Before the Tea Party was born, I born the Bohemian Bank and adobted Our Lady Liberty as our guide.

of the Templar Bohemians

With the bailout of world banks by common taxpayers, there arises a need to redefine banking as we have known it. Foreclosure signs growing like weeds in neighborhoods across America, are a blight on the common man’s dream. Discussions are taking place amongst our politicians as to how the banking industry can pay back the collective generosity of the American People. Barack Obama, who may be the next President of the United States, is talking about rebuilding the American economy from the ground up, a trickle-up system, as opposed to the trickle-down economy that favored the wealthy, but now lie in ruin, all but rendered useless for us all.

There is talk about a revised Works Progress Administration and Civilian Conservation Corps agency that President Franklin D. Roosevelt established during the Great Depression that put Americans back to work. These agencies were funded by the tax dollars, the same tax dollars that are being used to help banks get back on their feet. It can be said the people of the United States are un-willing partners with the banks in what some are calling Socialism. Indeed, the Free Enterprise system has experienced a massive failure, and may not survive as we know it – if it survives! Will banks become extinct?

I believe some important aspects of banking can continue to exist if they take steps to become a integral partner and member of certain communities that are identified as being havens to artists, musicians, and other creative people seeking alternative solutions and lifestyles. Bankers, city managers, redevelopers, and private entrepreneurs have been looking at Bohemians as key to recovering blighted neighborhoods from urban decay that will be accelerated if we have a lasting recession or depression.

Some banks have a honorable history of supporting the arts, and making loans to civic minded people who want to sustain a Bohemian lifestyle that has given much flavor to metropolitan areas across America. These areas were often founded by artists looking for studio space and places of residence they can afford as they develop their craft.

Some Politicians have looked to the artists as a Trojan Horse, they at the vanguard of downtown developments. Bohemian activities have attracted banking institutions and wealthy investors, some who are looking to take advantage of these creative endeavors, they desirous to move in wealthy Bohemians wanna-bes in order to realize fantastic profits via high rents as soon as the real artists are moved out.

The solution is for Artists and Bohemians to be The Bank, and employ the institution of banking to their advantage. The traditional banker role as a middleman can be reinvented, replaced by Hands on Banking that takes on new responsibilities such as maintaining acceptable levels of employment during hard times. These new banks must be willing and able to put employment and job creation before profits, because citizens with no money do not take part in what civilization has to offer. Depressions and Dark Ages go hand in hand.

Bankers and city planners have looked to Bohemian to create a public draw to cultural events, music cafes, boutiques, and art galleries. Without this draw there is no capital.

A study is needed to see how much capital Bohemians manage to raise, and from what sources. How many people are employed in their projects? What about the materials they purchase from other retail businesses? Do they have elaborate networks and a deep labor pools that tap into a wide range of skills?

Experience tells me Bohemians are vital to the economy of many cities. How much more vital would they be if they had a bank that was a real partner, a real friend who helped supply capital to the epicenter of these enterprises and activities that attract participation on many levels. What would these Bohemian neighborhoods look like without this participation?

The Bank of the Templar Bohemians t is not looking to transform Bohemianville, but to preserve it, forever seeking to keep it an integral sanctuary for its citizens. Many Banks have thrown their integrity and reputation out the window – along with billions of dollars that was entrusted to them.

Owning a good reputation was once vital to the banking business. Rebuilding this reputation from the ground up will entail gaining the trust of a group of people who traditionally don’t trust institutions, and often seek an alternative to just about every institution known to man.

The BTB will be an alternative bank and a real pioneer forever seeking to invest in the visions of creative people who have a long and illustrious history of survivability. If traditional banks could live and prosper as long.

A Networking Bank

The Bank of the Templar Bohemians is a hands on networking bank. We are a community bank that not only lends our money, but our expertise in order to insure your enterprise will be successful.

Whether you are a baker looking to open a Bohemian coffee and pastry shop, or an artist asking for a loan to build a studio, or, open a gallery, our creative loan officers will put at your disposal a team of experts to make sure your dream is realized.

The BTB will bring private entrepreneurs and investors together with a network of artist and craftspeople in order to sustain and invest in alternative manufacturing and the Craft Culture. Restaurants and coffee houses play a big role in the Bohemian scene. The food services industry is the nation’s largest private-sector employer, providing 12.5 million jobs. With many of America’s manufacturing jobs being outsourced in order to exploit cheap labor overseas, it is vital that banks and investors provide capital to those who believe in Made in America and are willing to pay higher prices for quality goods.

My Bank will issue a debit card that will give a %10 percent discount at establishments that cater to a network of creative crafts people, artists, and musicians. The Strength Card is designed to keep and circulate money within the network and thus sustain creative souls that should to be considered our National Treasures.

Richard Florida has conducted research and written two books on the benefits of the Bohemian sub-culture to our National Economy. The Rise of the Creative Class’ is a Guide Book to the Guild I will be forming.

Americans need to be educated on the benefits of supporting homegrown cottage industries, rather then the plastic cut-rate products made overseas that fill our garages, and leave us in credit card debt for a decade. The Bank of the Templar Bohemian intends to lead the way in establishing a New American Pertinence, a New Renaissance if you will that casts off our title of Mindless Mass Consumer, and bid us to live our lives within our means – with dignity. This New Dignity should begin at the bottom, amongst the least and the disenfranchised, for I believe they will inherit the earth.

The Bohemian Templar Bank will be a completely transparent Bank whose aim is to rebuild the Financial Structure of this Nation, and others Nations, from the ground up. I propose Debt Forgiveness of many of the World’s Poor. At BTB there will be no Banking without Representation. There will be Government oversight.

My great, great Granfather’s ship, the S.S. Constitution, is docked near the sight of the Boston Tea Party. It is time for a New Jubilee Revolution!

John G. Presco

Founder of the Bank of the Templar Bohemian

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bohemianism

The Strength card was originally named Fortitude, and accompanies two of the other cardinal virtues in the Major Arcana: temperance and Justice. The meaning of Fortitude was different from the interpretation of the card: it meant moderation in attitudes toward pain and danger, with neither being avoided at all costs, nor actively wanted

In The Hermit card, the 9th card of the Tarot, the teachers of the Ageless Wisdom are providing us with a future view of the outcome of our soul’s successful struggle to reach the highest level of earthly/spiritual enlightenment possible… an attainment that is attributable to and obtainable through continued discipline, diligence and dedication to the laws of Divine living.

http://www.acumind.com/Joe/tarot/hermit.html

The Rougemonts have been involved in Banking for many years if you count the financial activities of the Knight Templars. The Rougemont Bankers of Paris may have inspired Karl Marx and Engles to found a Communist Empire upon the idea that the world was controlled by Jewish Bankers. Abraham Denis Alfred de Rougemont was a Jew who lived in the Franche-Comte and has been allied with all the great banking houses, including Hottinger who was a Huguenot. Rudolphe Hottinger is is the Vice Chairman of the Board of the Denis de Rougemont Foundation. The Hottingers gave their estate over to the American Ambulence Service during WW1. From this family comes the most famous artist in America, though few will recognize his name. Frederick Auguste Bartholdi made the Statue of Liberty. He also carved the great lion of Belfort which is near Rougemont. The Prince of Monaco is given the title Count of Belfort and Rosemont.
In my next chapter ‘The Lady and the Lion’, which I will publish in a couple of days, I will bring the Benton, Preston, Rougemont, and Witherspoon genealogy together in one place, a city called “beautiful mountain”. Lady Liberty was a possible target on 911. But, she was saved by brave Americans who found inner strength to overcome their oppressors.It is time to wake the sleeping lion and raise high the Shekinah so we can behold our unity of purpose and our National resolve.

http://www.famousamericans.net/fredericaugustebartholdi/

BARTHOLDI, Frederic Auguste, French sculptor, born in Cohnar, Alsace, 2 April 1834. He studied painting with Ary Scheffer in Paris, but afterward turned his attention to sculpture, which has since exclusively occupied him. Among his works are “Francesca da Rimini” (1852); “Monument to Martin Schongauer” (1863); “Le Vigneron” (1870); and “Vercingetorix” (1872).

His statue of “Lafayette arriving in America” was executed in 1872, and in 1876 was placed in Union square, New York. He was one of the French commissioners in 1876 to the Philadelphia centennial exhibition, and there exhibited bronze statues of “The Young Vine-Grower;” “Genie F ican Union” was established. Among its members were Laboulaye, De Remusat, Waddington, Henri Martin, De Lesseps, De Rochambeau, Lafayette, and Bartholdi.

The plan of Bartholdi having been approved, more than 1,000,000 francs were raised by subscription throughout France for the building of the statue. On 4 July 1880, it was formally delivered to the American minister in Paris, the event being celebrated by a great banquet. Meanwhile the United States had set apart Bedlow’s island as a site for the monument, and funds were collected throughout this country for the building of the pedestal, about $300,000 being raised.

In October 1886, the structure was presented to the nation as the joint gift of the French and American people. This statue is 151 feet and 1 inch high, and the top of the torch will be at an elevation of 305 feet 11 inches from mean low-water mark. It is the largest work of its kind that has ever been completed. The famous “Colossus of Rhodes,” according to the proportions which the legends attribute to it, was but a miniature in comparison.

The “Lion of Belfort,” a colossal statue, erected in commemoration of the siege sustained by that city during the Franco-Prussian war of 1870-‘1, was made by Bartholdi and exhibited in plaster at the salon of 1878. His “Gribeauval,” exhibited in the same year, is the property of the French nation, from whom he has received the cross of the legion of honor. See” Bartholdi and the Great Statue” (New York, 1886unebre;” “Peace;” and “Genius in the Grasp of Misery,” for which he received a bronze medal.

“Liberty enlightening the World,” the colossal statue on Bedlow’s [now Liberty] Island, in New York harbor, is his work. Soon after the establishment of the present form of government in France, the project of building some suitable memorial to show the fraternal feeling existing between the two great republics was suggested, and in 1874 the “French-Amer).

Jon Presco

Copyright 2009

enis de Rougemont was given the title “Prince of the European
Cultural Community”. He was good friends with the artists, Marcel
Duchamp, Max Ernst, and Andre Breton. Born September 8,1906 in Couvet
(Neuchatel) of a French family installed in Switzerland since the
14th. century. In 1784 this family received recognition of nobility
to King Frederic of Prussia.

During the Nazi occupation Denis took refuge in America where he
discussed with Count Coudenhove-Kalergi, and Albert Einstein, a
United Europe. De Rougemont is considered one of the fathers of
European Federalism. In 1950, De Rougemont became the director of
European Cultural Studies, and was President of the European
Ecological Association. In 1951 he founded the Association of
Festival of European Music. One can say Rougemont was the Merlin who
reborn the culture that Hitler all but destroyed.

Denis has authored several books and essays. His ‘Love in the Western
World’ has proved very valuable in my study of the Knights Templars,
the Grail Romances, and the Cathars. Denis has put forth a theory
that Courtly Love and Mystical Poetry has its roots in the
Albigensian hersey that parallels the formation of the Troubadors who
were also considered heretics. Like the Templars and Cathars, the
Troubadors were accused of practicing Manichaism. Rougemont traces
this poetry to the ninth century when a fusion of Iranian Manichaism,
Neo-Platonism, and Mohammedism mysticism came together, mixing
eroticism with religious poetry.
Mystics of Persian Manichaism had a fable about a lovely maiden who
awaits the true believer on the far side of the Bridge of Sinvat, and
says “I am thyself.” She is the Lady of Thoughts and represents what
Rougemont titles “the narcissism of passion.” She represents the
spiritutal and angelical part of man – his true self. In this she is
the Rosa Mundi.

In the ‘Lovers Familiar’ there exists a ‘Castle of the Soul which has
several floors and compartments. In one there is found a feminine
being called ‘The Veiled Idea’. She is the holder of secrets and
giver of magic.
Other allegorical characters in this castle include Beauty, Desire,
and Dread, the Well-Informed, the Tester, the Well-Known, all who
recall the Roman de la Rose, and the legend of the Sleeping Beauty
Princess named Rosamond.

This Castle may have been a model for the bower King Henry made for
Fair Rosamond who no doubt came in contact with Manichaism through
his wife Eleanor of Aquataine whose father was King of Troubdors. Did
the Knights Templars around Henry also worship the Lady of Thoughts?
Eleanor and her daughter, Mary, had a court of Troubadors and thus
they practiced Courty Love that spoke about forbidden amor employing
Mystic Poetry. Mary would commission Chreiten de Troyes to write his
Grail Romances. Mary’s son, Thibaut ‘King of Navarre’ is said to have
brought back the Apothecary Rose from Damscus, also known as the Rose
of Provins. This rose is associated with Fair Rosamond. The Rosamond
name has been traced to Rougemont Switzerland.

Jon Presco

Copyright 2003