Lynne Twist says "Our money culture is broad, constant, unrelenting, all-pervasive, and invasive, with brutality and tyranny that is impossible to escape. This is true in every country all around the world, in every economic class."

She is the author of The Soul of Money: Transforming Your Relationship with Money and Life, http://soulofmoney.org.

She continues:

¨Money’s original purpose was to facilitate sharing of our goods and resources with each other. Money is now “off purpose” from that original purpose, and is used now to dominate, manipulate, control, and hurt each other.

¨The source of our suffering is not personal, but cultural. Our culture demeans and diminishes us, makes us a “deficit people”, eats away at our soul, and gives us no relief from being confused, suffering, in pain, in shame, embarrassed, etc."

¨The following cultural lies are the source/root of all pain and suffering:

~ Money is more important and has more meaning than human life, so our behavior doesn’t match our values.

~ Money is more important and has more meaning than nature/the natural world.

~ Money is more important than Spirit/God (it has become our “god” and the current “temples” are shopping malls).

~ We are no longer considered “citizens” (people who are responsible for the community and the state), but now are labeled as, marketed to, manipulated as, and treated as “consumers”, which diminishes us as human beings, and we start to believe ourselves as that identity.

¨The “Great Lie of Scarcity” is an unexamined, unconscious belief system with three toxic lies embedded in it:

1. “There’s not enough to go around, so therefore someone’s always going to be left out, and it had better not be me!” The game of musical chairs is the perfect metaphor/training ground for this belief because there’s only one winner and everybody else are losers. Therefore, it is seen as noble, responsible, justified, and being a “good citizen” to do whatever I have to do in order to first take care of me and “my own” (however I define that).

2. “More is better.” But “more” just generates incessant feeding, insanity, feeling of lack, and craving/wanting/longing for more.

3. “That’s just the way it is.” This is the source of resignation, despair, selling out our Soul, and feeling like it’s our fault.

Lynne Twist, The Soul of Money: Transforming Your Relationship with Money and Life, http://soulofmoney.org.