B. DYBWAD BROCHMANN

THE ART OF READING THE BIBLE

 

Chapter 5

The Dance Around the Golden Calf As A Mental Phenomenon

 

Setting Yourself on Fire Economically

If our way of understanding The Bible has been a challenging “insult” for the priesthood, we will now come to something that is a “gross insult” against everyone who is alive. Everyone who is alive today dances around the golden calf in a fairly different childish and mean way than most people will believe. I can, by the way, comfort the reader by saying that both I, who am writing this, and all “believers” and non-believers, do the same thing. Everybody wants to earn a lot of money and have many sources of cash income, at the same time having as few expenses as possible. So-called missionaries want to have enough money, to “the glory of God”, as they say, and perhaps they are the worst? But, we others will also have a good price for our services, and at the same time (consciously or unconsciously) we want to pay as little as possible for others’ services. While the others’ expenses are always many, yes, uncountable, and our own expenses are often few and can’t be compared to what thousands and thousands of other people invisibly give us of services, we all cheat and swindle from the cradle to the grave, while we have faith that we have “earned”, or anyway deserved the “profits”. There are many people who evaluate their own work and their own expenses so highly that they live in a continual state of dissatisfaction, because they mean that they deserve much more.

This mutual deception is called “selfishness”. If anyone tries on their “income taxes”, to cheat those in charge of “the system”, who try to keep it up and running, he is called an “income tax evader”. Since most of the “income tax evaders” really love the system and whole-heartedly and sincerely support the officials and the organization they are being taxed to support, it’s not easy to say which he is cheating more, the system or himself. The dissatisfaction with the whole system becomes visible in “politics”. Since people are still dreaming and not aware of all the contradictions and senselessness in the system, they participate in politics and eagerly vote and request “more of the same” – supposedly so the mutual discontent and dissatisfaction can increase.

Dear reader, please don’t think I’m exaggerating. What is told here can’t be overstated because it is always much, much worse in reality, behind your back and behind the bank directors’ backs, than any “seer” or prophet can express and describe. Even the words of Jesus: “Watch out for seduction” is a mild and patient expression for the same thing. Since all of us want to buy things cheaply and sell things for a good price, all of us are involved in an unconscious and involuntary war with ourselves. “Our kingdom is in dissension and because of that ruination will continue”, with great pain, privation, and suffering. But we don’t see it, and the devil smiles – laughs at the whole world – and continually reaps the benefits.

The economic war, which is a huge “public”- deception and self-deception, “church” - deception and devil-deception has throughout history always increased into “armed warfare”, which means brother against brother, revolution, collapse, crises, suicide, and world war. However, the “egoists” – notice that word – mean either that they continue because of profits, or that things can’t change because it’s always been that way. Our way of looking at it is that things both can and must be changed, but then we have to read The Bible correctly and understand our motives and accept being “insulted”. The Word of God concerning our inclinations to deception and especially self-deception are a “stumbling block”, an insult, and it is even worse when this insult affects the royal family, the bishop (of the Norwegian Lutheran Church), the Prime Minister, and all of the national assembly, and everything else we believe in. God’s challenge to mankind becomes more and more difficult when we better understand the Word of God and further pursue the truth about ourselves. We can tolerate being called “sinners”, although not everybody will believe that. That we are evil can also be tolerated. The whole world has accepted that a generation ago. It’s become fashionable to believe that people are evil, so it’s natural that people don’t go to church to hear such “news” and “witty comments”, because they already knew that. Possibly we also know that we are “frail”? Many people don’t go to Church because they think that of all the “frail ones”, the minister is often the most frail, so that means that you just go home with less faith in God and mankind then when you came. As we said, we can tolerate hearing all of this. People will not accept the idea of our profit being too little in comparison to our income or too great in relationship to someone else’s performance. Should the taxes we pay be a tribute to those who cheat us most of all? Of course not – we’re not that stupid. The idea that “honest” trading can be a part of a world war is also denied. Neither can the missionary system or collections of money in the name of God be considered as a “dance around the golden calf”. Likewise, the idea that the royal family, parliament, “the state”, the voters, union leaders, civic leaders should be like small children playing with “dolls” is not accepted. Also wrong is thinking that all the citizens in the twentieth century should “dance around the golden calf” just as Pastor Aaron arranged it and the prophet Moses condemned it. All this is wrong! There should be a limit on “nonsense”, craziness” and oratory. Anyone talking like this is crazy. It’s better for one person to die, than to condemn and ridicule the whole system and insult all mankind. By the way, he doesn’t have to die anymore. Thank God we are now “democrats”, so now people can say what they want.

For just a minute we have to let “common sense” prevail here so we can explain to our readers that the Word of God about us and the golden calf is an insult against all of mankind, because the Word of God shows that the world is truly crazy. The world is mentally ill and therefore the world needs a mental savior.

The Word of God and the teachings of Jesus are a challenge to all mankind to acknowledge its tendency to make mistakes and to then legalize, authorize, and organize their mistakes. This is what The Bible discusses, and the dance around the golden calf is symbolism for the mistakes in the economic and socio-economic areas of life. For the sake of your children and yourself you need to wake up and understand this. The teachings of Moses concerning social/economic laws are no less religion, than his teachings to go outside of the camp with your spade when you need to defecate are religion. It all has to do with life between people here on earth.

If I would die right now, if I would be shot, tortured, burned or what have you, I want to tell you that you are wrong in the faith you have learned. You’re part of the craziness. Your guides are confused and they “confuse” you in trying to do God’s Will here on earth. That’s why Europe is falling into chaos, that’s why one civilized country after another is collapsing. There is only one possible salvation – the world needs to see their delusion, and through Jesus needs to understand the truth about themselves. When you and yours are on the wrong path, it’s better to realize your mistake, even though it is painful, than to do what the Germans did and hit their heads against the wall because the belief in discipline and authority was too passionate to be conquered. Don’t worry about your profits, you little human devil. You have no idea what kind of real earnings you will receive if you follow the way as shown by The Mental Savior of the World. Admit your mistakes and your representatives’ mistakes, before it is too late for you and yours. As long as you live you have a chance to serve the Kingdom of God in the struggle against Aaron and the gold calf.

Our excellent, old Norwegian editor, Nils Vogt, was once going to publish a paper about the Norwegian bank system. There was going to be a “jubilee” to celebrate the centennial of the mammon cult in Norway in the twentieth century after the birth of the Savior. If Nils Vogt and his comrades had read and understood the story in Exodus 32, I can guarantee you that they would have been the recipients of something other than a jubilee. What really is the “dance around the golden calf”, some thinking people may ask? If you are a teacher or minister or head of a bank in Norway, about 2000 years after the birth of Christ, you should know. Chapter 32 tells the following about the unlimited creative fantasy of the Jewish people:

““1 When the people saw that Moses delayed to come down from the mountain, the people gathered themselves together to Aaron, and said to him, "Up, make us gods, who shall go before us; as for this Moses, the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him." 2 And Aaron said to them, "Take off the rings of gold which are in the ears of your wives, your sons, and your daughters, and bring them to me." 3 So all the people took off the rings of gold which were in their ears, and brought them to Aaron. 4 And he received the gold at their hand, and fashioned it with a graving tool, and made a molten calf; and they said, "These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt!" 5 When Aaron saw this, he built an altar before it; and Aaron made proclamation and said, "Tomorrow shall be a feast to the Lord." 6 And they rose up early on the morrow, and offered burnt offerings and brought peace offerings; and the people sat down to eat and drink, and rose up to play. 7 And the Lord said to Moses, "Go down; for your people, whom you brought up out of the land of Egypt, have corrupted themselves; 8 they have turned aside quickly out of the way which I commanded them; they have made for themselves a molten calf, and have worshiped it and sacrificed to it, and said, 'These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt!'" 9 And the Lord said to Moses, "I have seen this people, and behold, it is a stiff-necked people; 10 now therefore let me alone, that my wrath may burn hot against them and I may consume them; but of you I will make a great nation." 11 But Moses besought the Lord his God, and said, "O Lord, why does thy wrath burn hot against thy people, whom thou hast brought forth out of the land of Egypt with great power and with a mighty hand? 12 Why should the Egyptians say, 'With evil intent did he bring them forth, to slay them in the mountains, and to consume them from the face of the earth'? Turn from thy fierce wrath, and repent of this evil against thy people. 13 Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, thy servants, to whom thou didst swear by thine own self, and didst say to them, 'I will multiply your descendants as the stars of heaven, and all this land that I have promised I will give to your descendants, and they shall inherit it for ever.'" 14 And the Lord repented of the evil which he thought to do to his people. 15 And Moses turned, and went down from the mountain with the two tables of the testimony in his hands, tables that were written on both sides; on the one side and on the other were they written. 16 And the tables were the work of God, and the writing was the writing of God, graven upon the tables. 17 When Joshua heard the noise of the people as they shouted, he said to Moses, "There is a noise of war in the camp." 18 But he said, "It is not the sound of shouting for victory, or the sound of the cry of defeat, but the sound of singing that I hear." 19 And as soon as he came near the camp and saw the calf and the dancing, Moses' anger burned hot, and he threw the tables out of his hands and broke them at the foot of the mountain. 20 And he took the calf which they had made, and burnt it with fire, and ground it to powder, and scattered it upon the water, and made the people of Israel drink it. 21 And Moses said to Aaron, "What did this people do to you that you have brought a great sin upon them?" 22 And Aaron said, "Let not the anger of my lord burn hot; you know the people, that they are set on evil. 23 For they said to me, 'Make us gods, who shall go before us; as for this Moses, the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him.' 24 And I said to them, 'Let any who have gold take it off'; so they gave it to me, and I threw it into the fire, and there came out this calf." 25 And when Moses saw that the people had broken loose (for Aaron had let them break loose, to their shame among their enemies), 26 then Moses stood in the gate of the camp, and said, "Who is on the Lord’s side? Come to me." And all the sons of Levi gathered themselves together to him. 27 And he said to them, "Thus says the Lord God of Israel, 'Put every man his sword on his side, and go to and fro from gate to gate throughout the camp, and slay every man his brother, and every man his companion, and every man his neighbor.'" 28 And the sons of Levi did according to the word of Moses; and there fell of the people that day about three thousand men.” (Copied from Bible on the Web.com)

 

That the Lord God spoke to Moses means that he immediately recognized the truth and it created a real spiritual life in him (or the author who has “invented Moses”, for us it doesn’t matter who it was). For the serious reader of The Bible, what is most important is that the story of and about the Jews, their way of thinking and destiny, and their uncontrolled fantasy is completely true. Who has written it, the name of the author, is unimportant. The Lord God speaks often and regularly to “the prophets” in The Bible and to all of the “prophets” of truth through out the history of mankind. The history of the Jews is a “painting” from which to learn – an example to warn us and to teach us wisdom. The history of the Jews is a story about God’s “guinea pigs”; this is the way the Jews themselves describe it. However, people who don’t look “artistically” at “the big garden”, as we tried to do in the “allegories” in our earlier book (Christ in Society), won’t be able to understand the idea of “guinea pigs” now. That type of person thinks that it is insulting to God to think that He would use a whole nation of people as “guinea pigs” and that the people themselves wouldn’t accept being “guinea pigs”. In spite of that, “God’s chosen people” were the first nation “who tried” to create a society according to God’s meaning and purpose. This, up to now unsuccessful attempt, will serve as an example for all other societies so they can try to find out what was correct, and why the attempt didn’t succeed immediately. The Savior of the World comes from the Jews, and when their destiny becomes clear, the rest of the world will understand. Therefore, you must learn from the Pentateuch and from the history of the Jews, if you have received spirit and light enough to be able to read and understand. Moses stayed too long “up in the heights”. The people were bored and wanted to have a “leader”, because they didn’t know who was “the captain” of their own ship of free will. “You are much too ambitious” is a comment that is often heard from people down the ages about their prophets, because they don’t understand the advantage they have been given to explore the heights “up on the mountain”.

Aaron also has inspiration – an inspiration due to opportunity – but this doesn’t come from God. The Bible always talks about two kinds of inspiration. Both God and Satan perform and speak in The Bible. When Aaron creates a golden calf for the people and allows the peoples’ uncontrolled fantasy to create life in the gold, it’s the same as giving the childlike soul of the people cutout paper dolls and allowing them to “play” with their dolls. That kind of “play” is beautiful and necessary up to a certain stage of development. It is not so beautiful, for ex., if a 20 year old girl rejects her suitors, and prefers to play with her toys - playing in her fantasies instead of reality, as it is to be a mother to real children. Therefore, all the anti-Semites are almost sitting in glass houses and throwing stones when they scorn the dance and play of the Jews in Exodus many thousands of years ago, while today they are unconsciously dancing the same dance in a much uglier way.

When Christ came to mankind, He was like a bridegroom proposing to a bride (mankind).

He wanted to impregnate us with spirit so that we could give birth to living spiritual children. But, up to now, we have chosen to “play” with the symbols in “the Church” and in “the chapels or meeting houses”. The dance around the golden calf of the Jews is the same as “playing” with economic and social inclinations today. It is the instinct of self-preservation and the need for firm footing to gain balance and a feeling of well being that is operating, when people “dance unconsciously around the golden calf”. When the child talks about the doll eating, sleeping, etc., as the child herself does, this is exactly the same as when childish societies are set up as if “money has power”, “the power of capital”, “money creates life”, and so forth. The adventure about the power of capitalism is a reality. It’s a reality for the child that the doll is alive. Look closely at her while she plays with the doll. It is her latent mothering instincts that are being developed by playing. She “outwardly projects” her own inner life in symbols, is the psychological interpretation. Of course we know that gold is “a dead stone”, but we invent and create life in it. Our own inner “resources” are outwardly projected into gold and money. “Turning stone into bread” is a “temptation” which lies deeply anchored in our nature. This is the same thing we are doing when we say: “the state works, “the state decides”. We behave in such a way that we project ourselves outward, and that’s when the false reality appears that “money has power”, and “money grows and multiplies”. “The doll is crying and needs to be changed”, “’the state’ works”, etc. Everything is uncontrolled false reality.

This is the same inspiration that Christ experienced when He told about “the tempter” who said to Him: “Is it really true that you are the Son of God and have inherited the almighty, creative life-giving fantasy? Well, use your creative abilities and say to these stones that they shall become alive and give you bread.” You don’t need to work hard to live. You can just give life to the stones, so you can live of your mineral spawn – and this is the same thing as playing and dancing around the golden calf. This was a risk for mankind for better or worse. When there was a transition from making a living from nature to working and getting paid for working, there was no “temptation” easier to cling to than just this one.

It would be such a lengthy discussion, that we won’t continue discussing this part of the topic. I would like to refer to my earlier works concerning the many chances and risks in dealing with money (for ex. in “The Great Divide”, and others). It should be noted here, however, in the transition from making a living from nature to “working and getting paid for working”, it was not by chance that people made a “calf”. People ask why it couldn’t have been a “golden hen” that could lay golden eggs? A short answer is that in living from nature, a man’s fortune was the cattle he owned. We saw the same thing in northern Norway, when a Saami (erroneously named a Lapp) was taxed according to the number of reindeer he owned and could feed. The Jews were nomads and had a lot of cattle (look at the story about Laban and Jacob). In those days when you made a loan of capital or working capital, it was cattle you loaned, that were fed and used. The rent was the calves that were produced during the rental time. Nature decided the number of calves; there was no idea of anything like “discount rate policies” or deciding anything about more or less calves that the animals (the capital) produced. “Kalvekasting” (In Norwegian this word literally means, “throwing the calf”. It refers to a calf being born too early and/or stillborn; also inferred is that this might not be a good yield). Therefore, the author seems to use the term to describe what happened earlier in farming communities, which meant that some calves were born too early. This can be compared with us today where money or capital is usually “thrown” ahead of time. No fortune (number of cattle) could be larger than there was “pasture to feed them”. Nature and the prevalent conditions decided how many calves would be “added”. The rest of the calves had to be slaughtered. What that meant was that the capital couldn’t grow beyond a certain number of animals. Slaughtering was a type of natural “de-capitalizing”, etc. When the financial picture changed from measuring fortune in cattle to gold, then there was a new “convention” built that was different from when people earned their living from nature, when one calf per year was paid for renting the animal. Now, people could “play” with the golden calf, and decide to pay a little golden calf per year as rent for the capital. The bank system in all civilized societies, including Norway, has begun with a little calf, but temptation influences things and then the number of calves increases. We see this especially with “the state” that is greedy for “calves”, because “the state” doesn’t eat bread and butter, but lives of the prices of bread and butter, so that means that the “interests of ‘the state’” compliment “the interests of ‘capital’”. Neither “the state”, “capital”, or the dolls have “interests”, of course. We are only pretending that it’s true, and that is a dangerous game.

In the system where people worked and got paid for their work, “capital” wasn’t limited by the amount of “pasture” in nature; instead it increased in production and had more “calves” as the pasture disappeared. Bad times, when there is little production and a great deal of destruction due to war, foster increased financial capital. The gold spawns thousands of “calves” as the prices climb, and “the state’s” budgets grow, and those associated with the “state” receive larger and larger “grants” from “the state”, and they all praise God for His rich gifts. We naturally know that “the state” can’t give us one penny if we don’t, in some invisible way, pay with $1.00, but we “play” like it is so. Of course gold, paper money, and cash fortunes can’t grow and increase by themselves, but in the uncontrolled false reality “we are playing in”, it is so. It’s as if to say: “Look - your god is walking, living, eating, reproducing and working for you, Israel”.

”Kalvekasting” = throwing out ahead of time) behind our back and that of the bank director is “only a game”, but it is this game and the dance around the gold and money that is, and always was, the most dangerous of all the traps that people can fall into in the history of the world. It is more cunning than all the rattraps in the world. That’s why “the rat” enjoys being in the world of the spirit, while people suffer and die; the devil laughs, and pastor Aaron is takes advantage of the situation. However, the prophets are raging and warn of war and brothers murdering brothers, which is the only consequence of the great-uncontrolled false reality. So we see that the dance around the golden calf is quite possible for all peoples and nations. People say that: “It is fairly natural and inevitable whether I loan animals or gold, or another type of fortune, that I will have to pay rent”; and how would it be if we didn’t pay taxes to Aaron, Herod, or Pilate, who taught us the dance and game. “We have to share with our benefactors, in order to keep law and order in society”, etc, is one point of view. Yes, people say many things and people have “common sense”. “Do you think all of us are idiots?”

“Maybe you don’t think we know what we’re doing?” “Oh, yes, we know; we’re all just so damned egotistical.”


The need for the golden calf has to do with people’s self-image. Unconsciously we know that “what we need” we have in ourselves, and that all of our understandings of worth and financial growth come from inside of us. We collect gold outside of us like it is concrete, visual and expensive, because we still haven’t learned that our real wealth resides inside of us. Furthermore, we collect things that have a “definite and reliable measure of value”, outside of us, because we are taught to look at ourselves as superficial, unsure, unreliable, and unpredictable measures of value, which we up to now truly have been. As long as we continue to be like this, we will continue to be slaves to gold. As soon as we learn the truth about ourselves, gold will be “de-throned” and we will sit on the “throne” where the gold now sits and rules over us. Psychological research teaches us to understand all this, and much more. Look at what Christ said about the same thing:

“ Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal: But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal: For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also”. (Matthew 6:19-21).

The Savior shows His deep understanding of psychology, by pointing out that the real true values lie inside of us. We have “all of the treasures inside of us”. A man who is “solvent” doesn’t need to own gold or great riches in the form of saleable goods. He only needs to keep his order and balance in his economic life, and then every bank that knows him will honor his papers, because he has “treasures inside of himself”. It’s the same thing with every national community. The small country of Norway could easily have financed the whole world, as long as the Norwegian people had been in charge of themselves and understood that the whole world was dancing around the golden calf. In that case, the Norwegian people would have had to be awakened from the dream and been in charge of the money, instead of being controlled by it. A small “invited” group of Jews know this and understand this. That’s why they control and finance the whole world without having soldiers, a navy, airplanes or canons. Ever since the ruination of Jerusalem the Jews have been hated and persecuted, and have been looked at as some kind of inferior person, when compared with everybody else. That’s why they didn’t need to own land and factories, and settle down and live like “Christians”. They only had to live in their “ghettoes” and the only kind of trade they were allowed to have was mortgage or pawn loan activity. Up until about 100 years ago (this book was written in 1950), this activity was seen as being so ordinary that only Jews could do this. They couldn’t be soldiers because they were too “simple” for this. Because of these attitudes, we participated in educating Jews as specialists in working with money and finances, and of how to deal financially with people, until about 100 years ago (around 1850) when we realized that working in the area of discount rate policies was the finest trade of all.

The so-called anti-Semites or Jew-haters don’t understand this. They sit there and wonder why the Jews are in charge of all the world’s great houses of finance, and deplore that they make money on the craziness of the world. However, the truth is that in over 2000 years the Jews were relegated to mainly being involved with the world’s game of fantasy and the dance around the golden calf. That’s why the Jews are the experts in this area, in the same way that northern Norwegians are experts in traveling in the Arctic. You learn something when you go to school for thousands of years. The Germans also have some ideas about “getting rid of the devils with Bezulbub”, but we believe that the ways and methods of Jesus Christ – to mentally acknowledge and then clear up the issue – are the right way to go to release the Jews and the world.

Once I suggested that the Norwegian people should develop a complete national economy and create an entire overview over the country’s real incomes and expenses.

But false reality was firmly in place under the guise of Christianity and empiric science, so the attempt was unsuccessful. Instead of loaning the world our currency, we continued to loan pounds with a stake in Norway. When “the Philistines” came and took our tangible goods (real values) the same thing they did with the Jews – and when I saw that the Philistines hated and persecuted the Jews again, I just asked myself: “How long will the world continue with this false reality before they understand what the dance around the golden calf means and how it gets started?” Is it really that difficult to understand the teachings of the Savior: “All external creation of wealth is only a reflection of our own internal almighty creative spiritual worth”! In all of creation we are the only being that has value inside of us. We shouldn’t project ourselves externally and gather symbols, instead we should wake up and become conscious. In the long run, the slave can’t continue to live in us. It is the Son of God, the Son of Man, who is the Lord over all the symbols. Don’t let your fantasy continue to run away with you. Watch out for the leaven from scholars and from the Pharisees (the day dreamers), because the leaven of delusion works alone inside of us and changes all of “the wheat”, so that in the end we burn the wheat to get higher prices. The kingdom of truth is like an expensive pearl that lies hidden in the field, which is the world. The worth of the human being is the most important; all other “values” are only thoughts, made up, imagined, nominal, or fictitious. The Savior clearly points to this, but the frustrating thing is that we religionize the truth both about The Savior and ourselves.

The words of Christ in Matthew 19: 21 advise us to dispose of everything we own so that it is easier for us to develop the inner qualities that are often pushed aside in our desire after the external things. This is a positive “tip”, not a scolding. It’s the learned and conventional habits and conceptions that keep us enslaved to money. Aaron builds an altar to make the game more fashionable and sweet smelling, just as in Oslo, where yet today we build temples with stained glass, etc. to create “an atmosphere” at the discount and savings counters.

“This is your god, Israel”. It was money that got you out of the land of Egypt. It is money that has power. It is money that the Israeli Youth Association is collecting in order for the Jews to buy back their fatherland again. Please notice that it is money that people everywhere still believe is a real power factor. And how long does money have “power” and give “power”? The answer is as long as the people’s faith and teachings about power give money that power. Sometime in the future it will cease, as noted in Revelations 18, especially verses 9 – 20, that describe the ”wailing” and “lament” that can already be heard today by those who collect such values that are accounted for in their bookkeeping. Everything of financial value will collapse “in one hour” – i.e. when the masses realize the gigantic delusion going on in the world, which is hidden behind Aaron’s “altar”. Aaron was a priest, and he surely should have been one. The story in Exodus, verses 7 and 8, speaks for itself. Moses has “fearful suspicions”. Step down again Moses. The people are heading in the wrong direction: Pastor Aaron is leading them astray. In verse 14 it says that the Lord regrets the evil He had spoken of and that means that Moses gives up his dark thoughts and visions, and is mollified. That is why God is “regretful”. Are these cries of jubilation He hears? Are they cries of victory? No, it is lyrical poetry. It is the people’s fantasy that is singing and playing.

Most pastors are pleased when the people sing and create a pleasant atmosphere. They don’t know any better. However, they have second thoughts when girls and boys dance together. The pastors think it’s good that the people save and are frugal, pay and raise rents, taxes, contributions and money for the poor. They also think it’s beautiful when collections are taken to “patch up” old heathen and conventional things. “God loves a glad giver”, says the pastor, and maybe pays a visit to the rich man who gives large amounts to “Christian endeavors”. The pastor doesn’t know any better, because his “kingdom” doesn’t have anything to do with this world’s dance around the golden calf. Pastor Aaron and the prophet Moses are two different types of people. They each have their own mission, with their own inspiration, and they read and interpret God’s Word each in their own way.

When the Norwegian farmers decided to build a large and strong political party, that would give the devil a run for the buck, Pastor Aaron in Norway got the farmers to sing: “Now daylight is back in Norway”. It wasn’t many years before the civil war had also come to Norway. As this book is written (1950), we don’t know yet how many thousands of men will be killed in our country. The number doesn’t matter. The main thing is that we can read The Bible so we identify and understand things correctly. God’s Ten Commandments is crushed. When a nation surrenders itself to unrestrained fantasies and loses touch with reality, the outcome can easily be lawlessness and civil war. Please notice that the pastor doesn’t understand – as the prophet does – how dangerous it is that the people are playing with symbols and fantasy. The prophet feels the spirit like a living power inside himself. The prophet experiences the chances and risks in the life of the spirit - speaks about God and to God as a real, existing mental power. The pastor thinks about God as an exclusive mystical power factor, that is far, far away. He has no idea about the dangers and temptations of the life of the spirit, otherwise the dance around the golden calf wouldn’t be a myth for him, it would be a living, dangerous reality and fact. The scholars don’t think about the kingdom being in us, but that it is far away from us, etc. The pastor doesn’t know the temptation in the great spiritual desert where “stones are turned into bread”. When he thinks of temptation, he thinks of “the nasty boy” who “tempts and seduces” the young girl. He doesn’t know much about “the nasty school” and “church” and “state” that are seducing the whole civilized country. The pastor sees the temptations of the flesh, but the potential risks for the spirit and the great deceptions in the world, he leaves to us “prophets” to understand and explain. He sees the drunk and the “awful” dangers and misuse of alcohol, but he doesn’t know anything about the spiritual intoxicant. After all, what is born of flesh sees only flesh, and what is born of spirit sees mostly spirit. This is the big difference in vision – in inspiration – that divides the whole world into two opposing groups when they read, understand, and interpret the Word of God. God is spirit.

It’s not only God’s law – the Ten Commandments – that were abolished in Norway’s parliament, when we were dancing around the golden calf for 100 years.

Aaron Mowinckel…..

(Note: The author chooses to label Johan Ludwig Mowinckel as “Aaron”, because of his opinion of his behavior. Mowinckel, 1870 – 1943, was a liberal Norwegian politician. Since he was not a member of the state church of Norway (the Lutheran Church), according to the Norwegian Constitution, he could not be a member of the Norwegian government. However, due to a change in the Constitution, as the author mentions below, he was later able to become Secretary of State, Minister of Commerce, Foreign Minister, and President of the Parliament.)

….. also nullified the nation’s constitution from 1814. He assured his voters that it was only “for the time being”, but only the most feather brained believed that. The dance around the golden calf is an unconscious and uncontrolled game the people play with money as the symbol. One thinks that “stones can be turned into bread”, i.e. that minerals can reproduce and give potatoes and grain. Look at the ad from The German Bank and from Norwegian banks.

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The banking system looks so nice and innocent. Everything is made to look so easy for us, because they want to create the appearance that it is natural and correct. It takes a lot of thought and insight before one can really understand what happens in the unconscious, when one society and civilized country after the other is taught the dance around the golden calf. Then the consequences will always be what Moses had testified: “Every man should defend his land with a sword – and kill when needed”.

Comment: For many years I believed that this inner spontaneous ignition or self starting disintegration’s process, which is expressed in one of books of The Pentateuch: “Thus saith the Lord, God of Israel”, would be as easy to understand as any other legality of life. When people can understand the many invisible laws of nature, and when little boys can build radios and learn to work with radio waves and other similar invisible realities, then I believed that it would be easy to explain the self starting powers in the life of the spirit. When people can understand electricity and harness the powers of nature, and hinder “short circuiting”, then I thought it would very simple for man to hinder “economic short circuiting”, crises, “crashes”, and trading wars. However, long experience has taught me that, human beings instinctively don’t accept the truth about themselves. Many times in the Parliament I energetically tried to suggest research into the causes of crises by using modern psychology. I had 45,000 Norwegian men and women behind me who waited for the Parliament to thankfully accept positive “tips” regarding this, instead the Parliament considered this an insult. I was accused of taking up the Parliament’s time, for no good reason (as if the Parliament didn’t use all of its time to discuss the “problems of crisis”).

It became more and more clear to me that the solution to solving the economic problems wasn’t one of economy, but one of mentality. It’s the same thing with the social and religious problems. It’s the human mentality we aren’t well enough acquainted with. Emanuel Kant expresses similar thoughts in his work “Critic of Pure Reason”, although he makes it too complicated. The Savior of the World and The Bible solve the mental problems in a very simple way by explaining things symbolically. The whole thing is a portrayal of automatic spontaneous ignition which “happens by itself” in the same way that it burns in the hay barn if the farmer drives wet hay into the barn. It’s neither demons nor devils that start a fire in the barn. It is self ignition that occurs according to the self starting powers of nature. It is neither time nor economic trade cycles, demons or devils that start a fire in the world when people unconsciously or uncontrolled, “seduced” by an academic social economy or by a spiritually asleep Church, dance around the golden calf. And, this continues until we are so out of touch with reality or have such an active dream life, that we reach such heights, that reality finally sets in. The creative spiritual powers in us work uncontrolled and unconsciously in us, and “mobilize” both the peoples’ instincts to survive and their ways to survive. This occurs over and over in our history in a more and more passionate “dance around”, just as the flies and night birds dance around in their way. This can’t be avoided until we understand our innate dynamic powers and instincts so clearly, that we are very familiar with them and understand the determined order and legality under which they operate. “No one is more conscious than they are forced to be”, says Freud. “By nature people are against anything new in the intellectual area”, he also comments. Blessings upon Freud’s memory. If Hitler hadn’t rejected Freud, but learned from him, he would have been a real Moses for his people. Now he and his people have fallen into the old classic pitfall.

Without falsifying or misinterpreting The Bible, we can say that when it says: “So says the Lord, the God of Israel”, we can also say: “So says inherent orderliness” or “so says the law of nature in the self-creating world of the spirit”. If these are deluded thoughts and spirit within us, or if it is the true objective guiding spirit of life, that dominates us internally, so is the spirit in both cases creative, because it ignites on its own. Life never stands still. Everything is always in movement and growth. It is the spirit’s own innate dynamics that I call “the fourth dimension”. When the world sooner or later learns to take this fourth dimension into consideration, then and only then, will spontaneous ignition be hindered – then and only then.

In the story about the golden calf we saw the difference between the prophet, the seer Moses, and the pastor. Moses saw clearly Aaron’s mistake, but Aaron acted in the way “good” people usually act. Moses went against the voice of the people and announced laws in how to behave in The Ten Commandments. Aaron let the people run with their feelings, and let them play with pictures and fantasies. Moses understood clearly that economic and religious suffering hang together. “Look, here is your God, Israel”. Look, here is your money. Look here is the real power factor (as long as you can keep the faith and feel sure that you are standing on “a solid, historical foundation”). “It is the only correct faith”, isn’t that right? Still, today, it is the faith of our fathers.

In the verse quoted above, Moses prophesies, as earlier noted, that the ultimate development, and the logical consequence of dancing around the golden calf and playing around with symbols is nothing less than civil war. The dance and the game have a deadly ending. No god will step in, except in the spirit of truth, and to make the situation clear. If man disregards that, then the game and the dance of death continue. The spirit of deception is like the claws of the devil that holds the whole world in its grip.

The Macabre Dance

Therefore the dance around the golden calf is a symbolic conception of the automatic creative and spontaneously igniting impulses that have been the ruination of all civilized countries. It is the truth about how the economic life of the business community has gone off track when those in charge of leading the people have also gone off the track. It is the truth about “the income tax”. Your dedication to the system is your own soul’s spontaneous ignition, so that the economic activity of your life becomes only a passion of playing and saving. What you honestly think is “real earnings” is real brain fantasy, and since you’re not alone in this craziness, because all of your companions around you suffer from the same brain fantasy, your “earnings” are really social economic spontaneous ignition. Read what Isaiah 9:16 – 20 has to say about this:

“For the leaders of this people cause them to err; and they that are led of them are destroyed. Therefore the Lord shall have no joy in their young men, neither shall have mercy on their fatherless and widows: for every one is an hypocrite and an evildoer, and every mouth speaketh folly. For all this his anger is not turned away, but his hand is stretched out still. For wickedness burneth as the fire: it shall devour the briers and thorns, and shall kindle in the thickets of the forest, and they shall mount up like the lifting up of smoke. Through the wrath of the Lord of hosts is the land darkened, and the people shall be as the fuel of the fire: no man shall spare his brother. And he shall snatch on the right hand, and be hungry; and he shall eat on the left hand, and they shall not be satisfied: they shall eat every man the flesh of his own arm”. (Copied from Bible on the Web.com).

Your spiritual leaders are then your seducers. They don’t know what this means. “Religion” is the name given to people eating of themselves and letting the fire of economic passion spread through the society.

When people commonly talk about the dance around the golden calf, they usually have some kind of serious expression on their face and give the impression that they believe they know what they’re talking about. But they still don’t understand, because if they did, they would, with all their might and intelligence, hate the class struggle and the entire political life, and would also totally renounce the devil - all of his deeds, and his entire being. The expression “the dance around the golden calf” has become a meaningless way to describe the fact that people like money and will gladly earn as much as possible. This is quite understandable since they have been taught to believe that what they “earn” (on their contributions and self-delusion) “really are genuine earnings”. Nobody can blame somebody for wanting to take care of their obligations and to have the best life style they can; but this isn’t “the dance around the golden calf”. The dance consists of the unconscious and uncontrolled buzzing around the symbols. The Bible tells the truth, just as does psychology, but the conventional people and their methods aren’t interested in truth, so they authorize and legalize the delusion.

If the workers and their leaders had known this and understood “capitalism”, not as a question about might and intentions, but as a mental phenomenon, as it is taught in The Bible, then the “struggle against capitalism” would have been fought on the mental plane, as envisioned by Christ, and not with organized might and intentions that only mean a strengthening of capitalism. The devil can’t be driven out by the devil. Delusion on a small scale can’t be remedied by delusion on a large scale. If that is done, then the devil sits and rubs his hands together in anticipation, both in Folkets Hus (the Labor Party’s Community Center) in the employers association, in “the state”, the township, and “the Church”.

Comment: Some years ago, I discussed the mental-economic management of life in the first three volumes of “Your Mentality, Your Destiny”. Many people understood my point of view about the masses following the authorities, who used every means possible to sabotage this new order of life, which could have been, for the masses, both liberating and rescuing.

 

 

 

Chapter 6