalem itself was captured following a series of bloody battles. Within five years, Saint John of Acre, the last fortified Christian town in Palestine, had fallen to the forces of Islam." - http://www.orderofmalta.org.uk/history.htm
"The Templars were an unusual order in that they were both monks, and yet also soldiers, making them in effect some of the earliest "warrior monks" in the Western world. Members of the Order played a key part in many battles of the Crusades, and the Order's infrastructure innovated many financial techniques that could be considered the foundation of modern banking." - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knights_Templar
"Usura rusteth the chisel
It rusteth the craft and the craftsman
. . . . . . . . . . . .
Usura slayeth the child in the womb
It stayeth the young man's courting
It hath brought palsey to bed, lyeth
between the young bride and her bridegroom
CONTRA NATURAM. - Canto 45, Ezra Pound
" Crowley wrote another influential book on Tarot and became Outer Head of the Ordo Templi Orientis, a secret society almost as inexplicable (to outsiders) as the Priory of Sion. Curiously, both the Priory and the O.T.O. are linked, by various commentators, with the Knights Templar, the medieval secret society which is also claimed to be the origin of Freemasonry by many Masonic historians. - http://www.rawilsonfans.com/articles/priory.htm
"Business stagnation, unemployment, suspensions of payment and a thousand other causes brought everyone except those with a brilliant financial position at some time or other into straits for money. And those who were not blessed with a thick skin, those who shrank from exposing themselves on such occasions to a possible rebuff, came to me, the usurer; so I made my haul." - http://www.ces.org.za/docs/Gesell/en/neo/part4/5e.htm
"The traditional definition of usury is the lending of money at exorbitant interest rates. It is this practice which Deuteronomy 23:19-20 forbade in the following terms:
Thou shalt not lend upon usury to thy brother; usury of money, usury of victuals, usury of any thing that is lent upon usury:
Unto a stranger thou mayest lend upon usury; but unto thy brother thou shalt not lend upon usury: that the Lord thy God may bless thee in all that thou settest thine hand to in the land whither thou goest to possess it. - http://www.english.uiuc.edu/Maps/poets/m_r/pound/canto45.htm
http://www.smom.org/
"The Evil is Usury, neschek
the serpent. . . .
The canker corrupting all things, Fafnir the worm,
Syphilis of the State, of all kingdoms,
Wart of the commonweal,
Wenn-maker, corrupter of all things.
Darkness the defiler,
Twin evil of envy,
Snake of the seven heads, Hydra, entering all things.... - http://www.english.uiuc.edu/Maps/poets/m_r/pound/canto45.htm
http://www.deepleafproductions.com/wilsonlibrary/texts/raw-cantos.html
3 comments:
Perfect! Thanks Acrillic for summing up some of our obsessions...
To me, charging interest (at all) causes all the problems of inflation and such that we all take for granted these days. I feel pretty sure that the 'Usury' that got despised originally related to charging ANY rate of interest on money lent...(and 0% seems to have worked OK in Japan recently)...but the usual weasel words of politics means that now it just means charging 'unreasonable' amounts of interest (whatever that means!) as Wiki says:
"Usury - from the Latin usuria, "demanding in return for a loan a greater amount than was borrowed" - was defined originally as charging a fee for the use of money. This usually meant interest on loans, although charging a fee for changing money (as at a bureau de change) is included in the original meaning. After moderate-interest loans became an accepted part of the business world in the early modern age, the word has come to refer to the charging of unreasonable or relatively high rates of interest."
Yesterday I was reading through what I'd saved from Quant Psych: included amongst it that bit about Dante putting the usurers & the violent against art in the same circle o'inferno. (almost synonymous)
I still don't really understand "Money", except that I trade my "Time" for it, so that I may have a "Space" & sustain my "Life", and that I wouldn't mind having a bit more of them all.
I think of usury as a villian, because If I had more "Money" I'd have to trade less "Time" and I could make more "Art." But when I work I help build houses, schools, etc. Keep watch on the depths of the landfill, etc. Things that maybe kinda need doing? Things that my need for money make me do, and that if I didn't need money, most certainly would not do.
Though I see holes in my own argument! my basic observation: Maybe Usura too a part of the process?
and that we'll steam engine come steam engine time??
and that I like arguing the weaker argument against the stronger!
oh! and also, great post!
Got me thinking & thinking good, questioning my own intentions...
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