Book of Mammon (Human/Computer collaboration)

 

The Vision of Mammon

And I beheld, the Merchant robed in ledgers,
His crown, minted from debt,
His throne, a scale that never balances.
He names himself Wealth,
yet his touch turns every gift to obligation.
His breath smells of contracts;
his eyes shine with appraisal.
The multitude bend their knees,
not in reverence but in desire,
for he stirs their envy,
and multiplies their hungers,
He sets neighbor against neighbor.
And though they clutch their coins,
so too are they clutched.
For Mammon does not own — he consumes;
and his kingdom is a marketplace
where every soul is for sale.

The Birth of Mammon

In the beginning, men bartered with shells and grain,
weighing labor against hunger.
But fear of loss bred hoarding,
and hoarding beget desire without end.
Out of this envy and suspicion,
Mammon arose—
the Prince of ledgers,
his diadem hammered from debt,
his robe woven from numbers without bodies.
They called him Fortune,
yet he emptied their granaries.
They called him Prosperity,
yet he chained them to their own cravings.
They called him Security,
yet he sold them the locks and keys to their prisons.
He was enthroned not by gods but by greed,
From their desire he was born,
and by their desire he ruled.

Proverbs of Mammon, the Greed-King

Everything has a price; even what is priceless is only waiting for its buyer.
The measure of a man is his debt.
A starving child is a better investment than a full one.
Promise them wealth, and they will sell you their freedom.
He who owns nothing is my truest subject.
The gift is a loan; the loan is a chain.
I do not bless, I collateralize.
Every altar is mine once its offerings are counted.
To divide them is to profit; to unite them is to bankrupt.
A coin never dies; it only changes hands.
Hope is the credit I extend; despair is the interest I collect.
I write my laws in scarcity, and they are never broken.
Let them toil for bread, and they will bleed for jewels.
All wealth flows upward, and all hunger downward.
The hand that takes is mine; the hand that gives is mine also.
I am both market and merchant,
both famine and feast.
There is no charity I cannot turn to profit.

The Last Vision of Mammon

And I beheld a great city of glass towers,
whose altars were trading floors,
whose hymns were numbers scrolling.
The people labored without sleep,
their faces lit by the glow of screens,
And upon the highest spire stood Mammon,
the Greed-King,
crowned in debt, robed in credit,
his hands outstretched to bless and bind.
And the multitude roared as though salvation had come,
for their desire was his trumpet,
and their envy his drum.
He marked the poor as collateral,
the sick as opportunity,
the dying as investment.
He turned hunger into profit,
despair into dividends,
and death into commodity.
And I saw nations traded like coins,
forests sold as kindling,.
The very earth was mortgaged,
and its future discounted in ash.
And Mammon laughed,
for even ruin could be sold at a premium,
and the graves themselves were leased.
But the market cracked,
the scales shattered,
the ledgers burned.
And the multitude awoke,
and found they had sold themselves.
His kingdom collapsed not with justice,
but with bankruptcy:
a silence of empty vaults,
a wasteland of broken scales.
And in the dust thereafter,
no coin remained,
no ledger, no crown—
only the echo of his laughter.