Throughout my book The Secret World of Words (Free for paid subscribers here), I demonstrated the interpolated maritime character of the English language. Many words relating to nautical, sea, water, shipping, and navigation are suspiciously common – but why were these spell(ings) cast?
“The term ‘spell’ is generally used for magical procedures which cause harm, or force people to do something against their will – unlike charms for healing, protection, etc. – Oxford Dictionary of English Folklore.”1
When you are born you come down your mother’s birth canal, through water. We are then issued a birth/berth certificate, signed by the dock/doctor. In nautical terms, a ‘berth’ is a space where a vehicle can be parked/docked for loading or unloading. When a ship berths in a port or dock, the captain has to produce a berth certificate.
A product is ‘shipped’ from the warehouse to it’s destination when it leaves, but we still say ‘ship’ or ‘shipped’ when transporting by automobile or air. A shipping dock is a structure extending along the shore into a body of water to which boats may be moored (moored means to anchor, chain, or tie-down).
When you go to court, your case is placed in a ‘docket’, which is the official summary of the proceedings. A courtroom used for trials of criminal cases often has a ‘dock’ – a space exclusively reserved for seating a criminal defendant.
Traditional courtrooms also had railings to divide the public seating area from the ‘well of the court’ (the area where court proceedings are conducted). These railings are reminiscent of those from large sailing ships. The word ‘captain’ comes from the root kaput/caput, also meaning ‘capital’. Capital is money or currency, but what do all these words and terms have to do with you?
Simply put; in legal terms the merchants have changed you into money, into a valuation of mammon, and into a ship or vessel of commerce for its use, hence all the nautical terminology.
This was done because the merchants of this invisible sea may only inhabit the artificial temples of masonry (the body), not the temples of God that is each of us (the spiritual being). Consequently, through the manipulation of language (spellings) the MerChants (Water-Chanters) cast a ‘water enchantment’ over mankind.
“For thy merchants were the great men of the Earth; for by thy sorceries were all the nations deceived.”2
The author of ‘Strawman’ Clint Richardson explains: “This imaginary fact of legal existence is called citizen-ship, where we conduct ourselves in mammon as commercial persons under that law of agency in international admiralty, maritime law. This is also known as the law of merchants (law merchant), under which we are acting in the capacity of merchants upon this fictional (legal) sea of commerce, in virtual ships called public citizens.”3
This is confirmed by the definition of Admiralty law: “Matters dealt by admiralty law include marine commerce, marine navigation, salvage, maritime pollution, seafarers’ rights, and the carriage by sea of both passengers and goods. Admiralty law also covers land-based commercial activities that are maritime in character”4 – therefore if you ‘act' in the capacity of a vessel you are subject to its laws.
Furthermore Richardson shows that the legal definition of ‘money’ is merely ‘time’:
“Time is money… But God is timeless. This most important concept is the basis of all temporal affairs and concerns, for everything is valued in money, and money is merely a representation of time (i.e., future and past labor). Mammon is measured in the potential of time, while God is Eternal and spiritual Life is timeless (without artificial values). What is time but a measure of potential, insurable value? Time (as valued in money) is the root of any wager of money (a representation of time), a strange and circular commerce indeed.
Time: The measure of duration. The word is expressive both of a precise point or terminus and of an interval between two points… Time is the essence of contract. Means that performance by one party at time or within period specified in contract is essential to enable him to require performance by other party. (Blacks Law Dictionary, Fourth Edition).
This is simply man’s attempt to control the flow of time, which we call the currency, as the current of the commercial sea.”5
This may explain the origins of the ancient worship of the god Saturn/Cronos – the personification of time. And perhaps the real reason for the Jewish Sabbath, the day of holiness and rest, observed on Saturday or Saturns day. The word ‘rest’ literally means to stop/cease work – taking time out.
In order to control the flow of currency, great Empires, States and Companies have long known that dominance of the sea was imperative. This dominance can only be acquired with the backing of a strong navy – this has been understood since antiquity.
“According to archaeologist A. F. Rainey…“commercial, diplomatic and military activity went hand-in-hand.” The equation was simple: No navy, no economy. In 2002, historian Niall Ferguson asked if it were possible to have globalization without gunboats. The Phoenicians would have answered in the negative.”6
For two hundred years England has been the great commercial nation of the world, and the English nation more than any other, has owed this greatness to the sea. Author and US Naval Officer Alfred Thayer Mahan believed the advantage gained by Britain over her rivals was due primarily to her sea power:
“Is it meant, it may be asked, to attribute to sea power alone the greatness or wealth of any State? Certainly not. The use and control of the sea is but one link in the chain of exchange by which wealth accumulates; but it is the central link, which lays under contribution other nations for the benefit of the one holding it, and which, history seems to assert, most surely of all gathers to itself riches.”7
According to Mahan this control was obtained by the ‘acquisition’ (by force or bribery) of strategically located ports:
“Britain’s overseas strength depended not only on her advantageous position off the European mainland. It depended, also, on the deliberate acquisition of strategically vital bases abroad which enabled her to control the shipping of the world at its most vulnerable points. Gibraltar, Malta, Suez, Aden, Singapore and the Cape all illustrated this.”8
This is why today, the United States maintains about 750 bases in at least 80 countries worldwide and spends more on its military than the next 10 countries combined9 – and no, it is not to spread democracy and world peace.
Since the end of World War II the US Navy has had ‘command of the sea’. It is widely considered the most powerful navy the world has ever known, and is in no danger of being surpassed anytime soon. This ‘command of the sea’ has made the United States the richest country in the world by GDP.10
The fact that the accumulated wealth of privately owned joint-stock companies eventually surpassed those of nation states, was again due to the maritime nature of their trading activities.
The Dutch East India Company (VOC) established in 1602, was granted a 21-year monopoly to carry out trade activities in Asia by the Dutch government. It’s venture was immensely profitable.
“The peak value of the Company was worth 78 million Dutch guilders, which translates to a whopping $7.9 trillion in modern dollars, roughly the same amount as the GDPs of modern-day Japan ($4.8T) and Germany ($3.4T) added together.
Even further, when adding the market caps of 20 of the world’s largest companies, such as Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, ExxonMobil, Berkshire Hathaway, Tencent, and Wells Fargo. All of them combined gets us to $7.9 trillion.”11
The success of the VOC and similar joint-stock trading companies would evolve into modern corporatism (the control of a state or organisation by powerful interest groups) and globalism.
Today the worlds largest multinational investment companies are BlackRock, State Street and Vanguard, all US corporations, and manage a combined $20.7 trillion in assets. As of 2024: “These three firms are major shareholders in 95% of S&P 500 companies (the 500 largest companies).“12
In ‘The Origins of Globalization authors Karl Moore and David Lewis make the case that todays global trade system is still very much dependent on the seas:
“Popular historians are now enunciating what many textbooks fail to stress: the linkage between sea-power and commerce, a theme Sir Walter Raleigh had drummed away at to his Virgin Queen. The sea lanes were – and are – the true roads of empire. The author of To Rule The Waves: How the British Navy Shaped the Modern World reported that “the sea remains the cornerstone of today’s global system” in that 95% of trade that crosses international boundaries is waterborne. The obvious is not always evident.”13
Additionally, according to the UN Trade and Development, in 2020 maritime transport accounted for roughly 80% of all international trade.14
One can say in a general way, that the use and control of the sea is and has been the great factor in the history of the world. The English statesman, Sir Walter Raleigh’s (1552-1618) old dictum still holds true today as it did when men first set sail:
“For whosoever commands the sea commands the trade; whosoever commands the trade of the world commands the riches of the world, and consequently the world itself.”15
Revelation 18:23, King James Version.
Clint Richardson, Strawman: The Real Story Of Your Artificial Person, 2016 p.575.
Clint Richardson, Strawman: The Real Story Of Your Artificial Person, 2016 p.749.
Karl Moore and David Lewis, The Origins of Globalization, 2009 p.98.
Alfred Thayer Mahan, The Influence of Sea Power upon History 1660-1783, 1890 p.225-226.
Ibid, p.xxix.
Karl Moore and David Lewis, The Origins of Globalization, 2009 p.97.
Karl Moore and David Lewis, The Origins of Globalization, 2009 p.57.
It baffles me that humanity, to this very day, still doesn’t understand how the financial system works and how etymology plays such a crucial role. Yet they’re all indoctrinated to the “current sea”. Another brilliant article. Thank you PH.
"The obvious is not always evident." Indeed.