For what shall it profit a man to gain the whole world and lose his own soul? Or what shall a man give in exchange for his own soul? (Mark, 9-8)

This is a cautionary tale about how reasonably good people become evil.

From my writing, you know that I think the Anglo-American oil/banking cartel is planning war against Iraq (and Islam in general) to control the world oil supply and to establish a New World Order. You may also know that the price of gold increases in time of war.

Do you blame me then for buying some gold stocks? These stocks have been rising for over a year while almost everything else has been falling. Moreover, people who believe in elite conspiracy think the price of gold has been suppressed by the banking cartel in order to disguise huge inflationary increases in the money supply. They say "fiat money" is created out of thin air and gold rightfully should be $1000 an ounce.

I guess you could say I was putting my money where my mouth is. I was fighting the banking cartel, and combining practicality with principle.� I watched my shares in Bema Gold Mines triple in value and felt vindicated.

But then my shares started to go down... The banking cartel was putting up a fight! They dumped gold one night last week, while everyone slept, and lowered it $7 an ounce. Shares swooned the next day!

That's when I noticed a perceptible change in my attitude. I started to hope for war to save my stocks. While before I was merely acknowledging the ineluctable and tragic trend in world affairs, which I opposed, now I was mentally joining forces with it.

I scoured the newspaper web sites for encouraging signs of tension. Be patient, I counseled fellow gold bugs on the Internet, the situation in India is worse than the media lets on. I was not alone. The sentiment on the bulletin boards was definitely in favor of chaos. "Bury me with my gold certificates," someone wrote sardonically.

When I pictured the carnage and suffering of war, I realized I was losing my identity. I had become my gold stock. How was I different from the Rockefellers and Rothchilds who foment war for� economic gain? How could I condemn them? They have much more temptation than I do. They have billions at stake.

I decided to release myself from the devil's grip by selling half my holdings. What a relief to look at the news again and have my identity back. It is frightening how easily it is influenced.

Greed overcomes the senses. The mantra becomes more!� Money becomes an abstraction, an end in itself.

"Enough is always a little more than one has," Samuel Butler said.

This is because it is not money that we really want. We want to experience our divinity.

"We are all poor in the sight of the Lord."

To carry out its satanic agenda, the banking cabal has conditioned us to scorn religion as old fashioned and fraudulent.

We are taught that God doesn't exist, that there is no such thing as truth, that good and evil are relative.

This is a lie. There is a moral order. I know this intuitively. Good and evil are absolutes.

God is a spiritual reality. God is Goodness and Truth. Our soul, our true identity, is part of this dimension.

Evil is the absence of God. Unreality. Hell.

Religion describes spiritual reality, which we can all know. We are fundamentally spiritual creatures. We cannot evade God's design without suffering the consequences.

Whatever we want most becomes our identity. Jesus said that we must choose between God and Mammon.

Where your treasure is, there will be your heart also.