Prayer Letter: Contributionism

Communism no, Communitarianism maybe, and now… Contributionism

If you ever read my book Thinking Communally, Acting Personally you know that I am not a Communist, but I have great respect for those who call themselves communitarians.  I lived in Communist countries long enough to see through it.

I am not sure if there is any direct link, but I would suspect that communitarians may be among those involved in the Occupy Movement… for the concentration of wealth in a class or family just has to be against John the Baptist’s message about sharing and contentment.  So I have appreciated the efforts of the Occupy Movement to challenge the excesses of the wealthy, and I have been suggesting to Youth in South Africa that they adapt that strategy.

I have watched with interest the public rise up against the e-tolls being introduced on the highways around Joburg and Pretoria.  It pretty much looks like the government has lost that battle.  The tipping point came when Cosatu (part of the ruling congress) came out against the e-tolls.  The tripartite alliance is such a broad church that it includes both those who would gouge the public with impunity and those who would object to it.

Tonight I encountered a new movement for the first time – Contributionism.  The spokesperson was very articulate and passionate and associates it with indigenous spirituality.  This is not at all Christian, although the Bible was often quoted to support its case, so it didn’t feel anti-Christian.

Following on from Iceland’s example, where the people (apparently) rose up and sacked the Reserve Bank and closed the banking establishment, the Contributionists (on behalf of the people) are now challenging the Reserve Bank in the Constitutional Court here, as well as the Minister of Finance and one major commercial bank.  Their contention is basically that the way banking is conducted gouges the people and breaks many laws.

While I am not a fan of conspiracy theories I have always wondered about the banking culture here – for example, why there are no credit unions.  It certainly seems like the status quo is untouchable, and believe me, banks are expensive and not people friendly.

I remember Mohammed Yunus who founded the Grameen Bank in Bangladesh saying: “The banks say that the people are not credit worthy.  We say that the banks are not people worthy.”  I gather that Contributionists have a similar concern?

It is interesting to me that they are opposed to money, or even barter.  They want to introduce new and different ways of exchanging values, based on local not national issues.  For example, transport “tokens” could be paid to the poor for picking up litter.  This because public transit is largely privatized and always in demand given the peculiarities of urban planning that have emerged as one legacy of apartheid.  They key in this is that there is visible Contribution on both sides, guided by citizens from the local scene… not remote money changers, money launderers, money markets, etc.

As I read Luke 16 the real enemy is not money but Mammon, the god of money.  But there was an urgency in this to detach the African economy from a global economy that is perceived to be sinking.  I don’t like scare mongering any better than conspiracy theories!

Run-away African pride?

But I found the speaker to have a fascinating view of Africa’s past and future…

He believes that before the Flood, southern Africa had a huge population.  The evidence for this is the thousands, no millions, of stone circles all over southern Africa.  He thinks that this huge population perished in the Flood, but left an unmistakable architectural footprint.

His research suggests that these stone circles – like the more famous Stonehenge, Great Pyramids and Macho Picho – were built with ease due to a kind of energy source that has not been re-discovered by modern technology, stuck as he says it is in Newtonian physics.  Essentially it was a kind of free energy, something like what we now explain in terms like “levitation” and “transmutation”.

He clearly believes that the architectural footprints contain the clues needed to re-create it.  He accuses JP Morgan of scuttling scientific attempts a century ago along these lines because of the detrimental effect this would have on his emerging oil interests.  But he thinks that Africa is close to recovering it – just in time to get it off that sinking global economy!

He points out that the Great Pyramids, the Great Zimbabwe and Adam’s Calendar are all on the same longitude (31).  He links this to Samarian tablets that recount many Bible stories (Moses also wrote on tablets!) long before the Bible was written.  These also tell of “the gods” (not God) descending to earth and creating man.  He says the god (small G) that created man was Antu, thus the African term “Bantu”.

He thinks these are the ones who still send messages to earth in the form of imprints on farmer’s fields.  Transmitted using that same lost form of energy.

Basically, these aliens created humans to mine gold for them.  There you go!  This explains why when ever explorers asked the natives who owned their gold, they pointed to the sky.  With reference to scientifically unexplained experiments with white gold powder at MIT, he suggests that Adam’s Calendar could be the sight where gold dust was transmuted off the planet to its destination.  He was not ashamed to make mention of “Beam me up, Scotty”!  Adam’s Calendar may also be where Antu created Man, to serve him.

The inter-disciplinary nature of his work and thinking intrigues me.  Also the intellectual honesty – not bound to the conventions of academia, where you don’t mention it if you can’t explain it, and which perpetuates itself, including by thinking in closed boxes, not openly.

For example, he says that before the Great Flood, there were humans up to 36 feet tall!  Apparently there is ample evidence of this, but it is kept out of sight.  The Bible says that there were giants before the Flood, so this doesn’t phase me.  He says that mining companies have a long-standing policy of covering up any evidence that comes to light of unexplained prior gold-mining.  So there is evidence but it is hidden.

It’s all rather intriguing, especially the appeal of a “once and future greatness”.  For me, the dreams of no bank charges and Free Energy were almost populist!

I just plain like the term Contributionism.  It reminds me of John the Baptist! 

I hope some of you will be charmed enough to come and visit, so we can go for a hike - to Eden?