Episode 6: Negative Interest
08/21/20 • 47 min
Warning: Economics. In this episode, we begin with Eisler’s testimony before the skeptical Senators of the Committee on Banking and Currency in Washington, D.C. on January 20, 1934, in which he proposed that the nation adopt a dual currency system to control inflation and end the Great Depression. I (a non-economist) talk about what this means with noted economist Miles Kimball, who has recently brought renewed attention to Eisler’s plan in his own work. We also learn about Eisler’s theory of who actually wrote what we call the Gospel of John, talk with Steven Wasserstrom about Eisler’s brief involvement with Carl Jung and the Eranos Conference, and interpret a “dream poem” that Eisler recorded at his mother’s house in 1936.
Guests: Guests: Miles Kimball (The University of Colorado-Boulder), Steven Wasserstrom (Reed College).
Voice of Robert Eisler: Caleb Crawford
Additional voices: Brian Evans
Music: “Shibbolet Baseda,” recorded by Elyakum Shapirra and His Israeli Orchestra.
Funding provided by the Ohio University Humanities Research Fund and the Ohio University Honors Tutorial College Internship Program.
Special thanks to the Warburg Institute.
Bibliography and Further Reading
Buiter, Willem H. “Is Numérairology the Future of Monetary Economics? Unbundling Numéraire and Medium of Exchange Through a Virtual Currency and a Shadow Exchange Rate.” NBER Working Papers 12839. National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc., 2007. DOI:10.3386/w12839.
Buiter, Willem H. and Panigirtzoglou, Nikolaos. “Overcoming the Zero Bound: Gesell vs. Eisler. Discussion of Mitsuhiro Fukao’s “The Effects of ‘Gesell’ (Currency) Taxes in Promoting Japan’s Economic Recovery.” International Economics and Economic Policy 2, no. 2/3 (2005): 189-200.
Eisler, Robert. The Enigma of the Fourth Gospel. London: Methuen & Co., 1938.
———. Stable Money: The Remedy for the Economic World Crisis: A Programme of Financial Reconstruction for the International Conference. London: The Search Publishing Co., Ltd., 1932.
———. This Money Maze: A Way Out of the Economic World Crisis. London: The Search Publishing Co., Ltd., 1931.
———. Das Geld: Seine geschichtliche Entstehung und gesellschaftliche Bedeutung. Munich: Diatypie, 1924.
Eisler, Robert and Alec Wilson. The Money Machine: A Simple Introduction to the Eisler Plan. London: The Search Publishing Co., Ltd., 1933.
Gold Reserve Act of 1934: Hearings Before the Committee on Banking and Currency, United States Senate, Seventy-Third Congress, Second Session on S. 2366: A Bill to Protect the Currency System of the United States, to Provide for the Better Use of the Monetary Gold Stock of the United States, and for Other Purposes, Revised January 19-23, 1934. Washington, D.C.: United States Government Printing Office, 1934
Hakl, Hans Thomas. Eranos: An Alternative Intellectual History of the Twentieth Century. Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2013.
Keynes, John Maynard, Paul R. Krugman, and Robert Jacob Alexander Skidelsky. The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money. Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018.
Kimball, Miles. “Pro Gauti Eggertsson.” Confessions of a Supply Side Liberal. June 27, 2016. Last Accessed July 7, 2020.
Wasserstrom, Steven M. Religion after Religion: Gershom Scholem, Mircea Eliade, and Henry Corbin at Eranos. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1999.
Follow us on Twitter: @averysquarepeg
Associate Professor Brian Collins is the Drs. Ram and Sushila Gawande Chair in Indian Religion and Philosophy at Ohio University. He can be reached at [email protected].
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Warning: Economics. In this episode, we begin with Eisler’s testimony before the skeptical Senators of the Committee on Banking and Currency in Washington, D.C. on January 20, 1934, in which he proposed that the nation adopt a dual currency system to control inflation and end the Great Depression. I (a non-economist) talk about what this means with noted economist Miles Kimball, who has recently brought renewed attention to Eisler’s plan in his own work. We also learn about Eisler’s theory of who actually wrote what we call the Gospel of John, talk with Steven Wasserstrom about Eisler’s brief involvement with Carl Jung and the Eranos Conference, and interpret a “dream poem” that Eisler recorded at his mother’s house in 1936.
Guests: Guests: Miles Kimball (The University of Colorado-Boulder), Steven Wasserstrom (Reed College).
Voice of Robert Eisler: Caleb Crawford
Additional voices: Brian Evans
Music: “Shibbolet Baseda,” recorded by Elyakum Shapirra and His Israeli Orchestra.
Funding provided by the Ohio University Humanities Research Fund and the Ohio University Honors Tutorial College Internship Program.
Special thanks to the Warburg Institute.
Bibliography and Further Reading
Buiter, Willem H. “Is Numérairology the Future of Monetary Economics? Unbundling Numéraire and Medium of Exchange Through a Virtual Currency and a Shadow Exchange Rate.” NBER Working Papers 12839. National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc., 2007. DOI:10.3386/w12839.
Buiter, Willem H. and Panigirtzoglou, Nikolaos. “Overcoming the Zero Bound: Gesell vs. Eisler. Discussion of Mitsuhiro Fukao’s “The Effects of ‘Gesell’ (Currency) Taxes in Promoting Japan’s Economic Recovery.” International Economics and Economic Policy 2, no. 2/3 (2005): 189-200.
Eisler, Robert. The Enigma of the Fourth Gospel. London: Methuen & Co., 1938.
———. Stable Money: The Remedy for the Economic World Crisis: A Programme of Financial Reconstruction for the International Conference. London: The Search Publishing Co., Ltd., 1932.
———. This Money Maze: A Way Out of the Economic World Crisis. London: The Search Publishing Co., Ltd., 1931.
———. Das Geld: Seine geschichtliche Entstehung und gesellschaftliche Bedeutung. Munich: Diatypie, 1924.
Eisler, Robert and Alec Wilson. The Money Machine: A Simple Introduction to the Eisler Plan. London: The Search Publishing Co., Ltd., 1933.
Gold Reserve Act of 1934: Hearings Before the Committee on Banking and Currency, United States Senate, Seventy-Third Congress, Second Session on S. 2366: A Bill to Protect the Currency System of the United States, to Provide for the Better Use of the Monetary Gold Stock of the United States, and for Other Purposes, Revised January 19-23, 1934. Washington, D.C.: United States Government Printing Office, 1934
Hakl, Hans Thomas. Eranos: An Alternative Intellectual History of the Twentieth Century. Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2013.
Keynes, John Maynard, Paul R. Krugman, and Robert Jacob Alexander Skidelsky. The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money. Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018.
Kimball, Miles. “Pro Gauti Eggertsson.” Confessions of a Supply Side Liberal. June 27, 2016. Last Accessed July 7, 2020.
Wasserstrom, Steven M. Religion after Religion: Gershom Scholem, Mircea Eliade, and Henry Corbin at Eranos. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1999.
Follow us on Twitter: @averysquarepeg
Associate Professor Brian Collins is the Drs. Ram and Sushila Gawande Chair in Indian Religion and Philosophy at Ohio University. He can be reached at [email protected].
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Previous Episode
Episode 5: The Slavonic Josephus
In this episode, we focus on one of Eisler’s most controversial works, a reconstruction of the 1st-century Roman Jewish historian Josephus’ account of the events surrounding the death of Jesus and the ministry of John the Baptist, including a new physical description of Jesus that apparently prompted the Christ to appear to followers in America to prove he did not look like Eisler said he did. Also, Eisler gets into a bitter back-and-forth with Solomon Zeitlin in the pages of the Jewish Quarterly Review and one Christian scholar dedicates an entire book to discrediting the methods of Eisler and other “learned Jews."
Voice of Robert Eisler: Caleb Crawford
Additional voices: Brian Evans
Music: “Shibbolet Baseda,” recorded by Elyakum Shapirra and His Israeli Orchestra.
Funding provided by the Ohio University Humanities Research Fund and the Ohio University Honors Tutorial College Internship Program.
Special thanks to the Warburg Institute.
Bibliography and Further Reading
--Eisler, Robert. The Messiah Jesus and John the Baptist According to Flavius Josephus’ Recently Rediscovered ‘Capture of Jerusalem’ and Other Jewish and Christian Sources. London: Methuen & Co., 1931.
--Freud, Sigmund, and Joseph Sandler. On Freud's “Analysis Terminable and Interminable.” London: Karnac, 2013.
--Goodman, Martin. Josephus’s The Jewish War: A Biography. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2019.
--Hoenig, Sidney B. 1971. Solomon Zeitlin: Scholar Laureate: An Annotated Bibliography, 1915-1970, with Appreciations of His Writings. New York: Bitzaron, 1971.
--Jacks, J. W. The Historic Christ: An Examination of Dr. Robert Eisler’s Theory According to the Slavonic Version of Josephus and Other Sources. Clarke, 1933.
--Josephus, Flavius, Henry Leeming, Katherine Leeming, and Nikita Aleksandrovič Meščerskij, Josephus' Jewish War and Its Slavonic Version: A Synoptic Comparison of the English Translation by H. St. J. Thackeray with the Critical Edition by N. A. Meščerskij of the Slavonic Version in the Vilna Manuscript Translated into English by H. Leeming and L. Osinkina. Leiden: Brill, 2003.
--Ruderman, David B. “Three Reviewers and the Academic Style of the Jewish Quarterly Reviewat Midcentury.” The Jewish Quarterly Review 100, no. 4 (2010): 556-71. Accessed July 6, 2020. www.jstor.org/stable/25781004.
Follow us on Twitter: @averysquarepeg
Associate Professor Brian Collins is the Drs. Ram and Sushila Gawande Chair in Indian Religion and Philosophy at Ohio University. He can be reached at [email protected].
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Next Episode
Episode 7: The Christ Vision
Robert Whitehead of London, a self-described “Business Man” who was “no Churchman and not a Jesus worshipper, much as I admire him,” wrote to Robert Eisler on New Year’s Eve of 1929, asking “if it is a frequent occurrence that men see The Christ; and are there occasions known when the visions are free from religiosity and at the same time full of life and power?” These questions came in light of Whitehead’s dramatic experience when he had seen a blazing vision of Christ in his home. In letters between the two men over the next few years, Eisler gave a startling psychoanalytic interpretation of the dream, which he eventually published. In this episode, I talk about Eisler’s only known attempt to psychoanalyze anyone else with psychoanalyst and religion scholar Marsha Hewitt.
Guest: Marsha Hewitt (Trinity College, University of Toronto)
Voice of Robert Eisler: Logan Crum
Additional voices: Logan Marshall
Music: “Shibbolet Baseda,” recorded by Elyakum Shapirra and His Israeli Orchestra.
Funding provided by the Ohio University Humanities Research Fund and the Ohio University Honors Tutorial College Internship Program.
Special thanks to the Warburg Institute.
Bibliography and Further Reading
Eisler, Robert. The Messiah Jesus and John the Baptist According to Flavius Josephus’ Recently Rediscovered ‘Capture of Jerusalem’ and Other Jewish and Christian Sources. London: Methuen & Co, 1931.
———. “Eine Jesusvision des. 20 Jahrhunderts psychologisch untersucht.” Zeitschrift für Religionspsychologie 11 (1938): 14-41.
Follow us on Twitter: @averysquarepeg
Associate Professor Brian Collins is the Drs. Ram and Sushila Gawande Chair in Indian Religion and Philosophy at Ohio University. He can be reached at [email protected].
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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