The purification of money
- This page is part of an ERW course, Principles of economic restoration. By John Eagles, October 2, 2008
There exist principles for how money can be purified. Much of the money in the present world is dirty money. Much money has been stained because it was acquired through immoral methods. Such money needs to be purified in order to give it back its original value.
Let me first show how impure or dirty money can affect us. I shall simplify to make my point. Suppose that person A stole money from person B. You are person C and you do business with person A, maybe unaware of the fact that his money was stolen. You rent a house to person A and now you got in your hands the money that was once stolen from person B. After some time, person B finds out that you acquired his money. He may understand that you did not know that person A stole the money, but person B still wants his money back and will come to you, probably not having the most friendly attitude.
Dirty money, that is stolen money or money that is acquired in other immoral ways, has this kind of troubling effect on society. It impairs good relationships.
The purification of money goes a process reverse to the one I just described for stained money.
Imagine a tribe that has a chief and a priest. The chief is responsible for governing daily good life of the tribe. The priest is responsible for medicine and religious and spiritual life of the entire tribe. Tribe members acquire property, possibly in the form of money. They offer some of their money to the chief and to the priest, to be used for public government and general spiritual purposes.
What is the responsibility of the chief and the priest? If such money is acquired by illegal means, they should not accept it but make sure that the money is returned to those from whom it was stolen, so to prevent that the government and the spiritual center of the tribe are rightfully blamed for having taken bad money.
But even if offered money wasn’t stolen, tribe members could offer money to get influence over the chief or the priest. In that case there is still a problem. Assuming that the chief and the priest were both chosen in their functions because of their moral standard and superior abilities, it cannot be accepted that their authority is undermined by those who carry a different and less public responsibility. It simply means that when a tribe member offers money in order to get influence over the government and the spiritual center of the tribe, he should not be allowed to do so. Such money is simply unacceptable.
To purify the money, the chief or the priest can do different things. They could accept part of the money under certain conditions and return the rest of the money. This process of separating the money is known in religious traditions as the separating of the offering. Since oldest times, religious offerings have been separated, or cut. The meaning is a spiritual one. The separating of the offering means a spiritual dividing, providing a cutting line between the part that is more sacred and the part that is less sacred. When this is done with an offering, it means in a spiritual sense that the part of the offering that is attached to selfish motivation is not accepted.
All money that is contributed to states or churches or religions need to undergo some kind of cleansing or purification process. It is a wisdom that was known in religions and cultures of the past but which has been largely forgotten in the present time.
The separating of the offering should ensure that no wrong spiritual influences can come to dominate the government and the religion in a country. Once a polluted offering has been accepted, it inevitably has first spiritual consequences and subsequently physical ones. Such a government or religion will get controlled by groups that are out for personal benefit in some kind of way.
No religion or government can just accept all money that is offered. They have the moral responsibility to determine whether money is an acceptable offering or a Trojan horse.
Bribing is the opposite of a purified offering. Bribe money is clearly meant to undermine the responsibility and task of governments and religions. Often governments and religions got so corrupt that they institutionalized bribing. They offer special benefits to those who support them with money, regardless the source. Governments hand out special privileges to those who pay more money and religions promise a secure heaven in the afterlife.
This is opposite to what governments and religions are really responsible for.
