SEDUCTION THEOLOGY:

STUDY OF "THE WESTERN SICKNESS"

Stephen Mathews

seductiontheology@gmail.com

This essay should be read as a companion to the writings of Sufi mystic Samhadi,
11 century AD, seductiontheology.googlepages.com/samhadi.

FORWARD

In 1985, a little known political action group, known as the Parents Music
Resource Center - whose members included the wife of Treasury Secretary James
Baker, and Tipper Gore testified before a Senate Commerce, Science, and
Transportation Committee about Rock n Roll lyrics containing "pervasive messages
aimed at children which promote and glorify suicide and rape" with the suggestion
to "place a warning label on music products inappropriate for younger children."
The usual variety of "shock rock" artists testified as well, also advocating a
warning label, which they insisted would ultimately generate more controversy and
sales. None of those who testified seemed concerned , at that time, that in every
part of the globe, armed terrorists had already applied the terms "The Great
Satan" to our modern media state.

Already we had seen the consequences of this new, intolerance of the western
culture only a few years earlier in 1979, when students stormed the embassy in
Tehran. Media were quick to show us colorful images of the demonstrations, and
the sombre, alien countenance of the Ayatollah Khomeini, but slow to translate his
message, about the degrading and filthy effects of the "seductive media state" and
of the "western sickness" now being spread around the globe via satellite and
television.
Had the American public been given a better explanation, at that time, or before
the 9-11 attacks on the World Trade Center, there might have been an opportunity
for us, the new masters of this global culture, to improve our cultural standards
before attempting to broadcast - to the entire planet earth - enough degrading
pornography, violence, and consumer seduction to make all wonder if we are a
civilization of sexual perverts, sado-masochists, and junk food addicts!

Nobody would care to argue this point, however, the real problem is a true
"scorpion in the cellar" of western civilization and, as we attempt to rewrite our
social rules to account for this global sensitivity, we will find ourselves, time
and again, confronting an invisible enemy who will ultimately prevail - with us
being ultimately held accountable. This scorpion is spawned from a conflict so
elemental to our civilization that some will have trouble seeing, even when it is
clearly explained.

The superabundance of our modern "industrial culture" deceptively hides that the
history of the western institution is rooted in slavery - and a modern "consumer
seduction" offering humanity an alternative set of values, based on greed, lies,
and desire.

FREEDOM IS NOT FREE

Our very notion of freedom has its roots in slavery, because the concept "free"
once merely denoted that one was not a slave. American and Roman civilizations
both initially had a great demand for immigrants, unskilled and slave labor - and
ultimately the task of educating these new citizens. In Rome slavery was
presented as a gateway to a better life - often it truly was. The practice
flourished of allowing slaves the freedom of movement, and eventually freedom
itself, once they had aquired the skills and education to secure an honest living.

The tradition of slavery continued until modern times, with French and English
slave traders bringing the human cargo to the new world. The American Civil War
ended the legal practice, but German Industrialists had already began exporting a
new "industrial culture" to England and America that would forever replace the
"slave culture" of the Romans.

This new "industrial culture" with the puritan "work ethic" of theologian John
Calvin was originally far crueler than the agricultural world of slave trader.
Violent revolutions rocked the world in the form of communism, and labor unions
to combat this new evil. Finally workers were educated, and organized.

CONSUMER SEDUCTION vs. COERCION

The "industrial culture" that we live in today, like the "slave culture" of the
Romans, still has an enormous need for labor of every kind, and the needs of this
new "corporate plantation" are no different, with one exception. Slavemasters of
old could use coercion, even violent punishment if necessary, to motivate their
slaves. Often Roman slaves would be subject to years of humiliating labor to
help "break them" and make them "more cooperative". Workers in the "industrial
culture" are currently protected by law, and so modern methods of training and
inculcating the reluctant worker include a great deal of education,
institutionalization of one form or another, and ultimately seduction in the form
of pay, perks and privelege.

Some people may find it incredulous that it is this form of seduction, not the
pornography, or violence which is so upsetting to traditional theologians.
Questions pertaining to "god" generally involve the traditions of Islamic
scholars, and so we in the West find ourselves increasingly at the mercy of
terrorist organizations that claim we are the "Great Satan". Seduction, is the
primacy of the Judaic religion, in the form of Satan, Adam, Eve and the Garden of
Eden. No matter how greatly you admire the "industrial culture", nobody can deny
that modern consumers, perhaps even a frightful majority of them, are "seduced".
From the earliest ages children spend hours being programmed with new needs and
wants driven by the commercial engine of advertisers, products and television.

For a majority of decisions made by we, "the seduced", money will be the deciding
factor. How many times have you heard someone complaining about their employment,
wishing they could quit except that they "need the money"?

THE YOKE OF BABYLON

Perhaps some readers would like, at this point, to pretend that these forms of
seduction are not real, or really not important after all. My advice: pretend all
you want to. Terrorist organizations around the globe have already named us as
the "Great Satan" because they believe that we, participants in this New Babylon,
are utterly seduced. They watch this grand scale seduction, obviously the work of
a devil more powerful than the biblical Satan, as it carves up the "industrial
culture" family like a wolf, creating a cyborg, machine mated madness.
Theologians from the old world are increasingly horrified that their own families,
and loved ones will be sucked into the madness. And they should be, according to
Samhadi (Sufi, 11 century AD):
 "Who can deny Delilah and her charms?

The yoke of Babylon has been placed upon the sinner and for him, there shall
be no redemption!"

Thus we have introduced "Seduction Theology", hopefully as a means to clarify some

of these issues. Seduction Theology rests on two primay points, and readers who
disagree, at this point, should find there inspirations elsewhere:

A) The modern, industrial worker is "seduced" rather than "coerced" into working
harder and longer hours, at the expense of family and personal happiness, by "the
stick" on one hand: a combination of perceived fears, economic uncertainty and by
"the carrot" - pay perks and privileges.

B)This seduction - in the form of a "consumer lifestyle" is regarded by older

religious institutions and scholors - who have labelled us the "Great Satan" and
who believe that participants in "industrial culture" to be "utterly seduced" by
wealth and trickery of the modern corporate media state, into living a degraded
"sinful" lifestyle based on greed, conspicious consumption, and sleaze.

The "Yoke of Babylon" is the way Samhadi describes the "seduction" of the
unenlightened.

It refers to scripture: Samson is seduced by Delilah, a wealthy Philistine who

convinces him to cut his hair. Samson's hair is a metaphor for his "covenant"
with god - and when it is broken he is enslaved by the Philistines. The
Philistines know it is impossible to beat Samson in a fair battle, because he is
endowed with a spiritual strength from the almighty, so the duty becomes incumbent
on one of their wealthy daughters to seduce him. When Delilah cuts Samson's hair,
she severs his relationship with God, and thus he becomes a victim of the "Yoke of
Babylon".

In this way, the masters of the "industrial culture" work to enslave the modern
man. Like the slavemasters of the traditional "slave culture" he will condition
his victims, often living from paycheck to paycheck, to accept longer hours,
harsher working conditions - and anything else seduction and the law will allow
for. This "degraded condition" is the foundation of our western institution, from
biblical days to present. It has become a new form of slavery, which now uses a
moral standard developed by the murderous John Calvin, a German Reformationist who
followed Martin Luther - in an authoritarian, blood soaked orgy that was to become
our modern capitalist system. It is understandable that todays moral standards,
were forged in an age and region where bloodthirsty German "robber barons" would
raid passing merchant caravans, to rob, rape and cut off the right hand of their
victims.

Our youngest children are now programmed for several hours a day by television
which teaches them the most basic and desirable consumer behavior - "to want". We
believe this endless seduction - from cradle to grave, to be most harmless. We
are gravely mistaken.

PETER THE SEDUCER

Slavery, and thus seduction, play a central role in our western institution and
thus to our mythology: when Adam and Eve are seduced, Satan becomes their "new
master" and they will learn to live in a degraded condition, presumably in today's
parlayence this would roughly translate into Chevy Chase / National Lampoon,
working for a Fortune 500 company in suburban Chicago! Humor aside, it is
important to note here that the Judaica (the ancestor to todays Christian and
Muslim faiths) was originally spread widely amongst the slave classes to help
improve their moral character, and ultimately to train them for the day when they
would be free from bondage. People naturally excel at any task presented to them,
and so a "seducer" was employed, to help keep them in this moral bondage until the
appointed day. Leading members of any peaceful ideology astray is easy to do,
with the right combination of prestige, money, or even sex! Historically, god's
promise to liberate the righteous has proven time and time again to be the
anathama of corrupt "masters" who must rely on an increasingly clever forms of
seduction to keep people in this moral bondage. The Pharoah must have laughed to
hear the Israelites had appointed a champion, because he himself had "worshipped
the golden calf" with many of their women, and could testify to their lack of
morality. Inevitably, every attempt to foil man's relationship with the almighty
does not succeed, as the Pharoah's army, soon to be choking on seaweed, can
attest!

Because it is impossible to weaken god's commitment to righteousness, "the

seducer" has often settled for weakening the language of "scripture". Modern
prophets of righteousness, rock musicians who played such an active role in the
civil rights movement - discovered an arcane array of corporate greed and record
company legal manuevres to delay and stop messages deemed "undesirable" at the
time. The idea that most major religions involve some form of "perversion" of
their holy texts is nothing new, and for this reason Islamic scholars, of every
sect, point proudly to the original Koran, still written in the original Arabic
language over 1,500 years ago.

And while we can easily imagine some form of perversion of original scripture in
every religion today, none more than that of John Calvin, the final arbitrar of
the violent Reformation movement. Over 100,000 German peasants were slaughtered
in the first Peasant Uprising that followed Martin Luthers call to interpret the
scripture for the common man. Later they called him"Dr. Liar" when he absolved
himself of any responsibility. The new theology was finally sheperded by a more
capable leader, whose theology was attractive to a burgeoning capitalist economy -
and whose teachings approved of greed, and murder among other things.

A DIET OF WORMS

How appropriate that opening salvo of the Reformation would be called the Diet of
Worms, where Martin Luther confirmed the charges that he advocated interpretation
of the scripture by the common man. But even while helping Martin Luther stand up
to the Catholic Church - the Diet of Nuremberg also dealt with issues related to
the burgeoning capitalist ecocomy - and the monopoly trade practices of these well
financed businesses. In that year the diet legislated against companies with a
market capitalization of over 50,000 guilders. The job of fighting big business
was already as important as fighting the pope.

Its no surprise then that one of the more popular articles of the "Lutheran
Revolution" was a belief in communism, even though Martin Luther himself wrote
against it. German was rife with peasant rebellion - a common goal of which was
to disband the church and nobility, and to hold this wealth in "common".
Anabaptists were the most commonly persecuted, and their descendants were
Puritans, Quakers and Shakers who refused to swear allegiance to the king. The
nobility were disintegrating, as an economic force, and being replaced by
capitalism. The church could not defend the corruption of the old estates, and
itself fell victim to a new theology, one based on a "work ethic" advocated by
Calvin, whose "predetermination teachings" may justly explain why none of his
miserable followers have ever found the grace of the almighty in this life, or the
next.
Historian Max Weber credits Protestantism with the success of capitalism.
According to Weber, righteous industriousness, the savings of the penitent,
financed the ever expanding global financial adventure. Contemporaries of the
reformer John Calvin held a much different view of him. When Calvin murdered
Servetus, who was both a brilliant theologian and is credited today with important
medical discoveries, others began to doubt that this new theology would ever
improve man's condition, and the enthusiastic embrace of a new theology by the
common people of that region ended in another bloody orgy of backlash and
recrimination. Today John Calvin is still considered a pre-eminent theologian of
our culture. How he violently murdered a colleague who was brilliant and
historically noted for his medical accomplishments, is merely an asterix, not
widely understood, and because of this, many of his teaches are still sadly,
unchallenged.

SECULAR MYTHOLOGY: IN ______ WE TRUST

The common thread of our civilization, is that our churches, courts and
universities can trace their origins to the times of Julius Ceaser - and that for
all practical purposes, we live in a modern "Roman Empire" of corporations, media,
and professional sports. Great many refinements have been introduced, recently
the abolition of human physical bondage: slavery. Still, we see the same
divisions of labor, and some of the same cruel practices employed by the masters
of this "industrial culture". The American Civil War was a turning point in this
change, the spread of enlightenment in Europe provided a steady stream cash and
weapons to idealogues and abolitionists. USA was a wild country at that time, and
must have seemed an ideal place to "work out" such a thorny legal and theological
issue.

At the outbreak of the war, most of the language of the educated elite, doctors,
lawyers and scholars was in Latin: the language and traditions of the ancient
empire were very much alive at that time, but the practitioners of the "new magic"
were capitalists - members of a new dogma that emphasized a salvation based on
"work ethic" and personal responsibility. The wealthy industrialists spoke
vernacular, the language of the common man, and printed their bibles in English,
Dutch and German, as they carved up the estates of the ailing Catholic Church and
the tottering decadent nobility. In the politics that followed the war, cotton
gins (slave culture) were replaced by steel mills and railroads (industrial
culture). As the capitalist captains of the "New Rome" spread the infrastructure
of steel and oil, it was the common man who felt the brutal realities of the "New
World Order". These peasants, economic refugees from Europe and ex-slaves from
the American south - worked 12 hours a day while battling hunger and disease in
tenement slums. The masters of the "industrial culture"- whose global monopolies
were forged during the crusade for abolition, were oddly silent about the
horrifying working and living conditions of the "new slavery", but philosophers
and revolutionaries were not. Violent revolutions, inspired by Marx, Lenin and
Stalin helped bring a new sensibility to the capitalist enterprise.

Even today, after a century of vigorous persecution and murder of labor leaders,
the worker of the "industrial culture" who is unsuccessful (perhaps due to a
physical or psychological defect) will find that to survive on the legal "minimum
wage" they may need to work at 2 or even 3 forms of employment . The phrase
"freedom is not free" for these people, who number in the millions, has a special
resonance. During every election season, politicians from Washington DC are
forced to present new plans for universal health care because it is common
knowlege these workers haven't enough money to pay for a doctor! Urban poor can
wait for hours to be treated for emergency medical conditions, and they die -
every day, in hospital lobbies because they cannot afford help. Nonetheless, the
pressure on these poor people to "earn or die" continues to this day. Presumably,
these hard living conditions will convince them of the urgency of their own
financial condition - and inspire them to seek additional institutionalization to
remedy. Today's American does not reach maturity without being institutionalized
for an average of over 20 years. High schools, prisons, and universities have the
effect of creating a "zombie-like" populations, nonetheless the "education" mantra
continues to pour forth from the lips of cynical community leaders seeking
corporate contibutions, naive voters, and little else.

The pressure that is on these poor workers is in fact part of the seduction. By
employing system of "carrots" - in the form of pay, perks and privelege - and
employing another cruel system of "sticks" in the form of lack of housing, health
care, transportation and employment for the truly needy, our modern Ceasar hopes
to rid the world of poverty and to date, he has been largely successful. But
because of this, the western institution has rightly earned its dangerous
reputation, as a seducer of the greedy, and for grinding the flesh of the
impoverished in the mighty wheel of global seduction, who are left no choice but
to "play or pay".

At times, like when Hurrican Katrina poured destruction on the venerable city of
New Orleans, intellectuals of the western culture scratch their heads at the
percieved ineptness of our government, a secular institution that has by
tradition, been created to sheild us from the harsh realities of the moral
universe that we live in. Western intellectuals are caught in a trap then, not
understanding that what we call the "secular institution" is a mere polity - a
preferred way of doing business. When as a nation, we find ourselves threatened
by an act of God, war, or impending social chaos - this polity is swept aside -
and briefly we see how the moral architecture or the universe is not to be cheated
- and every age will have its champions, villians, plagues -etc. to prove this
point.

Intellectuals, of the western institution, trained as they are to disbelieve in

the "moral realities" of the real world, are at their wits end to explain the
failures of our society. How is that the world's most expensive, and endowed
legal system has, to date, only succeeded in making us the world leaders of
incarceration - while the elusive cause of justice continues to elude us?? Like
free speech, we take the power and granduer of our "secular myth" for granted, but
when push comes to shove - secular polities are pushed aside - because the
architecture of our civilization is moral, it is based on law. When these laws
fail, it is necessary for us to trace them back to the roots - even as far as
Moses if necessary - and engage in a religious exploration to find the cause of
the disease.

Today, the worm that is eating our culture from the inside out is a menace widely
recognized our ancient theological institutions: seduction. And the fact that no
pope has given voice to this new plague is clear evidence that seduction - a
refinement of slavery, is as old as the institution itself. This mistrust of
religion is why our intellectual establishment is unable to reach a verdict about
this "consumer seduction". Because religion predates science, it is as
impossible for mankind to realize the truth about themselves without religion, as
it would be for a biologist to track a disease without a microscope.

Not only are our intellectual leaders hamstrung by this myopia - but it should
come as no surprise that a very great deal of this grand spiritual enterprise - is
being concealed from us. While western scholars continue to tumble down the
"bunny slopes" of theology, arguing about abortion etc... we have become objects
of tragic amusement to "established" or "eastern" scholars who are well versed in
the manner and arguments of the "seducer". Scholars like the Ayatollah Khomeini
refer to the USA as the "Great Satan" and this seduction as the "Western
Sickness".

In truth - our criminal justice system excels only at catching witless criminals,
doing nothing to stop the public rape of our youngest minds by commercial
television - nothing is done to stop these criminals from drowning our youth in
every imaginable profanity and indecency. The films and airwaves - developed as a
public trust to a suspicious electorate - cannot be "shut out" any more than foul
pollution from factories - or diseased drinking water. When our western culture
can competently administer these resources - instead of farming them out to porn
moguls, perhaps the world will more respect our notions of "morality". Meanwhile,
expect tensions to continue, and most importantly - as terrorist strikes hit
closer and closer to home - please refrain from blaming "fundamentalists" and
"extremists" for merely pointing out that (pardon the humor) the emporor is
wearing no clothes.