{"id":57999,"date":"2018-03-02T06:25:23","date_gmt":"2018-03-02T06:25:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/zenpundit.com\/?p=57999"},"modified":"2018-03-02T06:25:23","modified_gmt":"2018-03-02T06:25:23","slug":"the-woman-with-the-golden-gun","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/?p=57999","title":{"rendered":"The Woman with the Golden Gun"},"content":{"rendered":"

[ by Charles Cameron<\/strong> — James Bond in the Sun Myung-Moon universe? ]
\n.<\/p>\n

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<\/strong>‘s Unification Church (upper image, below, worshipper with crown of bullets):<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

— and their queenly leader Rev. Yeon Ah Lee-Moon<\/strong> (lower image, above) complete with her weapon of gold.<\/p>\n

**<\/p>\n

Ah, guns of gold.<\/p>\n

I would love to know the symbolic meaning of a crown of bullets — compare Christ’s crown of thorns — but the symbolism of gold…<\/p>\n

Gold corresponds in alchemical symbology to the sun, and silver to the moon, making the original Unification messiah Sun Myung-Moon<\/strong>‘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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

**<\/p>\n

Consider in this light the golden weapon of cartel boss Ramiro Pozos Gonzalez<\/strong> (upper image, below):<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

— far outshining Scaramanga<\/strong>‘s golden gun from the James Bond<\/strong> movie The Man with the Golden Gun<\/strong> — (lower image, above, by mrgarethm under CC<\/a> \u00a9 Gareth Milner).. <\/p>\n

**<\/p>\n

Gold, oh dear, is also the symbolic essence of wealth-as-power<\/strong>, ie for practical cases, money, cash, dosh — and as such, that substance the desire for which is, famously, scripturally, the root of all evil.<\/p>\n

Golden guns, in this sense, are desirable precisely in inverse relationship to their owner’s desire for good.<\/p>\n

Caveat emptor! <\/strong><\/p>\n

**<\/p>\n

Sources:<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n
  • BBC<\/strong>, In pictures: US gun-blessing ceremony<\/a><\/li>\n

    <\/p>\n

  • Mail<\/strong>, Gold plated AK-47 confiscated during arrest of Mexican cartel leader<\/a>\n
  • International Spy Museum<\/strong>, Golden Gun<\/a><\/li>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    [ by Charles Cameron — James Bond in the Sun Myung-Moon universe? ] . 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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[866,526,627,573,1214,533,1296,691,1,1584],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-57999","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-alchemy","category-charles-cameron","category-doublequotes","category-mexico","category-moon","category-religion","category-sun","category-symbolism","category-uncategorized","category-violence"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57999","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=57999"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57999\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":58011,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57999\/revisions\/58011"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=57999"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=57999"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=57999"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}