3. Spies Among the Population
Even in the first civilizations, the rulers employed massive armies of spies among their populations, as informants & influencers, who helped to keep the subjects in check, and to grease the oppression. These armies of secret agents are still with us today.
Spies to spy on one’s subjects
From Hollywood propaganda movies, you’d think that secret agents mostly fight external enemies, like foreign nations. But that’s never been the case. The most important enemy of the aristocrats has always been us, the common people. So their secret agents have always mostly worked among & against us.
All texts about the invention of deceptive ruling mention vast armies of spies, who observe & influence the subjects on behalf of the aristocratic rulers. In today’s world, you’ll know the mostly from the fake news, e.g. as victims & witnesses of hoaxed terror attacks.
Here’s what the Bible says about their creation:
And the rulers said: Let our power bring forth obscured persons, according to their kind, and investigators and signalers, and informants on the oppressed, according to their kind. And it was so.
And the rulers appointed informants on the oppressed, according to their kind, and investigators, according to their kind, and all that inform on the people, according to their kind. And the rulers saw that this was good.
Here’s what Ovid says:
Inserted were also innumerable secret agents and investigators, and chosen men and attendants, covertly disguised as various commoners, who were absorbed as a part of the populace itself, in diverse places. They reach into the common men in their role as actors, and are received as free equals by being comparable to them, when they move about as commoners and unwashed subjects.
Here’s what Josephus says:
The next measure of the noble rulers were pretenders in likeness, with long hair that was cunningly made dissimilar, who would be comrades among the subdued servants in every way, because they were so alike, and spies to observe the rumours. But of course, when they feared a discovery by the multitudes, then they would flee immediately to the guards.
Tasks of spies in the population
So in the earliest civilizations, rulers had already flooded their populations with spies. This is not publicly admitted anywhere, but the elites brag about it in their encrypted texts. In the Sumerian debates, the archetype of a secret agent even describes his work in the first person. He proudly states why secret agents are more important than official goons, who can only threaten & bully people into superficial obedience:
- Secret agents find out & betray the actual thoughts of the people.
- Secret agents detect individual trouble-makers before & after revolts.
- Secret agents spread propaganda as influencers, and instill actual faith in the corrupt rulers.
So here’s why informants are better than goons:
Guard, you drag along the people. But your dragging, what is it compared to me? You restrain the people. But your restraining, what is it compared to me?
If the workers are really raging, you cannot stop them. The actual support of the servants, you cannot provide it.
Language, you cannot spread it. A voice, you cannot plant it. The leading of the workers, you cannot supply it.
An appearance as a front, you cannot build it. A ruler’s public image that has become rotten, you cannot strengthen its foundation, so that it is followed again.
The secrets of the ruler’s true household, you cannot replace them with something else. Guard, the praise and propaganda, to be wide spoken in the town’s square, you cannot make it square with the people’s perception.
Here’s how informants help to crush rebellions:
When the guards are cut down, when the fortifications are cut down, when a great fight rises up, when the oppressed are pouring out, when great bodies of people are battling nearby, then only I, the secret agent, can dam it all up to stand still again, so that the angry people cannot not finish what they started.
The girl hunters can then collect the women. The slave hunters can seize the fugitives. They can approach with traps for those birdies in their hands.
Sumerian: Debate Between Hoe & Plough 37–46 (secret meaning)
Here’s how informants help to arrest potential troublemakers:
When the power has been diverted from the poor, and at the lowly bonded people start their work again, guard, I go down into the people first, before you. I open up the people to then be held back by you.
I clear out the hidden human obstacles among the workers for you. I tear out the human weeds among the people for you. I remove the scary and warlike ones among the people for you, I collect them for you.
Sumerian: Debate Between Hoe & Plough 80–86 (secret meaning)
Here’s how informants spread propaganda:
I am a servant who follows the evildoers around. I perform a watch over the enemy. I survey their decisions, I make their thoughts wide open. I filter tongues, I loosen voices. I lay a trail to follow up on those down below, I perform a watch on them.
When a ruler’s shape has become rotten, I prepare its foundation to be fit again. When a ruler is resisted, I place protection on his house. I am the secret agent! The praise and propaganda, to be wide spoken in the town’s square, I make it square with the people’s perception.
I go around the city and confirm its walls to be safe. I perform a watch for the upper class, and make their names big. I go out and perform all this in a language humble, sweet and harmonious, to embellished them.
Sumerian: Debate Between Hoe & Plough 124–128 (secret meaning)
Recruitment of spies
The spies among the population are mostly commoners themselves, lured into service with better pay, or by the delusion that they’re working for some greater good. In reality, these agents are just lesser scum serving the greater scum. I often call them “lesser idiot spooklings”, because they’re the bottom rung of the secret societies, and because they typically aren’t told too much about the whole system.
Here’s how such informants must be recruited in absolute secrecy:
If one acquires one of the community for being a secret watchman, or one of the servant cattle for announcing things in mockery, then that meeting must not be breached. When a watchman is acquired openly or secretly, in a place where it is customary to acquire them openly, then acquisition does not count as breached. If only those of nobility and their agents are meeting together with the newly summoned, then the disguise of this assembly also does not count as breached.
Here’s how recruited informants must be disconnected to other commoners:
If one acquires one of the people or a laborer or one of the crowds, who is still joined too much to the bottom-level subjects, or one of the crowds who is not able to reach a secret meeting, then one has not acquired a proper informant.
Here’s how the informants must not spill the truth to the common people. i.e. that the aristocracy are spying on them:
One must not bring the truth to a man who is gushing forth secrets, or bring the truth to a woman who is gushing forth secrets, or bring the truth to a childish one, or an easily tempted one, or a neglectful one, when that person is to be an disguised informant. And if one has brought the truth to them already, one must cease using them as informers.
Rulers betray their own spies
In the Talmud, the rulers are quite frank about the fact that they think very little of their own spies, and regularly betray them too.
Here’s how they spy on their own spies, and on the wives of their spies, if those are attractive:
A disguised informant is appointed for informing, and for mockery, and for watching. For informing on things that are customary to inform on, for watching things that are customary to watch. He may not generally watch another watcher or an undercover person, but he may watch them upon special appointment.
One may not internally mask the recruitment of a disguised informant itself, and one may not acquire him with a person who is himself a disguised informant, to appoint him while masked. But one may mask one’s real character towards him.
If some mockers or confusers turn up in the middle of the meeting to spy on the new recruit, then this spying must be specially arranged for the newly recruited spy. If a watchman was hired with the procurement of another disguised informant, and he is spied on, then this spying must be specially arranged for the newly recruited spy.
If the wife of a disguised informant is beautiful, and she is spied upon, then all of this spying must be disguised.
This is the general rule: As for all who know about the ubiquitous spying, they can only by special arrangement be spied upon themselves. For all who are not spies knowing about it, all of the spying is disguised anyway.
Generally, low-level agents are deceived by their masters just like other commoners:
The school of Shammai say: Informants may also be informed on deceptively. Lord Akiva says: All that one does to one’s own informants may be done in a dirty way.
Did the aristocrats kill off their own agents occasionally? Of course. Probably not too often, but they did. Here’s how they destroy their agents in war, whenever they deem fit. It’s done by throwing them to the masses that the agents themselves have helped to stir into a war-frenzy:
One may overturn an agent in the middle of a rioting crowd, in order to make others go up or down in rank.
As for a spy that has deserted, one may harrass him until he enters the fold again.
One may also move someone to be revealed, or someone to be wiped out, into the public domain.
One may mark insiders to be crushed, but one may not uncover them. One may not put such people before governors or leaders that are still attached, but one may put them before insolent leaders, those in training, and leaders that are banished.
One may cut also off one’s attendant before the human cattle, and also throw a disgraced person to the human dogs.
One may even destroy secret watchmen in war, and may ask their leaders that they perform the required actions for that in war.