Basic Income - The End of Poverty - by Master484

It can be truthfully said that in our current system money is the indicator of your human value. The fulfilment of your basic needs is completely dependent on owning money. Without money, you lose most of your basic human rights, because you can't afford them: food, water, housing and so on. What is the point in making a long list of human rights if one can attain those things only by using money? Even in the so called "modern" nations we have people who are starving and don't have running water or electricity, just because they don't have enough "human value points" called "dollars" and "euros" to buy them. Shouldn't we therefore make money a basic human right?

 The solution to poverty is an astonishingly simple one: we just make sure that everyone always has enough money to afford the basic necessities of life, no matter what the circumstances. This can be achieved by implementing a concept called basic income. Every citizen gets an unconditional monthly payment guaranteed by the state, which is enough to live on. It wouldn't matter whether you are rich or poor, have a job or not, or if you're even willing to accept a job or not. Everyone would get basic income, no matter what. With this simple gesture, poverty and all negative phenomena caused by it would to cease to exist.

The definition of basic income 

Basic Income Earth Network (BIEN) defines basic income with the following words: "a basic income is an income unconditionally granted to all on an individual basis, without means test or work requirement." The only requirement for basic income is citizenship. Therefore one could describe it as a citizen's wage; you get paid just for being a citizen.

These four points make basic income unique when compared to existing welfare systems:

1. It is paid to individuals, rather than households.

2. It is paid irrespective of any income from other sources.

3. It is paid without requiring the performance of any work or the willingness to accept a job if offered.

4. The size of basic income is comparable to minimum wage, which means it's high enough to live on.

The phrase "comparable to minimum wage" means that basic income must in all cases be high enough to cover at least the following:

- The cost of all basic necessities of life, such as food, water, hygiene products, clothes etc.

- Housing costs, such as rent and electricity bills.

- The cost of basic communication devices and methods, such as cellphones, computers and internet connections.

How does it work in practice?

You get a certain amount of money every month, no matter what your life situation is. Whether you are employed, unemployed, a student or a pensioner, it doesn't matter, basic income flows all the time. Also, the level of your salary has no effect on the amount of basic income you receive.

To clarify:

Jobless person = Gets basic income.

Person with a job = Gets basic income + the salary from his job.

Student = Gets basic income + "student bonus".

Pensioner = Gets basic income + pension.

Can the level of basic income be increased or decreased in any cases?

As for the increase above the normal level, yes.

Basic income can be increased above the minimum wage level in some cases, such as:

- Having dependents while being unemployed.

- Being a student or having dependents while being a student.

- Having many dependents while having a low paid job.

- Etc.

There would be "minimum income limits" for different family configurations, and if all your sources of income (basic income + salaries) fail to meet these limits, then your basic income would be increased to meet the minimum limit.

Also, basic income can be increased as an incentive to encourage unemployed persons to take part in:

- Approved voluntary work or training.

- Caring for young or elderly persons.

- Community projects.

- Etc.

But as for the decrease below the normal level, the answer is no. Basic income can never be reduced below the "basic" level.

However, there is one special case in which basic income is not paid: if you are sentenced to prison. After the prison sentence is over, one regains his right to basic income. This will ensure that "crime does not pay", as we'll soon see.

How do we fund the basic income system?

A) Normal funding methods

Many different funding methods have been suggested to fund basic income. Some of these include:

- Income taxes

- Sales taxes

- Capital gains taxes

- Inheritance taxes

- Wealth taxes

- Pollution taxes

- Land taxes

- Profit accrued from state-owned enterprises

- Elimination of current income support programs

In a meritocracy there will of course be a 100% inheritance tax, which will boost the governments wallet quite a lot, although this source of funding is somewhat unstable, as the amount of tax money it provides depends on the number/wealth of the persons who have died that year.

The other and far more reliable source of income provided by meritocracy is this: when all banks and corporations are nationalized, their revenues will go directly to the State instead of to the pockets of private owners. This is a stable form of funding, and together with the 100% inheritance tax, it ensures that the state budget will be much larger than it is now. These two things assure that there will be enough money to fund basic income, and other things too, like free healthcare and free education.

B) Money creation

There also exists a far more radical way of funding: money creation. This idea isn't necessarily as crazy as it sounds.

Have you never wondered why the banks are so eagerly marketing loans to us? Just pause for a moment, think about how the banking system actually works, and you'll soon realize that all money is created out of thin air. You see, when banks give loans to the people, the loan money is literally created out of nothing. When you spend that loan money, it eventually returns to the bank(s) as "real money", making them and their owners richer. This process is called "economic growth". This is a well-hidden secret, and if the people became aware of it, there would be a revolution the day after tomorrow.

When a nation's GDP rises, it actually just means that the amount of money in circulation gets higher. Money creation is what makes economic growth possible. If there were no money creation, the amount of money in circulation would always be the same, and no growth could take place. Both the amount of consumption and production would always be constant. The same would be true for the amount of work the system produces. So to sum it up: economic growth causes more work and more debt for the people, and yields more money for the rich.

However, the ordinary people can't see this continuous increase in money for four reasons:

1. Over 95 % of all money is digital (invisible).

2. Most transactions are digital (invisible).

3. When the economy grows, salaries don't rise that much (except for those on the top of the pyramid).

4. Because of reason number 3, the people own only small amounts of money at a time.

(And of course, because of reason number 4, people are forced to take loans!)

So you can't see the money because most of the time it's literally invisible. Ordinary people can experience economic growth only in the sense that they're continuously forced to do more work and take on more loans. In addition to this, the money created in the loan process is totally worthless. The only reason why people think money has actual value is that they never own too much of it, hence always want more, and this is what causes money to have "value" in people's minds.

But what if the banks actually gave real money to the people instead of loans? Would it really make any difference from an economic viewpoint? The people would still use the money, just as they use their loans. The economy would still grow just as before. The only difference is that the bank owners would no longer get richer at the expense of the people. And of course in this model there would be no private bank owners at all, because all banks would be owned by the state (private bankers would never give money to the people for free).

What are the benefits of the basic income system?

*** 1. No poverty ***

Poverty as we know it would cease to exist. Everyone can always afford the basic necessities of life and pay their bills and rent.

This in turn will cause:

1a) Significantly lower crime rate.

Crime will no longer seem so attractive, when all your basic needs have been fulfilled. There will no longer be any need to steal in order to make a living.

More importantly, because inmates will lose their right to basic income while they are in prison, the potential criminals will think twice before breaking the law, and most of them will choose not to. Committing crimes will no longer earn you money in the same way it used to, since you now stand the chance to lose you basic income if you get caught. As a result, criminal gangs will have a lot harder time recruiting new members, and in time they might disappear altogether. Crime will no longer pay in the literal sense.

Right now, many countries have an opposing system where you actually receive a small sum of money for every day you sit in prison. Plus your daily needs are taken care of while you're behind bars. This has caused the prison system to become a form of social security. If you're poor enough, you may end up in a situation where you have no alternative other than going to prison. In a twisted sense, prison provides a person with a form of "basic income": you get housing, food, water, shower etc. coupled with a small daily allowance. No one can take these things away from you while you are in prison. They are guaranteed by the state, no matter what. The only requirement to get these benefits is to commit a crime that is serious enough to put you in prison. No wonder the prisons are full!

And when your prison sentence is over, you go back into your previous situation of uncertain income (and in some cases, back to the streets). If you can't get a job soon after your release, and chances are that you won't, then you must rely on unemployment benefits, which are a more uncertain form of income when compared to the benefits you got while in prison. The employment agency now controls your life. You are forced to apply for jobs that you aren't necessarily interested in, and to participate in "activation programs", otherwise you lose your only source of income. After a while, you'll start to wish that you were back in prison, where you could just sit. Soon committing crimes feels like a reasonable alternative because you really don't have that much to lose. Of course you would lose your "freedom" again, but on the other hand you would receive a guaranteed income and upkeep while in prison. So why not? And then you start wondering if some of your "old buddies" still live in the area... And then the circle starts from the beginning once again.

If you have a very low-income level or no income at all, it's logical to commit crimes in order to get a prison sentence, which will both increase your income and guarantee your basic needs. This creates an insane situation: if you commit crimes, the state pays you. And don't forget that while in prison you may have the opportunity to study or perform some kind of work (simple, low paid part time work, which the "normal" labor market can't offer). So by committing a crime, you might actually get a job of sorts, in addition to the other benefits. No wonder that the "battle against crime" has lasted forever. Crime can never disappear from a society that rewards crime.

But if you always had an unconditional, guaranteed source of stable income, which would be taken away from you only in the case that you commit crimes, then these problems would be solved. Ending up in prison would be the last thing you want. You would just lose both your freedom and your income. Crime would no longer pay anything at all.

It's good to remember that most people sitting behind bars are small time criminals who ended up in prison because of two reasons: 1) The lack of money and 2) All things caused by it. But if we rewarded people with a basic income for just being a citizen, then both of these two problems would be solved.

In our current system, only good behaviour (seeking or having a job) is rewarded, while both neutral (not seeking or not having a job) and bad behaviour (criminal activity) are punished. So it's quite easy for one to move from neutral behaviour to bad behaviour, because both are punished. And, as we demonstrated, the guaranteed upkeep that the prisons offer to inmates makes it seem like bad behaviour is in some ways punished less than neutral behaviour. This causes a prison sentence to be an option, rather than a punishment.

In the basic income system, both good and neutral behaviour will be rewarded, while only bad behaviour will be punished. And of course good behaviour will still be rewarded more than neutral behaviour, because you get basic income in addition to your salary from work. So the better you behave, the higher the reward. If you decide to just hang around for whatever reason, as long as you don't cause any trouble, you will still be rewarded in a small way i.e. you'll be given enough money to survive. But if you start causing trouble, you'll be punished.

Basic income will therefore remove all exterior reasons (problems caused by poverty) from criminal activity. Only interior reasons (free will choices) would remain. And how many people are there who would willingly start a criminal career in a system which genuinely cares for its citizens? Not many. It's important to realize that most criminals aren't inherently evil. Most of them choose to commit crimes because of exterior reasons (which make them feel that they have no other choice), not because they really want to. 

1b) Significantly reduced homelessness problem.

Everyone would have money to pay their rent, so fewer people end up on the streets.

Many people end up homeless because they lose their job and start drinking. Drinking causes a divorce, and then comes the street. Unemployment is a "social shame", which many can't handle properly. Some people would rather live on the streets than beg for their benefits every month. But if you had a guaranteed basic income then there would be no begging, and the fear of unemployment would be much lower. This way, if you lose your job, it won't strike you so hard.

Even so, you could still find yourself in the position of being unable to pay your rent. For example if you lived in a big house and then suddenly lost your high paid job, basic income might not be enough to pay the rent. The solution to this problem is conventional social security aid; it will still exist alongside the basic income system for emergencies. (But ordinary income support programs would not exist, because basic income replaces them.)

1c) Significantly reduced prostitution.

Guaranteed income = No need to sell your body.

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So, to sum it up, poverty and crime will be greatly lessened. However, depending on the cost of education and healthcare, poverty might not totally disappear with basic income alone. But if basic income is combined with free education and free healthcare then poverty would truly exist no more.

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2. More jobs, more sensible labor markets and a motivated workforce

One of the most striking features of basic income is that it's paid to all citizens regardless of whether or not they have a job. This allows the creation of simple, low paid, part time jobs, which would otherwise be impossible to create because the salaries of those jobs would be too low. But when you simultaneously receive both basic income and the salary from your job, this makes it possible for people to accept low paid, few-hours-a-day jobs. This way people with little or no education would have more job opportunities. Also, one of the biggest problems concerning the low paid jobs would be no more: right now many don't want to accept a job that has a salary not much higher than one's unemployment benefit.

Thanks to their unconditional basic income, the workers can turn down any job that's offered to them, so the employers cannot create just anything that comes to their mind. The created jobs must be meaningful, otherwise no one will accept them. On the other hand, the best of such jobs would always attract workers. This creates a real and a more sensible "labor market". The employers can now easily create new jobs, but at the same time they must actually think what they're offering, because the workers can now freely choose what they want to do.

Right now, we have many jobs that the people hate to do. The employers can comfortably offer these jobs, because they know that someone always accepts them. The job seekers on the other hand are forced to accept these jobs because if they don't they might lose their unemployment benefits. This creates shitty jobs, performed by poor, unmotivated people.

But basic income ensures that there will be no shitty jobs. They will become extinct because people will refuse to do them. The future labor market will work like a voting system of sorts. Good jobs will attract more workers - this votes them "in" - while bad jobs attract nobody, so they'll be voted "out". The future labor market will "know" what it wants to do and what it doesn't.

In comparison, our current labor market is "dumb". People accept jobs because they're forced to, and that's why the employers don't really have to care whether the jobs offered are "meant for humans" or not. In a dumb labor market, productivity is all that matters. The well-being of the workers means almost nothing. If they resign, there's always someone else to take their place. This makes the workers mere resources that can be pushed around in any way you like. They have no autonomy or real choice in anything.

Basic income is the only way if we want to create a real, just and smart labor market. It will ensure that all workers are motivated, because working will be a free choice. Employees will be able to trust their employers, and vice versa. Co-operation and mutual agreement between the bosses and the employees is always required. Bad bosses would soon find out that nobody wants to work for them anymore, while good bosses would never have a shortage of employees. If some company treats its employees unfairly, the word would spread quickly, and after a while nobody would want to work for that company anymore, forcing its leadership to resign and shut down the business. (Although if all companies were owned by the state, the bad leader would simply be fired and replaced with a new one, but the company itself would remain intact, unless there are other problems too in addition to bad leadership.)

3. More freedom and autonomy

Basic income allows people to develop independently and autonomously. Your life would no longer be dictated by money. Instead you can freely choose what to do with your life.

Basic income gives you the following freedoms:

- Freedom to choose whether to work or not.

- Freedom to choose whether to accept a job or not when offered.

- Freedom from conditional social- and unemployment benefits, which now allow various government agencies to dictate your life. (Basic income will replace most of these benefits.)

- Less dependency of wives on husbands. (Such as in the case of a couple where one is unemployed while the other one has a job. This can cause the employed person to become the "economic leader" of the relationship.)

- Increased autonomy from families. (Such as in the case where some family members have a job and others don't, making the jobless members economically dependent on the others.)

- Increased autonomy from criminal gangs. (When you have a guaranteed income, you won't be so dependent on gangs i.e. you will have a realistic chance to start building a life that is outside the gang.)

In addition, you'll have more free time, since now you don't have to devote your whole life to work. More free time means increased creativity. There will be more time for art, music, literature, sports, meditation, spirituality, and so on. This will create a new renaissance, when people start paying attention to their "forgotten abilities" again.

4. Increased psychological well-being

As a result of the elimination of poverty, creation of a sensible labor market, reduced crime rates and increased freedom, the psychological well-being of the entire nation will improve.

The people today are mostly worried about money. It dominates their lives. Almost all fights between couples are about money. But thanks to basic income, there will be less stress and worrying about it. You can always be sure that you can afford to pay your bills in time and that you'll always have enough money to live, no matter what your life situation is. This makes you feel comfortable at all times, leaving more time for other thoughts.

Also, the social stigma and shame that is today associated with being poor or unemployed will disappear. There will be no more begging for your benefits. Every citizen receives basic income at all times, so "living on basic income" won't be such a shame as "living on social security". Right now, the poor are humiliated on a regular basis because they have to ask and beg for their benefits, and organizations such as the employment agency can dictate their lives. This quickly breaks anyone's self-esteem and makes them consider themselves as second-class citizens (which is indeed what they are in the current system). This in turn lowers their motivation, and causes many to give up all their ambitions and plans for life. The current "social security system" should be called "social despair system", because it causes depression in previously healthy people.

Unconditional basic income means that having a job will be a choice of free will. This will have a profound effect on the nature of work. Working will no longer be slavery but something that you choose to do voluntarily. Both work ethics and motivation will therefore be improved. The mantra "forced to work" will be replaced by "joy of service".

In our current system, many children grow up in stressed families, listening to their parents arguing about money. They hear their parents saying things like "we can't afford it" and "how on earth can we pay for this?" Many marriages break up because of one reason only: the lack of money. When a child grows up in an environment like this, he/she becomes stressed at a young age. But if both parents had a guaranteed basic income then a lot of problems would be solved. Remember: broken people generally come from broken families, and stable people from stable families.

Many mental problems have their roots in poverty. Depression is one of the most common mental disorders in the modern society. But why do you think people become depressed in the first place? The answer is poverty, and all the things caused by it: lack of security, lack of self-esteem, stress, and so on. Of course not all mental problems are caused by money, but it's safe to say that at least half of them are related to the patient's economic situation. And psychiatrists of course cannot heal your economic situation, so even if they succeed in helping you out in some ways, the basis of your problems is still there: poverty.

Increased psychological well-being also means that there will be fewer "bad habits", such as alcoholism and drug use. This will cause the people to be healthier both physically and mentally and this will further decrease the crime rates. (Many "crimes" that take up enormous amounts of police time are alcohol related disturbances, quarrels and fights.)

Basic income will also create an honest society. No one will be faking it anymore. Everything that you do with your life will be a decision of free will.

5. Government saves money

Because basic income solves many problems of the society, the government will save money in the following areas:

- Crime rates will be significantly lower = Big savings in law enforcement and in the "prison industry".

- Homelessness rates will be significantly lower = Savings in various aid programs.

- The people will be psychologically healthier = Lower mental health costs.

- Less alcoholism and less drugs = Savings in rehab programs, less "public disturbance crimes" that eat police resources, etc.

In addition, most of the existing income support programs and other aid systems can be abolished, because basic income will replace them. The existing welfare programs also have huge, ineffective and expensive agencies formed around them. We have amazing numbers of people working in these agencies, and what is their primary purpose? To decide who is entitled to receive the various benefits, and who is not. What a joke. And loads of unnecessary red tape of course accompany all decision processes. When basic income is implemented, these "paper factories" will become mostly obsolete.

Criticism and responses

Here are some common arguments against basic income, and responses to them.

A) It will create a society full of lazy people.

The critics of unconditional basic income argue that it will create a society which will be full of lazy people and free loaders.

The reasons why this would happen, according to the critics, are these:

- Basic income is paid without requiring the performance of any work or the willingness to accept a job if offered.

- The size of basic income is comparable to minimum wage, which means it's high enough to live on.

So, if one is not required to do anything at all to get it, surely this would cause laziness, especially so because it's high enough to live on? Motivation to work would be zero, right? And then the whole of society would collapse, because no one would maintain it.

So the core issue here is motivation.

To understand this issue better, think about what motivates the people right now. What makes them work? The bottom line is of course that they're forced to do it: if they didn't, they would run out of money and die (well, almost). But there are other reasons too, such as achieving something in your life, caring for your family, and benefiting the society in general. Also, many people have identified themselves with their jobs, so that their profession is a part of their identity (this is why some people collapse mentally when they lose their job). So, there are plenty of other reasons. Now, if we add basic income to this formula, only the first reason, the threat of total poverty, would disappear. All the other reasons would still be there.

But one could of course always argue that the first reason, the threat to lose all your income, is the biggest reason why people go to work. It's the ultimate punishment, and that makes it the biggest reason. And this is true. That reason threatens your very survival and therefore it's the single most important reason why people go to work.

But what if we remove that reason, and replace it with a new one? Right now, the reason to do work is the threat to lose your income. So what happens when basic income comes to the scene? It replaces the threat with an unconditional reward. The negative threat disappears and is replaced with the extreme positive opposite: an unconditional reward. So the change here is total.

Now, think about the motivation issue. In our current system, the motivation to work is based on a threat. In the basic income system, the motivation will be based on an unconditional reward. So how could the people's motivation to work be lower than in our current system?

I'll soon demonstrate this motivation issue better, but first let's take a look at the other arguments.

B) Contributing to the society won't pay off, because you gain the same reward if you do nothing.

The critics of basic income have also pointed out that it would create a situation where you stand the chance to "lose" if you decide to contribute to the society. If everyone gets the same amount of money from the state no matter what they do, this means that you stand to gain the most if you do nothing. In the case where you choose to contribute, but others choose not to, you "lose" your contribution because the system will crash and therefore you are left without the money you were supposed to gain as your universal right.

An example similar to this one has been used to demonstrate this problem:

A community has 100 members.

We decide to give every member an unconditional universal benefit of some kind.

Providing this service costs 1000$.

The value of the benefit gained by every member is therefore 10$.

Each member is then asked to participate in the funding, by making a small contribution of 1$.

Here are the four possible outcomes of this arrangement:

1. I work and others also work: 10 - 1 = 9

So I gained the universal benefit of 10$, and lost my contribution of 1$, leaving me with a gain of 9 $.

2. I don't work, but others do: 10 - 0 = 10

Here I don't contribute, so I don't lose the 1$, but I still get the universal benefit of 10$, leaving me with a gain of 10$. So I gain more if I don't contribute.

3. I work, but a large enough number of others don't: 0 - 1 = -1

Here the universal benefit system crashes, because enough people have chosen not to contribute. But I still contributed, losing 1$, and leaving me with a loss of -1$.

4. I don't work, and a large enough number of others also don't work: 0 - 0 = 0

Here the system also crashes, but this time I didn't contribute, so I lost nothing, leaving me with neither a gain nor a loss. Once again, I stand to gain more if I don't contribute. Had I chosen to contribute, I might have lost 1$.

The above formula would be true if everyone really gained the same amount of money, regardless of what they did. But this is not the case with basic income, because you get your salary from work in addition to the basic income. Also, the above formula assumes that you get no salary at all from your contributions; instead you just lose money.

As a reminder, basic income works like this:

Non-contributing person = gets basic income.

Contributing person = gets basic income + salary.

Because of this, you always stand to gain more if you choose to contribute. By not contributing, you always gain less.

Let's see how that above formula looks like when we start paying salary to the contributors. Let's assume that the salary is at least of the same size as the universal benefit (basic income): 10$.

Here are the four outcomes:

1. I work, and others also work: 10 + 10 = 20

I get 10$ as salary, and 10$ from the universal benefit system, so I gain 20$.

2. I don't work, but the others do: 10 + 0 = 10

I get no salary, but I get 10$ from the universal benefit system, so I gain 10$. However, should I choose to work, I would gain more.

3. I work, but a large enough number of others don't: 0 + 10 = 10

Here the universal benefit system crashes, but I still get salary from my job, so I gain 10$.

4. I don't work, and a large enough group of others also don't work: 0 + 0 = 0

Here the universal benefit system crashes, and I get no salary, so I gain nothing. However, should I choose to work, I would gain 10$.

So in every case one stands to gain more if one chooses to contribute. Working is rewarded more than not working.

C) Basic income rewards you if you do nothing, thus feeding passivity and laziness.

Doing nothing is rewarded just a little bit: with an amount that will keep you alive and which prevents you from becoming a criminal. If one wishes to be rewarded more then one must start contributing. The more you achieve, the higher reward you get. This creates the incentive to start contributing.

If doing nothing is punished, as it is now, this causes the problem we described earlier: it's very easy to move from neutral behaviour into bad behaviour, since both are punished and bad behaviour may seem like it's punished less. But if neutral behaviour is rewarded in a small way (you get basic income), while bad behaviour is clearly punished (you lose your basic income), then moving into bad behaviour will be much more unlikely. And the other way, when neutral behaviour is rewarded in a small way, and good behaviour is rewarded in a bigger way, this makes it likely that one always tries to behave as well as one can.

D) Nobody would do shitty jobs anymore, if working is a choice of free will.

Yes they would, when those jobs are made more attractive by decreasing the work hours, raising the salary, or both.

E) Basic income would create "social immobility" if people are just allowed to sit at home without doing a thing.

No it wouldn't. Instead, it gives you a real chance to do anything you want. Although you could of course just sit if that is what you really want to do. In a basic income society, there will be no faking anymore. If you do something, you do it because you really want to, not because someone forced you to. Everything will be voluntary.

This is not to say that the society couldn't offer activation opportunities to the people. Of course it can offer them, and it should. The people can then decide if they want to take these opportunities, but they should never be forced. Instead, an incentive should be offered; one gets a small increase to one's basic income if one decides to take part in community projects, learning new skills, etc.

This will create real and motivated social mobility, done on your own initiative, instead of fake mobility, where someone else "moves your feet".

F) But what about the social bums?

Yes indeed, what about the long-term social bums who have been living on welfare for tens of years? In some cases, this continues from one generation to the other. And what about people who refuse to accept work, no matter what?

Almost all of these people are acting in this way because they feel that our current system is not worth serving. Abusing a system that abuses you is a normal thing to do. These people were not born lazy. When they grew up and realized that the system is rigged against them, they decided to give up and became "social bums". It's a logical thing to do. Your conscience won't punish you for that since there is nothing wrong in biting the hand that tries to control your life.

When basic income is implemented, most of these people will stay as social bums, because it's hard to give up a habit that you have had for ten years or more. However, as time passes, some of them might change their habits, but not all. They'll stay freeloaders for the rest of their lives, and this can't be helped. Laziness and resistance to work is hard-wired in them. But these people are a minority, so it really doesn't matter. They haven't been able to crash this system with their laziness, so they won't be able to do that in the basic income system either.

The village with two employers

Here is a parable that demonstrates how basic income works:

Imagine that you live in a small medieval village. You have just moved into the village a few days ago, and you don't have a job yet. Living there costs approximately 10 gold coins per day. You're running out of money, so you decide to get a job.

There are two employers in the village and the first one is a nasty baron. All his employees are forced to do everything he orders them to do, because if they don't, he'll fire them on the spot. However, as long as they serve him, he'll pay them 20 gold coins a day, and provide housing to them. But if they decide not to serve him, he simply kicks them out onto the streets.

The second employer is a benevolent lord. His employees are always given a choice whether to serve him or not. Those who decide to serve him are paid 20 gold coins a day, and he provides housing to them. Those who decide not to serve him get 10 gold coins a day, and to them too he provides housing. The reason for this arrangement is that he believes every human being has a right to receive something he calls "basic income", which ensures that your basic needs are always taken care of, no matter what the circumstances.

Now, which one of these two employers will you choose to serve? The nasty baron? You must be joking. Everyone in that village would of course want to serve the benevolent lord rather than the nasty baron. Okay, so you decide to offer your services to the benevolent lord first. It turns out that it's your lucky day, one of his employees had just moved away, so there's one vacant spot. After a short interview, the benevolent lord decides to hire you. Then he tells you the rules of the house, which you already knew, since almost everyone you had met in the village had told you how good this man was.

Okay, so now you're faced with those two options. You can either decide to serve this man, and receive 20 gold coins a day plus housing from him. Or you can decide not to serve him, and receive 10 gold coins a day plus housing from him. So what will it be?

Would you feel motivated to serve him, knowing how generous and good he is? Or would you rather start abusing him by becoming a freeloader? Which option feels more "right"? If you had any self-respect, you would choose to serve him. Doing otherwise would mean that you're just a lazy bum. You would of course be allowed to become a freeloader, but how long could your conscience take it? All the other employees most likely decided to serve the lord too, so you would immediately stand out from the crowd, should you choose to just "hang around". Therefore most likely you too would decide to serve your benefactor.

This parable shows us why basic income works. You see, there is a law of nature, which goes like this: "Don't bite the hand that feeds you."

All intelligent beings obey this rule. To disobey equals madness. If you decide to bite the hand that feeds you then you'll be left without food, and this decreases your chances of survival. In our parable, choosing not to serve the benevolent lord equals biting his hand. One freeloader alone couldn't of course ruin his economy, but should enough of his employees become freeloaders, then he would become bankrupt. This in turn would mean that every villager now has only one option left: they must accept the nasty baron as their master.

Where is the difference, you might now ask. Both guys pay you 20 gold coins, right? The difference is this: under the benevolent lord you had a guaranteed, unconditional income waiting for you, should you become unable to work for some reason. Under the nasty baron, you have no safety nets at all. Should you become unable to work while serving him, you'll just be fired and left with nothing. So all those who decided to serve the benevolent lord had a good reason to do so. By serving him they maintained a "system", that genuinely cared for them. If they wouldn't serve him, that system would be destroyed, and replaced with the nasty barons system, which treats them inhumanely. Their motivation to serve the good lord could be defined as "joy of service", because they are happy to serve a master that serves them back.

In short, in a basic income society the people want to make sure that it stays intact. They know that if they don't contribute enough, it's all over and the old system based on slavery will return. And also, if someone cares about you unconditionally then your instincts tell you to show similar care towards that person.

So here you have the reason why basic income won't create a "lazy society". In fact, motivation to work will be higher than in our current society. Just think it through for yourselves. Which one of these two reasons would you choose as your prime motivator: "forced to work" or "joy of service"? The answer should be obvious.

Now imagine that the people hold elections in that village, to decide which one of those two employers should be the supreme leader of the village. Who do you think would win? Only an insane person would vote for the nasty baron. So they elect the benevolent lord as their leader with a unanimous decision. Now the benevolent lord controls the village and all of its businesses and resources. Soon he decides to implement his basic income system on a larger scale. Every citizen in that town will now receive 10 gold coins per day as an unconditional basic income, which is enough to cover their basic needs. And again, there is no work requirement; you get 10 gold coins for just being a citizen. However, if people decide to do work then they will receive 20 gold coins per day.

Now every citizen in that village is facing these two options: they can choose to contribute to the community that cares for them, or they can choose not to, and just hang around with their daily 10 gold coins. Would the decision be any different from the previous one? Once again, the same instinct would kick in: don't bite the hand that feeds. Everyone knows that if they don't contribute enough, their utopian system will crash and it will be replaced with the old one. Therefore most villagers would definitely choose to contribute.

Then imagine that one day their wise leader announces to them that he plans to implement a 100% inheritance tax. This law would guarantee that everyone will have equal starting positions in life, no matter what their surname is, and also all super rich family dynasties, like that of the nasty baron, will be destroyed. Also, this tax would ensure that the basic income system will have enough funding in the future, and everyone would get free education and free healthcare too. Then the citizens are allowed to vote on the issue. Again, who in their right mind would vote against it? The nasty baron and his friends perhaps. But all ordinary citizens would definitely vote for this tax to be implemented. The nasty baron would be destroyed at last, and the society would be even better than what it was before.

But let's go backwards in time a little bit. Imagine the village election again. What if the nasty baron had somehow won, through a fixed election perhaps? In that case the village would be led in the same way as our current society. Everyone is forced to contribute, because if they don't, they'll lose their only decent source of income and their lives would basically end there. Most villagers would therefore choose to contribute, but there would also be many who would try to do their best to avoid serving the nasty baron. As a result, there would be crime, tax evasion, gambling and general laziness. Everyone would just drag along because they're forced to, but there would be no real motivation behind their actions.

After a few months in the office, the nasty baron finds out that some of his people are planning to overthrow him. He then asks his advisor why it's so, and the advisor answers: "Because many villagers are extremely poor, crime rates are high, and nobody really wants to serve you, because they think you're a cruel dictator". The baron then asks his advisor what to do. And the advisor replies: "Create a welfare system of some sort, which will give something to the poor and unemployed. But make these benefits conditional, so that if someone is without a job, he must continuously seek one, and if he doesn't, his benefits are taken away from him. Create an office that will watch after the unemployed at all times. And if they don't seek jobs, or refuse to accept one when offered, then we'll take their benefits away from them. In addition, there could also be a second system, which would give something to those who refuse to seek a job, because otherwise they would be left without any income, and this would cause them to turn into rebels. We could call this second system "social security". But let's make this benefit so small, that one can barely stay alive with it. Also let's make it so that they have to beg for it regularly. This will cause them to turn into beggars and social bums, rather than into rebels." And after hearing this, the baron calls his advisor a genius, and quickly creates this "welfare system" he described.

And now the village has a welfare system very similar to the modern equivalent. But the people's motivation to work is still the same as it was before the welfare system: they're forced to do it. However, this time they won't lose their whole income should they lose or quit their jobs. Instead they'll immediately get another "job", which could be described as a "job seeker". And if they're "fired" from this job for one reason or another, then they end up as "state sponsored beggars", who are forced to beg in order to get their meagre income. Previously they begged on the streets, but now they have to do that in an office, which was founded by the state just for this purpose. This ensures that even the beggars stay "inside the system", making them less likely to rebel.

This welfare system ensures that the nasty baron no longer has to worry that much about being overthrown by the people. Most poor people have lost their willingness to fight, because they now have enough money for at least food and water. And they of course know that this money comes from the state, so they're not so sure anymore whether the current leaders really are their enemy or not. So they give up their rebellious ideas and become relatively obedient workers, hangarounds and loafers, who gradually lose all their interest in radical thinking and politics. In time, their children will inherit this attitude. The "I don't care" generation has been born.

Imagine then that the benevolent lord appears to this new "I don't care" generation, and started explaining how things could be so much better if his basic income system could replace the current rat race. Would they even bother to listen to him? They would just think: "He talks about politics and we don't care about that because it's boring." And should he mention the 100% inheritance tax as a possible solution, he would probably be stoned to death.

This is exactly where we are today. Most people are too lazy, ignorant and sedated to rise up thanks to the various welfare programs. The elite has turned welfare into a mind control method. But it doesn't need to be like this. The tale about that village described the two ways to use welfare:

1. In the positive and liberating way as an unconditional reward.

2. In the negative and controlling way as a conditional reward.

This is why it's important to have an unconditional basic income. If there are any conditions, the whole idea gets diluted, and we end up with the old system.

More work = more well-being?

The critics also say that the people's work effort will decrease under a basic income system. And in this they're right. When basic income is implemented, a small decrease in the people's general work effort is to be expected. Because basic income gives people more free time, they'll of course use it. This means that the people won't be working as regularly as they now do. There would be "gaps" in the person's work history, as they would periodically just enjoy their free time. Also, it's expected that more people will choose "non-productive jobs", such as becoming a writer, musician or an artist. These could be called "soft jobs", as opposed to "hard jobs", such as producing more consumer items to the world.

There have been some experiments and pilot projects on basic income, and in all cases work effort decreased by 1 to 5%. In the Mincome experiment conducted in Dauphin, Canada between 1974 and 1977, work effort decreased 1% by men and 3% by women. But this isn't as horrible as it sounds. These figures simply mean that people have more free time. When you're enjoying your free time, you don't work, so your work effort decreases to zero. When the whole population is enjoying more free time, this can be seen as a general decrease of work effort in the statistics.

Let's compare those figures with some other examples. Assume that you are forced to have two jobs in order to survive. Then your economical situation gets better, and you quit one of those jobs. Doing this, your work effort decreases by 50%. Here is another example: Imagine if the standard 8-hour workday were shortened by 1 hour. That would mean a 12.5% decrease in the nation's work effort. So a few percentage points' decrease in work effort doesn't mean a thing. Even if it decreased by 10%, we would still have 90% remaining.

The most important question here is: does more work really mean the same thing as more well-being?

Just think about what many jobs in our current system actually are about: producing, delivering and selling more stuff to the consumers. Supermarkets are full of useless junk that people buy with their fiat money. After a while, the things they bought become obsolete, causing them to discard them and buy new ones. And so the circle goes on. Is this really what brings us well-being? Making and consuming new stuff as fast as we can? What well-being is this? We are just destroying our planet with our consumer/producer mania.

Do we really need new "versions" of various items every year or every month? Think about cars for example. A car model made in 2011 gets you from place "A" to place "B". But a year 2004 model does the same thing. Or think about toothbrushes. Have you ever wondered when the perfect toothbrush will finally arrive to the market? Well, it'll never do that because we already have it. Toothbrushes are such simple items that you can't really improve them from what they now are. But still we keep "inventing" the same thing all over again, and sell them as "new". And we advertise them too like they were something amazing. Normal TV programs are halted on a regular basis so that people can see these ads. An emergency stop so that you can stare at the latest toothbrush? Give me a break. The same goes for toothpastes, not to mention everything else.

Just think about how much unnecessary work we are doing in order to keep the capitalistic consumer mania going. Terrible amounts of construction, producing, transportation, advertising and selling, just to keep the insane merry-go-around spinning.

If all this unnecessary work were eliminated then we of course would have mass unemployment. But that doesn't have to be a bad thing. It would mean more free time for everyone. That's what we really want, right? More free time to be with your family and friends and to do all the things you always wanted to do. This is what creates real well-being, rather than working your life away.

And it's good to remember that we'll face mass unemployment in the future for another reason too: increasing automation. For this reason, unemployment will become commonplace. But the solution is simple: we just create a new "job" called "citizen". Everyone gets paid for being a citizen and that's it, problem solved.

Basic income and meritocracy

Is basic income compatible with meritocracy?

The definition of meritocracy goes like this:

1. Everyone starts from the same line. No privileges of any kind.

2. The better you perform, the higher rewards you'll receive.

3. All important positions in society will be held by the most talented and most meritorious individuals.

It's hard to see how an unconditional basic income would conflict with any of these. Because basic income is paid to all, rich and poor alike, and the only requirement to get it is to have a citizenship. This means that it's not a privilege. Also, there is no conflict with the Number 2 since basic income won't affect normal salaries in any way. Performing well still earns you higher rewards.

It has been said of meritocracy that it is not "any kind of woolly, soft, liberal, caring, sharing ideology. It is radical, tough, hard, ambitious, demanding and it has the greatest expectations of people, which they are expected to fulfil. The lazy, snivelling and inept won't be able to hide in a meritocracy." This statement contradicts with the idea of basic income, which could be defined as "unconditional caring and sharing". But it all depends on how one defines meritocracy itself. It can be seen as a hard ideology, which despises all those who are lazy or without talent. Or it can be seen as a more "soft" ideology, which while expecting a lot from you, will still care about you if you fail to meet these expectations.

It's our task to decide what meritocracy will mean, and what kind of a future we want to build for ourselves. Communism failed because it was too "sharing"; everyone got the same rewards, no matter how much they contributed. Similarly, meritocracy could fail if it starts to overemphasize merit and talent, rendering all those without these qualities as second-class citizens, who are then left with nothing. Therefore, it's important to include the "caring factor" in meritocracy; otherwise it will be unable to bring salvation to the world.

I see meritocracy and basic income as a perfect pair, which complete each other. Together they ensure that our message will be heard by the masses. Money is the thing the people want most. If we promise to give them just that in the form of unconditional basic income then the masses will hear all the other things too what we have to say. Most people reject outright concepts such as 100% inheritance tax and the nationalization of all privately owned businesses because they don't see how these things would benefit them at all. They suspect that this would mean a dictatorship of some sorts. But if you say to them that this is to ensure that each citizen will get 1000 dollars or euros per month as an unconditional basic income then they'll accept our message more easily.

Quite frankly, the masses don't want to study the teachings of Nietzsche or Hegel or hear scientific theories about the nature of the universe. Instead, they want money. Money is their prime motivator, so we should concentrate our efforts on it. Imagine huge crowds holding up signs with the red M-logo in them and shouting time after time: "We want money! We want money!" What an exciting vision! And it can be transformed into a reality. It has been truthfully said that the people can be bought, so let's buy them.

Summary

To sum it up, unconditional basic income ensures the following:

- No poverty.

- Reduced crime rates, less homelessness, less prostitution, etc.

- Less alcoholism and less drug use.

- Allows people to develop independently and autonomously.

- More free time and less stress: increased psychological well-being.

- Increased work motivation.

- More sensible labor markets and more jobs.

- Employees will have more power, so employers must provide good working conditions and sensible jobs.

- Government saves money in many areas, such as in crime fighting and maintaining prisons.

- Less bureaucracy.

So vote for the unconditional basic income and meritocracy!

Want more money? Join the Movement!

M for the Money!

M my income!

We want money, we want money, we want money...

*****

And now for the contrary case:

The Antithesis by HighWeirdness

The Basic Income proposal makes some good points, but also offers a number of suggestions that do not appear to be sufficiently analysed in terms of long-term viability and sustainability.

The goal of Basic Income is to end poverty and that is certainly a worthwhile and necessary goal. In order to make this goal a reality, I think it is imperative that any proposal designed to meet this goal be vetted rigorously in order to ascertain any potential negative outcomes, unintended consequences or unsustainable features so that any such problems may be resolved before attempting to implement the program.

Should such a program have to be brought to a halt because of a lack of sufficient funding or because it has generated too many undesirable outcomes, such an ending could well create far more havoc on society than our existing poverty issues.

As the thesis states that the removal of poverty via the Basic Income would also cause all "negative phenomena caused by it" to cease to exist, we need to remain aware of the fact that there is not always a straight-line correlation between poverty and all the ills of society. Last fall, statistics showed that 15% of Americans were at the poverty level, yet the violent crime rates as reported by the FBI for the same measured period were actually dropping and have been throughout the last three years, a period that roughly overlaps the recession. From this, we can see that the lack of money is not the only cause of crime, because if poverty had a direct causal effect on crime, the crime rates should have been on the increase. Though the removal of poverty may well alleviate a large amount of the incentive for crime, we cannot afford to believe that it will serve as a cure-all. We'll come back to this in a bit.

The thesis suggests that the Basic Income should be paid to individuals (except for criminals in prison) not households, but then muddies that definition by suggesting that "minimum income limits" would be applied to "different family configurations" or under certain cases, such as having dependents while a student or while working in a low-paid job. If, as stated, ALL INDIVIDUALS are paid a Basic Income benefit, then the amount being paid into any particular household would be the number of individuals in the house multiplied by the amount of the Basic Income. If there is some difference between a child and an adult in the benefits offered in this program, that difference needs to be very clearly explained, as, under the current thesis, it is not clear. Unfortunately, by providing a net increase to the household's Basic Income for each child in that household, whether as a dependent of an adult or as an individual, the unintended consequence could well be to essentially encourage having additional children brought into the world under less than optimal situations.

If a person is not employed and is dependent upon the State for subsistence, do we really want to create a situation that could encourage that person to create another life that will also need the assistance of the State to survive? Perhaps it would be better to seek alternate homes for these children born to non-working parents. I realize that such an option would be repugnant to many, but so too is the thought of another generation being raised by parents who are not sufficiently motivated to attempt to support themselves prior to starting a family. If society as a whole were made up of nothing but truly enlightened individuals then nobody would consciously choose to have children until such time as they could support them fully, both emotionally and financially, but we're a long way from that point. To believe that some people would not take advantage of this particular "strategy" of having more children to increase the household's income is naive. How long could the State reasonably support a potentially ever-expanding base of benefit recipients?

The Basic Income as proposed would provide benefits as follows:

Jobless person = Gets basic income.

Person with a job = Gets basic income + the salary from his job.

Student = Gets basic income + "student bonus".

Pensioner = Gets basic income + pension.

Non-workers could also receive bonuses for various volunteer or community activities. Essentially, this breaks recipients into four groups, which we'll look at further later. For the moment, let's just note that only one of the four groups is working.

Which brings us to funding for the program. The thesis first suggests a selection of 'normal' funding methods, with which I have no real problem, other than the wealth tax which is not explained. It then goes on to suggest that "when all banks and corporations are nationalized, their revenues will go to the state..." Whether full nationalization is truly a viable way to run an economy is best left for another discussion, but one point should be made in this regard. When a company is nationalized, the burden of the wages of its employees shifts to the state and any potential income tax revenue from those employees merely washes against the higher expense of their wage. If a particular company is not operating steadily at a profit, the overall operations of the company will result in a net loss and an increased demand on the coffers of the State.

The next method of funding offered up is that of "Money Creation". There are some very real problems in this section of the thesis that may indicate a lack of understanding of some basics of economics and banking. The thesis makes the following statement: "Just pause for a moment, think about how the banking system actually works, and you'll soon realize that all money is created out of thin air. You see, when banks give loans to the people, the loan money is literally created out of nothing. When you spend that loan money, it eventually returns to the bank(s) as 'real money', making them and their owners richer. This process is called 'economic growth'." Even though many banks may be poorly run today and their regulation not what it should be, banks are still required to maintain certain financial standards in order to continue operation. They are required to maintain a balance in their account at the Central Bank, a portion of which is required reserves.

The reserve rate is set at a particular percentage of the deposit accounts of the bank and must be maintained in order for the bank to remain solvent. A bank's reserves are the total of the money it holds in its vaults and the funds in its Central Bank account. All checks drawn on a bank are paid through its Central Bank account, so that account must always maintain a balance high enough to cover both in-clearing checks as well as the required reserves.

The reality of modern banking is that banks create and destroy debt not money. When a customer makes a cash deposit of $100 into a bank, that $100 cash is an asset and is offset by the liability of the $100 deposit in the customer's name. The money held in the checking account is a debt now owed to the customer who can return at any time and ask to have that debt paid by collecting his $100. When a loan is made by a bank for $1000, the $1000 in cash is given to the customer, the bank's asset balance is reduced by $1000 and its loan receivable increased by $1000. The money creation aspect of this transaction is simply that the physical paper asset was transformed on the books of the bank to a receivable in the form of the loan. When the loan is repaid by the customer, the bank's asset account increases by $1000 and the loan receivable decreases by $1000, thus destroying the debt. In terms of the actual money supply, that is, the currency actually in circulation plus the demand deposits at banks, it increases when the loan is made and decreases when it is paid. There is no thin air in the process at all, merely a transformation of the asset form.  Since the reserves must remain above the set percentage of the bank's total demand deposits, the bank is strictly limited in the amount of lending they can actually do. When a large loan is made, it may reduce significantly the amount of subsequent lending that can be done, since the funds to make the loan are pulled from the bank's account at the Central Bank.

The thesis makes a suggestion that "economic growth causes more work and more debt to the people and more money to the rich", which seems to be deduced from the earlier statement that economic growth happens as a result of creating money out of thin air by making loans. It would be more correct to say that economic growth creates more debt to the businesses that are growing, a decrease in the reserves of the banks involved, and little to no effect on anyone else, other than any potential new hires by the growing company. Provided the loan for the economic growth does not default, the bank will only receive income in the form of the interest paid on the loan, as the repayment of the principal merely replaces the reserves that were used at the time that the loan was granted.

"But what if the banks would actually give real money to the people instead of loans? Would it really make any difference from an economical viewpoint", suggests the writer. What, indeed? Well, let's see, instant receivership for the banks for starters as their reserves are decimated. Since the writer seems to feel that the money is just created out of thin air, perhaps we could just hand out balloons to everyone with dollar signs written on them. Or maybe we should just ask the Mints to print a whole bunch of bills and we can all look forward to enjoying economic freedom Zimbabwe-style.

OK, then, back to reality.

If the revenues to support this program are to come from the public, there must be a sufficient labor pool at work to generate those revenues, either through a tax base or through the sales of products and services. Because the Basic Income model does not require anything beyond citizenship, it essentially 'rewards' those who do nothing at all, a situation that could ultimately undermine the viability of the program. The proponents of the plan have stressed that all citizens should have the right to work only as they choose without any necessity for service of any kind. Such a program was attempted for three years in Canada during the 1970's and though it did not instantly create a huge class of 'couch potatoes', there was a loss of work effort of 1% for males and 3% for females over the three years that the program ran. Over time, I feel that this nearly inevitable erosion of the work force will create an unsustainable position. Some of the proponents of the plan seem to feel that non-workers would not abuse the system and that everyone would want to contribute to the system because they are treated so much better. I find this rather naive - as we know from Plato, a perfect society does not guarantee perfect citizens.

Since I feel we must take human nature into account, I'll draw a bit on the Steal vs. Split debate that has been presented elsewhere, updated to reflect the Basic Income program. 

Let's say that we have an initiative to provide some basic services to all members of a community of 1000 members for a period of time. Let the amount needed to provide these services be $10000. Let the value of the benefit to each member be set at $100. Each member is given the option of either providing $10 to the initiative (through their work or service) or to not contribute.

Here are the possible outcomes and the net to the participants in terms of benefits minus cost equals net position:

I work and 999 others also work: 100 - 10 = 90

I don't work, but 999 others do: 100 - 0 = 100

Hopefully, this should make it obvious why many would choose not to work - their self-interest will dictate that they stand to gain the most if they do nothing. The worker, on the other hand, stands to only gain $90. Faced with this reality, he may soon choose to not work, as that way, he gets more net benefit.

If we add in the provision that nobody gets a benefit if the initiative is not fully funded, two additional outcomes emerge:

I work but any number of others don't: 0 - 10 = -10

I don't work and any number of others don't work: 0 - 0 = 0

Adding these two outcomes to the scenario makes it clear then that the non-worker would get either $100 or nothing at all, leaving him, at worst, where he started, but the worker would end up with either $90 or $10 in the hole, thus facing a potential loss if he works.

To optimize the system, therefore, it is necessary that everyone works, as that way there is equally shared cost and benefit for all, with losses to no one.

Eventually, many pages later, the thesis says: "In short, in a basic income society the people will want to make sure that it stays intact. They know that if they don't contribute enough, it's all over, and the old system based on slavery will return." So, apparently, there is some acknowledgement that the system must generate enough revenue to support itself, tacit as it may be.

We mentioned poverty's relationship to crime earlier, but let's take a closer look now. The thesis states that the cessation of poverty would result in a significantly lower crime rate. To reiterate my earlier statement regarding the crime rate and poverty, despite increasing poverty levels over the past several years, the crime rates, as reported by the FBI, have been decreasing for the last three years in a row. So, while we can probably all agree that poverty and crime have a relationship of some sort, it is not completely clear what that relationship is, so we can't really assume that eliminating poverty will significantly lower crime rates as well. It is likely that there would be a reduction of some sort, particularly in the area of property crime. Roughly half of all violent crimes are perpetrated by persons known to the victim and though the offenders are more likely to come from impoverished homes, the fact that the offenders performing these crimes appear at all income levels means that poverty alone is not the only factor.

Gang formation is largely driven by poverty, but also by boredom and peer pressure, so removing poverty is only part of the answer; we also need to work on the other factors at the same time.

The thesis has stipulated that criminals in prison would not be eligible to receive the Basic Income, stating that this would be a strong incentive for potential criminals to resist criminal activity for fear of losing their Basic Income benefits. I would hope that the loss of their personal freedom would be enough of a deterrent to crime, but since all their basic needs would be met under either case, it might be well worth the effort to make prison life even less desirable.

We next look at the situation of the homeless. In most cases, freedom from poverty would probably get most of the homeless off the streets, assuming that it was economic lack that drove them to live on the streets. At this point, the writer mentions that someone who had a big house and lost their job might not be able to pay their rent and suggests that a form of "social security aid" (note to US readers, this is not Social Security as we understand it) could be provided to help this poor soul stay in his over-priced house. The writer states that this form of aid would still exist in the Basic Income plan, but Basic Income would replace ordinary income support programs. I'll get back to this type of scenario later.

Further on in the proposal, the writer suggests that alcoholism and drug use would be lessened, along with prostitution. While I can agree that prostitution would most likely be lessened, alcohol and drug use could be a very different matter. Alcoholism and drug abuse are not respecters of any type of societal class and recovery rooms are filled with people from all walks of life and all income levels. Removal of poverty could well reduce the perceived attraction of going into business as a drug dealer, but its effect on the addicted population cannot be as readily assessed. In the case of a full-blown alcoholic, it could well simply act to further enable their self-destructive behaviour.

The next section talks about the idea of the Basic Income allowing people to take on low-paid, reduced hours jobs that they would not have considered without having Basic Income, stating that this would ultimately cause employers to create better, more meaningful jobs because the ability of people to only have to work if they wanted to would mean that nobody would ever want to do those unappealing jobs. Bad jobs would just go away, apparently, dying of neglect. Much as I hate to be the bearer of bad news, there are certain types of work that will need to be done to maintain society and the vast majority of them will probably never appeal to anyone as being 'meaningful' in any way, but the fact remains, those types of work will still need to be done.

The thesis discusses the idea that the program will increase psychological well-being. While it is certainly true that the stress issues related to lack of money would largely be removed, the writer also suggests that the root of depression lies in poverty, caused by "lack of security, lack of self-esteem, stress, and so on." If these 'causes' only occurred in impoverished households, then rich downtown psych docs would have gone broke years ago, instead of having their waiting rooms filled with depressed people well above the poverty level.

One of the major complaints I have about this proposed program is its overly idealistic position on human nature. One of its basic, though unstated, tenets appear to be that everyone will be happy because they all have at least their basic needs met. There is no effort made to discuss how the working people might feel about the non-workers, but I feel that to think that there would be no resentment there is simply naive.

All of the four groups of recipients mentioned earlier get the same basic income (if they can stay out of prison), but the guy who works gets the added pleasure of watching the three other groups not work. He probably wouldn't mind students having their needs covered but that added bonus paid just for being a student might irk him a bit. And if that pension is anything other than retirement savings generated by the pensioner's own prior income, that could be rather annoying as well. But that poor guy who lost his job and gets extra support so he can stay in his house will probably send the poor worker around the bend, because he will probably have a real hard time seeing that as anything other than a reward for failure. How could that sort of behaviour ever be justified in a merit-based society? What makes him so special that he gets to stay in his over-priced house instead of simply finding more affordable housing?

One of the main criticisms of this program has been that it encourages idleness as it requires no duty or service of any kind in order to receive the benefits. The writer answers this criticism with his story about the Good Baron and the Bad Baron and suggests that all would choose to serve the Good Baron because he is generous and good. Here's part of the story that I find particularly interesting:

"Would you feel motivated to serve him, knowing how generous and good he is? Or would you rather start abusing him by becoming a freeloader? Which option feels more "right"? If you had any self-respect, you would choose to serve him. Doing otherwise would mean that you're just a lazy bum. You would of course be allowed to become a freeloader, but how long could your conscience take it? All the other employees most likely decided to serve the lord too, so you would immediately stand out from the crowd, should you choose to just 'hang around'. Therefore most likely you too would decide to serve your benefactor."

The reason I found this passage interesting is because, for the first time, the writer seems to be acknowledging that the non-worker is, in fact, a freeloader. All rational beings would of course choose to work for the Good Baron rather than taking advantage of him, because at the end of the day they do actually have a bit of fear hanging over their head - they know that if enough people do not contribute to the effort, the wonderful benefits will stop. Boom! But, wait a minute, isn't that a bit of stress again, having to wonder if at some point the whole system might come crashing down because there might not be enough folks helping to keep the system afloat? The writer is apparently convinced that even though there will always be freeloaders, that's OK because they will only ever be a minority. Considering that many members of our current society view those that they consider freeloaders in a very dim light and harbor resentment toward them for getting what they feel is a 'free ride', why deliberately create a system that allows freeloading to be an option at all?

There are several very easy ways the freeloader option could be removed from the start. Either a set number of service hours of some sort could be set as a requirement, or a time limit for the benefits could be set after which point they would be lessened unless the person begins some type of service. No doubt there are many ways to structure the plan in such a way as to eliminate the parasitic freeloader aspect - the above are merely suggestions as a starting point for further discussion. As was demonstrated very clearly in the Split vs. Steal debate, it is patently obvious that parasites can and will destroy the community we seek to build, and if we deliberately build a system that does not prevent that behaviour, we are essentially condoning it. What is permitted is promoted.

I would regard it as part of the responsibility of the community (or state or whatever the governing body behind the basic income) to make sufficient opportunities available for all members to be able to provide some level of service back to the community as a civic duty.

The ideas incorporated into the Basic Income seem to promote that all work must be stimulating and freely chosen, but there are clearly some types of work that need to be done, no matter how much they may lack stimulating aspects or appeal. Do I relish the time I spend spreading cow manure on my garden? Hardly, but I certainly do enjoy the results of my labor's outcome! If all work is supposedly motivating to us, who's going to clean out the clogged sewer drains? Why not determine what those really unappealing jobs are and have everyone take turns doing them?  Not just the otherwise non-working people, but everyone, the doctors, the lawyers, the philosophers, the musicians, etc. No one should be above getting their hands dirty for the benefit of all.

From my own experience, I know that there is an immense amount of self-worth and self-esteem that comes from building competencies through our own work efforts and from setting and reaching goals. Having grown up on a small homestead where our efforts were focused on living as independently as possible, my brother and I were given many, many opportunities to learn new skills. Those opportunities were not necessarily by choice, in that we did not always get to pick and choose which jobs to do. We knew that they all had to be done and so they were accepted without complaint. We had a very stimulating environment above and beyond our responsibilities helping to run the homestead, though - my mother was a classical pianist and my father an engineer with a profound love for mathematics and philosophy - and we thrived under their tutelage. We had wonderful meals from the foods we grew ourselves and dinner table conversations ranged across an amazing variety of topics, as might be expected from a family of Rationals. We were given opportunities to give our input into any number of projects and to see them to fruition through our own efforts.

To give an example, I was ten years old when we decided as a family to build an in-ground pool in the backyard. As the engineer, Dad drew up the plans and provided guidance and supervision, but I and my brother (13 at the time) did the bulk of the work, including laying the block walls for the sides. It took several weeks as our progress had to be carefully monitored, and I won't deny that it was hard work at times, but the satisfaction at the end was well worth every bit of our effort. I'm sure that there are some who would be horrified at the thought of a pair of kids doing such physical labor, but I can think of few more satisfying experiences in my life.

Realistically, since my father was well paid for his work as an engineer, he could have simply hired people to do any number of the major renovation projects that we undertook as kids, but he knew that it would be beneficial for us to know how to do things for ourselves. No, we didn't usually have much choice about the work, but there is no doubting the benefit I have gained from being 'forced' to gain those competencies. Had my parents not given us the opportunity to share in the work of our home, they would not have had the time or energy to provide us with the stimulating environment that we experienced. As kids, my brother and I did as we were asked because we understood clearly that our efforts were necessary in order for us to continue to enjoy the benefits of our lifestyle. Should not a citizen's relationship to the State be regarded in a similar fashion?

To illustrate a bit further, we could say that the State is to its citizens what parents are to their children, given that both the State and parents are charged with the well-being of the citizens and children, respectively. Would any sane person (who wishes to remain so) let their children do whatever they wanted whenever they wanted? As a parent of a young child, would you allow that child to choose only the foods they liked to eat, would you require that they eat everything you choose for them and put on their plate, or figure out a position somewhere between these two extremes? As a teenager, would you let them stay out as long as they wanted or would you set a limit? Parenting theory over the years has run the gamut between the purely authoritarian and the purely permissive, and therapists make good money treating the personality problems resulting from either extreme. Somewhere in between the two lies a synthesis resulting in a viable process, if we but allow ourselves to consider it.

A family is a microcosmic society and, ideally, provides an environment that encourages the development of healthy human beings. The family unit provides a training ground for learning about the interactions between its various members in that small inner world in preparation for interaction within the larger outer world of society as a whole. An overly authoritative parenting strategy could very easily produce offspring that are frozen in fear and despair or openly rebellious, while an overly permissive structure might well produce hedonists continually in search of their own gratification. In many families, children are given certain minor jobs to do to help around the house, with these chores generally evolving into more advanced responsibilities as they get older. In most households, failure to do the chores requested results in a negative outcome of some sort, in many cases a removal of a privilege. Children thus learn that cooperating in the work of the household produces favorable consequences, while not completing their duties in the household generates unfavorable outcomes. As parents, we are expected to provide for our children the basic necessities, keep them in good health, encourage their education and help them to develop into functioning members of society. In return, parents generally ask that their children respect their authority and perform minor duties pertaining to the household, with greater cooperation within the household generally producing a more enriching environment. When the children are carrying some of the responsibility for household duties, the parents have more time and energy to invest in providing more enjoyable and/or stimulating activities for the family.

At the higher level, the State and its citizens, a similar type of relationship might be expected to exist. Just as parents can expect their children to help out with household duties in return for the care they provide, should not the State have a right to expect certain duties or services to be performed by its citizens?

Toward the end of the thesis is a long discussion about the many types of jobs in our current markets and the absurdity of most of them, going on to point out that advanced technology will at some point eliminate the vast majority of jobs. It is stated, however, that the mass unemployment is not a problem, since then everyone will have more time to do all the things they really want and spend time with family and friends, suggesting that's what "creates real well-being, rather than working your life away". The writer then suggests that everyone will have a new job called citizen and, of course, get paid just for being a citizen. At that point, I have to wonder where the revenue will be coming from to pay all those parasites, er, citizens.

At a deeper level, what happens to the person who gets to do whatever they want whenever they want? The recent article entitled The New World Order included the following extremely important ideas that address that very question:

"In Freud's tripartite model of the human psyche involving the id, the ego and the superego, we see the rudiments of a dialectical system. The id, obsessed with its own pleasure and selfish drives, demands instant gratification of any of its desires, no matter how socially unacceptable. If we call this the thesis then it is opposed by the antithesis of the superego, which is concerned with morality, community, altruism, conscience, the rules of society, parental prohibitions etc. The ego, the pragmatic, rational agent that obeys the reality principle provides a synthesis of the conflicting demands of the id and superego.

In childhood and early adulthood, the ego may not be too good at its job, but as life experience and knowledge grows, it gets dialectically better and better. Unfortunately, in the West, we live in an irrational society devoted to instant gratification, so the ego is much more attuned to the id rather than offering a proper balance between id and superego. If we could build into society healthy, functioning dialectical institutions, we could transform the world."

If we create a society or State that readily allows the citizens to follow their own desires at all times, never requiring anything in return, will those citizens truly develop into actualized beings or will they perhaps continue to allow their egos to remain tied too tightly to their id? If the healthy person is one who has learned to balance the opposing urges of the id and superego, thus continually utilizing the dialectic process, does a program that appears to strongly encourage the id over the superego really work in the best interest of the individual?

The thesis states that the Basic Income is fully compatible with meritocracy, claiming no privileges of any kind, but if we recall, it also offered a bonus just to students and a bail out to a guy living beyond his means. These both appear to be rewards that are not based on better performance at all, and in the case of the rent bailout, it is just the opposite.

The thesis writer believes that meritocracy could fail if it "starts to overemphasize merit and talent, rendering all those without these qualities as second-class citizens". I can only say in response that meritocracy is not a pass-fail system, but rather a system that allows each person to find their own highest attainment. There is no shame in being less than first in a particular field or endeavor - it is simply that the other person had more skills suited for that particular event. Each of us has our set of skills and talents, though many have not yet found them, but I would suggest that it is the dialectic process that remains the best possible tool for revealing those hidden gems of our own worth. A life without challenging aspects is one that may quickly stagnate for lack of change, as it is the consideration of the opposing view and the integration of the two that spurs advancement to the next level.

If we accept that our governing body should be operating in the best interests of its citizens, we must ask ourselves if those programs that we seek to create are to the ultimate benefit of the society they serve. And if the society we seek to create is to flourish, it is imperative that we look at not just its duty to us as citizens, but also our duties to it in return - the relationship cannot be just a one-way street. As a form of social contract, the relationship between the citizen and the state should be mutually beneficial if it is to survive.

The eradication of poverty is a very worthy goal and I certainly agree that it is one that we must meet, but we also need to make sure that our program is one that can endure and truly work for the benefit of all. I am not against the idea of a Basic Income program per se, but rather would implement it as part of a social contract, with both sides upholding their side of the agreement by performing their duties to the other. It's simple and fair, mutually beneficial to all parties, eliminates the potential for parasitic behaviour by spreading the responsibility for at least a minimum contribution of effort equally, and allows for appropriate action to be taken if the terms of the contract are broken.

OUR COMMENTS

We thank our two contributors for their well-argued cases and all of their hard work.

Before we provide our own analysis of this important issue, we need to clear up a few misunderstandings. The thesis states: "when all banks and corporations are nationalized". That, of course, is the definition of socialism, not meritocracy. The system we advocate may be called public or social capitalism. Its central idea is that rather than capital being concentrated in the hands of a tiny number of super rich, it is relatively evenly distributed throughout society. Profits do not go exclusively to the privileged elite but instead to everyone - or at least everyone who's willing to work hard.

The banking system will be under public control but will nevertheless have capitalist features. Competition is one of the essential drivers of capitalism, and meritocracy will seek to identify the optimal ways of harnessing competition (in current capitalism there's not just healthy competition but a great deal of wasteful competition and inefficient replication). The new banking system will be based on a large number of competing banks, all of which will have the opportunity to adopt different banking strategies. No bank will be allowed to be "too big to fail", but each bank will have significant autonomy and the employees of the more successful banks will make more money than those of the less successful.

Similarly, the corporations of present-day capitalism - where the ownership class earn inordinate amounts of money - will no longer exist. Corporate ownership, like capital, will be much more evenly distributed.

We have said all along that the system we advocate is a synthesis of socialist and capitalist elements, and it should absolutely never be characterised as purely socialist. No socialist would recognise our system as belonging to their ideology. We are essentially capitalists who assert that the State should dictate to private capital rather than private capital to the State. In the UK, the banking leviathan HSBC has threatened to relocate its headquarters from London to Hong Kong because it disapproves of what it sees as anti-banking measures being taken by the government. It is utterly unacceptable for any private institution of any kind to blackmail the State and demand preferential treatment. Our version of capitalism would kill off arrogant institutions like HSBC and replace them with capitalist institutions that owe their existence and loyalty to the State rather than to the paradigm of "stateless Globalism".       

Contemporary capitalist multinational corporations have become extra-national i.e. they operate beyond the reach of any State. This means that the OWO - the super rich elite - can tell States all over the world what to do. This cannot be tolerated. Groups of private individuals cannot be allowed to favour their particular will over the General Will of the people. Our "State" version of capitalism reins in capitalism and re-establishes who's in charge - the People, not small, privileged elites. Public capitalism recognises its obligations to the State. It does not immediately relocate to another part of the world if it fails to get its own way. Public capitalism is about ensuring that the citizens own the means of production. So, if American citizens are the owners of their own companies, they won't be relocating to Mexico or China any time soon, will they? A rich capitalist couldn't care less in what nation he chooses to locate his sweatshop factories. He simply wants to maximise his profits and screw everyone else. He has no commitment to his fellow citizens whatsoever. We seek to eliminate that kind of international capitalism and replace it with national capitalism, based on a nation's capital residing with its people and not with an itinerant elite who have no national loyalty. German capital should remain in Germany, British in Britain, American in America, Finnish in Finland, and so on. We don't want any international playboys moving their money around at will to maximise their personal profits regardless of the interests of their home nations.

Our project is about reforming capitalism by removing the bulk of the capital and power from a tiny elite and redistributing it amongst the people. To do so, we need to introduce socialist elements, but these are simply to allow the State to regain control of the economy from private individuals, not to start nationalizing everything in sight and creating huge, inefficient, uncompetitive State monopolies and bureaucracies that ignore markets. Given that we support all of the essential features of capitalism other than that private individuals should dictate to the State (as they do in contemporary capitalism), no one could validly accuse us of being socialists.   

Mayer Amschel Rothschild said, "Give me control of a nation's money and I care not who makes her laws." What he ought to have said was: "Give me control of a nation's money and I will make her laws." In other words, the people with the money are the power behind the throne: the secret lawmakers who make the world dance to their tune. But why do people let them? It's not as if stopping them is hard - you simply prevent private individuals from controlling the banks, hence the money. You put the banks and the economy under the control of elected, accountable officials. What could be easier?

We are the advocates of the truest form of capitalism - the version that operates according to the General Will of the people and not the particular will of the elite. Public capitalism is the only acceptable form of capitalism.

"In other walks of life, people can take pride in their world without expecting to earn huge salaries. They feel good about themselves because of what they do, not what they are paid. And they take satisfaction from contributing to the public good as well as their employers' profits. None of that applies in banking, which has been reduced to a narrow calculus of profit and bonus. It is this blinkered view of the world that has made bankers unable to understand why they have to change. They live in a parallel, self-perpetuating universe in which they meet very few people outside their tiny circle. They work so hard that they rarely have time to socialise, and, when they do, it is with other stratospherically rich bankers and lawyers. Their views all reinforce each other's. And the few outsiders they do encounter, they tend to disdain - usually because they have less money. Bankers are used to getting their own way, because they can wield a chequebook, and collectively, because of the importance of their sector to the economy."

Mary Ann Sieghart, The Independent

We cannot allow the elite to dictate to us. We will dictate to them. If they don't like it, they can leave, but they will then be declared enemies of the State and never allowed back in. They will become pariahs. That's exactly what they deserve and they have brought it on themselves.

*****

The thesis also states that people in luxury homes who fall on hard times should have their rent or mortgage paid for them by the State. Well, the State certainly isn't in the business of subsiding luxury lifestyles. Citizens must cut their cloth appropriately.

*****

The thesis provides the parable of the benevolent lord and evil baron. It commits the error of putting "good and evil" on equal terms. There have been benevolent employers before - people like Robert Owen in Britain in the 19th century - but they manifestly failed to overcome the prevailing system. Why? Because if there are 19 wicked barons to one benevolent lord then the latter doesn't have a prayer. The evil cartel can put him out of business one way or another. How do you imagine the Old World Order came to power in the first place?

Robert Owen bought a chain of textile mills called "New Lanark", near Glasgow. He created a village for his workers and provided a school, healthcare, childcare and so on. His employees loved him. He wanted his workers to receive all their needs as part of their working conditions, very much in the manner of the benevolent lord described in the thesis. Although he has been described as one of the founding fathers of socialism, he was really just a conscientious capitalist. As soon as he died, his worker communes collapsed. No one else supported his model. The benevolent lords always lose to the more numerous evil barons. The only way to beat the barons is to make it impossible for them to exist, by taking control of the levers of wealth.

*****

The thesis states: "Quite frankly, the masses don't want to study the teachings of Nietzsche or Hegel or hear scientific theories about the nature of the universe. Instead, they want money. Money is their prime motivator, so we should concentrate our efforts on it. Imagine huge crowds holding up signs with the red M-logo in them and shouting time after time: "We want money! We want money!" What an exciting vision! And it can be transformed into a reality. It has been truthfully said that the people can be bought, so let's buy them."

This is in danger of being the most cynical and mercenary statement ever made. The super rich have traditionally bought the people in one way or another. Now, our response is supposedly to offer money on a much wider scale than ever before.

WE WANT MONEY! WE WANT MONEY! That sounds like the slogan of Wall Street, not of any movement connected with meritocracy and the spiritual improvement of humanity. Instead of creating a society where people DO want to study Nietzsche, Hegel and science, we are simply to bribe the masses like the cheapest hustlers.

It is not our ambition to pander to what is lowest in people. There are plenty of others happy to do that. We are the party of excellence, of quality, of a higher type of humanity. Our cause is utterly lost if we reject the highest culture - as represented by the likes of Nietzsche, Hegel and science - and spend our time dumbing down to the lowest common denominator.

It's true that the masses couldn't care less about the truth of their lives, the world and the cosmos. It's true that many people would rather shop, watch TV and gossip about celebrities than contemplate the fundamental nature of existence. It's true that the masses are sheeple, not people.

Nevertheless, it is not our place to join them in their desperate race for the bottom. We are ascending to the top. We are not in freefall in the bottomless abyss of consumerism and celebrity culture. We are the people of the summits, of the highest heights. We are those who seek to see further than ever before. We look to the stars and beyond. And we look inside. Because there we will find God.

If you do not have values then you have nothing.

If we have to resort to distributing money to the masses to gain their support - if that is the sum and substance of our vision - then what's the point?

We will appeal to the highest aspirations of people, not their basest instincts. We seek to make all people into Gods, no matter how retarded, deluded and dumb they may be at the moment. We will transform their consciousness. When we are finished, it won't be Hegel and Nietzsche who are unknown amongst the masses, but the vacuous celebrities.

There will come a day when statues of Hegel and Nietzsche are in the centre of every town and city, and there will be no celebrities and no super rich. In that sign we shall triumph, or victory is not worth achieving.

The Robin Hood Tax

The thesis asserts: "Most people reject outright concepts such as 100% inheritance tax and the nationalization of all privately owned businesses because they don't see how these things would benefit them at all. They suspect that this would mean a dictatorship of some sorts."

If you were in a bar discussing 100% inheritance tax with a stranger and you said that it was about taking all of his hard-earned money away from him at his death and preventing him from leaving it to anyone of his choice, he would indeed think you were a totalitarian nutcase.

You NEVER try to persuade anyone of anything by highlighting what they may lose. You always emphasize how they will gain. It has been said that everyone gains from basic income, but since this income is far below what most people are already earning, they would not perceive it as any kind of gain, and, rightly or wrongly, they would invariably associate it with freeloaders and scroungers - no average member of society wants to perceive themselves in that light. People on welfare are generally held in contempt. And those on welfare often try to take as much as they can from the State without thinking for a second of how to give anything back. It becomes a way of life for them and, since it's reasonably tolerable, there's no incentive for them to change anything, especially since they know they lack the qualities that conventional society requires. Their "consciousness" becomes that of the lazy scrounger, and they even start to take a defiant pride in it, and are always talking about their "entitlements", never about their duties and responsibilities. The UK has a huge underclass of people who have spent their entire lives on benefits and never contributed anything to society. NOTHING AT ALL! Would basic income be music to their ears? You bet it would. They would vote for it in a flash. And everyone who hates them and regards them as parasites would vote against basic income. It would be dead in the water.

As for 100% inheritance tax, it has to be sold as a benefit, not a loss, and it has to be sold as a moral and righteous measure that any good and decent person would support and any evil person oppose.

Start the debate with the stranger in the bar by discussing Robin Hood (a person loathed by Ayn Rand, the supreme apologist for the super rich). Ask the stranger if he would have supported Robin Hood's campaign to take the wealth of the rapacious, greedy, cruel and unjust king, nobles and barons and give it to the needy sick and the hardworking ordinary people. If he says he's on Robin Hood's side then you're in business. If he says he's not then call him an evil, greedy bastard to his face and walk away.

Ask the stranger whether he's on the side of the Wall Street fat cats or the ordinary people of Main Street. Who should be running the country - the people or the bankers?

Ask the stranger whether or not he supports a two-tier society with two classes of citizens - the privileged elite on top and everyone else permanently beneath them.

Ask the stranger if he would like his children to have a fair chance in life, and not have to compete in a system rigged against them.

Ask the stranger if he supports the obvious fact that the rich keep getting richer, and many of the poor keep getting poorer. Does he think that leads to a healthy, fair, meritocratic society?

Ask the stranger if he supports people getting something for nothing - welfare. When he says, "No", ask him what the difference is between those who inherit wealth from others without doing any work themselves and those who take money from the State without doing any work themselves. Aren't they morally equivalent? They both want and expect something for nothing.

You should then say to the stranger that you have a way to ensure that no one who does no work will get something for nothing, and moreover your innovation will release all of the money of the super rich to the hardworking ordinary people. It will transfer the money of the Wall Street fat cats to Main Street.

It is 100% inheritance tax, the bedrock of meritocracy. It ensures that privileged, spoiled kids don't get to inherit lives of luxury just because they are related to people who made lots of money (and by the same token that decent kids are not forced to live in poverty because their parents didn't manage to make any money).

It creates an even playing field. It ensures that everyone sets out from the same starting line. It brings to an end the rule of the dynastic elites that have always ruled the world.

For the first time ever, it gives everyone an equal chance to go as far as their merit will carry them.

Everyone benefits other than the super rich and their parasitical offspring. Everyone gains. It is morally, economically and socially right. It is the Robin Hood tax that redistributes the wealth of the fat cats to the decent people.

The wealthy can enjoy their riches during their lifetime. It is taken from them only when they have no further need of it because they are dead. It is not any sort of attack on people earning a good living. In fact, it's designed to give everyone a good living.

There will be far more wealth in circulation because there will be no reason for the super rich to hoard their wealth. They will spend, spend, spend. And soon, 100% tax will be irrelevant because everyone will make sure they have spent all of their money before they die.

Everyone will enjoy a much higher standard of living thanks to all of the extra money available. Inflation won't take off because there's no reason any longer for the elite ownership class to always be seeking to increase their profits by raising prices. The vast majority of people will join the ownership class.

100% inheritance tax unlocks the Bank of the Super Rich and lets the ordinary people enjoy its benefits. 

100% inheritance tax is on the side of nature since it restores the law of the regression to the mean. In ultra capitalism, the rich keep getting richer in defiance of the law of regression to the mean, and contrary to nature. Super wealth is an unnatural phenomenon, a kind of disease that attacks the whole of society. 100% inheritance tax is the natural remedy.

Andrew Carnegie, once the richest man on earth, declared, "The man who dies rich dies disgraced." That's absolutely right!

So, 100% inheritance tax is the Robin Hood tax, the Carnegie Tax, the Tax for taking from Wall Street and giving to Main Street, the Tax that restores nature via regression to the mean, the Tax that stops scroungers getting something for nothing, the moral and egalitarian tax that allows everyone to set out from the same starting line.

Only the greedy, the immoral, the lazy, the mad, the stupid, the anti-meritocrats  would oppose the Robin Hood Tax.

"So," you say straight to the stranger, "Are you for or against 100% inheritance tax - are you moral or immoral?"

Rationally, the 100% inheritance tax cannot be contested. It is EASY to force any enemy of this tax into a corner where they look like a mad, immoral monster. If you can't walk into a bar and persuade any stranger of its merits then you don't understand it or you yourself are immoral.

You are taking next to nothing from them and giving them EVERYTHING.

Far from being a hard sell, it should be the easiest sell imaginable. No member of the Illuminati has ever voiced any opposition to it. We pride ourselves on being rational, moral and meritocratic.

The people who don't "get it" are the irrational, the super rich, the privileged, the anarchists and libertarians.

We understand that we are trying to overcome centuries of indoctrination, of people with a false consciousness who live in bad faith. But we know for a fact that any rational person who hears about the Robin Hood Tax immediately becomes a fervent advocate of it.

It addresses the fundamental problem of how to redistribute the excessive wealth of the greedy elite without resorting to communism.

The Robin Hood tax is the ONLY means for achieving non-socialist redistribution of wealth, hence the only means of achieving a fairer, reformed version of capitalism that gives everyone a realistic chance in life and allows the merit of the people to flourish in an unprecedented way.

*****

We ought to be honest about where our sympathies lie in this debate and they are unquestionably with the antithesis. The proponent of basic income has argued his case as well as anyone could, and we applaud him for that, but we think the stronger, more pragmatic and realistic points reside with the counter case. The antithesis better reflects the tenor and spirit of the articles on our website. We would certainly endorse the type of family upbringing and value system described in the antithesis case.

We completely endorse the statement: "Meritocracy is not a pass-fail system, but rather a system that allows each person to find their own highest attainment. There is no shame in being less than first in a particular field or endeavor - it is simply that the other person had more skills suited for that particular event."

Meritocracy gives everyone the best possible chance. It doesn't promise victory for everyone. Only the very best will win.

*****

From the perspective of dialectical meritocracy, we are in some sense committed to being neutral in the basic income debate. Both sides have points for and against, and the whole essence of the dialectic is not to reach any dogmatic stance one way or another (there is no a priori means of showing one view to be wholly wrong), but to test both scenarios in real life and compare and contrast the data that is subsequently collected. If one method is clearly better than the other, then we drop the loser. If both are comparable but one is cheaper then we would adopt the cheaper.

Dialectical meritocracy should avoid dogmatism and should not commit itself to any particular policy stances other than those that relate fundamentally to meritocracy. The two contestants in this debate have both done what dialectical meritocracy demands: they have presented their cases articulately and eloquently and demonstrated that there is a substantive issue here that demands resolution. Both reflect radically different views of human nature, so it's imperative that we reach a resolution of the debate. It cannot be achieved rhetorically or theoretically. Only real-life evidence from a controlled experiment would definitively decide the matter.

So, the meritocracy movement should not declare itself for or against basic income. It can have the best of both worlds and say that this is the sort of idea that would be tested out. We in the meritocracy movement will be bold and daring and give all plausible ideas the fairest of hearings. But, equally, we will give the counter case the same respect and same opportunities.

We are committed to dialectical progress, not to any ideological stances. We have no a priori certainty as to what will prove to be the best outcome. What we have is the METHOD for resolving the impasse. The method is what we are promoting as the greatest good, not the particular policies. We are emulating the scientific method. At its strictest and best, science couldn't care less what hypotheses are put forward since they are all dealt with in exactly the same way: they are subjected to tests and they prove either successful or unsuccessful in their ability to account for the data.

Nor do we care. Any and all policy initiatives are welcome. The dialectical method will sort the wheat from the chaff.

The only elements of meritocratic implementation that are not up for grabs are those that concern the defining principles of meritocracy, and there are only five of these, all of which are closely related.

1)   Everyone must be judged on their own merits and not on those of others such as family, friends or colleagues.

2)    No one should inherit wealth that their parents or relatives generated since that is a fundamental contradiction of the first rule of meritocracy.

3) All means of intentionally rigging the system to give some people an inbuilt advantage over others are unacceptable.

4)  Money and power can never be used as weapons to secure the advantage of "chosen ones" at the expense of everyone else.

5)    All forms of privilege as a means of creating a two-tier society of the privileged and the non-privileged are anathema. By "privilege" we mean an active programme for attempting to secure the permanent advantage of "chosen ones" at the expense of the non-chosen; in particular to buy a superior education unavailable to others, to buy influence, to create networks of "top jobs" that will be allocated only to the privileged elite, to create systems of signs based on status and snobbery that are favourable to one group but not to others. We will identify, expose and punish all people who attempt to subvert the meritocratic model through the use of privilege.

Basic income is not a core meritocratic principle. It would be possible to argue that it is both for and against meritocracy. It is for meritocracy insofar as it provides an equal financial starting line for everyone. It is against meritocracy insofar as it allows scope for people who do nothing to parasitically live off the efforts of others. Even though we might have our suspicions one way or the other, it is impossible to say definitively in advance whether the anti-meritocratic ingredient would outweigh the pro-meritocratic ingredient.

Society will be utterly transformed under a meritocratic government and education system. The sorts of problematic behaviours that are in evidence in liberal democracies may vanish completely once people are educated, raised and treated properly and respectfully, and are given full encouragement and support to be all they can be.    

If the proponent of basic income can find enough supporters to implement his proposal then it's his and their right to give it their best shot…but it's up to them to make it work. They, collectively, will be the State. Those who consider it unworkable would sign up to a different Social Contract.

It's vital that everyone should be passionate about the State they choose. The supporters of basic income might create a paradise if they all commit themselves to it with the same passion as the proponent for the case. But they cannot be allowed to impose their passions on those who don't share their enthusiasm. That would be tyranny, and that's what we're trying to escape from.

*****

In some ways, the basic income debate is misconceived. The ultimate aim of meritocracy is to deliver a resource-based, technology-driven economy that has no need of money - so the concept of basic income would be rendered redundant. All of the aims of the basic income advocates would be met in a money-less society.

Also, the arguments put forward are essentially a critique of contemporary capitalism, but in a meritocratic society, none of those features would be present.

In our article about the New World Order, we described an entirely new education system, the entire point of which is to identify what makes each person tick and give them the best possible education in the areas in which they will shine and be most fulfilled. The concept of people wanting a basic income so that they don't have to be wage slaves in an oppressive capitalist system would not apply. Nor would much of the rest of the analysis about crime and so on. These undesirable aspects of society are the products of contemporary capitalism. In a rational, meritocratic society, we would expect to eliminate virtually every ill to which basic income is proposed as the solution. Basic income is the answer to TODAY's miseries, but these won't exist in the meritocratic world of tomorrow. 

The whole point of the New World Order is to give everyone the chance to optimise themselves. If that results in anyone at all being keen to accept a basic income from the State then the project has failed. No "optimised" person should be doing anything other than productive work and making a full contribution to the State. In a meritocratic State, there will be zero unemployment. The idea of anyone not doing productive work is anathema. In fact, the idea is that people should find such fulfilment and self-respect through their work that we can practically abolish the idea of retirement. Many authors never retire. Why not? Because they are doing what they love - expressing themselves. When you are in the right job, you wouldn't want to retire.

Everyone in the State will have to explicitly sign a Social Contract, which is, of course, a two-way agreement. The State has duties and responsibilities and so does each citizen. The idea that anyone could be paid for simply being a citizen without offering anything at all in return would be incompatible with any sensible Social Contract. Being a citizen is not a job; it is a contractual status. Who would expect a State to survive if it had unilateral obligations, but no guarantee of anything in return?

The basic income proposal often looks dangerously like a communist policy: "From each according to his abilities to each according to his needs". What you have in Marxism is a flow of resources from the able to the needy - in what way is that different from basic income? And we all know how Soviet communism turned out. No able person wants to be breaking his back supporting other able-bodied people who simply choose not to work because they don't find any job satisfying. The able bodied would quickly leave that society, and who could blame them? Then what will the others do?

Work versus Jobs

The basic income thesis accurately describes the many ills from which contemporary society suffers. Basic income is proposed as the solution, but in fact the answer lies in the total transformation of society that will be brought about by the new meritocratic form of government.

A central aim of the new society will be to eliminate every "wage slave" job whereby people toil away at grim and unsatisfying jobs for a pittance in order to make some super rich capitalist even richer. Can anyone seriously imagine that the new hyper-educated, unsubmissive workforce that the new bespoke meritocratic education system will produce will be content to work in call centres, in factories and on assembly lines? It is IMPOSSIBLE.

The new education system is designed to alter the consciousness of the people so that they will no longer accept being second-class citizens and the puppets of the wealthy. Marx said, "It is not the consciousness of men that determines their being, but, on the contrary, their social being determines their consciousness." In other words, the nature of the society we live in shapes our consciousness. In a radically different society with radically different values, we will have a radically altered consciousness. The whole world as it appears to us now will we swept away. None of the things we routinely accept now because it's the way the "system" works will be acceptable in the meritocratic future. There won't be any monarchs, popes, super-rich elites, Abrahamist pressure groups, junk consumerism, celebrity culture etc - all of these will vanish. That why it's a New World Order! We will be producing a new type of human being: enormously more educated, capable, self-confident, independent, unwilling to kowtow. None of the ways of doing things that are possible now because of our dumbed-down, docile, deferential, submissive society will be possible when the people emerging from schools and colleges have none of these negative traits. Basic income will be the last thing on their minds - they will have the highest possible expectations and aspirations. Who in their right mind would aspire to receiving "basic income"? No one in the new society will want any sort of minimum wage or basic existence. The new society has failed utterly if anyone thinks there is anything good about living at the "safety net" level. We are trying to create a Community of Gods, not a hippie commune of work-refuseniks and social dropouts.

Marx, following Hegel, emphasized the key concept of alienation. Marx said that almost all of us are alienated from our jobs and derive no satisfaction from them. The only people having a good time are the rich bosses with all of the power who don't have to suffer the degrading treatment that everyone further down the food chain must endure.

We have to abolish this soul-destroying alienation. Hence all soulless, droid jobs must be eliminated. Over time, through superior technology and design, all such jobs will be automated.

If we define a job as something you do to pay the bills then we aspire to live in a jobless world. If we define work as something through which you express your identity, exercise your creativity and attain fulfilment then we aspire to move instead to a world of work.

Everyone should be doing work that makes them happy, and into which they can pour their efforts and be in their element. We want to build the Society of Excellence.

We will be moving away from the international capitalist model of mass production (quantity) and constant consumerism - which serves no other function than to make the super rich even richer - to national capitalism involving designer, bespoke production (quality). There will be no inbuilt obsolescence, no new upgrade every six months to keep the consumption machine moving.

All of the multinational leviathans - McDonalds, Starbucks, Pizza Hut, Kentucky Fried Chicken yada yada yada - that bestride the world will no longer be able to set up shop. Instead, for example, there will be bespoke food outlets where those who love making and serving food will be able to devise their own menus and dishes and pour their own culinary creativity into the enterprise. We want huge numbers of profitable, bespoke small businesses full of committed people who love their work and make a good living rather than huge faceless corporations with a formulaic approach that channel enormous profits back to a handful of super wealthy individuals.

There will be no grim call centres full of drones reading out scripts.

International capitalism is about standardisation in order to lower costs and raise profits, about having a consistent "brand" experience. Standardisation = Drone World, Droid Land, Zombie Central. International capitalism proclaims that big is beautiful. National capitalism is about the bespoke experience and promotes the opposite message: small is beautiful. The idea of excess profits and constant corporate growth will vanish because the State will cap the amount of money any individual can make, and will of course apply 100% inheritance tax at death. What we are implementing, in effect, is a mechanism for preventing multinationals from ever coming into existence. National capitalism will be based on small and medium-sized enterprises. There will be no leviathans, no super rich private individuals using their money and power to dictate to the State.

We will have turned capitalism into something healthy, creative, productive and fulfilling rather than a monstrous sausage machine churning out bland gloop all over the globe.

We will be converting international capitalism of a few super rich global players into national capitalism of many well-off players. Ours is true capitalism rather than the out-of-control, super greedy contemporary version. Ours is socially responsible and prevents any possibility of private individuals opposing the General Will and dictating to the State to satisfy their selfish, particular will.

No more Rothschild and Bush dynasties! No privileged elite. International capitalism is hyper-capitalism for the sake of a tiny ownership class and we will replace it with public capitalism for the sake of all the people. Everyone will, more or less, be working for themselves rather than for a boss. Groups of people can combine their capital and become group owners. We seek to massively expand social ownership. At the moment, the multinational leviathans can quickly put any small competitors out of business. This will become impossible in the new society: it will instead be the multinationals that are put out of business.

Small Is Beautiful: Economics As If People Mattered by British economist E. F. Schumacher is a classic text opposing the contemporary capitalism, which Schumacher regarded as dehumanising. He argued that the workplace should, first and foremost, be a place of dignity and meaning. He advocated "smallness within bigness", meaning that large companies should be decentralized and operate as a related group of small organizations.

He was keen to emphasize the importance of scale and the idea of "enoughness." Western capitalism always aims for the biggest scale (lowest production costs), no matter how much damage ensues. Why were banks allowed to become too big to fail? Cui bono? Why did no one challenge the dangerous scale of the banking leviathans, so big they dwarf entire economies?

No one cares as long as the profits keep rolling in. The Profit Principle trumps everything else. And when it comes to enough, nothing is ever enough. The super rich have no concept of having enough. Like Oliver Twist, they always want more, but Oliver was starving in a workhouse and they're not.

Schumacher attacked the conventional economic wisdom that growth is always good and that bigger is better. He asserted that society should aim to obtain "the maximum amount of well-being with the minimum amount of consumption." Isn't that eminently sensible? Schumacher's ideas were quite fashionable for a time but were of course completely ignored by those in power.

Isn't it time for Schumacher's ideas to be back on the agenda? We would never have suffered the Credit Crunch if his economic thinking had prevailed. It was multinationals, global leviathans and banks too big to fail that brought us to the brink of catastrophe. Are we the dumbest humans in history or will we finally wise up and take action against all of the leviathans, monarchs and super rich?

Schumacher said, "The less toil there is, the more time and strength is left for artistic creativity. Modern economics, on the other hand, considers consumption to be the sole end and purpose of all economic activity."

Other quotations by Schumacher are equally profound:

"Character…is formed primarily by a man's work. And work, properly conducted in conditions of human dignity and freedom, blesses those who do it and equally their products."

"Wisdom demands a new orientation of science and technology towards the organic, the gentle, the non-violent, the elegant and beautiful."

"The most striking thing about modern industry is that it requires so much and accomplishes so little. Modern industry seems to be inefficient to a degree that surpasses one's ordinary powers of imagination. Its inefficiency therefore remains unnoticed."

"The way in which we experience and interpret the world obviously depends very much indeed on the kind of ideas that fill our minds. If they are mainly small, weak, superficial, and incoherent, life will appear insipid, uninteresting, petty, and chaotic."

The human race has never lacked people with brilliant insight and wisdom. What it has always lacked is leaders with insight and wisdom. It has been cursed by greedy, selfish, self-interested leaders always looking out for themselves, their friends and family. Nepotism, cronyism and privilege have always been their watchwords.

Why do ordinary people never stand up to power? Why do they never question the legitimacy of monarchs and the super rich? Why are they cowards and slaves? Why are they so docile and submissive? There is nothing rational about contemporary society.

Marx said, "The real nature of man is the totality of social relations." It cannot be stressed highly enough how important this statement is. If we create unhealthy social relations, we create unhealthy men and women.

Most of us exist in various states of alienation. Abrahamists are alienated from God. Employees are alienated from their jobs. Everyone is alienated from their political masters. In a society that worships money, most people are alienated from themselves and continually gaze enviously at those with enormous amounts of money and total freedom.

We have to address all of these different forms of alienation, and the primary target is the super rich because they are the ones who control our world. The existence of any class of super rich is simply unacceptable. The super rich automatically cause society to fragment. It is impossible to maintain social harmony and cohesion when some people are thousands of times wealthier than the average. How can anyone talk of any kind of equality when such financial disparities exist? As soon as unbridgeable inequalities are created, the world becomes a pyramid rather than a round table. People start gauging themselves with respect to others and they become obsessed with status. As soon as you have status wars you no longer have a community. The essence of a community is that its members have respect for each other. That mutual respect disintegrates in deeply unequal societies. The happiest societies are those in which inequalities are contained within a narrow range. Wide inequalities should be regarded as fundamentally anti-social.  

The supreme problem for our society is that those who control it are profoundly anti-social and anti-communitarian. They are doing fantastically well and want nothing to change. They don't want to see their wealth or power being eroded in any way. They can do whatever they like since no one has the guts to stand up to them. They see people as nothing but means to their economic ends, and not as ends in themselves.

One simple fact ought to be patently obvious to everyone. Society works brilliantly and does everything required of it for one group of people - those at the top. They are the people with the power to change things yet they are also the ones least motivated to change anything since they have everything they want.

Therefore, the people must a) change themselves and b) change those at the top of society. Any society is crazy if it doesn't ensure that the leaders of society care about society and wish to serve its interests. Can anyone look at the leaders in any part of the world and fail to conclude that they are in it for themselves? They are GENIUSES at grabbing money and power for themselves. They are hopeless at helping the people. In fact, improving the lot of the people in any significant way would be counterproductive for them. Anything that the elite do that seems to help the people is an illusion.

In the 19th century, capitalism was about production - grim factories full of people doing shit jobs for twelve hours a day seven days a week. The owners wanted to squeeze out every penny of profit. They had no concern at all for the welfare of the people. No one ordered them to be inconsiderate bastards treating people like scum. They did it naturally. They had inbuilt contempt for ordinary humanity.

Now, capitalism is about consumption - people shopping rather than producing. Production is mostly automated, but someone needs to buy the goods. So we have shopping malls full of zombie consumers! The capitalist ownership class still hate the people, but their contempt is now expressed differently, and with the utmost hypocrisy. The corporations spend all of their time flattering and seducing the consumers, or filling them with fears and anxieties - the tactics depend on the nature of the product being sold. Corporations wage psychological war against ordinary people with a single aim: to get them to consume. They couldn't care less about the welfare of the people. That just gets in the way of the Profit Principle.

Why do we allow people who hate humanity to be the leaders of humanity? Why do we allow psychopaths to become rich and powerful rather than putting them in therapy? We have to stop letting the crazies dictate to us. 

We need an economy based on both production and consumption, but this time production and consumption should revolve around creativity and quality. There is nothing to stop us having an economy based on self-improvement, art, science, mathematics, literature, philosophy, design, film-making, music-making, psychology, and so on. The world would be full of self-employed people - acting as their own bosses - or small ownership groups. People could come together on a contractual basis to carry out projects of mutual benefit. The whole economy should be based on Schumacher's principle that small is beautiful. We could have endless diversity, a profusion of small, specialist, bespoke companies offering unique products and services.

The aim is to gradually eliminate all "wage slave" jobs via better design and technology, and to get everyone involved in creative work in which they can express themselves and feel proud and fulfilled.

We want to switch from big is best to small is beautiful, from mass production to bespoke production, from drone and droid jobs to creative and diverse work portfolios. We need active, enthusiastic, productive workers, not passive workers doing the bare minimum. Workers need to express who they are through their work: not who someone else is. They should profit from their own endeavours; not create profits for others. They should become their real selves through their work. They shouldn't be faking it and wearing masks. They should no longer be alienated from religion, education, politics, psychology or the workplace.

This enlightened type of thinking has been held back by one force only - the Old World Order who will not concede any of their power or wealth. The State must have the guts to confront these monsters and lay down the law to them. Their Age of Tyranny is over. It's time for the people to be authentically free.

Summary

Basic income is a debate for today's society, not an issue for tomorrow's. The new society is designed to address all of the ills detailed in the thesis, and the concept of basic income will be superfluous in such a society.

Capitalism is not evil per se. It is the particular implementation that is evil - the one designed to cater for a small super rich elite who call all of the shots and create global empires outwith the control of the State and the people. This model of capitalism is not a servant of the people, but a Dictatorship of Mammon.

The world can be free only when the controllers are removed from power. Only one policy guarantees the end of the super rich - 100% inheritance tax.

Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen

In 1789, the French revolutionaries issued the Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen. In 1793, a second and lengthier version was adopted.

The full text is provided here and still represents a triumph of sensible principles:

The French people, convinced that forgetfulness and contempts of the natural rights of man are the sole causes of the miseries of the world, have resolved to set forth in a solemn declaration these sacred and inalienable rights, in order that all the citizens, being able to compare unceasingly the acts of the government with the aim of every social institution, may never allow themselves to be oppressed and debased by tyranny; and in order that the people may always have before their eyes the foundations of their liberty and their welfare, the magistrate the rule of his duties, the legislator the purpose of his commission.

In consequence, it proclaims in the presence of the supreme being the following declaration of the rights of man and citizen.

1. The aim of society is the common welfare. Government is instituted in order to guarantee to man the enjoyment of his natural and imprescriptible rights.

2. These rights are equality, liberty, security, and property.

3. All men are equal by nature and before the law.

4. Law is the free and solemn expression of the general will; it is the same for all, whether it protects or punishes; it can command only what is just and useful to society; it can forbid only what is injurious to it.

5. All citizens are equally eligible to public employments. Free peoples know no other grounds for preference in their elections than virtue and talent.

6. Liberty is the power that belongs to man to do whatever is not injurious to the rights of others; it has nature for its principle, justice for its rule, law for its defense; its moral limit is in this maxim: Do not do to another that which you do not wish should be done to you.

7. The right to express one's thoughts and opinions by means of the press or in any other manner, the right to assemble peaceably, the free pursuit of religion, cannot be forbidden.

The necessity of enunciating these rights supposes either the presence or the fresh recollection of despotism.

8. Security consists in the protection afforded by society to each of its members for the preservation of his person, his rights, and his property.

9. The law ought to protect public and personal liberty against the oppression of those who govern.

10. No one ought to be accused, arrested, or detained except in the cases determined by law and according to the forms that it has prescribed. Any citizen summoned or seized by the authority of the law, ought to obey immediately; he makes himself guilty by resistance.

11. Any act done against man outside of the cases and without the forms that the law determines is arbitrary and tyrannical; the one against whom it may be intended to be executed by violence has the right to repel it by force.

12. Those who may incite, expedite, subscribe to, execute or cause to be executed arbitrary legal instruments are guilty and ought to be punished.

13. Every man being presumed innocent until he has been pronounced guilty, if it is thought indispensable to arrest him, all severity that may not be necessary to secure his person ought to be strictly repressed by law.

14. No one ought to be tried and punished except after having been heard or legally summoned, and except in virtue of a law promulgated prior to the offense. The law which would punish offenses committed before it existed would be a tyranny: the retroactive effect given to the law would be a crime.

15. The law ought to impose only penalties that are strictly and obviously necessary: the punishments ought to be proportionate to the offense and useful to society.

16. The right of property is that which belongs to every citizen to enjoy, and to dispose at his pleasure of his goods, income, and of the fruits of his labor and his skill.

17. No kind of labor, tillage, or commerce can be forbidden to the skill of the citizens.

18. Every man can contract his services and his time, but he cannot sell himself nor be sold: his person is not an alienable property. The law knows of no such thing as the status of servant; there can exist only a contract for services and compensation between the man who works and the one who employs him.

19. No one can be deprived of the least portion of his property without his consent, unless a legally established public necessity requires it, and upon condition of a just and prior compensation.

20. No tax can be imposed except for the general advantage. All citizens have the right to participate in the establishment of taxes, to watch over the employment of them, and to cause an account of them to be rendered.

21. Public relief is a sacred debt. Society owes maintenance to unfortunate citizens, either procuring work for them or in providing the means of existence for those who are unable to labor.

22. Education is needed by all. Society ought to favor with all its power the advancement of the public reason and to put education at the door of every citizen.

23. The social guarantee consists in the action of all to secure to each the enjoyment and the maintenance of his rights: this guarantee rests upon the national sovereignty.

24. It cannot exist if the limits of public functions are not clearly determined by law and if the responsibility of all the functionaries is not secured.

25. The sovereignty resides in the people; it is one and indivisible, imprescriptible, and inalienable.

26. No portion of the people can exercise the power of the entire people, but each section of the sovereign, in assembly, ought to enjoy the right to express its will with entire freedom.

27. Let any person who may usurp the sovereignty be instantly put to death by free men.

28. A people has always the right to review, to reform, and to alter its constitution. One generation cannot subject to its law the future generations.

29. Each citizen has an equal right to participate in the formation of the law and in the selection of his mandatories or his agents.

30. Public functions are necessarily temporary; they cannot be considered as distinctions or rewards, but as duties.

31. The offenses of the representatives of the people and of its agents ought never to go unpunished. No one has the right to claim for himself more inviolability than other citizens.

32. The right to present petitions to the depositories of the public authority cannot in any case be forbidden, suspended, nor limited.

33. Resistance to oppression is the consequence of the other rights of man.

34. There is oppression against the social body when a single one of its members is oppressed: there is oppression against each member when the social body is oppressed.

35. When the government violates the rights of the people, insurrection is for the people and for each portion of the people the most sacred of rights and the most indispensable of duties.

The modern Universal Declaration of Human Rights is clearly inspired by the original French Declaration.

Note that Islamic nations are opposed to the Declaration. They deny that people should be free to change religion, they deny that women are men's equals, and they deny that neutrality should be maintained when comparing religions (since Islam is always to be favoured).

Islam and Darwinism

There is no task more difficult than attempting to reform a berserk, utterly irrational religion such as Islam. Anyone who has the guts to try immediately takes their own life into their hands. Consider the case in the UK of imam Dr Usuma Hasan, a physics lecturer at Middlesex University and a fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society. When he made the claim that Darwin's theory of evolution is compatible with Islam, he immediately received death threats from Islamic fundamentalists who declared that Darwin's theory contradicted the Koran's unambiguous statement that Adam and Eve were the first humans and were directly created by Allah. Hasan's claims were deemed blasphemous and deserving of the death penalty.

How can you have a debate about anything when one group immediately sentences the opposing group to death?

Hasan was compelled to retract his claims, and he posted a wretched note on his mosque saying, "I seek Allah's forgiveness for my mistakes and apologise for my mistakes."

So, there you have it - a practising British scientist has been compelled by threats to declare the superiority of a bizarre book of desert revelations made to an illiterate and brutal tribesman over Darwin's methodical 19th century research which has been accepted, in one form or another, by every credible scientist on earth. If such things can happen in Britain, one of the most advanced nations on earth and not under Islamic rule, imagine what would happen if the Muslims were actually in charge!

At the lecture he gave supporting his claim of compatibility between Islam and Darwinism, Hasan said that he was interrupted by "fanatics" who handed out leaflets declaring that Darwin was a blasphemer. One of the men said to Hasan, "You are an apostate and should be killed."

Hasan's views were described at his mosque as a "source of antagonism in the Muslim community." He was dismissed from his role as imam.

Hasan had stated, "Darwinism is not a matter of iman [belief] or kufr [disbelief], and people are free to accept or reject a particular scientific theory."

In Saudi Arabia, clerics still commonly teach that the Sun revolves around the Earth, as it says in the Koran. So, don't expect any Islamic Enlightenment. The fundamentalists have got their strategy perfectly worked out - just kill anyone who disagrees with you, and say you're doing it in the name of Allah. Anyone who challenges you is a blasphemer and apostate and must be killed. That's lesson 101 in how to ensure you remain retarded for eternity.

Islam is the religion for retards, the religion forever stuck in the Arabian desert of 1400 years ago. Islam is not part of the dialectic of freedom and progress. It is a permanent antithesis.

The rational people of the world have no option but to pull up the drawbridge against Islam. Muslims cannot be allowed to infect non-Muslims with their irrationality and fanaticism.

It is not Muslims themselves who are the problem, but Islam as an ideology. It lends itself to mania. It encourages and demands fanaticism and intolerance.

All three Abrahamist religions should be regarded as an illness, as an infectious disease; a contagion. If you remain in contact with them, they will keep re-infecting you and you will never be cured. But if just one generation were freed from Abrahamism, this hateful religion would perish. All Muslims, Jews and Christians could be cured if they were released from the relentless brainwashing machine that grips them from the moment they are born.

"RA" sent us a link to a disturbing video. It's time to be very scared…

The forces of irrationality are growing with astonishing rapidity. The time is short for the rational amongst us to change the world. Within forty years, it may be all over. The dialectic of freedom will grind to a halt, and even be reversed, and we will end up living in a world groaning under the tyranny of Sharia Law. Imagine the whole world ruled by the Taliban.

Islam is the greatest threat the world has ever known. It is even more toxic than the Old World Order. Don't kid yourself that liberal Muslims will triumph. Pakistan was designed as a modern liberal democracy - look at it now. It's a failed state full of Islamic extremists. All liberal societies, unless they take explicit and severe countermeasures, invariably succumb to the more committed, forceful and determined fanatics in their midst. In the West, the fanatical capitalists of super greed swept the liberals aside. In Islamic nations, lacking capitalism, the mad mullahs were the ones who grabbed power. Now the Muslims are outbreeding the Westerners and, if the present trends persist, first Europe and then America will fall to Islam.  

Before long, Darwinists in the West will be executed for blasphemy. There will be death camps for non-Muslims, or they will be made to serve as slaves for Islam - as was done for many centuries in Islamic countries. There will be no drugs, alcohol, rock 'n' roll, casual sex or bacon sandwiches. There will be no freedom. All women will have to wear burqas. Science and philosophy will be made illegal because they contradict the Koran. All food will be halal. "Moral" police will roam the streets, strictly enforcing Sharia rules and regulations. Thieves will have limbs amputated, and fornicators and adulterers will be flogged and even stoned to death. There will be endless executions for the mildest transgressions.

You think this is scare mongering? Then you have never heard what is being preached in countless mosques all over the world. You just need to look at Afghanistan, Yemen, Pakistan, Iran etc to see that this behaviour is already being carried out day in and day out in Islamic nations. Many liberal Muslims will ridicule such thinking, but they will not be the ones in charge when the Darkest Hour comes. The fanatics - the dominant few willing to kill others and even themselves - are the ones who will be running the show. Only the biggest fools on earth cannot see what is coming. Nietzsche foresaw that the 20th and 21st centuries would be the most cataclysmic in history. There can be no doubt what the defining issue of this century will be - ISLAM.

Europe has several times in its history almost succumbed to the military power of Islam. Desperate, last-ditch battles were fought several times to hold back the Islamic tide. Had any of these battles been lost, Europe may well have fallen to Islam. The key battles were Poitiers in 732, Vienna in 1529 and 1683, and the naval battle of Lepanto in 1571.

Now the same outcome may happen via immigration and higher birth rate rather than force of arms.

The West was delivered from Christian tyranny thanks to the Renaissance, the Reformation (which split Christianity into warring factions) and, especially, the Enlightenment. What if these had never happened? We could be living under a Roman Catholic dictatorship with the Pope at its head. Scientists would be forbidden from contradicting the Bible and handed over, like Galileo, to the Inquisition if they dared to challenge Scripture. It was such a tyranny that the Gnostic Cathars lived under. They were subjected to the first Inquisition and then a holy crusade to exterminate them. 

That's the type of world that's coming our way if Islam is triumphant. There has been no Islamic Renaissance, Reformation or Enlightenment and there will never be one because the Islamic fundamentalists have demonstrated that they will kill anyone who dares to disagree with them. It's the 21st Century and Islam still refuses to modernize itself. In fact, it is more extreme and intolerant now than it was fifty or a hundred years ago. It is going BACKWARDS.

Pakistan and Afghanistan are a vision of the future of the world. Only if the non-Islamic world acts now can the world be saved from Islamic hegemony. It is the most important issue of all.

Only reason can save us. Otherwise we will be plunged into the ultimate Endarkenment.

Endarkenment - Pho'

Alchemy 

"SJ" sent us the following hypothesis concerning the alchemical view of the world:

1. The goal of all authentic Religion (the word itself meaning to re-join) is to reunite one's self with God; more specifically, with the shard of God hidden within/above/behind one's outer self.

2. This shard of God constitutes one's higher self, and has been called the Holy Guardian Angel, the Genius, the Daemon, the Guiding Star and many other names.

3. The alchemists hid their knowledge and practise of this "true religion" in symbol and the technical jargon of the day to avoid persecution.

4. They divided their techniques for achieving this unification with the Higher Self into two distinct "paths": the "Wet" and the "Dry".

"It is called 'Wet' because it uses solvents and long incubation periods. This is opposed to the 'Dry' path which uses higher heats and generally no solvents."

(http://alchymie.ca/wetpath.htm

The wet path used "long incubation periods" and a "solvent" (that which dissolves), which meant that a) although the Work was safer, it took much longer to complete, and b) the internal components of the lesser self were gently broken up and dissolved into a "water" that could easily be recombined into new forms or states.

The dry path was usually considered more dangerous as it simply used high "heat" to forcefully destroy and combine internal components, at the cost of safety but in a much shorter span of time.

The path I am detailing is the Wet Path. It involves the Mercury that alchemists across the world refer to by a variety of names: Chi, Prana, Baraka, Mana, Aether, Orgone etc. An accumulation of this substance in the Body attracts its opposite, "Sulfur", or the Soul of the alchemist. Gradually that Soulfire purifies the alchemist until he can withstand the indwelling of his own soul, now fully inhabiting the body. When the "Sulfur" and the alchemist unite, the goal has been achieved, the disciple has become the master, the lead has been purified and made into gold; the alchemist is now ready to help others on the path.

Franklin, Plato and the Higher Guardian Angel

"If you know how to spend less than you get, you have the philosopher's stone."

Benjamin Franklin

Here, Franklin gives away several key secrets to the philosopher's stone and alchemy in general. He speaks apparently of the acquisition of wealth; but in a higher sense his statement is the key to obtaining contact with one's potential self, one's guiding star.

As a prelude, let us say that the goal of alchemy was the same as that of every other initiatory and esoteric system of teaching since time immemorial; the acquisition of the Knowledge and Conversation of the Holy Guardian Angel.

That alchemists were ever ready to wax poetical about their lovely Mercury, which they declared was the secret and key to their Art, is abundantly clear from even the most cursory glance at their writings. We here take their meaning, or it should be said, one of their manifold meanings of that term, to refer to what in primitive societies is called "Manna".

What is Mana? This is a Polynesian word meaning the life force, associated with high social status and ritual power. It might be equated with the ever-present Quintessence, the Natural Soul, the "Anima Mundi", the Chi, Prana, Baraka, Breath, Dew, or Heavenly Water. It is the "Aether", and just as in the fanciful stories of Wizards and their machinations, it is and was the secret power source for everything that the Alchemists wrought. When Abraham was asked to shield his face, for it "shone too brightly" with the glory of God, it was this that he was manifesting. When Christ stilled the tempestuous waters, it was this which was the vehicle of his Will. The Polynesians saw it as imbuing everything. Shamans effected their healing and divination through it. It is the invisible yet very real connective tissue woven through everything.

It is my hypothesis that the mystical Work undertaken by the Alchemists was contact and gradual unification with one's Guiding Star, and further that this "Mercury of the Wise" was the primary Agent and Faculty utilized to that end.

"Therefore, we may consequently state that this world is indeed a living being endowed with a soul and intelligence ... a single visible living entity containing all other living entities, which by their nature are all related."

Plato

The human body utilizes this vital force just as the rest of the cosmos does, as the buffer between Intelligence and Physicality. Because of its central location, it is affected by aberrations from either end, and usually relays these conflicts from one end of the Self to the other. Trouble in the Mind often finds its way into the Body, and vice versa. Also, due to its central importance, a superabundance of it equates with better health and functioning for both Mind and Body. In was thus the focus of the Alchemists' Work.

To better understand Franklin's statement, and the Quest for Unification with the Genius, it's necessary to examine this energy from two perspectives; its production or generation, and its expenditure or utilization. Some things which produce this substance are: eating, sleeping, breathing, meaningful labor. Some things which expend this substance are: sex, injury, sickness, frivolous labor.

Thus the subtle meaning of Franklin's message may be interpreted as: Accrue the Mercury of the Wise by favoring input of this substance and eschewing its output and you will obtain the philosopher's stone. Now, the philosopher's stone was said to provide aid and succor to all three aspects of the self i.e. the body, heart (soul) and mind.

To understand how this all relates to the quest for the Holy Guardian Angel, it is necessary to posit the Mercury of the Wise in a new light, yet still congruent with the preceding. Mapping the components of the self with the classical elements:

Body = Earth

"Mind" = Air

Mercury = Water

Holy Guardian Angel = Fire.

Mind is placed in quotes because Mind was seen as simply the pattern of interference created between the Aetheric Self (Water) and the "Spirit" Self (Fire); thus it was, just as the element of Wind, merely a "placeholder" or stopgap element, not really considered as "real" or pertinent as the remaining three, except in its natural propensity as a sort of prismatic scaffolding or channelling rig for the upper forces.

The Water of the Wise really does act as a sort of internal, "spiritual" lubricant, something which greases the wheels between upper and lower, an agent

which facilitates contact and mediation. In this respect, it truly becomes the keystone of the Work, the lesser portion of which was only ever intended to cleanse, purify and ready oneself for the greater portion, that portion being the actual contact and conversation.

Through the utilization of the Living Waters, one makes ready and fit the vessels both corporeal and incorporeal to receive the celestial fire, which if placed in an unprepared vessel would burn and crack that vessel.

ADAPTIVE TRANSMUTATION PROCEDURES OF THE WORK

Adaptive Behavior: a type of behavior that is used to adjust to another type of behavior or situation. This is often characterized by a kind of behavior that allows an individual to change a non-constructive or disruptive behavior to something more constructive. These behaviors are most often social or personal behaviors.

--http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adaptive

Transmutation:

1. The act or an instance of transmuting; transformation.

2. The supposed conversion of base metals into gold or silver in alchemy.

--http://www.thefreedictionary.com/transmutation

Transmute: To change from one form, nature, substance, or state into another; to transform.

--http://www.thefreedictionary.com/transmute

On Quintessence:

Quintessence, "Philosophical Mercury" or "Divine Water" symbolizes what is referred to as "Prana" in the Eastern Systems (aka Baraka, Chi, Aether, Orgone etc), and is considered ubiquitous throughout nature and the Universe. Different types of matter and life collect and store more or less of this substance, but living creatures more than anything act as huge batteries for it, storing it up.

Physical Matter is said to be as porous to it as Earth is to Water. Entire systems of Eastern medicine and philosophy have been developed around this sole concept. In the West, traces of it can be found in our religious literature but largely all evidence of it has succumbed to either the ravages of time or the editor's pen, while in the East a knowledge and acceptance of it has been very much kept alive. The only notable exception to this dearth of Western wisdom on the subject must be attributed to Wilhelm Reich, a direct disciple of Freud. He claimed to have discovered something very similar to the energy or radiation which would go into the makeup of the Bio-Aetheric double, and indeed according to his observations was present in all things. However, his experiments and conclusions were vilified, his books burned and he died in prison.

When this substance persists in a certain pattern, place or person for extended periods of time, it can begin to take on the shape or characteristics of that pattern. This phenomenon is responsible for the concept of the "Bioaetheric Double", also known as the "Astral Body", the "Doppelganger", the "Twin", etc. In sleep, it is said to become "loosened" from the body, and upon death it is said to dissipate after a predetermined length of time.

It seems appropriate to surmise that all the machinations of the Lesser or Vulgar Waters (see below) take place within, through and by the direct agency of the Greater or Philosophical Water, or the Divine Mercury. That being said, it becomes appropriate, in a sense, to equate the one with the other, since the one cannot work without the other. This seems to have implications in health, psychology and regeneration.

First Doctrine of Adaptive Transmutation (Doctrine of the Self)

"There are 4 Principles of Self; they are, in descending order: Soul, Mind, Spirit and Body."

Notes on First Doctrine:

This is taken as the general result of a vast collation, cross-reference and comparison of every major esoteric and occult body, philosophy and teaching over the course of the main activity of these bodies. As to the names and their attendant concepts attributed to each thing; there seems oftentimes to be an uncertainty as to whether Soul belongs (as given in this scheme) in place of Spirit, and Spirit in Soul's place. To this I give merely the usages of these words in their most colloquial sense, as in, "He has a lively Spirit," or, "The horse was Spirited." It is never said, "This horse is very Souled," or, "This horse has a lot of Soul," except in cases where a quality of depth or greatness of time or character is meant, as in, "Old Soul." Properly situated, the four components of the Self relate to things we have all experienced, to greater and lesser degrees, and thus to things we can all readily agree to being part and parcel of our beings.

The "Soul" corresponds to that most ancient of things, the "Self" you were before you were born, and the one you will return to after you die. In primal cultures, these are dubbed "ancestors," for this same reason. It is the eternal spark, embedded in the depths of your manifold self.

While the Soul and "Lesser Self" become separated by the process of Incarnation, the link between the two can never be severed, and it is the aim of the work of Regeneration (Adaptive Transmutation) to reacquaint these two long lost friends until the two become one.

In esoteric circles, Air is never really regarded as an element proper, but rather as a buffer or circumstantial intermediary between Fire and Water, and as such the "Mind" can quite easily be regarded as simply the Interference Pattern between the Eternal Soul (Fire) and the Temporal Spirit (Water). This can perhaps explain some of the peculiarities of the Mind.

"Water" addresses the central components of the self, the sexual drive, willpower, emotions, intellect and imagination; the things that make up in large part the core of man's internal self. These things comprise a layer between the innermost component (the Divine Spark/Mind), and the outermost extremities (reality/Body). They are collectively grouped in systems like Alchemy and Kabbalah (where they are referred to as "Zeir Anpin", meaning Lesser Countenance or the Lesser Self) because they all rely for their health, maintenance and development on the presence of the Divine or Celestial Waters, the Heavenly Mercury; Aether. Together, they form a major portion of man's psychological make-up, and bridge the gap between Inner and Outer. They're tackled collectively, relative to one another, when cleansing them.

The physical form is the receptacle of all other elements. It is the outermost lying shell, the ultimate bound, the husk which contains all other things. Every element has its representative in the body, whether it be through electromagnetism, biochemistry or unknown yet scientifically real forces.

The Alchemists spoke of the body as the dregs lying at the bottom of the Alembic, but they were careful and quick to append that in them was contained the whole of the work, and that they were invaluable and necessary to the latter stages of regeneration.

Older perversions of Gnostic teachings imply that the body and its larger manifestation, the physical world, are things to be demonized; this is an aberration of original, pure and authentic teachings.

(Our comment: this statement is false. Authentic Gnosticism has always demonised the physical world, defining it as the creation of the wicked Demiurge. The writer is thinking of Hermeticism rather than Gnosticism. Whereas Gnosticism regards the material world as evil, Hermeticism maintains that matter may be perfected. Illuminism reflects both trains of thought by asserting that this is a fallen, wicked world ruled by the worst kind of people, but it is capable of redemption and salvation through the efforts of enlightened people.)

1st Stage: "ROTA ELEMENTIA"

Elements: Earth, Water, Wind, Fire

Goal: Basic Rotation of All Elements, Perception of Fire

Procedure: Arrange External Environment for Minimal Rotational Infringement

Work:

1) Individual Rotation: Here the object is to get each Element rotating individually. A natural overall cadence and rhythm of the system will emerge, but it is negligible and not the goal here.

2) Embody the Self: Via Rotation a fuller sense of the Self inhabiting the Body is obtained, which acts as the "gateway" for the 2nd Stage of the Work.

Notes:

This stage is often the most difficult as the aspirant struggles against the natural inertia of bad habits acquired and often ingrained into the self by years of self-neglect and abuse. Fire is included here as it acts as the signifier of the successful rotation of all Elements; its presence or rotation, full or partial, should be felt upon the accomplishment of at least minimal rotation of all three of the lower elements.

This level of the Work is the Black Stone.

2nd Stage: "TARO ELEMENTIA"

Elements: Earth, Water, Wind

Goal: Accumulation of Water

Procedure: Introversion, Focus, Dedication, Perseverance

Work:

1)    Abandoning Fire (the Hermetic Seal):

Once the basic rotation of all four Elements has been achieved, and sight has been caught of the Eternal Fire in the sky, that fire must be abandoned. For this 2nd stage of the Work it is too much a distraction, in much the same way that "castles in the sky" can distract a person from their more mundane, terrestrial chores and tasks, so too does the majesty of the fire, the lure of its flame serve as too great a nuisance for the more "terrestrial" earth and water based work. The abandonment of this fire serves as the famous Hermetic Seal on the "Vase" at this stage.

2)    Fountain of Youth:

Here the work is all about bringing Air (the Mind) and Earth (the Body) into equilibrium with Water (Aether), in that both Air and Earth should be specially tailored to bring about maximum production of the Water; that is this stages entire purpose.

Notes:

Abandoning the fire is tantamount to a Rotation of the Elemental Wheel as a whole, in that the secondary qualities now put fire and earth at odds with one another, and earth and water in close congruence.

Also, it should be noted that a great many arcana can be divulged from a careful study of the Elemental Wheel in light of the aforementioned knowledge.

How Rotation is really a series of reversals in the highest-refined Aetheric Egg, the nature of the relations between the four elements, and many other things.

This level of the Work is the White Stone.

3rd Stage: "TORA ELEMENTIA"

Elements: Earth, Water, Wind, Fire, Salt, Mercury, Sulfur, Lead, Tin, Iron, Copper, Mercury, Silver, Gold

Goal: Destruction of Air as Steward, Inception and Crowning of Fire, Refinement of Metals

Procedure: Purification of the Seven Metals by the Secret Fire

Work:

1)    Inception:

The interference pattern that is the Mind is here slowly disassembled by the gradual introduction of the Fire (Higher Self) to the Elementary Body, aka the three lower elements. Through a process of bringing the Fire and Water into closer and closer proximity, "impurities" in the Air are gradually eliminated until it exists only as a scaffolding or "house" for the Celestial Fire.

2)    Lesser Purification:

Once this is done, and the Fire is in close enough proximity to the Lesser Elements of Earth and Water, purification can take place. The same process employed to perfect the Air is now repeated with Earth and Water. The Celestial Flame is brought into closer and closer proximity with each of these agents, until they become perfected, in the lesser and more general sense. When the Water and the Earth, together with the Fire, are refined enough to be considered "new" or reborn elements, they are referred to as the Tria Materia, or Salt, Mercury and Sulfur, and the second stage of purification can begin.

3)    Greater Purification:

Once the essential matrix of the Tria Materia is perfected, the system as a whole is ready to be tackled. With the new forms of perception and understanding gained via the general elimination of dross in the lower elements, the aspirant is ready to begin the greater and more protracted work of purifying the seven-fold body of man, depicted by the Seven Metals of the Alchemists. These too, just as Air, are only in discordance with Fire insofar as they contain things which contradict its edicts. These are unravelled and the Metals made complacent to the Flame.

Notes:

This final level of the work is often referred to as Child's or Woman's Work, in that so long as one "toes the line" or Law of this stage, keeps all things within their proper bounds, the actual cleansing of each Metal is almost automatic.

This level of the Work is the Red Stone.

THE THREE PHASES OF THE ALCHEMICAL WORK

ROTA - Rotate / Wheel

Etymology: the work is here called Rotation and Wheel in that basic rotation of the wheels is essential and all encompassing.

Panacea: every disease, internal or external, has as its basis a perversion of one or more of the elements. This was basically the doctrine of Paracelsus, and how he effected his miraculous cures, by administering to the latent, underlying causes.

TARO - Abandonment / Subtraction / Pathways

Etymology: subtraction here means the subtraction of Fire from the equation of self, as a sacrifice placed on the altar of Mercury, or towards the generation of the Celestial Dew. By pathways is meant the "opening of the ways", as it is known in the east; the profusion of water cleanses the subtle body of some of its impurities. Abandonment here means something similar to Subtraction, in that a purposeful turning away from Fire must be undertaken in order to exalt Water.

Fountain of Youth: the accumulation of heavenly dew does indeed give one both the inward and outward appearance of youth. The ever-flowing fountain is also indicative of both the mythical fountain as well as the goal of this 2nd degree, to create a veritable wellspring of internal celestial waters.

TORA - Law / Instruction / Revelation

Etymology: here the byword is Law, because at this stage of the work the risk of committing an error, taking a false step off the path, is enormous and the concomitant retaliatory backlash from the forces in play being misused or improperly handled can be dangerous or disastrous to the aspirant. To alleviate this dangerous condition, Instruction is essential. Revelation refers to the end-result and hopeful goal of this stage, but also to a possible form of instruction.

Philosopher's Stone: the thing of things, this stone is both the result of a successful transmutation of the self, as well as being the tool used to transmute other metals, external to the self, with the stone's "powder of projection". The summum bonum of the whole of the work.

(Taro Etymology from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tarot#Etymology

http://windowseat.ca/circles/

http://www.redicecreations.com/article.php?id=1722

Our Comment: Alchemy

First of all, we must thank SJ for his fascinating article and all of the hard work he put in to prepare this material.

*****

Jung regarded alchemy as a projection of the collective unconscious onto the external world, and the pursuit of the philosopher's stone and the transmutation of base metal into gold as the process of individuation whereby we transform the Ego into the Self. 

Alchemy once served as an excellent means of disguising heresy under a bewildering jargon, impenetrable to any other than the initiates and adepts.

However, it began to take on a life of its own and develop into a crazy hybrid of chemistry and mysticism. There is a specific type of alchemy that Illuminism still holds in the highest regard and keeps extremely secret, but what usually passes as alchemy is regarded as archaic and outmoded in relation to science, mathematics, philosophy and psychology. What does a discussion of the four ancient elements mean in an era of the Periodic Table, nuclear fusion and fission (scientific transmutation of the elements!)?

The supreme ability - controlling and manipulating matter with the mind - isn't achieved through antique alchemy.

If you find alchemical jargon stimulating and inspiring, by all means delve into this arcane subject and try to discover its secrets. However, it must be said that the alchemy you will find discussed in books is a bit like Latin - a fascinating but dead language. The world has moved on. Mainstream alchemy was replaced by something much more powerful - chemistry - and the highest alchemy is now based on contemporary science and psychology, not on medieval manuscripts. Everything evolves and it can be counterproductive to keep looking to the past when the answers mostly lie in the present and the beyond.

Illuminism respects the past, but it doesn't worship it. Humanity has much more knowledge now than in the days of Pythagoras. Which is the more profitable use of your time? - studying alchemy or quantum mechanics, the past or the future? Alchemy is Mythos and quantum mechanics Logos.

The past is seen as sexy and mysterious. Many people seriously believe that the ancients knew much more than modern humanity; that if only we could discover the greatest secrets of the ancients then we would know the Mind of God. Illuminism, on the other hand, teaches the gospel of the dialectic. The past provides necessary building blocks for the present, but the present is much more dialectically advanced than the past, so why look backwards to a time of greater ignorance rather than explore the incredible knowledge of the modern world? Be future-oriented, not past-obsessed.

Logos, not Mythos, is the path to knowledge. Old alchemy tells the story of spiritual transformation, but it does not actually deliver it. What is required is much more advanced knowledge based on Logos.

The Australian Atlantis?

"CS" sent us the following amazing tale:

My discovery was made in 2004 on an island off the coast of Australia. I had already read some material about crystal skulls and I was convinced that if there were any more "genuine" ones on the Earth, the Aboriginal elders would probably know about it.

I was on Magnetic Island off the coast of Townsville (central North Queensland) and I met a guy in a hostel. I found out that this guy was living on the island with a friend and he had heard of the crystal skulls too and we got chatting.

He said that he wanted to show me something very interesting in the bush but he would need to ask permission from the Aboriginal elders before we went "off the beaten track". He went away and said that he would meet me in the same place to embark on this bush-walk.

Sure enough the following day he turned up saying that it was OK. He gave me a brief history of the island, how it is one of the last islands that the Aboriginals have continued to "own" since "white fella" came along. The island is known as Magnetic Island due to the fact that compasses cannot work properly anywhere near or on the island; the island is granite and exhibits at least four different types of this rock. There was an Australian Naval Artillery battery built there in 1942/43 and it operated from July 1943 until the end of WWII. Its forests are about 2,000 years old and it is one of the only remaining places in Australia where there are wild koalas. There is also a large Tiger shark breeding ground near the northeast coast of the island.

My guide said that there were sacred sites for the Aboriginal people on the island and that seeing as they trusted him, we were allowed to go exploring. So we packed up our stuff and left early the following morning.

We started on one of the main tracks up one of the many hills on the island; it was a beautiful place to be. As we walked higher and higher, I noticed that more and more rocks appeared. I then noticed something that seemed out of place. There was a great piece of granite amongst vines, sporting a flat top and two straight edges joined at a right angle. The more I looked around, it was obviously a piece of something much larger that had broken off. I knew that a fort had been built on the Island, however we were not in the right area and this was not concrete! It was granite, and the perfect right angle with smooth flat sides and edges. My friend said that if I thought that was cool, wait until we got higher. I took a photo of this rock but it never turned out. Funny, eh?

So we kept walking up and up and I saw more and more scattered rocks and boulders everywhere. We then came to an outcrop with an amazing view of the valley and hills beyond. My friend said, "Why not take a seat on the Throne?" and motioned to the most amazing stone "bench" I had ever seen. It comprised a large, flat-topped rock that was protruding out of the ground and, behind it, creating the most amazing back/ shelter to the ground rock, was a huge piece of flat granite slab sporting another obvious right angle coming out of the ground. This big piece of granite looked like it had been carved/ cut to be a perfect slab about a foot in depth but had obviously been broken and was sticking out of the ground at an awkward angle, as if it had fallen down the hill and got wedged by the other rock. It seemed to be buried pretty deep (as with the flat stone that made the seat) and so much vegetation was growing that it was hard to work anything out. However, I knew this had nothing to do with any of the WWII installations, and it certainly didn't look like Mother Nature had done it on her own.

I sat on the "throne" and marvelled at the scenery. My friend bent down next to me and pointed towards the smaller hills in the valley. He asked me if I noticed anything about them. I strained hard and came to a slow realisation that all the hills in the valley were roughly the same height and shape. I imagined stripping the trees and there was no question that what would be left behind would be pyramids! I looked at the big rolling hills behind them and saw the beautiful curves of nature. I then looked back at the "hills" and saw straight lines. If the trees weren't there, I would bet my life that there are pyramidal stone structures under that 2,000-year-old forest. However, it's very unlikely that anyone, including me, would want to burn away the forest, koalas, wallabies and every other creature that lived there just to see if I am right!

We counted the structures and there were 7 in total. My mind was buzzing. What had been here before?

My friend motioned that there was much more to see and that from now on we were going off the track. We headed up behind the throne, and when I say "up", I mean a 60-degree incline up!! We were climbing up through the bush in places that no man has set foot in for a very long time. It was hard going because by that point there were so many rocks and boulders to climb and we rarely had "solid" ground under our feet. We then found ourselves on another path. It had not been created like the tourist trails on the island. It seemed to be built into the hill and it took a leisurely climb following the hill's contour. It felt much older than WWII. I got the distinct impression that this path had been very busy at some point in its history. I just had the "feeling" it had seen a lot of feet.

So we walked along this little path, slowly ascending until I looked up and spotted something peculiar and awesome. It was a "tower" made of large cuboid-shaped granite boulders plonked on top of each other. Imagine a little set of wooden bricks piled up in a tower - this is what it looked like but on a much grander scale. I would say it was at least 30ft high if not more; I had to strain my neck and shield my eyes in order to see the top.

Did these people have cranes? I was starting to realise that I was seeing another wonder of the world that seemed to defy our understanding of "primitive" people; Stonehenge, pyramids, standing stones all have this same "wow" factor that I experienced that day on seeing the "tower".

There was another structure about four metres away, same principle but shorter and there were granite rocks everywhere. I was compelled to keep pressing forward and as we did so I started to think about my wooden brick analogy. You know when you build a big tower and it collapses? Well there are always "foundation" bricks left where the structure once stood and then there would be bricks lying around, scattered. Most bricks land quite near to the foundations but there would be a few bricks further away. Now put this brick tower in a steep hill. When the tower collapses some of the bricks fall around the still visible foundation and some bricks would spill out further down the hill. Put this in a real situation with a stone structure on top of a hill and the effects would be the same; whatever the nature of the structure's demise there would be remnants of the foundations with much debris near the foundations and then there would be scatterings down the hill. It appeared to me that we were nearing what could be the foundation remains of a very big structure indeed.

As we got closer to the very top of the hill, there was an amazing amount of giant boulders towering over us, huge great things proudly dwarfing us and the only thing dwarfing them were the trees. To refer back to my original observations about 90-degree angles I was aware that granite has a way of cracking and splitting that can create some amazing effects. It cracks and splits kind of like a tree can split depending on its grain. Granite also has a grain so it can shed great sheets off itself, break into big pieces, seemingly "sliced" like onion layers. These granite boulders around us were showing signs of this, many plunging gaps between pieces that had obviously been whole at one point, slices that looked like onion layers slowly cracking off. However there was still a "natural" air about it, there were no absolute straight lines and no 90-degree angles. I looked further up to the top of the hill and saw that there were no more trees, just great concentration of rocks and boulders; A "foundation" perhaps?

Instead of going up, my friend decided we should head a little way down the other side of the hill and he pointed out something on the side of the neighbouring hill, on the coast. There was another large stone formation facing out to sea and my friend said "That is known as "The Sphinx" and when you're on the island the only places you can view it are from where we are standing and from the nearby coast."

It's not like this thing had any distinguishing features of being a sphinx, no head or anything, but I did see two main rock formations that could have been resting "front legs". What was going on? Aboriginals building pyramids, stone towers and sphinxes??

We pressed on downhill and I realised that we were heading down towards the coast. We came upon a huge flat granite rock that protruded out of the hill, probably about 20 square foot. You can walk out onto the rock and look down upon a sheer drop off the edge. Balanced in the centre of this flat rock was a standing stone probably about 8ft tall. Not something you see every day and it was an interesting addition to my already crazy day!

My final discoveries on the island were on the coast. We had descended down the hill and arrived at the rocky shore and decided to head along the coast. I noticed a big "rock" because there was something different about it compared to the seemingly endless stretch of rocky coast. I got closer to it and the nearer I got I thought "nature does not make perfect "s" shapes, does it?" I looked all around this "rock" and found the head, and the carved eyes were still visible even after water, wind and salt erosion. It was a stone snake, not a doubt in my mind. There was something about it that said "human made" and not "nature made". We kept walking and a bit further along the coast my friend pointed over to a rock on the shoreline and I went to check it out. At first I didn't see anything but then I tipped my head upside down and looked again. It was a canine type head. It was lying with one eye out of the water and the other side of the head looked eroded in the water. The structure of the head was like that of a jackal or dingo: long snout, nostrils, a clear "mouth" line and there were even stumps where the ears should have been but they had broken off. One carved eye was still visible. However, the other side of the head in the water had started to wash the features and head away.

My friend motioned for me to look up and said that we were below the boulders on the top of the hill that we had visited before. Sure enough I was looking up at where we had been standing. Viewing it from down here made it look like the formations had been something once. The fact that a "head of a canine type creature" was directly below this formation and that another formation was already known as "The Sphinx" really got me thinking.

After this amazing bush walk, I went to the Townsville library and asked to see everything they had about the island. The librarian was very helpful and was interested in what I found. She found the geology reports from when the island was first discovered by white men and it was an interesting read. It is one big granite rock and has three other prominent types of granite on its surface. I scanned the article trying to find any other findings like my own but to no avail. According to geologists and scientists, all the granite formation are natural. Normally I would accept that; there are many natural examples on the island of granite rock splitting and shedding layers. However, there was no mention of perfectly flat surfaces, straight lines and right angles in any of the documents.

When I was studying the landscape on our trek up the hill I was looking closely at the way the rocks were lying, the placement of the rocks, trying to work backwards to work out how they came to be where they are. It looked like a lot of these rock placements were debris, a real mess of rocks and chaos and many pieces had fallen in such strange and awkward angles that it looked like a disaster zone that had been taken over by forest. "The Throne" was a great example because the only reason the "backrest" was in that position was because it was jammed up against the "bench" rock. It reminded me of the aftermath of 9/11 with mountains of building debris piled up so high. Imagine if a disaster zone like ground zero were to be left unattended for 2000 years… eventually nature would take over and it would become a beautiful hilly forest and perhaps only the tops of these "hills" would be open to the air. However only through clearing and digging would the true nature of these hills be revealed.

The fact is, the only way I or anybody could be sure is to clear away all the greenery to reveal what's underneath. If there are skeleton/remnants of life, they are well buried under an ancient forest and no one has ever dug to find out. Hidden under those trees in the valley, there may be seven pyramids in a similar formation to those in Egypt and Central America. However, the likelihood is that nothing will ever be uncovered because it is a protected forest and my observations are certainly not enough to instigate any sort of archaeological expedition! But to this day I know I found something truly remarkable, and although I may never be able to "prove" it, my intuition on the matter is far more important to me and I look forward to my next visit to Magnetic Island.

Our Comment - if CS's intuition is right, it would imply that something like the Mayan civilisation once existed in Australia.

In fact, Magnetic Island is listed amongst a large number of sites in Australia with puzzling features and artefacts that hint at an extraordinary, untold history. See, for example:

http://www.awarenessquest.com/html/australian_archaeological_anom.html

It has been speculated that the ancient Phoenicians may have established colonies in ancient Australia, or even the lost tribes of Israel.

The Pilgrimage

"C" wrote to us with the following message:

We don't know each other, but I trust you. You've changed my life. Every single thing I believed before now makes sense.  I haven't subscribed to The Movement yet because I need to be sure that what I believe is not just a new "faith" and to think what I can do for The Movement: that means for myself and all the others. You've said you don't need someone with a blind faith and I agree. I'm still evaluating your words because there's so much in my heart but I'm not strong enough with all the stuff you say about science.

I've begun a letter for you, it was in my native language and I'm still translating it, and it is because you were able to touch all my senses, not only my brain, not only my heart. I've had the desire to join you, but I don't know if I'm good enough. Even if you don't accept me, I'm feeling one of the Illuminati, because you have told me the truth and because I can't help feeling part of this. In the past, it has been so difficult for me because every time something new was in front of me I asked myself: "Is it definitive? Is it the only truth?" and I don't know how and why but it was so clear that it wasn't. When I dropped in your website, I knew immediately it was the truth, and I don't know to explain to you why. For me it is so self-evident. I've spent more or less five months wondering even stupid things about you: how you have recruited  people in the past, because you speak during your meetings so that means you must have a common language, and in the past maybe it was Latin, a lot of time thinking of the way I can create my own religion, a lot of time using the brain to understand  r >= 0  and not only intuition;  last year I walked the Camino de Santiago for the first time because I was strong enough to do it just for myself, without subscribing to any religion.

I began to be interested in magic and esotericism, reading books of mythology and magic, then moving to all that stuff that seems to be by chance and instead there's a reason if you stumble into that stuff. The Templar Order has been so fascinating for me in the past, but I didn't know the truth; now that I know the truth I'm so much happier! I begun to be interested in the anthroposophy because of the biodynamic agriculture and it's so obvious to go from Steiner to Goethe. His theory (Goethe's) about colours fascinated me, and then I've found out he was one of your Grand Masters! Now almost everything is clear! I'm preparing to walk the Camino again in a month just to be alone with a rucksack and the sky and all your words printed (please, don't delete the website, you are the only person that explained to me these concepts so easily). It costs me time and money, of course, I have to leave my job, but otherwise what's the point to life if I don't feel alive? I moved to London in order to study English because I need to apply for a Ph.D. in Anthropology of Food, and now I'm not scared anymore because I know you really exist and you are still there.

Now it's difficult to be at work everyday because I understand that something is even more wrong than what I thought before. Zeitgeist Addendum and the Venus Project are still in my mind and I talk of it with everyone, I read the Meritocracy website slowly, writing my thoughts in order to ask or to communicate with the guy in charge of it for everything I think could be helpful or if I'm in doubt. I've written to my former Professor at University to get the name of some authors of theories regarding Leadership that could be important in order to make people understand who really is a leader, not just someone in charge of something. I've even contacted Pho', thanking him for his music, because - as he said to me quoting one of you - people need physical evidence of an idea to believe.

Gentlemen, you've existed since the beginning of time; you are the witnesses of the truth. I understand you can't reveal the secrets because if someone is not "pure" or he is evil then he can use the same secret in order to ensure the world is enslaved or maybe to kill God in the same way Solomon wanted to kill Satan. I can only guess why Freemasonry is one of your biggest regrets. You have taught part of the secrets for good reasons and thinking to help humanity but people instead just decided to get even more power. I understand that you say mind and matter are just two aspects of the same thing; we are here made of matter and we have to act with the mind and knowledge. God is pure mind and he is in the kingdom of the mind. That's why he can communicate with us just with the mind and knowledge. My first step into this was an Italian, Gustavo Rol. I've read a lot about him and what he used to say. I don't know if he was honest or what, but there are a lot of things that made me think of God, of matter and spirit, of desire without desire, of the Universe.

You said there's a music that only God can hear. I understand this. I think it's true, and I remember that Rol once said there's a link between the colour green, warmth and a concept in music that I can't translate (la quinta musicale). I can't understand what that means but the 3 "items" here look like possible. You can see I'm quite poor with my reasons and my experience. I'm here naked in front of you, trying to be quick, writing in the best way possible for me, saying just a very little part of what is in my heart and my mind. I know I have a long path to walk.

I would prefer to have more time, and to tell you more of me and to have more teachings from you, but because maybe you are disappearing forever I'm here asking you to teach me. Teach me what you can teach me in order to understand. I'm not rich and I need a guide to get to the point. Is there anything you can suggest to me, a list of books for example (I've found a lot of books on your website and I've written all the references) or any other suggestion?

I will walk my path, but if there's a guide I can feel better. I'm passionate about mountains, so the concept of a guide is so important to me: someone that can help you, can warn you, can show you the way, but YOU have to walk it, you have to see and to look around, you have to understand, otherwise once you're alone you'll be lost.

I hope you are not leaving at all, I hope you will leave a track somewhere, not just in my heart and my mind; this is the most important, I know, but I hope I can meet you again. Just tell me that The Movement website and the Meritocracy website will be still there at least. Just 40 serious people, you said. No, it's not correct, it's 41.

*****

Our Comment: We thank "C" for her poignant and spirited comments, and we also encourage everyone to emulate her example of going on a pilgrimage. You can follow an existing route just as C did, or create one of your own.

The Camino de Santiago - the Way of St James - is a collection of old European pilgrimage routes that reach their end at Santiago de Compostela in northwest Spain. Pilgrims have been walking these routes for over a thousand years. Catholicism, no matter its faults, has produced wondrously beautiful cathedrals, churches and art and even when Catholicism and Christianity have vanished, the artworks will remain.

Pick beautiful, spiritual places for your pilgrimage. Ancient ruins, natural beauty spots, mountains, lakes, forests, cathedrals, picturesque villages, medieval walled towns, poignant battlefields, places of romance, horror, history, magic, delight: anything that heightens your feelings, senses, spirituality and intuition.

Wes Penre

There are only a small number of genuine truth seekers in this world of ours. One of them is Wes Penre. For years, Wes attacked the global elite, calling them by the conventional internet name of the "Illuminati". However, when he found out about the authentic Illuminati, he immediately made sure his readers were given corrected information i.e. he was one of those rare people who can break out of an existing paradigm and embrace new ideas. That's the mark of someone genuinely interested in the truth.

Economist John Maynard Keynes said, "When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?"

Surprisingly few people are capable of changing their opinions. They are locked in and they will never be coming out of their mental jail. 99% of people born as Muslims, for example, will die as Muslims and not once will it cross their minds that they are 100% wrong.

As for Wes Penre, he is one of the few who are capable of retaining an open mind. He has laboured for years with little or no reward, often being abused and ridiculed for his efforts. It takes a special kind of person to spend year after year on a difficult and challenging enterprise. People typically give up on things after days, weeks, or a few months at most. Only people with real commitment and determination will make a difference in this world. It's the rarest breed that perseveres without any conventional reward. The reward comes in other ways, of course.

Could you devote yourself to a major undertaking for a decade?

Wes' current projects are at:

http://battleofearth.wordpress.com/ and http://wespenre.com/

Check them out and support Wes' work. 

Tsunami and Kamikaze

Humanity always stands in awe of nature when events such as the Japanese tsunami occur. Human beings suddenly seem so fragile, helpless and pathetic when nature flexes its muscles. The control which we imagine we exert over our world is revealed as nothing but shadow and illusion.

But, of course, these events are not always regarded as mere natural phenomena. For many Abrahamists, they are the Will of God, hence there will be many malignant Christians, Jews and Muslims wondering what evils the Japanese have done to justify God's wrathful retaliation. The Japanese aren't Abrahamists, of course - so there's a pretext straight away. They are being punished for being infidels, because they refuse to kneel and bow to the tyrant Yahweh/Allah/Christ and acknowledge Abraham, Moses and Mohammed.

The karmists will believe that the Japanese who died were paying their karmic dues for past crimes.

As for ancient Gnosticism, it would regard this as another malevolent action of the wicked king of the earth - the Demiurge - in his eternal campaign to torture humanity in this hell.

But nature is just nature and does what nature does.

Moreover, a cataclysmic event that kills vast numbers can sometimes be seen as a sign of divine favour.

The Japanese word kamikaze means "divine wind" and refers to the providential typhoons that destroyed Kublai Khan's two Mongol invasion fleets that would surely have conquered Japan. In WWII, the Japanese kamikaze pilots thought of themselves as a divine wind that would similarly destroy the American invasion fleet.

When the Spanish Armada was ravaged by terrible storms in 1588 as it attempted the invasion of England, the event was proclaimed by Elizabeth I as God's divine intervention on the side of the Protestant cause against Catholicism.

Catastrophes can often be double-sided. Disaster is often accompanied by triumph.

The horrors the Japanese have suffered will be transformed in due course into new ways to fight future disasters. One day, humanity will indeed enjoy the control over nature that has hitherto been the province of the gods.  

TIME
MOR-ELS sent us the following message about time:

*****

THERE WILL COME A TIME WHEN EVERYTHING THAT WAS SO IMPORTANT TO US WILL BECOME INSIGNIFICANT IN THE GRAND SCHEME OF CREATION.

THERE WILL COME A TIME WHEN ALL THAT WAS LOVED WILL BE LOST AND ALL THAT WAS LOST WILL BE FOUND.

THERE WILL BE A TIME WHEN YOUR EGO WILL NEED TO BE SHATTERED IN ORDER FOR YOU TO TRULY EVOLVE. REMEMBER PRIDE COMES BEFORE THE FALL.

THERE WILL BE A TIME WHEN YOU WILL REALIZE THAT MONEY IS REALLY JUST PAPER AND TRULY HAS NO VALUE.

THERE WILL BE A TIME WHEN ALL WILL SEEM HOPELESS, AND AT THAT POINT YOU WILL FIND RENEWED FAITH IN THE WILL OF MEN.

THERE WILL BE A TIME REGARDLESS OF YOUR "DIFFERENCES" YOU WILL REALIZE THAT A HUMAN BEING IS A HUMAN BEING.

THERE WILL BE A TIME WHEN ALL THE MONEY IN THE WORLD WILL NOT BE ABLE TO BUY YOU HAPPINESS.

THERE WILL BE A TIME WHEN YOU FINALLY SEE THAT INFINITE POTENTIAL IS THE BASIS FOR ALL THERE IS, AND THAT EVERYTHING ELSE IS JUST AN ILLUSION.

THERE WILL BE A TIME WHEN YOU THINK YOU CAN'T GIVE ANY MORE, AND SUDDENLY WILL FIND THAT LITTLE BIT MORE TO GIVE.

THERE WILL BE A TIME THAT YOU FINALLY COME TO TERMS WITH YOUR LIKES AND DISLIKES AND REALIZE THAT THEY ARE FOR THE MOST PART PETTY.

THERE WILL BE A TIME WHEN YOU GET A GRIP AND SEE THAT NO MATTER HOW MUCH YOU MAY THINK SO THE WORLD ACTUALLY DOES NOT REVOLVE AROUND YOU, AND YOUR EMOTIONS.

THERE WILL BE A TIME THAT YOU FIND OUT CONSUMERISM IS ACTUALLY SLAVERY, AND THAT YOUR FREEDOM ONLY COMES THROUGH EXPRESSION OF UNIQUENESS.

THERE WILL BE A TIME WHEN YOU WILL SEE THAT ALL THE "THINGS" YOU HAVE WORKED SO HARD FOR MEAN NOTHING WITHOUT THE PEOPLE YOU LOVE TO SHARE THEM WITH.

THERE WILL BE A TIME WHEN YOU REALIZE THE PEOPLE YOU LOVE ARE MORE IMPORTANT THAN THE "THINGS" YOU WORKED SO HARD FOR.

THERE WILL BE A TIME WHEN YOU TRULY ARE AT LIBERTY TO BE YOUR SELF WITHOUT FEAR OF RIDICULE OR CONDEMNATION.

THERE WILL BE A TIME THAT YOU REALIZE WISDOM IS APPLIED KNOWLEDGE, AND THAT KNOWLEDGE IS USELESS IF IT IS NOT APPLIED.

THERE WILL BE A TIME WHEN YOU COME TO TERMS WITH THE FACT THAT YOU MUST BE THE CHANGE YOU WANT TO SEE IN THE WORLD.

THERE WILL BE A TIME WHEN YOU BREAK THROUGH YOUR PRECONCEIVED NOTIONS OF "KARMA", AND YOU WILL LEARN FULL WELL THAT YOU TRULY GET WHAT YOU GIVE.

THERE WILL BE A TIME WHEN YOU FIND OUT THAT "TIME" IS MERELY AN ILLUSION USED TO PLACE LIMITS ON THE HUMAN PSYCHE.

THERE WILL BE A TIME THAT YOU SEE THAT EVERYTHING IS NOT WHAT IT SEEMS.

THERE WILL BE A TIME YOU ACCEPT THAT YOUR FIVE SENSES DECEIVE YOU, AND THAT YOU REALLY DON'T SEE WHAT IS RIGHT IN FRONT OF YOU FIGURATIVELY, AND LITERALLY.

THERE WILL BE A TIME WHEN YOU WILL BREAK THROUGH THE BONDAGE OF MANIPULATION, AND FIND OUT THAT "GOD" EXISTS WITHIN YOU NOT OUTSIDE OF YOU.

THERE WILL BE A TIME WHEN ALL WILL BECOME CLEAR, AND THE VEIL OF CONFUSION WHICH HAS BLINDED YOU FOR SO LONG WILL BE LIFTED.

THERE WILL BE A POINT AT WHICH YOU BREAK AND YOU WILL FEEL OVERWHELMED, AND THEN YOU WILL GROUND YOURSELF AND YOUR EMOTIONS SO YOU CAN START ANEW.

THERE WILL BE A TIME WHEN ALL MANKIND WILL SEE WE ARE ALL OF THE SAME ESSENCE, OR ONE AND THE SAME. AND ALL OUR FRIVOLOUS DISAGREEMENTS WILL FALL BY THE WAY SIDE.

THERE WILL BE A TIME WHEN YOUR PERSONAL SPIRITUAL EVOLUTION WILL BE FAR MORE IMPORTANT TO YOU THAN LOVE, MONEY, OR EVEN LIFE ITSELF. BECAUSE IF YOU DO NOT EVOLVE FROM THE INSIDE OUT YOU DO NOT EVOLVE AT ALL.

THERE WILL BE A TIME WHEN IRRELEVANT CONTRADICTION SUDDENLY BECOMES RELEVANT.

THERE WILL BE A TIME WHEN THE DAYS BECOME NIGHTS AND THE NIGHTS BECOME DAYS.

THERE WILL BE A TIME WHEN YOU LOSE ALL SENSE OF TIME AND SPACE. AT THAT POINT YOU HAVE FREED YOUR MIND AND SOUL FROM THE PHYSICAL LIMITATIONS OF YOUR BODY.

THERE WILL BE A TIME FOR ALL THESE THINGS I ASSURE YOU THAT. BUT YOU MUST BE PROACTIVE IN YOUR OWN EVOLUTION. 

REMEMBER KNOWLEDGE IS POWER, BUT IT ONLY BECOMES WISDOM WHEN IT IS APPLIED. SO LIVE, LOVE, AND LEARN AND APPLY WHAT YOU HAVE LEARNED SO THE TRUE ESSENCE OF YOUR BEING CAN ASCEND.

The Symbol

"GW" sent us the following message:

Having just finished reading about the Celestial Human my jaw dropped and tears came to my eyes upon seeing the Monad symbol by Pythagoras. Since childhood, I have had frequent dreams/nightmares of this exact symbol: me seeing the black dot in the middle surrounded by pure white. Feeling terribly lonely in these dreams to the extent I felt I was annihilated by the whiteness around me, suffocating me. Just when I feel I am going to die, the scene changes and I become a white dot in the middle of darkness/black. The symbol actually turns inside out. It becomes its reversed image and the loneliness strikes me even harder than before. The darkness becomes people by whom I am completely surrounded but from whom I am utterly separated, and that knowledge is suffocating me. I am fully aware in my dream, entirely helpless and trying to escape it.

It has been my most feared nightmare and I've been wondering why on earth it has been haunting me for so long. I have explained to myself that I know at least on some levels what the dream is about. But now reading about the celestial human it strikes me that is has had so many implications that I have been too scared to look at as it contradicts many of the morals and values with which I was brought up; those being very strange since I was raised by an alcoholic, semi-Christian mother. I have always KNOWN in my core that there is an energy connecting all living beings: watching a flower grow from a seed to a blooming blossom; the spark so evident in all children; simply observing humans, animals and nature has told me this. Seeing a loved one dead was probably what totally convinced me about this as I could SEE the lifespark wasn't there anymore. My friend had become a corpse, nothing more, and it was the weirdest experience ever.

The thing is I have always fled from this core knowledge as it seemed to alienate me from other normal human beings telling me or suggesting I had lost my marbles. I was afraid I was insane. I remember clearly trying to explain to my mother about both these dreams, my experiences of popping out of my body unintentionally, or the experience that the world, on several occasions, seemed to become jolted backwards, going out of tune and rhythm. (The only way I can describe it best is as if someone took the whole fabric of the universe and "scratched" it as a DJ does to a record.)

When I tried to talk to my mother about these things, it scared the crap out of me because she would look at me completely baffled (no wonder, I suppose), not knowing what to say to me and also looking quite worried about my mental health, which in turn made me feel even more afraid. These dreams and experiences followed me continually till I was 18 and I became pregnant carrying my daughter. I knew 3 days after intercourse that I was pregnant. I had not gone over time. There was no way I could have known I was pregnant - a pregnancy test wouldn't have been able to pick it up - but I felt this seed inside me beaming like a light. It was like a tingling and the sweetest sensation ever. I could feel the light inside me and see it in my mind. And yes I was indeed pregnant. I gave birth to a beautiful daughter and she has kept me sane and grounded since. Whenever I felt my soul trying to jump out I would hold on to her little feet and it would keep me in place, so to speak. It might seem like a huge responsibility to place on such a small child but it was the only way to keep these things from happening which scared me so profoundly as I didn't know what they where or how to control them.

Later I came across a book written by a Native American about how to think in words and not images, so as not to pop out. Carlos Castaneda's books about the teachings he received from Don Juan also helped me gain a better understanding of what was going on and so I didn't have to cling on to my daughter's feet :).

It is both a relief and a mind-boggling shock (in the good sense) that this symbol has eluded me until today - a symbol which has been with me my whole life via my dreams, a symbol which was devised by Pythagoras 2,500 years ago! A symbol which describes the essence of the universe and the Image of God... I mean wtf?! Had I not been so utterly afraid of being abnormal, I might have figured it out sooner and it could have helped me conquer my fears of being abnormal, alone, weird etc etc. how ironic is that? I am inclined to say EUREKA! I used to utter those words as a small child, having picked it up from some comic book, whenever I figured something out, not fully understanding its meaning other than I GOT IT!

I still have that dream, but very rarely now. Hopefully next time it occurs I'll approach it differently and not be so afraid. There are so many thoughts arising in regards to the explanations given in the article The Celestial Human. The Universe is like an organism ever building ever declining, as is life itself down to the smallest details. I know what this symbol means even if I can't verbalise it. How beautiful.

I wanted to thank you for posting this absolutely amazing material on your site. It has day by day really helped me in accepting myself and to trust my inner light, my brain and my eyes to guide me on my journey in life. I also wanted to share this with someone who might understand and appreciate my experiences for what they are and not for what they are not and hopefully create some resonance. I have never really told anybody about these experiences as they including myself have been rejected whenever I've tried to do so. So from a personal point of view this is such a relief.

PS: I have attached the reverse symbol in case my explanation wasn't clear enough.

"GW" is clearly highly intuitive and has the ability to access a set of perceptions very different from those of ordinary people. Shouldn't we be cultivating people with exceptional abilities and unusual ways of perceiving the world rather than making them feel alienated and strange? There are many people in this world with extraordinary gifts that we actively ignore because their gifts don't fit with the prevailing paradigm.

In the sort of new world we are advocating, all those people like GW who have brains wired in exceptional ways will be nurtured and treasured. Through them, the rest of us will be able to gain the profoundest insights currently denied to us.

It's the prevailing one-size-fits-all, identikit view of humanity that prevents the human race from appreciating those who fall outwith the ordinary parameters and who can therefore perceive the world differently from others. They are a vital resource; not people who should be shunned for being "abnormal".

Many "witches" who were burned at the stake in the Middle Ages were nothing other than women with unusual abilities, which were taken to be Satanic powers. How foolish their persecutors and killers were.

Society often labels unusual people as mad when it should be using these people to unlock doors of perception that would otherwise be permanently locked to the rest of us.

The Ecstasy and the Agony

"LW" sent us this message:

I belonged to a New Age religion; a fairly large movement stemming from Theosophy in the late 1800s and the I AM Movement in the 1900s.  It started in the 60s, originally named Summit Lighthouse. It was started by Mark Prophet who was later joined by his wife, Elizabeth Clare Prophet (she became infamous in the US because of the nuclear war/bomb shelter stuff, and the fact that her husband and a staff member were involved in an illegal gun-purchasing incident).

The movement was based on what has been referred to as Teachings of the Ascended Masters. Mark and Elizabeth were referred to as "Messengers" and supposedly received teachings directly from these Ascended Masters. I think the strength of the movement ultimately became its downfall and that was the extremely strong personalities of Mark and Elizabeth.  I also think a herd mentality developed in its members, and these two became rather objects of worship, much like pop culture celebrities.  This, in turn, caused their egos to become highly inflated resulting in all the problems that come with complexes such as that.

But, in its heyday, Summit Lighthouse - which then morphed into Church Universal and Triumphant after Mark died - really did accomplish quite a bit.  They ultimately ended up in Montana on a huge acreage, became self-sufficient as far as farming etc. for its staff.  They created a community in a nearby town for church members and staff.  They published many, many books, monthly lessons, videos, music.  They held seminars worldwide, in particular quarterly conferences at the headquarters in Montana, which were attended by thousands.  There were very many talented and creative people who were movers and shakers in that movement.

We had a dynamic form of "prayer" called decreeing. It was powerful, especially when a whole mass of members were decreeing together.  I once was on a hillside which overlooked the large tent at one of the conferences which was high up in the mountains, and when I heard the decreeing coming from that tent, it sounded like the most beautiful music I had ever heard. 

In essence, the basic tenet of the movement was freedom: freedom from physical incarnation, freedom to ascend spiritually higher in our evolution, and thus pulling the entire planet up with us.  As I have said before, we believe that we have the spark of the Divine within us, we are all destined to become Christs, and that those who attained their ascension before us were helping us on our way (the Ascended Masters).  We believe in the I AM Presence - that is, the individualized Presence of God which was our true identity before we became trapped in physical incarnation.

Here's where it went wrong. It became extremely politically and religiously conservative.  What started as a rebellious movement away from organized religion became that very same thing.  It became dictatorial - what you can't wear, what you can't eat, be careful about too much sex, decree, decree, decree.  I noticed after some years that many people on staff were automatons.  It became a culture based on fear. Elizabeth became the ultimate Dictator and the staff that most closely surrounded her became very abusive and power hungry.  Towards the late 90s, it became apparent that something was not right with her, and then it was finally revealed that she had Alzheimers.  She died just last year.   The movement still goes on, but is very much reduced.

Even though I now doubt a lot of the teachings we were given, I still carry with me many of the beliefs from that movement, but I feel that I have moved on and matured to a higher level of knowledge. I look at those years - for me about twenty - as "glory days" because as I said, we were on fire for freedom.  It seemed for a long time that we were unstoppable, and then it all crumbled.  It imploded, really.  It started with corruption from within, loss of the strong leader, and a subsequent distrust of the inner circle by the membership at large.

I think my initial inspiration and that of the people who I know well in the movement stemmed from the lack we felt and the emptiness of the current religions - mainly the Christian ones.  We were all searching for a deeper spirituality and a deeper knowledge of self.  That coupled with the idea that we could "save the world," so to speak, made it very enticing.

Do I think its destruction could have been prevented?  No.  There were way too many factors that played into the final downfall, most of which stemmed from idolatry - idolatry of the Messengers, idolatry of the Ascended Masters, and idolatry of self, really.  I cringed when I read the Last Bling King when they anointed John Paul: it was so typical of what our movement went through.  As you have shown, all religions stem from one person and that person ultimately becomes the God of that religion, except in the case of the Jews where they have anointed themselves the gods.  It has never worked to lift mankind and it never will.  It is within us to work out our own destiny.

I just want to let you know that when I found the Teachings of the Ascended Masters, I knew without a doubt that it's what I had been searching for.  I now believe those teachings, at the very least, served to open up my mind to be able to accept even higher teachings, which I have found with the Illuminati and the AC website.  I am now on fire to discover the truth of the Mystery of the Holy Grail.  (Btw, the Arthurian stories were a very big part of the teachings of the Summit Lighthouse; in fact, one of their headquarters was named Camelot).   That is why I've begged you to at least leave that website up, so all other seekers, like myself, can discover it and learn the higher truths.  The teachings on the website need to be read and re-read over and over until they are completely internalized.

I have said in the past that my biggest fear in life is that, in the end, I will be found wanting; that I didn't do enough to accomplish whatever it was I needed to in this lifetime.  That accomplishment is nothing less than discovering the true mystery of life and to ultimately be reunited with the True God.

I thank you for all the time and effort you all put into the website.  I know you think you failed, but I'm inclined to think otherwise.

OUR COMMENT:

What a fascinating account from LW, and it provides a salutary lesson. We've come across this religion before and it certainly has seductive features and elements with which we sympathize. We can understand why LW was so enthusiastic. It's a shame that such enterprises tend to go awry after promising beginnings.

All organizations have to be aware of the processes LW has described - the way idealism turns to dogmatism and to the cult of the personality. But if people are forewarned, they can see the danger signs developing and do something about them.

Denial of Service

"Look at what my lunch money bought ya - a ticket to the Guillotine."

****

If we said we would include one of your contributions in one of our articles and we have not yet done so, please send us a reminder. Thanks.

*****

And finally…

Amanda's Corner