Zeitgeist

An Internet phenomenon of recent months has been the YouTube video, Zeitgeist, a two-hour documentary that has received, as of this writing (December, 2008) over 50 million hits on Google alone. A German word meaning, “the spirit of the age,” Zeitgeist (pronounced zītgīst, as in “poltergeist”) purports to be an exposé of the fraud of organized religion, centralized government, and monetary policy. Divided into three segments, it attacks Christianity, then the U. S. government, and finally, the Federal Reserve System. Tailor made for conspiracy buffs, it has quickly attained notoriety on the Internet, this for its unique perspective and its access to hard-to-find sources.

Peter Joseph, the creator of Zeitgeist, is a young artist from North Carolina who now resides in New York City. The documentary was self-produced with borrowed footage and with no expectation of the impact that it would have. It was released in June, 2007 merely as a project of self-expression but quickly became an icon in an emerging youth counter-culture. The video has probably made his career if he can figure out what to do with it.

Cinematically, it is primitive and in some instances, irritatingly so. It opens with chaotic images and weird music and often indulges the tirades of obscure historical figures. Nevertheless, it is worth viewing once. Additional reviewing can be accomplished by referencing the transcript which Joseph has wisely made available on its official website, http://zeitgeistmovie.com.

Joseph has recently produced an equally long Zeitgeist II, which can also be found at the website. It focuses more on the fraud of fractional reserve banking, the psychological problem of the human species, and offers some solutions from Jacque Fresco’s The Venus Project which he references frequently.

“The Fraud of the Age”?

Zeitgeist is troubling to Christians, and understandably so, because it begins with the frank assertion that “Christianity, along with all other theistic belief systems, [is] the fraud of the age.” Christianity “detach[es] the species from the natural world” and creates “blind submission to authority.”

Joseph believes the Bible was created to achieve social control and claims that Jesus never existed. He points out that the story of Jesus is a repetition of numerous Messiah myths from previous pagan cultures. They were blended together into a Roman story for political purposes:

It was the political establishment that sought to historicize the Jesus figure for social control.

These conclusions follow a quite interesting discussion of the origin of messianism in ancient astrology. Joseph claims that the various pagan messiahs of the ancient world began as mnemonic devices by ancient astronomers to remember the constellations and their movements through the heavens, especially the passage of the Sun through the houses of the Zodiac. A number of the stories of Jesus coincide with these movements.

For example, the ever popular association of Christ’s birth with the winter solstice (December 21st) in pagan mythology represents the death and rebirth of the Sun god. For the middle latitude cultures, this was not such a big deal, as the Sun never disappeared from view. But for the northern latitude cultures which probably originated in Atlantis and were transferred later to pre-historic Egypt, the Sun did disappear from view or came close to it – a fact which could have caused panic to our primitive ancestors. The return of the Sun after the solstice would have been no small source of joy.

According to Joseph, as the Sun descends to its nadir, it is accompanied by the three stars of Sirius, known as “the Three Kings” in ancient astrology. There is a three-day period in which the Sun remains at its lowest point before it begins to rise again on December 25^th. This astronomical phenomenon was mythologized into the resurrection of the Sun god which was celebrated by ancient cultures at the spring equinox, corresponding to Easter.

In its movements through the sky, the Sun god is accompanied by the 12 constellations of the Zodiac, just like the 12 Apostles who accompanied Jesus. The figurative life of the Sun became personified in ancient pagan myths – such as those of the Isis religion – which were later adopted by the Roman state to create the Jesus story and its new state religion: Christianity. Joseph concludes that Christianity is nothing more than an “astro-theological literary fold hybrid.”

Of course, Joseph references the reign Constantine and the Council of Nicea as the occasion for when this “cut and paste” religion was created. That is where the standard debunkers think they find their smoking gun.

But there is a fatal flaw in their logic which begins to unravel their arguments. They assume that Nicea produced the Bible for the purposes of political control, when the fact of the matter is that the Bible, historically, has had the opposite effect. The Bible is the enemy of tyranny and every would-be tyrant has been compelled to suppress it. From the times of the Pharisees and the Roman Emperors to the Medieval Church and the modern Communists, rulers have hunted down Christians and destroyed their sacred texts. The Bible is the fount of dissidence and the nemesis of political despotism. The ability to read and understand the Bible was the origin of our own national independence. America’s political heritage originates in John Wycliffe’s English translation of the Bible and his Lollard preachers. The Bible represents an external source of authority that sits in judgment of earthly institutions. Only as people have neglected it or have embraced a Bible sanitized and edited by accepted sectarian commentators has the rise of biblical illiteracy and growing social control occurred.

This is a fact of history. Modern pagans, like Joseph, are propagating a mythology of their own: that freedom comes from the absence of religious principle. Young people today are being taught existential autonomy. And this is understandable. Youth is a stage of life when a person is trying to find his own identity and his own place in the world. It is a time when the young rediscover old ideas as if they were their own and appropriate them to their own “declaration of independence.” It is a part of human psychological development.

Joseph is yet another youth who is intelligently questioning the power structures of our society and is wondering how so much evil can be its fruit. His questioning is not without merit, but he plays into the hands of the world elite by not investigating the true message of Christianity. You cannot fight paganism with paganism.

Grail Doctrine

There is no doubt that our religious institutions are corrupt and that the message of Christianity, as it is taught today, poorly reflects the life and teachings of Jesus Christ. This website is a testament to that fact. Furthermore, as open as the Grail Church has been to use its web pages to reconstruct the Christian message, it is still too dangerous to post some of our most important material. Organized religion – with its truncated Scriptures – is in cahoots with the power structures of our society and for that reason Zeitgeist can be appreciated. It is simply unfortunate that the greatest liberator of history – our Lord Jesus Christ – has been marginalized and dismissed in Joseph’s articulation.

The Grail Church claims that the message of the Gospel was first codified in astrological “mythology” as a universal oral tradition. Thousands of years before there ever was any biblical text, the signs of the heavens “declared the glory of God.” For the ancients, the myths about Horus or Krishna or Mithras or Dionysus or any other pagan messiah were simply the intergenerational proclamations of a gospel, although certainly corrupted, that were culminated in the person of Jesus Christ. That is why the Gentile world was ready for Christianity, and sadly, why the followers of Judaism were not. Judaism had rejected the “doctrine of the father and the son” in favor of a strict monotheism. Unlike the Gentiles, they could not accept the possibility of a genuine Incarnation or a Virgin Birth. The Gentiles, however, as witnessed by the Parthian “kings of the East,” were ready to receive “The Word made flesh.”

The Reign of Terror

After Joseph moves on from religion, he begins to stand on firmer ground. He analyzes the phenomenon of world terrorism and its usefulness to the state to maintain social order. Exposing the notion that no society can exist, by definition, without an external threat, he cites it as the underlining reason for state-sponsored terrorism and “false flag” internal attacks. He provides a litany of anomalies surrounding the 9-11 attacks as suggestive and explores what kind of future that event portends. He revisits the conspiratorial view of history and recounts recent historical events - from World War I and the sinking of the Lusitania to Pearl Harbor, the Tonkin Gulf Incident and numerous other events - to argue the case of a secret cabal working to reduce the human race to abject servitude.

Of significant value is the actual audio recording of a speech by President Kennedy to the National Publishers Association in New York City on April 27, 1961 in which he warns the country concerning the power of secret societies operating in the United States:

The very word “secrecy” is repugnant in a free and open society; and we are as a people inherently and historically opposed to secret societies, to secret oaths and to secret proceedings. We decided long ago that the dangers of excessive and unwarranted concealment of pertinent facts far outweighed the dangers which are cited to justify it. Even today, there is little value in opposing the threat of a closed society by imitating its arbitrary restrictions. Even today, there is little value in insuring the survival of our nation if our traditions do not survive with it. . .

Today no war has been declared – and however fierce the struggle may be, it may never be declared in the traditional fashion. . .

For we are opposed around the world by a monolithic and ruthless conspiracy that relies primarily on covert means for expanding its sphere of influence – on infiltration instead of invasion, on subversion instead of elections, on intimidation instead of free choice, on guerrillas by night instead of armies by day. . .

It conducts the Cold War, in short, with a war-time discipline no democracy would ever hope or wish to match. . .

I am not asking your newspapers to support the Administration, but I am asking your help in the tremendous task of informing and alerting the American people. For I have complete confidence in the response and dedication of our citizens whenever they are fully informed.

Of course, President Kennedy was referring to International Communism in this address. But as we have since learned, the tentacles of Communism were also the tentacles of an even larger conspiracy using the money power to use Communism, various revolutionary movements, and other secret societies, including our own intelligence agencies, to achieve world domination. (The full speech can be found at http://www.jfklibrary.org/Historical+Resources/Archives/Reference+Desk/Speeches/JFK/003POF03NewspaperPublisher042 or Google it under “Kennedy’s speech on secret societies.”)

It is to be lamented that the Press largely ignored Kennedy’s plea. And even after his assassination, the corporate media was compliant in the cover-up.

This valuable archive is now easily found on the Internet, thanks in large part to the Zeitgeist video. But oddly, it is no longer in the transcript and may have been edited out of the latest version.

While it can be argued that the Communist block was once the agents for this conspiracy, Joseph has presented compelling evidence that the United States is now the primary agent advancing world government. John Perkins, the author of The Confessions of an Economic Hit Man, is quoted extensively in the second video to show how this process has worked following the Second World War. While the Soviets might have used traditional methods of subversion and invasion, the United States, on behalf of the IMF, has enslaved the world through debt.

In exposing the existence of this secret cabal, Joseph sets his sites on international bankers and the conspiracy to establish the Federal Reserve System. He offers a very understandable explanation how the system works on behalf of the world elite through the use of interest rates, inflation, and fractional reserve banking. Zeitgeist II provides even more material on how fiat money is created. This part of the presentation alone makes the documentary worth watching.

The Venus Project

The solutions in The Venus Project are not very original and may play into the hands of the world elite. Arguing for a “world consciousness,” the “Zeitgeist movement is a grassroots campaign to unify the world through common ideology based on the fundamentals of life and nature.” He thinks that “beliefs are meaningless when it comes to the necessities of life.”

He believes a world crisis is imminent because the “fractional reserve based monetary system is reaching its theoretical limits of expansion.” I’m not so sure, but he does offer some concrete suggestions that are worthwhile:

1) “Expose the bank fraud.” This is a good idea because all confidence games are vulnerable to exposure.

2) “Stop watching television news and switch to the Internet for your information.” This is another good idea. It is the only source not yet completely dominated by the corporate media.

3) “Stay away from the military and everyone associated with it.” Considering that our military is becoming more like a corporate security force, even a military police enforcing martial law on civilians, it might be a good idea, too.

4) “Pursue a personal quest for alternative energy.” The corporate dominance of energy has enslaved us all.

5) “Reject the political system.” Everything the government touches is corrupted. Every government solution creates a proliferation of new problems. Like a miasma out of a pit, it sticks to everything.

6) “Join the Zeitgeist movement.” It is not clear just yet how to do that, but it is reasonable to assume he is encouraging people to get everyone you know to watch the videos. Although they are copywrited; they have been surrendered to the public domain to aid in distribution as long as they are not used for gain or profit.

The Venus Project calls for “a resource-based economy rather than a monetary system.” It is not clear what that means but probably refers to a commodity-based currency as opposed to the fiat system we have now.

The Venus Project believes “technology is the solution.” While we might suppose Joseph and Fresco are arguing for a golden age of the scientist and the machine, they are more sophisticated than that. For example, they demonstrate how the earth’s tides can be used to turn turbines in order to produce unlimited energy – for free. Imagine a world with free energy . . . no more oil companies.

Eliminating debt and energy dependence would end the desperate struggle between nations and the pretext for a dominating elite. We would have world community, not world government.

Although he doesn’t say it, technology cannot be the solution until we have a redefinition of property rights. The practice of using corporate proprietary claims on new inventions to prevent their production ought to be ended. If they can improve the condition of the human race, then they belong to the public trust and whoever is willing to produce them. Ralph Nader faults the 14^th Amendment for creating equal rights between artificial persons (corporations) and people. As long as corporations have perpetual existence and limited liability, the profit incentive of the corporation will remain a greater social value than the integrity of the human person and the family. The result has been the dehumanizing of labor, the exploitation of natural resources, and the enthronement of monetary capital in business.

The R3VOLution

A discussion on this topic would not be complete without some explanation as to what may have caused this video to become so popular: Ron Paul’s candidacy for President. Ron Paul became an Internet phenomenon at about the same time as Zeitgeist and they appear to have fed on each other. There have been other videos carrying a similar message that have been perhaps as popular – such as Russo’s From Freedom to Fascism - but it is certain Zeitgeist would not have been as popular without Ron Paul’s candidacy. Over one million Americans voted for him during the presidential primary process.

While he is a devout Christian, some of his supporters are not. Many Mormon Constitutionalists were drawn away by Mitt Romney; Evangelicals were by Mike Huckabee. Many of Ron Paul’s supporters were further alienated from religion by the petty mischaracterizations of Ron Paul by these two groups.

Following the elections, Paul’s campaign survived and was transformed into a citizen’s action group in the Campaign for Liberty (http://campaignforliberty.org. His influence continues and so does the Zeitgeist phenomenon.

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