The Marketplace - I

I went to the market.

As I passed by the stands, I noticed one slogan after another, with huge sales signs trying the lure the people into surrendering their money into the hands of the salesmen.

"For a limited time only: three DVD's for the donation of one".

"Here's a must have gift offer, you cannot let it pass you by".

"Why be broke and poor when you can be blessed and rich beyond your wildest dreams?

Learn to give to receive a hundredfold".

The salesmen were very crafty in enticing people to give them their money.

In their hands the Bible was transformed into a sales manual bringing forth pots of gold.

It felt very strange to me that they referred to the price of their goods as 'donations', and how they would 'give' the item to anyone who 'donated'.

Just as when you 'donate' a certain amount of money at your local grocery you are 'given' certain groceries in return.

I could not help but feeling awkward at the sight of this hypocrisy where a simple economic sales transaction between a buyer and a salesman was transformed into a holy act of presenting an offering to YHWH Himself.

Looking across the marketplace I saw how it was compartmentalized into different categories of salesmen.

All of them had similar merchandise to offer to the public in spite of their claim that their sales items were unique and a one of a kind of revelation straight from the throneroom of heaven.

I noticed one group referred to themselves as the Great Teachers.

Each single one of them was promoting a collection of DVD's and books where those teachers expounded on why they were right and the others were wrong.

They were very good at marketing their products with slogans like 'Today only: a 50% discount on the DVD's we have on offer'.

I was amazed, not so much by what they were teaching, but by the professional way they were promoting their materials.

A used car salesman could learn a trick or two from them.

These Great Teachers had built private booths with fences built around them to keep them separate from the others, and in front of these booths they had placed miniature shrines they made for themselves.

On the other side of the market I noticed the booth of the protestants, and another booth of the catholics.

They too had fenced themselves in, with a hedge around their booths, and they spoke to each other with a perpetual smile on their face.

Their dress code was most peculiar.

Especially the catholic dresscode looked as if it was borrowed from the opera house.

Although friendly on the surface, they tried to set the other camp's booth on fire if no one was watching, rushing to the assistance of the other camp to help extinguish the fire so that their charitable works might outshine the charitable works of the other camp.

And so I walked over to the stand next to the teachers' booth, the stand of the watchmen.

Occasionally they tried to set all the other booths on fire by their very words, with no intention of lending a helping hand to extinguish the fire.

They simply enjoyed the sight of the fire since it brought them the confirmation of being right.

A peculiar phenomenon common to these watchmen was that they all wore glasses which were so thick that I could not help but wonder if they were able to actually see anything at all through these glasses.

I tried to shake hands with one of the watchmen, but I discovered that he was unable to respond to my outstretched hand because all the watchmen had the habit of walking around with pointing fingers.

They did have some neat tricks though, like bellowing fire when they felt the urge to burn down a booth.

Then I walked past the apostle's booth.

How fond they were of making contraptions with moving wheels!

These wheels were put into motion by people who were assigned in that capacity by the apostles.

Together they were part of a big machine which set a process in motion which ultimately produced pots of gold: Apostle's Gold.

And so I strolled over to the next stand, the stand of the evangelists.

Never have I seen a bunch of people as extremely happy and overjoyed as they were.

They seemed to have an eternal smile plastered on their faces as they tried to persuade those who passed by to repeat the same phrases as they did.

By repeating those phrases they were rewarded with the beads and candy the evangelist had to offer, and a special blessing printed on a piece of paper was given to them.

It was no wonder that they appeared to be smiling all the time; any individual would smile a lot if he were in the position of receiving the huge sums of money leaving the pockets of the people as donations to the evangelists.

The evangelists who used cameras to project their image unto a big screen gladly accepted the money as proof of how the almighty Creator had blessed them.

How inventive they were in causing the blessings to manifest in the most extravagant luxury for themselves!

But I noticed that not all of them kept the money they received.

Some of them were drafted in the service of the salesmen of the other booths, and those salesmen used the evangelist to expand their market share.

These evangelists ended up as workhorses for these salesmen, sacrificing all their money to finance the wealth of the salesmen in whose service they were drafted.

In return the evangelists received a supply of holy water from the salesmen, from which they drank all day long.

I distinctly got the impression that these evangelists may not have been capable of being aware of being exploitated because their holy water seemed to keep them in a drugged state.

Then I passed by the booths of the prophets.

A greater contrast between the left side of this booth and the previous booth was not possible, as if I walked from a high pressure zone on the tropical island straight into the low pressure zone of the cloud-covered barren icy plane of the North Pole.

The perpetual smile on the face of the evangelist met its opposite in the downward pointing crescent abiding on the faces of the prophets on the left side.

The prophets had built special chairs for themselves on a platform so that it seemed as if they were sitting on thrones when they addressed the people.

They had a certain acrobatic style of presenting themselves which I found most peculiar: one of the minor prophets would sit down on his throne on the platform, and the throne of another prophet would be positioned on top of his throne, upon which another major prophet would sit, so that it looked as if the minor prophet was sitting under a major prophet.

In this fashion they managed to build human towers where a minor prophet was sitting under a major prophet, the major prophet was sitting under an older seasoned major prophet, who in turn was sitting under a major prophet sent unto the nations, who in turn was sitting under a major prophet sent unto the nations in the spirit of Elijah.

The one on top would send a word to the one below him, who in turn would pass it on until it reach the minor prophet who would speak the word to the masses of people  proclaiming it to be the 'word of God'.

Sometimes these constructions collapsed because one of the prophets might begin to feel uncomfortable and attempt to wriggle out of this construction.

When that would happen there would be a lot of yelling and shouting, and a big cloud of dust rising up in the wake of those voices up as they fell to the ground, stinging the eyes of the people.

As the people would  rub the dust out of their eyes, the prophets would try to build up a new structure with a different prophet to take the place of the apostate one.

On the right side I looked straight at what appeared to be the negatives of the prophets on the left side: where one was looking miserable, the other was looking happy, where one preached death and destruction, the other declared prosperity and good times awaiting those who listened to them, one side preached with a stick in their hand, while the other side held up a big jar of molasses inside.

The prophets on the right side had the nasty habit of hitting their listeners with the stick, telling them that it was for their own good to be beat into submission at the prophet's feet. 

The other side loved to anoint the people who listened to them with molasses.

They would smear it all over their heads until everyone stuck together in a great big mess which attracted the attention of the flies.

Between these two camps a broad line was drawn which none of them dared to cross, because to do so would mean to cross over into what they perceived as the camp of the devil.

The camp of the devil 'consulted familiar spirits', so they claimed.

This made me wonder: if the spirits of one camp were called familiar by the other camp, then this surely implied that the other camp must be well acquainted with these spirits since they looked familiar to them?

Both of the camps had smaller booths for  the minor prophets, alongside bigger booths for the major prophets.

A third category consisted of a few really big booths for major prophets sent to the nations, and an extra-large version for prophets sent unto the nations in the spirit of Elijah.

These prophets were very entertaining as long as you did not get too close to them.

Being close to them was no problem as long as you nodded your head in agreement with them, but the moment you dared to question their prophecies you run the risk of being cursed for your 'rebellion'.

Some of them had discovered the lucrative business of giving personal prophecies.

Many people who visited the marketplace were uncertain about themselves and the course they should follow in life, which made them an easy target for a 'prophet' claiming to have access to the throne room of heaven.

Those people were all too eager to learn what message the Creator might have given those prophets as a guideline for their lives.

In doing so, they handed over not only their hard-earned money, but they also relinquished control over their lives to a stranger who claimed to be a prophet.

A few of them even used crystal balls and tea leaves to give these personal prophecies at a special discounted price, or, 'donation' as they called it.

They loved to walk around in hairy mantles carrying a cane which looked like their magic wand.

Those prophets sure were a profit unto themselves!

There seemed to be some sort of degree system which they referred to as 'Signs&Wonders' followed by a number written in Latin.

These numbers referred to different degrees ranging from basic magical tricks up to the highest degree which included the ability of raising the dead.

Many of them claimed to have at least the healing degree, but a few of them also advertized to have brought dead people back to life.

Of course that gave them a very prominent standing not only among the people, but also among the junior prophets.

Unfortunately, when I tried to verify their claims I was unable to find anyone who was raised from the dead, so I suppose their slogans were just part of their PR, having more in common with ambitious wishful thinking than anything else.

One thing is for sure: even if the prophets themselves did not live up to their degrees, their Signs&Wonders pedigree system at least was able to create the miracle of a financial deluge of blessings coming their way.

But, that was a very familiar trick I had already seen very often in the other booths.

The Messianic booth was a hoot.

Apparently they believed in the notion of measuring godliness by the length of the beard: the longer the beard, the holier they were reckoned to be.

I noticed women in the booth were wearing headscarves, and on top of the headscarf they wore a tallit, and to make sure they were covered some of them even wore XXL size tallits to top it off.

They were almost islamic in appearance.

Some wrapped themselves in their messianic attire to such an extent that the cleaning crew sometimes mistook them for laundry and carried them off to be washed and cleansed.

The Messianic crew had built something which looked like a metal skeleton with straps on it.

The spokes of the skeleton were connected to a machine which was able to move these spokes.

This machine in turn was operated by the 'Torah- operator'.

Whenever someone from the audience got involved with this booth, he or she would be tied to this skeleton with the straps around the ankles, the legs, the arms and the hands.

The Torah-operator would then proceed to push buttons and use the joy-stick so that he could cause an arm to move to the left, or a leg to the right.

I wondered why anyone would voluntarily tie themselves to a structure which defied the intent of that which it stood for.

But then again, the volunteers were told that the structure set the process of blessings in motion for the ones who were tied for the structure, so with the elusive carrot at the end of the stick some were persuaded to allow themselves to be tied to the skeleton and become the extension of the 'Torah-operator'.

I guess the joy-stick in the hands of the operator must refer to the joy the operators receive as they exercise control over their 'client' by holding out the 'stick' to the extent where they are able to empty their wallets.

With that thought in mind I proceed towards a very colorful and cheerful looking tent where people acted in a way which would best be described as 'not exactly normal'.

Although they were talking loudly, I could not understand a single word of what they were saying. 

Some of them even talked like a baby, 'gagagoogoo', and the more they indulged in baby-talk, the more excited the crowd became.

And as the excitement increased, so did the amount of money they ended up giving to the salesmen.

On the side I beheld the strange spectacle of a man guiding a woman on a leash, as if he was walking the dog, and the woman lifted up her head as she began to howl 'praises' with a shrill voice.

In another corner a man in a white suit pretended to be pouring virtual drinks for the visitors, calling himself the 'holy ghost bartender'.

Apparently they had no qualms about turning the Holy Spirit into a circus clown working in their service as their personal moneymaker.

Now, if you ask me, THAT is really dangerous, for evil spirits do not fear the Holy Spirit without reason!

I cringed at the sight of this circus and the blasphemy of the utterly weird surreal scenes.

They made Dali's paintings look quite normal in comparison.

The spectacle would cause even the most outlandish among the human species to question the practices displayed in the combined charismatic/pentecostal tent.

When I strolled over to the back, I came face to face with a huge, very expensive looking booth.

Close to this booth I saw a genuine sparkling Rolls Royce parked next to a golden dog house with a miniature replica of Solomon's portico built in front of it.

Through the window of the booth I caught a glimpse of the interior which made even king Solomon's palace look common in comparison.

I have never seen such a display of luxury and extravaganza!

Over the entrance of the booth there was a golden plate with the words 'Home of Blessings' spelled out in diamonds.

Judging by the standard of living of the ones in the booth I tended to agree that there was an unprecedented financial blessing on this booth.

When I turned my eyes back to the people in the tent, I noticed how everyone of them gladly donated their finances to the booth of blessings in the hope and expectation that they too could have a private booth of blessings.

Many of them paid with their credit cards, which made me wonder if they were not concerned about putting themselves in debt in pursuit of the image of being blessed.

But they did not seem to care, fully trusting that what they donated to the privileged few in the expensive booth would come back to bless them also.

After what I had witnessed on the market it did not come as a surprise to me that the extravagant luxury I had seen was financed with the money of gullible devotees, even to the point where people ended up putting themselves in debt for the sake of a lie which was held up to them as 'God's holy truth'.

I felt as if I was leaving the theater of the absurd as I walked over to yet another booth on the market on my way out.

Here too the salesmen were speaking loudly, but at least I could understand the words.

However, I completely failed to make sense of whatever they were saying since their statements did not add up in a logical and truthful way.

They were able to make people believe that the sky was green and the grass was blue, and all of those who were part of the booth would cheer and smile in great appreciation of this revelation.

I marveled and wondered if perhaps they were using drugs that they managed to see sense where I perceived madness, but I could not detect any.

Then I understood that they DID use drugs.

Their drug was the sound of words, and combinations of words and the conditioned reaction to words seemed to produce a state of mind where the emotional reaction triggered something they experienced as understanding.

It was just an elaborate word game.

I knew that word games and the conditioned reactions of people were used by all the salesmen of all the different booths, but here in this booth of the New Age it was turned into a form of art.

Looking past the booth I noticed in the back a greater and much more luxurious booth.

How odd, I thought, there's hardly any difference in the structure of these various booths on the market.

Why did they always place the biggest booths farthest back, out of sight of the people who visited the booths?

Here too the money streamed out of the pockets of the people who were part of the booth to the top salesman in the luxurious booth.

He used their money to build his own palace, while many of the people ended up with nothing but empty pockets and a glazed look in their eyes.

Yes, the booth of the New Age camp was not much different either.

Their message may have been different, but the same old sales techniques and psychological conditioning were used to turn the message into a moneymaker for the ones exploiting the message.

I was utterly disgusted by what I had seen, and I hated the place.

It was filled with lies, pretence and exploitation, and I made up my mind to get out and never return again.

I did not bother walking past the other booths, for there were many different booths, yet they all looked like variations on one and the same theme.

How could any sane and honest human being enjoy the phony spectacle which I had just seen?

Not only were those hypocrites not satisfied with the last penny they managed to leech from the people who believed them, they also installed a false image of YHWH in their minds where they would expect financial blessings for giving their last cent in obedience to what they were told was 'YHWH's commandment to give to the salesmen'.

They had no qualms about exploiting YHWH's name and turning the One who created all into a pretext for exploitation and self-enrichment.

Inevitably this disappointment would reflect badly on YHWH's name they so frequently loved to toss around.

Yes, in their mouths 'Yah' truly became 'Hovah', which is the Hebrew word for ruin and disaster.

As I left the market, I saw a person sitting by wayside.

He looked shabby and lean, as if he had not eaten for quite some time, and at first I was under the impression that he was a homeless person.