Money, Society and the Spirit: Becoming Conscious About Money

• What is the real story behind all the bad economic news?

• Why are we not richer by our burgeoning tangible wealth, instead of poorer by a snowballing financial “debt”?

• How could it be that an innocent child born in the U.S. today is already, according to the “experts,” a quarter-million dollars in “debt”? When did newborn babies borrow this money? How are they supposed to “repay” it? Is their future mortgaged before it starts? Has “original debt” replaced “original sin”?

• If every dollar in circulation is “borrowed” into existence through “loans” from private banks, where does the money to pay the “interest” come from?

• After a century of explosive growth in real economic activity, why have we not grown out of our “debt”? Is there a perverse logic built into the system that is causing us to grow into it our “debt”?

• Why in the last century have family farmers been forced off the land by financial foreclosure, or threat of foreclosure, until now those living on the farm comprise less that two-percent of the population?

• What is this “debt” burden doing in real terms to our civilization, our earth, ourselves? What is “debt” anyway? What is its effect on the psyche of generations growing up in saturation of its financial demands, ecological devastation and social disintegration?

• If I am well-educated, working hard and “playing by the rules” in the “richest country on earth,” why can I not pay my bills and/or why am I perpetually in debt?

• Has fear of financial destitution replaced fear of dying as the most dreaded eventuality in people’s lives?

• Is there hope?

These and many other monetary riddles haunt our post-modern world. Indeed, they are increasingly experienced as threatening the viability of our personal lives, the existence of civilization, and even the continuation of life on earth itself. Can we get a perspective on this? Can we turn a corner? Is there a vision on the other side?

These questions and more will be explored in a series of two to three-hour evening sessions, which will meet every week. The initial meeting would consist of a short introductory presentation followed by a panel discussion with leading alternative thinkers in the monetary, ecological and social fields. The format of following meetings would be determined from session to session as the dialogue unfolds.