REFLECTIVE INSIGHTS #030 - DISENCHANTING THE WORLD: THE TRUE HISTORY OF ECONOMIC CONTROL
Uncovering Hidden Historical Roots
This reflective insight is a bit of a departure from my usual focus on regional economics and quantum physics, but at its heart, it is entirely connected. Our research into the colonial operating system is about understanding how communities were disempowered to allow extraction and control. While I readily acknowledge that I am not entirely qualified to speak on all aspects of this topic given that I am not a woman, it is an issue I feel compelled to bring to light on this forum.
When we look back at the European witch trials between 1450 and 1750, pop culture tells us stories of broomsticks, black cats, and dark magic. But historical research, including the work of scholars like Silvia Federici and journalist Lucianne Tonti, reveals a far more calculated reality. The witch hunts were never really about magic. They were a systematic effort to disenchant the world, stripping nature of its sacred life force so it could be dominated, enclosed, and exploited.
Stripping Women of Power
Before this era, traditional agrarian communities relied heavily on women for their deep connection to the natural world. Women were the herbalists, the midwives, the weavers, and the caretakers of communal well-being. They understood how to care for the land and each other without relying on formal, top-down institutions.
To build the modern economic system, this grassroots authority had to be destroyed. Roughly 100,000 people were tried for witchcraft across Europe, and eighty percent of those executed were women. By persecuting women who held local knowledge and communal influence, the emerging economic machine managed to sever people from the land and degrade women's social and economic power. The modern economy as we know it was literally built on the back of that disempowerment.
The Physics of Alienation
This historical push to turn living nature into dead matter mirrors what I often call the Newtonian Error. When you convince a society that the earth is just a machine and that human care is worthless unless it generates profit, you create a high-entropy state of isolation. The exploitation of women's labour and the pillaging of the natural world are not separate issues. They share the exact same root, a drive to turn living relationships into commodities.
In Te Tai Tokerau, we see the echoes of this mindset in how our resources and communities have been treated. When colonisation arrived on these shores, it brought that same extractive syntax, seeking to replace our interconnected worldview with individual ownership and corporate control. But true restoration requires us to recognise the divine balance built into creation from the very beginning.
Reclaiming True Balance
To fix the soil of our communities today, we must actively undo this legacy of disenchantment. Through the love and order shown to us by Ihu (Yeshua's name in the Paipera Tapu), we are called to value care, community, and the sanctity of the land above raw profit. When we honour the essential role of wāhine and restore grassroots care, we begin to heal the very foundation of our society.
Taitokerau has the opportunity to show the world how to move away from extractive exploitation and return to a living, relational economy. By recognising how history disempowered our caregivers, we can consciously rebuild a society where everyone thrives in peace and goodwill under the guidance of Wairua Tapu.
