From: dshomshak@aol.com (DShomshak)
Newsgroups: alt.games.whitewolf
Subject: Re: The Syndicate
Date: 24 Jul 1996 01:51:04 -0400
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As "inspirational reading" about the Syndicate, here are a few quotes from
a book called "Magic, Religion and Money."  (Unfortunately, I've lost my
citation of the author's name.)

"Through money, the forces of supply and demand, however separate by
distance or custom, intimately and reciprocally bind almost everyone on
earth into a community of hopes, fears, dreams, hostilities, and loves."

"In a legal sense, the value of money is based ultimately upon large
quantities of gold and silver which have with great difficulty and expense
been dug out of the ground in different parts of the world, refined, cast
into ingots, then buried in the ground again, in the vaults of various
governments.  Paradoxically, it is illegal for the average man to possess
the gold which is supposedly the basis for the value of his money."

[This is out of date for the US, which hasn't used a gold standard for at
least 20 years -- but still keeps the reserves in Fort Knox.   As for the
latter comment, I recall that in some tribes, contact with the chief is
deadly to ordinary people because the chief has too much Mana, i.e.
sacred/magical power.  Some languages use the same word for "Sacred" and
"Poison."]

"...the word 'credit' literally means 'faith.'  It is the expansion and
contraction of this 'faith' many of the most mystifying aspects of money. 
To a large extent, money has become a record of interpersonal promises. 
For example, most of us work at our jobs for several days or weeks,
receiving in return only a 'paycheck,' which is a company's promise to
pay, based in turn on a bank's promise to pay.  We deposit the check, and
issue promises to pay -- our personal checks -- to the butcher, landlord
and doctor, who in turn deposit these promises in their own bank, which is
very likely the same as our own.  What has actually happened?  A large
number of bookkeeping changes have taken place, but no cash has been
exchanged.  The fact is that over ninety percent of all commercial
transactions are carried on by checks, and a large part of all the money
in existence, such as savings accounts, bonds, and insurance policies,
exists merely in the form of records in the offices of various big
companies."

[And nowadays, even the checks have disappeared as the records have gone
to electronic media.]

Since even cash is just a medium of exchange with no intrinsic value,
we're left with symbols of symbols, further and further divorced from
anything tangible and real.  But by manipulating these symbols, you can
obtain very tangible results:  people give you things and provide services
ranging from mowing the lawn to sex to murder.  If your symbols are
powerful enough, you can control public opinion, obtain political office,
blackmail governments and otherwise manipulate events on a national or
global scale.  These are very much like the feats ascribed to demons in
old grimoires:  "Obtain high honours," "Create love between man and
woman," "Provide excellent servants," "Destroy thine enemies," etc.  Money
_is_ Magick, causing Change in accordance to Will -- or at least it's the
Quintessence which powers the modern world.


Dean Shomshak