Summary of "(28) Babylon & Mammon | The Not-So Hidden God of the Modern World - YouTube"
Introduction
- 00:04-00:57: The world seems antagonistic to spiritual seekers, with material success and spiritual fulfillment often in conflict. This tension is summarized by "Zion" (spiritual ideal) and "Babylon" (materialistic oppression).
Babylon’s Historical and Philosophical Context
- 02:02-02:54: Babylon symbolizes oppression, dehumanization, and exploitation. Rastafarians use the term to describe systemic oppression, drawing parallels between Biblical enslavement and the history of the African diaspora.
- 03:43-04:37: Babylon represents the beginning of empire, bureaucracy, and overpopulation, where diverse cultures are subsumed under centralized power.
- 05:25-06:19: Laws and bureaucracy arose to manage disparate peoples, often at the expense of mutual respect and community.
Dehumanization and the Loss of Connection
- 06:19-07:06: Overpopulation and empire lead to depersonalization, as people become nameless entities in a system rather than members of a community.
- 07:48-08:34: Babylon’s essence includes cultural appropriation, debt creation, and the rise of middlemen, resulting in a disconnection from the sources of sustenance and craftsmanship.
Shift in Philosophy and Values
- 09:22-10:06: Ancient peoples prioritized subjective, spiritual relationships with the world, which Babylon replaced with a computational, materialistic mindset.
- 10:52-11:42: This materialistic view reduces humans to numbers and resources, further disconnecting them from nature and spirituality.
Allegory of the Tower of Babel
- 11:42-13:22: The Tower of Babel symbolizes humanity’s hubris and the eventual downfall of oppressive systems. It also represents the division caused by the pursuit of centralized power.
Cycle of Empire and Power
- 14:10-15:07: Empires rise and fall, passing the "torch" of centralized power, sacrificing authentic human belonging for superficial unity.
- 15:07-15:56: Babylon’s power structures are based on fabricated systems like politics, laws, and kingship, which deviate from the reverence for the natural world.
Spiritual Resistance and Modern Implications
- 16:41-18:13: Spiritual traditions historically resisted Babylon’s systems, but modern religions often become entangled in materialistic pursuits (e.g., mega-churches, usury).
- 18:13-19:46: The Bible critiques Babylon and Mammon (wealth), emphasizing the incompatibility of materialism and genuine spiritual seeking.
Materialism and Its Effects
- 20:37-24:11: Materialism, represented by Mammon, poisons individuals and societies. Spirituality in many traditions warns against greed and emphasizes simplicity and harmony with nature.
Corruption of Spiritual Traditions
- 25:06-26:33: Materialism infiltrates spirituality, as seen in movements like the Prosperity Gospel. This distortion aligns spiritual fulfillment with consumerism.
- 27:24-28:21: True spiritual fulfillment requires renouncing materialism and rejecting the control mechanisms of Babylon.
Call to Action
- 28:21-30:15: A spiritual revival is needed to combat the dehumanization and alienation caused by materialism and centralized power. Change begins with individual mindset shifts.
- 32:13: The session ends with a call to explore spirituality, comparative religion, and philosophy as tools for reclaiming authenticity and resisting Babylon’s influence.
Closing Note
- 32:13-End: The speaker invites viewers to support their educational efforts in making spiritual studies more accessible.
This video explores the pervasive influence of Babylon as a metaphor for materialism, bureaucracy, and systemic oppression, juxtaposing it with spiritual ideals and resistance across various traditions.
what gives this bill its magical power to get back to godhead to get back to the spiritual world the world appears antagonistic to one who's seeking a spiritual path the mundane world and achieving material success having that good job having wealth so forth seems like it's always battling with this other mindedness of seeking a sort of spiritual fulfillment salvation what have you these two aspects seem to be budding heads in variant forms throughout history and this battle is summa rized by two words (00:57) Zion and Babylon Babylon is the main focus of this session this essence of the ancient past that seemed by esoteric interpretation and by Christian interpretation to be an abomination of this world so what happened what changed in Babylon what changed the trajectory of mankind there and in addition what does this say about the modern [Music] world first we should point out our grounds for this investigation when using the term Zion in Babylon we're acknowledging the Ra stafarian orientation towards this (02:02) subject the rosarians use Babylon as a term because of its Biblical reference the Jews were enslaved by Babylon this then is an oppressive essence of the world the Empire that oppresses a people and enslaves them in this same regard the Rastafarians related to this because of the history of how their people came to be in Jamaica we should notice this theme right away this is the heart of the issue this dehumanization and the innate oppression that comes from Power structures Zion then in this understanding is the opposite it is a (02:54) re-embracing of our ancestrial way of being the promised land that then is in accordance to what religious Center we have what that looks like and where that is but for our purposes we should note that Babylon is not something that is purely designating the area or that specific time in history it is this overarching abstract essence or spirit that has taken over mankind since Babylon so you might see this new s story or you might see this attribute come out of somebody and you say that's Babylon in that it's the same Essence it's the (03:43) same orientation it's the same spirit that has followed us throughout history again dehumanization exploitation and power so if this started in Babylon then what is it or what happened to bring this about in the world Babylon was not the beginning of quote Civilization or agriculture so it's not purely Society in this way but it is the beginning of overpopulation Empire and bureaucracy now when I say overpopulation I'm referring referring to having variant peoples from variant groups cultural groups that are all put (04:37) under the same Banner in this way these variant cultures cannot all be mutually honored as they would be in their indigenous chieftain in this way it's no accident that we see the invention of law if you know the history of law then you'd see that these early codes come most notably from hamurabi and that is Babylon it gets revised f urther and further into the future by Rome by Magna Carta into the modern day but these laws were always put in place because of this dehumanization and bureaucratic Factor (05:25) the ancient ancestrial way had no need for law law was enforced mutually by The Becoming of people whereas when you have a society a bureaucratic Society you need to enforce these statements or quote laws in order to subjugate these variant peoples that can't all be honored to run with great power means that you need it to be cropped up by innumerable nameless people in all of their labors and so the seeking of power then necessitates this subjugation with this inclination with this drive at the heart of this Society (06:19) it's no accident that the Jews were enslaved a much more centered or um direct way to speak to this effect is asking how many people can you genuinely know how many people can you genuinely be connected with at what point in a certain number of population do you completely sacrifice any feeling of community and now these are all just nameless bodies that take up your parking spot at what point do we start to think of people as objects as annoyances completely dehumanize them at what metric of population does that take (07:06) place in the ancient world we had groupings we had an orientation and a belongingness in those groups and so there just there is where we could retain this Mutual Humanity but as soon as Babylon comes about it enunciates this divorce from that this distanc e from that connection and from that belongingness not just with our own people but also our own religion our own spirituality and our own belongingness in this world what we're calling Babylon is in fact starting with the Acadian Empire and what the acadians do is they take (07:48) over the Sumerians and they take all of their culture and absorb it into their own this is another distinction of this Babylon Essence this appropriation of other cultures into its own framework to will for this grea ter amalgam of power would mean that appropriation but logistically you have all these people to feed you have to arm them you have to have Society function enough to Manifest this power of Empire and accordingly you will have bureaucracy this will necessitates bureaucracy the red tape the uh amalgam (08:34) of accounting records the this person owes this person this much money the creation of debt the creation of banking all this is necessitated by this amalgam so in this way Babylon invented m iddlemen you no longer know the farmer where you get your food from you have a merchant in the way you no longer deal directly with your metallurgist you have a merchant in the way now this isn't to say that the mechanisms of society are inherently oppressive but it is to say that it gives way so naturally to this oppressive Essence this all though comes (09:22) from a fundamental shift in philosophy in the way that human beings are perceiving the world in our ancient ancestrial peoples we had m uch more validity of our subjective experience of the world you and your experience of the world your dreams your Visions your ceremonies they all were your modus operandi and your people's modus operandi when it comes to relating to existence all of these peoples as well indigenous and onward prioritize the spiritual relating not just to yourself and to your people but also to the world (10:06) in respecting it and making sure that you're giving back what you're taking by ceremony or at the ver y least by acknowledgement but here in Babylon this mentality is moving towards a much more computational materialistic way of relating we have X amount of Mals and we need x amount of food to feed those Mals and the means by which that these resources are procured is irrelevant so this is a much more nihilistic orientation a much more corporeal orientation toward the world you are no longer a human you are a number to be (10:52) accommodated to in an allocating sort of fashion so here notice yo u no longer know where your food is coming from you no longer know what it's comprised of you no longer know of its ways of relating to the world there is a separation between that product and its production I hope that comes across all of this serves this greater power amalgamation this appropriating of various peoples of various cultures in order to facilitate Empire and so then with this context given it's not strange at all to happen (11:42) across the story of the Tower of Babel in this it is a display an allegory of the hubristic nature of Babylon Babel is an interesting word etymologically speaking there are two main interpretations here one would point out the bab ilu route which would mean the Gate of God but perhaps more appropriately there is the babble which would mean to confuse and this survives in many Fashions when you say that you're babbling or when a child tends to make their first sounds they BB and so thus the babbling this gate of God reference is (12:33) intrigui ng in the sense that the story goes that this Tower is trying to transgress on the heavens it is trying to go further than it was ever meant to go the story of Icarus is the same sort of Mythic story although in mythology it's not super common to get the story of why languages diaspora I think an undermentioned morale of this story is that we are given an upper limit to our fooling around let's just say it that way we are given an invisible ceiling to this hubristic Enterprise that we're on abou t the power (13:22) structures will give way to Decay the further they reach the further they'll fall kind of a thing there seems to be an invisible metaphysical ceiling to our transgression into things that we ought not interfere with if you uh play stupid games you win stupid prizes kind of a thing and in this very similar fashion Babylon Falls with all of the hubristic reaching and oppression that Babylon brought to the Earth it fell but then that gave way to the Myans that gave way to the an cient Egyptians this idea this (14:10) way of relating and this will to power would begin slowly to swallow the Earth so this is a proverbial torch that has been past when one Empire Falls another one swallows it and the concent ation of that power attempts to become ever more concentrated and in this story the self has been sacrificed for this superficial unification this unification is not sincere authentic and offers no sense of genuine human belonging this yearning and this craving to be see n felt and to have agency is sacrificed for power so the people are now rethinking (15:07) themselves the self is being reinvented recontextualized the negative connotations that come along with this power structure begin to Blossom and Blossom and Blossom you have corruption politics police laws all of this comes from the Babylon or from the Babbling and as a poetic flourish to this whole thing all of these structures are made up our reality was our ancestrial way of being was a beingness with the Earth our reverence was to things that are actually real and of this world the Earth the crops the Sun but now this is (15:56) all Babel in the sense that we are hang omage we are worshiping the laws given by governments we are worshiping the politicians or the kings that are handed down through institutions these elements are the Babbling so these mechanisms that come out of this bureaucracy of this Society of this power structure they come out of necessity so is there any voice of resistan ce against this this amalgam and that is the role of spiritual Traditions before they become religions and we'll point that out here this isn't just a (16:41) story of Christianity but I do want to use Christianity as an example I want to make the point that Christianity talks about this and has this quote anti-establishment mentality if you want to look at the book of Revelations you'll find the Harlot of Babylon and it has quotes such as having a golden cup in her hand full of Abominations and filthiness of her fornication or upon her forehead a name is written mystery Babylon the great the mother of harlots and Abominations of the Earth or another and unto me he said (17:25) the waters which thou saw where the [ __ ] sit our peoples our multitudes our Nations and tongues all of this speaks to this amalgam that I've been attempting to illustrate the enemy that is referred to here is the amalgam of Empire and I understand there are many ways of interpreting these lines but it makes it clear that this is a torch that is handed off to many many different Kings to multitudes to many different nations and to many different tongues this desire toward wealth this greed and so here in the New Testament (18:13) in Matthew Jesus shows up to the temple and what does he do he enters and he flings the table because he realizes that those that are in this church are not doing the sacred things they're turning it into a den of robbers and so here is that distinction between the spiritual quest of restoring this Earth of reaching fulfillment not just for yourself but for others and what people do with the power structures of religion the power structures of religion is the quote den of robbers and just as a very brief look (18:57) into modern religion or into mega churches this is very apparent if we want to go to the Old Testament then we can look to Leviticus in Exodus as they point out the act of Usery or charging interest for goods in other words modern-day banking is heresy is Blasphemous and so here we have to point it out does the Vatican participate in Usery do churches participate in user and if so is this not a distinction between the spirituality that is genuinely sought by the earnest Christian and the power structure of the (19:46) church this is a complicated subject where one ends and another begins is the frustrating Nuance of what it means to navigate this world when this greed Becomes of us when we cannot excuse ourselves for our participation and our perpetuation of this Babylon you see and when instead we should completely renounce ourselves from those mechanisms when it comes to Christianity there is another intriguing way to name and to look at this subject we have used the term Babylon to designate this subject but there's also Mamon in the (20:37) Bible in the gospel of Matthew and in the Gospel of Luke we find these references to Mamon which in Hebrew means money or wealth quote either he will hate the one and love the other or else he will hold on to the one and despise the other you cannot serve God and Mammon so here is that Line in the Sand here is that sharp distinction that we've been speaking to serving the material world or serving your aspiration towards spiritual salvation fulfillment what have you this word has reoccurred throughout European languages whether it's is or (21:29) Slavic or German so forth all of them designate money or wealth with this word money Mamon later Church fathers would interpret this refere nce as a demon and would be designated as one of the seven princes of hell and so modern reference modern success of being well wealthy of accumulating wealth this is demonic if we're being strict about it this seeking of material gain is antithetical to the spiritual Quest as Jesus says in the Bible you cannot serve both so in a reasonable fashion but in a somewhat Sensational way of saying this (22:29) is the god of the modern world plated and giving lip service to at every way can turn this i s Mammon this is the god of the modern world money the Adoration the reverence of wealth how everybody wants it everybody needs it everybody should do anything that they can to go and get it this is Babel the structural systems that have furthered and furthered and furthered throughout time to the point that this is now global this orientation and this seeking this Mamon could be said to be inspired by Pluto and Pluto was the god of material (23:21) wealth so you could very readily say that the world is in fact a plut tree this word meaning those who worship wealth those who worship money those who would sacrifice lives on the altars of Commerce I have framed this all with the Christian lens but this is not uniquely Christian any Earnest spirituality would have something to say in this regard we can look to dosm several quotes throughout the da A ching and throughout the works of xang XO says things like those who know when they have enough are rich or the wise (24:11) man knows that i t is better to sit on the banks of a remote Mountain stream than to be the emperor of the whole world this is in pursuit of fulfillment it is not in pursuit of the glare mamers of the world in Hinduism and in Buddhism as a broader stroke they would refer to this greed this seeking as a mental poison it is one of the poisons that set people off the path and in this to designate it as a poison means that it not only poisons you but it poisons everybody it consumes your good health and life this wi ll for power or this lust (25:06) for power is an addiction in that it's never enough so that will to have just a little bit more is what makes Empires is what makes Babel is what makes the systems of Oppression that would enslave continuously and even in in these variant spiritualities for instance in Hinduism you can see such an uptick in worshiping or giving lip service to lakshi the goddess of wealth and why would she be given more of a Podium than she has historically been given well here i t is it is that materialism working its way into the spirituality (25:54) and leading it towards that discourse into let's just call it Rel religion as a word of convenience to instead get off the path of seeking your fulfillment and instead handing yourself over to materialistic Pursuit this infection of spiritual Traditions can be its own session it goes all around but of course most naturally we can think of the Prosperity Gospel movements in the United States where they'll take lines from Ps alms that say things like take Delight in the Lord and He will give you the desires of (26:33) your heart to take this Earnest seeking of that spiritual becoming and make that desire instead one of consumerism is very convenient for an American or modern Western culture to try to marry this materialistic consumptive nature with that of a spiritual seeking is all too convenient as though those things could be earnestly married and so I have to ask the same thing that I've asked before in the cour se the issue isn't the mechanisms by which these things come to be manifested it is the very Dream It's the aim that (27:24) we wish to bring to these things you want to feel abundant you want to feel like you have enough and so you ask for material things the plot has been lost we are astray in this way to bring it back to point the rosarian aspiration is that we go to a place where we are living in Harmony and that cannot be attained by this desire to control everything this desire to control everything and to have more is the infection of this world that is what has brought us to this point of desperate inhumanity alienation there are unnamed innumerable (28:21) people in our ancient history and in our Modern Age who are acting against this who would will for this to be different for the betterment of everybody in more ways than we can imagine a great Revival a Redemption a return a reprieve from this our yearning our will to escape and this quiet feeling that there's something very n infection does the culture the bacteria infected it's so easy to throw your hands up and know that you're so small in comparison to these Mighty institutions these Aggregates that are so beyond you but those institutions (30:15) would not exist if it wasn't for this way of thinking this way of approaching people this way of approaching the world and this idea of what success means and so instead to get to the heart of the issue we have to think differently not give way to the Babbling this cal o the best of our abilities we all are speaking the different languages because when the tower fell it all made us think we're different the unifying language is the opposite of Babble and you try to change that try to change those habit sets those mindsets and you bring down upon yourself the wrath of a of a terror (32:13) [Music] really the spiritual studies course is an effort towards free public education on matters of spirituality comparative religion and philosophy sometimes along with oth rt if you appreciate the way that this has approached these subjects then consider buying me a coffee that just simply helps this course have more sessions and to get out there further for more people to see and to experience and to benefit from with that said uh thank you for attending stay curious and keep wondering"
