The Woman with the Golden Gun
[ by Charles Cameron — James Bond in the Sun Myung-Moon universe? ]
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As you know, I’m interested in the intersection of religion and violence, and there can hardly be a more emphatic example of that intersection than a religious ceremonial for the blessing of guns — complete with the personnel of an offshoot of messiah the Rev. Sun Myung-Moon‘s Unification Church (upper image, below, worshipper with crown of bullets):
— and their queenly leader Rev. Yeon Ah Lee-Moon (lower image, above) complete with her weapon of gold.
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Ah, guns of gold.
I would love to know the symbolic meaning of a crown of bullets — compare Christ’s crown of thorns — but the symbolism of gold…
Gold corresponds in alchemical symbology to the sun, and silver to the moon, making the original Unification messiah Sun Myung-Moon‘s name a sweet alchemical conjunction of sun and moon, albeit in transcription from the Korean in which the names would no doubt have entirely different valences from their English versions.
Forget the Moon, then — golden weapons are, in a sense the Aztecs might have appreciated, weapons of the sun, and adornments of sunly male royalty.
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Consider in this light the golden weapon of cartel boss Ramiro Pozos Gonzalez (upper image, below):
— far outshining Scaramanga‘s golden gun from the James Bond movie The Man with the Golden Gun — (lower image, above, by mrgarethm under CC © Gareth Milner)..
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Gold, oh dear, is also the symbolic essence of wealth-as-power, ie for practical cases, money, cash, dosh — and as such, that substance the desire for which is, famously, scripturally, the root of all evil.
Golden guns, in this sense, are desirable precisely in inverse relationship to their owner’s desire for good.
Caveat emptor!
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Sources:
BBC, In pictures: US gun-blessing ceremony Mail, Gold plated AK-47 confiscated during arrest of Mexican cartel leader International Spy Museum, Golden Gun
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March 2nd, 2018 at 8:23 am
Wow! I was unaware of the gun ceremony. They have a very interesting philosophy, don’t they? I’m interested how it is they believe the “Rod of Iron” is given to them to protect themselves, as this doesn’t appear to be the message of related scripture? On that note, I found a “pulpit commentary” on the verse in Revelation (http://biblehub.com/revelation/2-27.htm) that takes the apparent meaning of the words and softens them into a very optimistic and gentle interpretation. I see this often in commentary on scripture, and in fact remember it from sermons in church. I’ll keep gnawing on that one.
March 3rd, 2018 at 3:02 pm
When rulers have a metal rod it’s generally a sceptre, isn’t it?
March 11th, 2018 at 9:27 am
Indeed. The metaphor here (in the ceremony) seems grotesquely twisted, but it makes a certain sense from a perspective that I’m quite uncomfortable pursuing at the moment…
March 11th, 2018 at 4:00 pm
I won’t peer or push, I promise.