Mystery of Money

* Book: The Mystery of Money. Beyond Greed and Scarcity. Bernard Lietaer, 2000.

URL = http://docs.banks-need-boundaries.net/en/Lietaer__Mystery_of_Money.pdf

First edition in German: Mysterium Geld: Emotionale Bedeutung und Wirkungsweise eines Tabus. (Munich: Riemann Verlag, 2000)

Contents

PART ONE: ARCHETYPES AND MONEY

CHAPTER 1: THE LANGUAGE OF ARCHETYPES

• Some Concepts of Collective Psychology 17
• Archetypes 18
• Shadows 20
• Yin, Yang and Jung 21
• The Shadow is not the enemy 25
• A Map of the Human Psyche 26

CHAPTER 2: THE CASE OF THE MISSING ARCHETYPE

• The Great Mother 32
• The Great Mother Archetype and Early Money Systems 37
• Defining Money 37
• Cattle: the first working-capital asset 38
• The ubiquitous Cowrie 42
• Other “Primitive” Money 44
• Some Early Coins 46
• The Repression of the Great Mother 49
• Indo-European Invasions 53
• Mesopotamian Civilization 54
• Greek Civilization 55
• Judaism 56
• Christianity 59
• Protestantism 64
• Male Heroism and the Repression of Feminine 64
• Exceptions: Pockets of Historical Survival of the Great Mother cults 67
• Monetary Consequences of the Repression of the Great Mother Archetype 69

CHAPTER 3: THE ARCHETYPAL HUMAN

• Gender and Yin-Yang energies 72
• The Archetypal Human and the Material World 76
• Archetypal Five 78
• The Shadows of the Archetypal Human 79
• Shadow Resonance 81
• Fear as common denominator 82
• Conclusion 82
• Testing the Map 83

PART TWO: EXPLORING MONEY SYSTEMS WITH ARCHETYPES

CHAPTER 4: EXPLORING BOOMS AND BUSTS WITH THE MAGICIAN

• The Boom-Bust phenomenon 92
• Reactions by Authorities 95
• Reactions by Economists 96
• Economic Man 97
• Denial 97
• Economic Explanations 98
• An Archetypal Approach 102
• The Meaning of Myths 102
• The Apollo-Dionysus Pair 103
• The Relevance of the Apollo-Dionysus Myth for Today 113

CHAPTER 5: CASE STUDY OF THE CENTRAL MIDDLE AGES

• A Money Connection 117
• Medieval Demurrage 118
• Egyptian Demurrage 120
• So What? 122
• The Trail of the Black Madonna 122
• Why does She matter to us Today? 123
• Esoterism vs. Exoterism 125
• Why is She Black? 129
• The Egyptian Connection 137
• Economic Results in Medieval Europe 139
• Europe’s First Renaissance 139
• Demurrage-charged Money: the Invisible Engine? 144
• Economic Expansion 147
• Prosperity For All 148
• A Renaissance for the People, by the People? 152
• A Half-Renaissance for Women 154
• The time of the Cathedrals 162
• How the Music Stopped 167
• The Backlash of 1300 168
• Population impact 171
• Demurrage Systems Abused 173
• Centralized Authority 174
• War and the Gunpowder Revolution 176
• How Money Scarcity was created 178
• Conclusion on An Unconscious Monetary Experiment 179

CHAPTER 6: CASE STUDY OF EGYPT

• Egyptian demurrage 180
• Egyptian Economy 182
• The Isis Cult 187
• Return to Our Core Thesis 189
• The Status of Women in Egyptian Society 190
• Marriage “Contracts” 191
• Women’s Legal Status 192
• Women’s Work 193
• Women Rulers 195
• A Greco-Roman Ending 197
• Looking Back for what is Common between the two civilizations using demurrage currency 199
• Relevance for Gender Relations 200
• Relevance for Money Systems 201
• Relevance for Today 201
• An Agenda for Research 202

PART THREE: WHY NOW?

CHAPTER 7: EXPLORING CONTEMPORARY MONEY WITH THE GREAT MOTHER

• A Short History of “Yang” Money Evolution 208
• Commodity money: 209
• Authority-Issued Standardized Coinage 209
• “Fiat” Currency 210
• Monetary Evolution on the Archetypal Map 210
• The Archetypal Human and the National Money System 213
• The National Money System as a Strong Yang construct 214
• Consequences of the Repression of the Great Mother Archetype 214
• Yang Shadow Resonance 214
• Historical Origins: The Dark Middle Ages as an Emotional Imprint? 215
• What kinds of emotional shifts are most relevant? 216
• Calling Huizinga to the Witness Stand 217
• Money as Information Replicator 228
• Some Positive Effects 229
• Some Pathological Consequences 229
• Role of Money Systems in shaping societies 232
• Back to the Future? 234

CHAPTER 8: WHERE ARE WE NOW?

• Consciousness Evolution 240
• Jean Gebser’s Work 240
• Integrating Gebser into Archetypal Evolution 243
• A Lesson from 30,000 years of Archetypal History 245
• Where are We Now? 250
• The Traditionalists 252
• The Modernists 252
• The Cultural Creative Subculture 254
• The Cultural Creatives: A Global Shift? 258
• Archetypal Mapping of the Subcultures 261
• Recent Challenges to Modernism 263
• Back to Money 265
• The Meaning of Our Crisis 269

CHAPTER 9: OUR FUTURE, OUR MONEY

• Updating the Archetypal Vocabulary 272
• Holding Paradoxes 273
• Money Outlook 273

About the Author

"Bernard Lietaer, one of the original architects of the European single currency, wrote “The Future of Money” and “The Mystery of Money” while a Fellow at the Center for Sustainable Resources at the University of California at Berkeley and a Visiting Professor in Archetypal Psychology at Sonoma State University, California.

He has been active in the domain of money systems for a period of 25 years in an unusual variety of functions. His first book (MIT Press 1969) developed new technologies for multinational corporations to manage multiple currency environments. He then moved to the other end of the spectrum by consulting to developing countries on how to improve their hard currency earnings. Subsequently he became Professor of International Finance at the University of Louvain, the oldest university in his native Belgium, before moving on to become the top executive in charge of the Organization and Computer Departments at the Central Bank in Belgium. His first project in this capacity was to design and implement the single European currency system. During that period, he also served as President of Belgium’s Electronic Payment System, credited as the most comprehensive and cost effective payment system in the world.

Before starting work on his current book, Bernard co-founded one of the largest and most successful off-shore currency funds becoming its General Manager and Currency Trader. Business Week identified him as “the world’s top currency trader” in 1992."