THE FUTURE OF MONEY Bernard A. Lietaer - library.uniteddiversity ...

The Arab scholar Ibn Khaldun claimed that 'God created the two
precious metals, gold and silver, to serve as a measure of all
commodities.. .' Without further need for intervention by any
religious institution, gold and silver remained symbolically
associated respectively with the sun and moon. For centuries, their
prices stabilized mysteriously in a fixed ratio of 1/13.5, astrologically
determined to reflect the heavenly cycles. These two metals remained
divinely ordained currencies after the astrological justification was
long forgotten. There are many people who, to this day, claim that
'real' money would be a return to the gold standard. Some even keep
invoking its biblical origins."
There is some irony in the fact that the almighty dollar is no
exception to this mystical phenomenon. Issued by a country with a
scrupulous separation between Church and State since its founding,
where school prayers can still stir a heated debate, the most ordinary
one-dollar bill has as motto, 'In God we Trust'. That same bill is
illustrated with both sides of the Great Seal of the United States. That
seal has been described by Joseph Campbell as extraordinarily laden
with esoteric symbols (see sidebar).
It can be fascinating to discover the next supporting mystique.
Liberia, for instance, issued its legal tender coinage with the portraits
of Captain James T. Kirk and Captain Jean-Luc Picard of the starship
Enterprise, paying royalties to Viacom, owner of the Star Trek
trademarks, in the process." Until recently, it was the fashion to
design banks to look like temples, complete with reverence lingering
inside them. Even the first Internet bank, the First Security National
Bank, with only an Internet address and no physical customer
branch, felt the need to bow to custom by using a Greek Revival bank
building as its first Web page symbol.