Money is not just a more or less fleeting and increasingly abstract universal medium. It is the cornerstone of society and its political administration, over which it has today total control. It is not a subject whose boundaries can be delimited though, as it is expanding in all directions. It travels round the planet at the speed of light and takes up all the space. Economics and financial sciences have only partial knowledge of money and it is a complete mystery to common mortals. If we want to find out a little more about it, we have to call upon other skills and disciplines that go beyond the discourse and concepts that have invaded our daily lives: psychoanalysis, anthropology, literature and art. This was what we did when putting this dossier together. We asked for contributions from a wide variety of sources, so that we could look at the very essence of money. And it is because its power is everywhere and determines everything, even when it cannot be seen, that it is so often the subject of metaphysical and theological theories and concepts. Or if we want to turn to pagan ideas, let us say that money is the ultimate shaman that we can call on in this completely secularised world.