Skilluminati Research

Brainwashing, Public Relations and Diamond Rings

Posted Jul 07, 2007

I've been reading a sample copy of a truly eye-popping book, Glitter and Greed: The Secret World of the Diamond Cartel. Web magazine The Black Table has recently published an excellent interview with the author, Janine Roberts, and I wanted to shart a relevant excerpt with you:

BT: When did this whole diamond engagement ring thing start?

JR: Diamonds became engagement stones around the end of the recession. Ernest Oppenheimer, who was in control of De Beers in the 1930s, was shutting down diamond mines to control supply and keep the price of diamonds high. He sent his son Harry to New York to meet with advertisers, because he realized that he couldn't have diamonds being bought up just by rich people. They needed something that would appeal to everyone.

Well, everyone has to get engaged. So they spent a million pounds a year (about $1.7 million) to establish the diamond engagement ring as a sacrament -- a spiritual thing. "Diamonds are forever." They invented that and advertised it at every high school at the time. They got Paramount Studios involved by having the female stars wearing diamonds and by creating diamonds films. Marilyn Monroe's "Diamonds are a girl's best friend" and such. That advertising campaign created the myth.

It was quite different in old times. Diamonds in India, for example, were worn for many years mostly by men. Their hardness was a symbol of fertility. They had to create a new story about diamonds for the woman.