Burning Money?

Yeah, I think it's good luck to burn money, and I wondered if anybody else on here was a devotee of this practice.
I recall reading some years back that the rock group The KLF went to some island off the coast of Scotland and ritually burned a hundred thousand British pounds. They seemed to do okay.
My understanding of the reason why it's good luck or beneficial has to do with the nature of the currency/banking system involved. Being American, talking about Federal Reserve Notes, they represent debt, slavery, a promise to pay, unnecessary interest paid to a cartel of banks in a hidden powergrab (also when I said "slavery" just now I was talking about my slavery, not historical slavery involving Africans or whatever), bondage, selling the present for nothing in exchange for all of your better future, Esau's bad deal with Jacob, et cetera.
Also, when you're lacking money, when you need money, you got to clutch onto that bill like a hungry monkey, like a crack addict combing crumbs out of the carpet...this is obviously a bad luck way to be. Needy people stay needy. By burning money, you model a majestic indifference towards it that causes you to attract more money in the future.
You don't have to burn all your money, you don't have to burn a lot, you don't have to burn much, you don't have to burn it often. It's not like if you burned all your money you would win the lottery. That type of desperate importunity would, again, be obviously a bad luck practice. This is more in the nature of a moderately beneficial, almost humdrum habit, like taking a brisk walk in the evening.
It seems like I most often tend to do it sitting in bars, when I'm bored, one five ten or twenty, start a small fire in the ashtray. I'm marking myself out as a trouble-source customer, by doing that, probably...but if it wasn't that it would be something else. Mostly I only go where they already know me anyways.
The other day my buddy called me and said he couldn't find the keys to his work vehicle, which he needed right then to go do a job and make a whole bunch of money. I told him to burn a five dollar bill and he would remember where he left the keys. He asked how the hell would that work. I said you already know in your mind somewhere where you left the keys, at some level, you're just all upset about missing this job and all this money so you can't calm a bit and figure it out. By burning the money, seemingly making the situation even worse, you simultaneously tell yourself that losing money is no big deal and that you have got to focus, and you'll remember where you put them. ( All that this anecdote really shows is that I freely give bad advice and I have an answer for everything). So he did, and he did. No doubt he would have found the keys eventually anyways.

Now, since you seem smart enough to have figured a way around a clouded mind (this wasn't supposed to sound sarcstic, you sound like your well informed of the mind).

Could you think of an alternative mind clearing way to do that? You tell your buddy that by burning a 5 dollar bill (i imagine the amount doesn't really matter, correct?) he is subconciously telling himself the money doesn't matter that he'll earn from the job and in return the clutter in his mind will clear away, the only relevant info remaining pertaining to his problem being the location of his car keys, now is there an alternate solution to solving his problem than burning money cause if there is, i wanna know!!

(I like your second paragraph, the seperation from penny pinching idea)

I've personally never in my life heard of burning money for more money and it brought another question to mind just for clarification purposes. The act of burning money is a sign of openess or readiness for money in the future? Not a certain specific number of money but the openness of getting money in the future? Is this about right?

reply to post by screamo


Yeah, the amount is not what it's about.
It's also not just about marking yourself off as being noble and sufficient versus poor and needy. It also separates you from the pathology common in rich people who deep down feel that the only thing special about them, the only reason anyone bothers with them, is the size of their pile. I've known rich people who go all tense and crazed when you ask them to spot you the same five bucks you could get from homewood with only a look, along the lines of " What? You think I'm made of money". Burroughs talks somewhere about how when you ask for five bucks from the rich, the response is " oh, I don't happen to have it on me " or " I never carry cash"...well you could obtain some easily if you wanted to help, but you don't want to help, but instead of saying so you say it's inside the house and then you go into your house and shut the door and be alone with your five dollars>type of mentality. Money is a way of keeping score in life, but it's not the only way...I'm sinking to fortune-cookie maxims, here.

what about this instead of burning it send it to me via western union jk
i am trying not to give much importance to money by not burning it but by giving it the same value as a paper but its quite hard

Here is another example , someone who agrees with me that burning money is good...

ALTHOUGH $2,300,000 IS A LITTLE BIT EXTRA, TO ME, BUT, UH...

It's about halfaway down in the article on Nigerian/Juju theft/etc....

[news.bbc.co.uk...]

Plus I don't get the burning money in the cemetery concept...
Plus this story has one sentence which I love...

"These people have connections with militants in the creeks, and once they get in there it will be very difficult to find him"...

YES!!!

I will burn money with you!

I wish we would all burn our money as soon as we get it.

That'll teach em.

reply to post by surrender_dorothy


Nuh-uh, I don't see burning money as a THAT'LL TEACH THEM

I see it as a (nobody knows but me)

(ritually) Destroy that which controls you and you free yourself from that control. You become the lord over it, and it loses it´s grip on your mind/soul.

I for one will be burning €5 today. If I get any noteworthy results I will share them here. (the results, not the money)

reply to post by Psychopump


yes! i'm with you man.

if i had any notes i would burn them. if i could i would melt down my pennies and mould them into art.

burn money yeah yeah!

This maybe could regenerate to a new Nigerian scam.
“Burn your money to gain more money. For safety fire regulation please sends your money to Chief Babba Tookoo so he can burn it for you in safety and proper black magic practice”

Kacou.

I always seem to win money on gambling when i dont need it.
When i am desperate i never seem to win of find any.

My system is to give some money away every now and than, never thought of burning it.

Maybe that's how Avril Lavigne scored her millions of dollars?

But, instead of burning money she burnt millions of her CD's?

I know that I burnt one of her CD's, well, it wasn't intentional but according too this I made her rich!

I can't see how burning money can make you richer... It's like burning books too make your civilization richer and more superior.

Fox.

Look although it might have some superstitious effects and Chief Baba Tookoo might want you to send him some.
The truth is that money although its worthless paper crap could feed people in Africa.

reply to post by Interestinggg


I never wanted to be disrespectful in my post.
Beside giving money to Africa, what about giving them the real free trade and stopping this unfair system where by buying foreign food is cheaper then growing their own.
kacou

so burning money will make me richer? yeah, that'll work!!! give me a break, the only way thats going to work is if it's my last fiver and i'm more desperate to get some cash after i sent it up in flames than before!!!

why not just throw it away or give it to the next homeless person you see, surely it'll have the same effect.

and as for your buddy, he probably would have found his keys quicker if he put the phone down and looked for the things. one thing i've never thought of doing when i desperately needed to find my keys is calling up my friends to shoot the breeze!

reply to post by nine-eyed-eel


It was actually £1m (about $2m).

And it's illegal to destroy currency in many countries around the world.

This is all superstition. No evidence exists that suggests this is true.

I'd love to burn money. especially in my old office where I used to work But unfortunatley where I work and if I had done it , it would have crippled the UK as I work for a Bank and the money held in the vaults covers what is out on the streets. In case of any dire national emergency.
But oh the times I thought about it ............

The only other time I have actually burnt money is when I lit up a 5 pound note to prove to my Brother what he's doing when he's smoking a cigarette. ( fell on deaf ears though so it was a waste).

[edit on 8/9/08 by DataWraith]

Great idea! Lets burn money to get back at the man!

Seriously.

I cant believe how superstitious people are, you aren't helping yourself by burning that money. Even burning 5 dollars can make a large amount of difference to someone in a third world country.

Sigh, leave it to us superficial people living in wealthy countries to do the stupid things.

Originally posted by pieman


why not just throw it away or give it to the next homeless person you see, surely it'll have the same effect.

Just giving it to the homeless person, you haven't destroyed the use or value of it...it's still a transaction, one that people enter into...You give the money, you get a good feeling...it's like paying a stripper to dance, except instead of a sex-stripper it's a poverty-stripper or a leprosy-stripper, whatever, depending where you live...And then throwing it away, you get to think about how surprised somebody would be when they find it, you get a little feeling of how you're adding to the magic/wonder/"you-never-know" of the world, and the money still has potential energy in it, it wants to get found and spent, like how bullets want to get shot, like how secrets want to get told, like how water runs downhill and naked pictures want to wind up on the internet...the transaction is suspended
WHEREAS when you burn it, that's it,it's done,done gone, game over, the only use you'll get out of this pointless little act of will is whatever encouragement you can derive from it towards strengthening your future acts of will on all future occasions
If you have just burned a fortune, you give people the feeling that your price has gone up...Just like if you've killed a man for nothing, you give off a feeling that makes people somehow sense they might not want to anger you...

Originally posted by jaamaan
I always seem to win money on gambling when i dont need it.
When i am desperate i never seem to win of find any.

Yeah see, that's what I'm talking about...That's like how it's bad luck to gamble with borrowed money, and like how it's bad luck to gamble with the rent money ...cause you NEED it too bad, and so you're modelling NEED, and NEED is by definition that which never gets satisfied...