PROFITS OF RELIGION
Offertory/ Introductory
Book 1: Conquerors
Book 2: Good Society
Book 3: Servant Girls
Book 4: Slavers
Book 5: Merchants
Book 6: Quacks
Book 7: Social Revolution
RELIGION
Profits of Religion
Upton Sinclair
Young Goodman Brown
Nathaniel Hawthorne
The Blithedale Romance
Nathaniel Hawthorne
THEORY
Dada Manifesto
Hugo Ball, 1916
Tristan Tzara, 1918
Surrealist Manifesto
Andre Breton, 1924
Andre Breton, 1925
Andre Breton, 1934
POETRY
My God
Nah Nah Nah
Themes of the Unknown
The Abstract & the Ambiguous
Drunken
DOPPLEGANGER
William Wilson
Edgar Allan Poe
The Double
Foydor Dostoevsky
Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde
Robert Louis Stephenson
BOOK SIX
The Church of the Quacks
They may talk as they please about what they call pelf,
And how one ought never to think of one's self,
And how pleasures of thought surpass eating and drinking--
My pleasure of thought is the pleasure of thinking
How pleasant it is to have money, heigh ho!
How pleasant it is to have money.
Clough.
Tabula Rasa
Nature has given us a virgin continent, a clean slate upon which
to write what we will. And what are we writing? What is our
intellectual life? I came to the far West, which I had been
taught by novelists and poets to think of as a place of freedom.
I came, because I like freedom; I am staying because I like the
climate. I find that what freedom means in the West is the
ability of ignorant and fanatical persons to start some new,
fantastical quirk of scriptural interpretation, to build a new
cult around it, and earn a living out of it.
My first contact with that sort of thing was when I went to the
Battle Creek Sanitarium to investigate hydrotherapy, and found
myself in a nest of Seventh-day Adventists. Three generations or
so ago some odd character hit upon the discovery that the
Christian churches had let the devil snare them into resting on
the first day of the week, whereas the Bible states distinctly
that the Lord "rested on the seventh day". So here is a million
dollar establishment, with a thousand or two patients and
employees, and on Friday at sundown the silence of death settles
upon the place, and stays settled until sundown of Saturday, when
everything comes suddenly to life again, and there is a little
celebration, like Easter or New Year's, with what I used to call
"sterilized dancing"--the men pairing with men and the women with
women.
They are decent and kindly people, and you learn to put up with
their eccentricities; it is really convenient in some ways,
because, as not all the city shares their delusions, there are
some stores open every day of the week. But then you discover
that the Sanitarium is training "medical missionaries" to send to
Africa, and is teaching these supposed-to-be-scientists that
evolution is a doctrine of the devil, and not proven anyhow!
You get the shrewd little doctor who is running this
establishment alone in his office, and he will smile and admit
that of course it is not necessary to take all Bible phrases
literally; but you know how it is--there are different levels of
intelligence, and so on. Yes, I know how it is. You have an
institution founded upon a certain dogma, and run by means of
that dogma, and it is hard to change without smashing things. It
is especially convenient when servants and nurses have a
religious upbringing, and do not steal the pocket-books of the
patients. People will come from all over the country, and pay
high prices to stay in such a sanitarium; you can make
vegetarians of them, which you think more important than teaching
abstract notions about their being descended from monkeys. Also
you can manufacture vegetarian foods for them, and build up an
enormous business--so obtaining that Power which is the thing
desired of men.
This is but one illustration of a sort of thing of which I could
cite a hundred. The city in which I live is headquarters of
another sect, the "Pentecostal Church of the Nazarene"; primitive
Methodists, Bible-worshippers not content with the King James
version, but going back to the Sinaitic MS. They have a
"University", located in one of the most beautiful spots that
Nature ever made; an institution with seventy-five students. A
couple of years ago I happened to meet the "president," who was a
preacher with grease on the ample expanse of his black broadcloth
waistcoat, and a speech full of the commonest grammatical errors,
such as "you was" and "I seen". The past year witnessed a split,
and the founding of a brand new church and "University"--because
one of the preachers insisted upon preaching so much that the
students got no chance to study; also because he sent home a rich
man's daughter whose shirt-waists revealed too much of her
fleshly nature.
And there is an even stranger phenomenon in the locality, taking
you back to the Libyan desert and the time of Thais. A lady
friend of mine, generously blessed with this world's goods, asks
me have I seen the hermit. "Hermit?" I say, and she replies,
"Didn't you know there was a hermit? He lives on a mountain, in a
cave, and never has anything to do with the world. He has no
books; he contemplates spiritually." I picture my friend with her
large limousine, a rolling palace full of ladies, drawing up at
the door of this hermit's cave. "He received you?" I ask. "Yes,
he was quite polite." "And what was your impression of him?" "Oh,
how he stank!" I answer that this is the odor of sanctity, and my
friend thinks that I am enormously witty; I have to explain to
her that I am not jesting, but that there are definite
physiological phenomena incidental to the ecstatic life.
The Book of Mormon
Or let us take a trip to Salt Lake City, the headquarters of a
still stranger cult.
On the morning of the 22nd of September, 1827, the Angel of the
Lord delivered unto Joseph Smith, Jr., an ignorant farmer-youth
in a "backwoods" part of New York State, some plates which had
"the appearance of gold". As we know from the scriptures, it is
the habit of the Angel of the Lord to appear in unexpected places
and to make miraculous revelations to men in humble walks of
life; so, as devout believers, we hold ourselves in readiness. In
this case the plates were written in "reformed Egyptian"; but the
Angel thoughtfully provided Joseph Smith, Jr., with Urim and
Thummim, two magic stones with which to read the records. They
proved to deal with a mystery which has haunted the minds of
Bible students for centuries--the fate of the "lost ten tribes
of Israel", who were now revealed to have been the ancestors of
the American Indians. The Angel told Smith to found a new
religion, and gave him prophecies concerning things in general;
so, on the 6th of April, 1830, in the town of Manchester, N. Y.,
there was formally launched the "Church of the Latter Day
Saints." Smith turned over to his followers his translation of
the miraculous plates, called "The Book of Mormon"; obviously
genuine, for it read precisely like the books which we already
know are the revealed word of God. But, on chance that this might
not be sufficient, we were offered in the preface two documents,
the "Testimony of Three Witnesses", and the "Further Testimony of
Eight Witnesses". The latter being the shorter, may be quoted:
Be it known unto all nations, kindreds, tongues and people, unto
whom this work shall come: That Joseph Smith Jr., the translator
of this work, has shewn unto us the plates of which hath been
spoken, which have the appearance of gold; and as many of the
leaves as the said Smith hath translated, we did handle with our
hands; and we also saw the engravings there-on, all of which has
the appearance of ancient work and of curious workmanship. And
this we bear record with words of soberness, that the said Smith
has shewn unto us, for we have seen and hefted, and know of a
surety that the said Smith hath got the plates of which we have
spoken. And we give our names unto the world, to witness that
which we have seen, and we lie not, God bearing witness of it.
Christian Whitmer
Jacob Whitmer
Peter Whitmer, Jr.
John Whitmer
Hiram Page
Joseph Smith, Sr.
Hyrum Smith
Saml. H. Smith
The subsequent career of the Church of the Latter Day Saints bore
out the Angel's prophesies and proved conclusively its divine
origin; it was persecuted as the saints of old were persecuted,
and its followers proceeded to massacre the nearby unbelieving
populations, just as the divinely guided Hebrews had done. Driven
from place to place, they built at Nauvoo, Ill., a beautiful
temple, according to plans revealed in a vision, exactly like
Solomon. Finally they settled in Utah, where they have a
magnificent marble tabernacle, and some 300,000 followers. The
United States government, not being entirely Biblical, objected
to their practice of allowing the patriarchs of the tribe to have
as many wives as they could support; the government confiscated
the church's property, and forced it to conceal the practice of
polygamy, as is done by elderly church members in other parts of
the country. Recently the head of the church, who bears the title
of "Prophet, Seer and Revelator", was persuaded to permit an
examination of one of its secret plates, the "Book of Abraham",
by egyptologists, who found that it was ordinary Egyptian
hieroglyphics, not "reformed", but containing prayers to the
sun-god. But this will of course make no difference to the devout
followers of Joseph--any more than it has made to devout
Catholics and Episcopalians that German scholars have proven that
the Bible legends and ritual have come from the Babylonians, and
that the four gospels date from the second and third centuries
after Christ.
Holy Rolling
All over America you will find these weird Bible-cults, some of
them pathetic, some of them dangerous, some of them merely
grotesque. Thus, for example, there was John Alexander Dowie, who
founded the "Christian Catholic Church in Zion" and dressed
himself up in scarlet and purple robes with stars on. Through his
Zion City Bank and Zion City Realty Company he became enormously
wealthy; he finally announced himself as "Elijah the Restorer." I
remember as a boy how he brought his gospel to New York, and P.
T. Barnum with Tom Thumb and the white elephant never made such a
sensation. The ridicule of the metropolis overwhelmed the old
prophet, and he died and passed on his robes and his tabernacle
and his bank to his son; straightway, according to the rule of
all religions, the followers fell to quarrelling and splitting
up, and suing one another in the law-courts.
Also there are the "Holy Rollers" and "Holy Jumpers", ghastly
sects which cultivate the religious hysterias, and have spread
like a plague among the women of our lonely prairie farms and
desert ranches. The "Holy Rollers", who call themselves the
"Apostolic Church", have a meeting place here in Pasadena, and
any Sunday evening at nine o'clock you may see the Spirit of the
Lord taking possession of the worshippers, causing moans and
shrieks and convulsions; you may see a woman holding her hands
aloft for seventeen minutes by the watch, making chattering
sounds like an ape. This is called "talking in tongues" and is a
sign of the presence of the Holy Spirit. If you come back at
eleven in the evening, you will find the entire congregation, men
and women, prostrate on the floor, or hanging over the benches;
and maybe a child moaning in terror, having a devil cast out.
You may be interested, perhaps, to know how to throw yourself
into these convulsions. Here is a paper called "Trust", which is
"published Monthly (D. V.) in the interests of Elim Faith Work
and Bible Training School." Elizabeth Sisson writes on "The
Pentecostal Baptism", and tells the story of her experiences. She
"camped on the Word of God," she declares.
I went up to Calgary in Canada, and the leader of the mission
told me, "You can go down to the mission and stay there all day.
There is plenty of wood, and you can stay there all night." I
went down, and there was plenty of "let go" in me. I cried, and
prayed all I knew, and got wonderfully loosed.....
Then the Lord said to me, "Now, no more praying!" God told me it
was mine. What was there left for me to pray about. He spoiled my
praying and I took up praising. I praised God that He who worked
in the Upper Room was working the same in me. I praised, and I
praised, and I praised. The devil said to me, "That's
mechanical." I said, "I'll praise You Lord, and if You want real
praise, You'll have to put the wind in the sails."
That's the way I came through. One morning I was just getting out
of bed, "this gibberish, this jargon" as the enemy likes to call
it, began to come. The Lord said, "Let it babble!" I let. The
babble increased, and by night I was up to my neck. I let. I
still let. That's all. Someone else does the work, and it does
not tire you.
And here is another paper. "Meat in Due Season: published
monthly, or as often as the Lord leads." The editor quotes the
Bible, "Call upon the name of the Lord," and explains that "Call
means call." The word appears to have a special meaning to these
pentecostal persons--it means working yourself into a frenzy of
agitation; as the editor puts it, "you must lay hold of the horns
of the altar." He goes on to exhort--the bold face being his:
Pray as if your very life depended upon it! The first few minutes
seemingly all the powers of hell will contend every word, the
next few, relief in a measure will come, more liberty in calling.
In a very little while you will be dead to the room, dead to the
chair, dead to everyone around you, dead to all and tremendously
alive to your desperate need and emptyness; this conviction will
grow as you increase calling upon Him. It maybe you'll weep, it
maybe you'll perspire, it maybe your clothing will be deranged,
it, maybe your throat will get sore. Never for a moment let your
mind rest on the condition of your person. Open your mouth and
God has promised to fill it. Ask persistently until the very
floor seems to sink beneath you and the fountains of the deep, of
your heart let loose. Like David, "pour out your soul" like one
would pour water out of a bucket. I have seen hundreds get
through right at this point. When self-thought, reticence,
decorum, reserve, propriety and dignity had all been thrown to
the four winds of heaven. Self was then obliterated and
consciousness of person gone. Draw near to God and He will draw
near to you saith the scripture, but you must draw near to Him
first.
These enthusiasts derive their practices from the Shakers, a sect
which originated in England, but was driven by persecution to the
New World. The Shakers call themselves the "United Society of
True Believers in Christ's Second Coming," and were founded by
Ann Lee, who, variously termed herself the "Female Christ", the
"Holy Comforter", and the "God-anointed Woman". They might be
termed the suffragettes of religion, for they pray always to "Our
Father and Mother, which are in heaven." They were taught the
convenient doctrine that their Founder had "spiritual
illumination", so that any evidence of the senses used against
her might deceive. She governed through terror, holding that by
her mental powers she could inflict torment upon any of her
followers. Fortunately she taught absolute celibacy, and so there
are now only about a thousand of her disciples.
Bible Prophecy
This far western country swarms with those fanatics who await the
return of Christ, and find in Bible chronology positive evidence
that he is coming on a specified day. Seldom do I give a lecture
on Socialism that some eager old lady does not come up to me and
point out how futile are my hopes, because the Millenium will
come before the Revolution. Several times I have come on an item
in the newspapers, telling of a group of people, sometimes whole
villages, selling their goods and going out into the fields to
shout and sing and pray, expecting the vision of the Lord and His
Angels in the skies. I have in my hand a pamphlet entitled
"Shekineh: The Glory of God in Israel, Facts Mathematically
Foretold, of the Soon Coming of Our Blessed Lord." It is
earnestly, yearningly written, in that spirit of feeble-minded
affectionateness which the Bible-sects seem to encourage:
Now dear reader you see that these problems tell a wonderful
story which I know are the Eternal Truths of God. Jesus is soon
coming. I believe that from now on we can say, next week perhaps
our blessed Lord will return. Yet the time may not end till the
close of the A. M. year, which will be March 20th, 1897. But let
us take up the sickle of God, etc. Oh, my Christian friends, live
near the Blessed Christ, and gain eternal life through Jesus Our
Lord!
In the public library I find another pamphlet, entitled "The Our
Race," which proves that the "lost ten tribes of Israel" are not
the American Indians, but the Irish! And here is a publication of
the "Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society," declaring:
The great pyramid in Egypt is a witness to all the events of the
ages and of our day. The pyramid's downward passage under "a
Draconis" symbolizes the course of Sin. Its first ascending
passage symbolizes the Jewish Age. Its Grand Gallery symbolizes
the Gospel Age. Its upper step symbolizes the approaching period
of tribulation and anarchy, "Judgment" upon Christendom.
It is a Sunday morning, and I sit in the California sunshine
revising this manuscript, when a decorous-looking young man
approaches, having a sack over his shoulder. "From the
Bible-students," he says politely, and hands me a little paper,
"The Bible Students' Monthly: an Independent, Unsectarian
Religious Newspaper, Specially devoted to the Forwarding of the
Laymen's Home Missionary Movement for the Glory of God and Good
of Humanity." The leading article is headed "The Fall of Babylon:
Ancient Babylon a Type--Mystic Babylon the Antitype: Why
Christendom must Suffer--the Final Outcome." A note explains:
The following article is extracted from Pastor Russell's
posthumous volume entitled "The Finished Mystery," the 7th in the
series of his Studies in the Scriptures and published subsequent
to his death. Pastor Russell held the distinction of being the
most fearless and powerful writer of modern times on
ecclesiastical subjects. In this posthumous volume, which is
called "his last legacy to the Christians on earth," is found a
thorough exposition of every verse in the entire book of
Revelation and also an elucidation of the obscure prophecy of
Ezekiel. The book contains 608 pages, handsomely bound in
embossed cloth.
Pastor Russell used to publish a two-column sermon in some
hundreds of Sunday newspapers, together with a presentment of his
features--solemn, stiff, white-whiskered, set off with a "choker"
and a black broadcloth coat. There are five million such faces in
America, but if you have an impulse to despair for your country,
remember that it produced Mark Twain and Artemus Ward, as well as
Pastor Russell and the Moody and Sankey hymn-book. I quote one
passage from "The Finished Mystery", in order that the reader may
know what it means to "hold the distinction of being the most
fearless and powerful writer of modern times on ecclesiastical
subjects." Pastor Russell does not approve of the Methodists, and
he quotes twelve verses of Revelation, line by line and phrase by
phrase, showing how the evil course and downfall of the Wesleyan
system were divinely foretold. Thus:
"But that they should be tormented five months."--In symbolic
time, 150 years--5 X 30 = 150. (Ezek. 4:6.) Wesley became the
first Methodist in 1728. (Rev. 9:1.) When the Methodist
denomination, with all the others, was cast off from favor in
1878 (Rev. 3:14) its powers to torment men by preaching what
Presbyterians describe as "Conscious misery, eternal in duration"
came to an end legally, and to a large extent actually--Rev.
9:10.
P. S. A few months pass, and while this book is going to press,
"The Finished Mystery" is suppressed by the government and
several score "Bible Students" are landed in jail for sedition.
Koreshanity
Such are the beliefs built on the Bible. But there are other
ancient writings with strange nomenclature and ritual and
symbolism, calculated to impress the unlettered; also our
prophets have imaginations of their own, and can invent
nomenclature and ritual and symbolism never seen in heaven nor on
earth before. Thus there is Dr. Newo Newi New, who called himself
"Archbishop of the Newthot Church," and gathered about him a
harem of devoted females in San Francisco, and was landed in jail
for using the mails to defraud. Or there is "Oahspe, the Cosmic
Bible," a work of brand-new revelation with a brand-new view of
the universe and all things therein:
The reader soon discovers that he must radically revise not only
his ideas of celestial Cosmogony, but the order and significance
of names and titles commonly applied to the Transcendental
Brethren. The great provinces of Etheria are presided over by
chiefs, chosen for their superior development in wisdom and love.
For our solar system to cross one of these provinces requires
about 3,000 years, and between them are belts of high Etherian
light which take several years to pass over. The passage of each
province is a cycle of earthly history, and the crossings are
called Dawns of Dan.
And here is Koreshanity, a revelation vouchsafed by the Lord to
Dr. C. R. Teed of Chicago in the year 1889. This new seer took
the name of Koresh, which is Hebrew for Cyrus, "the Shepherd from
Joseph, the Stone of Israel, the Sun-Man; the illuminating center
of the Son of man", and went out on the streets of the city to
preach that the earth is a hollow sphere with the stars inside.
The street urchins of the pork-packing metropolis threw stones at
him, and the irreverent newspapers took up his adventures, with
the result that followers gathered, and now there is a
flourishing colony in Florida, with a dignified magazine called
"The Flaming Sword", and a collection of propaganda volumes: "The
Cellular Cosmogony, an Exposition of Koreshan Universology and
the New Geodesy"; "The Immortal Manhood, the Laws and Processes
of its Attainment in the Flesh"; "The Great Red Dragon, by Lord
Chester"; "The Coming of the Shepherd from Joseph, The Standing
of the Great Ensign, by Koresh." The "Religio-science" of this
Chicago revelator is based, first upon some precise measurements
of the earth which prove that its surface is concave; and second
upon some philological discoveries very much resembling puns.
Thus the "cross of Christ" is explained in a sense of the word
more common among horse-breeders than among theologians:
The highest characteristic of the alchemical law is the cross of
Christ with sensual man. The cross means that the Lord God, in
order to perpetuate his own being, descends into the race of
sensuality.
And again, when someone asks about meteors:
"The word Heaven means things heaved up, that is, heaved up from
their material basis, the earth; thus, the meteors which fall to
the earth are composed of metallic, mineral, and geological
substances, being materialized or actually created in the
atmosphere by an alchemico-organic process from zones or belts
periodically open, which precipitate their contents in the form
or shape of meteors."
And perhaps I ought also to quote the "Indicia of Human
Progress", by "Berthaldine, Matrona". I don't know what a
"Matrona" is--unless it is a female matron. This female matron
tells me that now is the "Time of Restitution", and explains that
"the prolification of the human race has reached a fruition of
the adultery of the truth and good of the Lord with the fallacies
and evils of the mortal hells"..... We have come, it seems, to
the "age of Pisces", which is "one of the greatest radical
prolification"; and what we now need is the "power of
polarization", so that we may join the "White Horse Army of the
Most High", which is the organization of the "Aquarian age",
proclaimed by Koresh on January 15th, 1891.
Mazdaznan
And here is another and even more startling revelation from
Chicago, given to a seer by the name of Dr. Otoman Prince of
Adusht Ha'nish, prophet of the Sun God, Prince of Peace, Manthra
Magi of Temple El Katman, Kalantar of Zoroastrian Breathing and
Envoy of Mazdaznan living, Viceroy-Elect and International Head
of Master-Thot. If you had happened to live near the town of
Mendota, Illinois, and had known the German grocer-boy named Otto
Hanisch, you might at first have trouble in recognizing him
through this transmogrification. I have traced his career in the
files of the Chicago newspapers, and find him herding sheep,
setting type, preaching prestidigitation, mesmerism, and fake
spiritualism, joining the Mormon Church, then the "Christian
Catholic Church in Zion", and then the cult of Brighouse, who
claimed to be Christ returned. Finally he sets himself up in
Chicago as a Persian Magi, teaching Yogi breathing exercises and
occult sex-lore to the elegant society ladies of the pork-packing
metropolis. The Sun God, worshipped for two score centuries in
India, Egypt, Greece and Rome, has a new shrine on Lake Park
Avenue, and the prophet gives tea-parties at which his disciples
are fed on lilac-blossoms--"the white and pinkish for males, the
blue-tinted for females". He wears a long flowing robe of pale
grey cashmere, faced with white, and flexible white kid shoes,
and he sells his lady adorers a book called "Inner Studies",
price five dollars per volume, with information on such subjects
as:
The Immaculate Conception and its Repetition; The Secrets of
Lovers Unveiled; Our Ideals and Soul Mates; Magnetic Attraction
and Electric Mating.
A Grand Jury intervenes, and the Prophet goes to jail for six
months; but that does not harm his cult, which now has a temple
in Chicago, presided over by a lady called Kalantress and
Evangelist; also a "Northern Stronghold" in Montreal, an
"Embassy" in London, an "International Aryana" in Switzerland,
and "Centers" all over America. At the moment of going to press,
the prophet himself is in flight, pursued by a warrant charging
him with improper conduct with a number of young boys in a Los
Angeles hotel.
I have dipped into Ha'nish's revelations, which are a farrago of
every kind of ancient mysticism--paper and binding from the
Bible, illustrations from the Egyptian, names from the
Zoroastrian, health rules from the Hindoos, laws from the
Confucians--price ten dollars per volume. Would you like to
discover your seventeen senses, to develop them according to the
GaLlama principle, and to share the "expansion of the magnetic
circles"? Here is the way to do it:
Inhale through nostrils for four seconds, and upon one
exhalation, speak slowly:
Open, O thou world-sustaining Sun, the entrance unto Truth hidden
by the vase of dazzling light.
Again inhale for four seconds, and breathe out the following
sentence upon one exhalation as before:
Soften the radiation of Thy Illuminating Splendor, that I may
behold Thy True Being.
I have a clipping from a Los Angeles newspaper telling of the
prophet's arriving there. He takes the front page with the
captivating headline: "Women Didn't Think Till They Put On
Corsets". The interview tells about his mysteriousness, his
aloofness, his bird-like-diet, and his personal beauty. "Despite
his seventy-three years, Ha'nish evidences no sign of age. His
keen blue eyes showed no sign of wavering. There were no wrinkles
on his face, and his walk was that of a man of forty." The humor
of this becomes apparent when we mention that at Ha'nish's trial,
three or four years ago, he was proven to be thirty-five years
old!
Being thus warned as to the accuracy of American journalism, we
shall not be taken in by the repeated statements that the
Mazdaznan prophet is a millionaire. But there is no doubt that he
is wealthy; and as all Americans wish to be wealthy, I will quote
his formula of prosperity, his method of accomplishing what might
be called the Individual Revolution:
When hungry and you do not know where to get your next piece of
bread, do not despair. Thy Father, all-loving, has provided you
with everything that will meet all cases of emergency. Place your
teeth tightly together, with tongue pressing against the lower
teeth and lips parted. Breathe in, close lips immediately,
exhaling through the nostrils. Breathe again; if saliva forms in
your mouth, hold your breath so you can swallow it first before
you exhale. You thus take out of the air the metal-substance
contained therein; you can even taste the iron which you convert
into substance required for making the blood. Should you feel
that, although you have sufficient iron in the blood, there is a
lack of copper and zinc and silver, place upper teeth over lower,
keep lower lip tightly to lower teeth, now breathe and you can
even taste the metals named. Then should you feel you need more
gold element for your brain functions, place your back teeth
together just as if you were to grind the back teeth, taking
short breaths only. You will then learn to know that there is
gold and silver all around us. That our bodies are filled with
quite a quantity of gold.
Black Magic
What all this means is that we have a continent, with a hundred
million half-educated people, materially prosperous, but
spiritually starving; so any man who possesses personality, who
looks in any way strange and impressive, or has hunted up old
books in a library, and can pronounce mysterious words in a
thrilling voice--such a man can find followers. Anybody can do it
with any doctrine, from anywhere, Persia or Patagonia, Pekin or
Pompei. I would be willing to wager that if I cared to come out
and announce that I had had a visit from God last night, and to
devote such literary and emotional power as I possess to
communicating a new revelation, I could have a temple, a
university, and a million dollars within five years at the
outside. And if at the end of five years I were to announce that
I had played a joke on the world, some one of my followers would
convince the faithful that I had been an agent of God without
knowing it, and that the leadership had now been turned over to
him.
I would not be understood as believing that all our cults are
undiluted fakery, for that would be doing injustice to some
earnest people. There are, in this country, many followers of the
Persian reformer, Abbas Effendi, who call themselves Babists, and
who have what I am inclined to think is the purest and most
dignified religion in existence. There was a man named Jacob
Beilhardt, who founded a cult in Illinois with the painful name
of "Spirit Fruit Colony", who nevertheless was a man of spiritual
insight, a true mystic; he was honest, and so he failed, and died
of a broken heart. Also there are the Christian Scientists and
the Theosophists, so exasperating that one would like to throw
them onto the rubbish-heap, who yet compel us to sift over their
mountains of chaff for the grains of truth which will bear fruit
in future.
While we western races have been exploring the natural world and
perfecting the mechanical arts, the Hindoo students have been
exploring the subconscious and its strange powers. What Myers and
Lodge and Janet and Charcot and Freud and Jung are telling us
today they had hints of a long time ago; and doubtless they have
hints of other things, upon which our scientists have not yet
come. I have friends, perfectly sane and competent people, who
tell me that they can see auras, and use this ability as a means
of judging character. Shall I say that there are no auras, simply
because I do not happen to have this gift of seeing them? In the
same way, having read Gurney's "Phantasms of the Living," I am
not ready to ridicule the claim of the Yogi adepts, that they are
able to project some kind of astral body, and to communicate with
one another from distant places. But granting such occult powers
in a world of economic strife, what follows? Simply new floods of
charlatanism, elaborate and complicated systems of ritual and
metaphysic for the deluding and plundering of the credulous.
I have seen the thing working itself out in one case known to me.
A young man had a gift of mental healing; I know, because I saw
it work; but it did not always work, and that was annoying. He
was penniless and had a taste for power, and to eke out his
erratic endowment he got himself books of Eastern lore, and day
by day as I watched him I could see him becoming more and more
impressive, mysterious and forbidding. Today he is a full-fledged
wonder-worker, with the language of a dozen mystic cults at his
tongue's end, and the reverent regard of many wealthy ladies. I
have never tried to break through his guard, but I feel certain
that he is a deliberate charlatan.
This is an economic process, automatic and irresistible. Just as
the manufacturer of honest foods is driven out by the
adulterator, so the worker of miracles drives out the sincere
investigator. As a result we have here in America a plague of
Eastern cults, with "swamis" using soft yellow robes and soft
brown eyes to win the souls of idle society ladies. These
teachers of ancient Hindoo lore despise us as a race of
barbarians; but they stay--whether because of love of man or
woman, I do not pretend to say.
There are the Theosophists of many brands, with schools and
institutes and temples and colonies, and a doctrine as complex
and detailed and fantastic as that of the Roman Catholics. I have
already referred to the writings of Madame Blavatsky, a runaway
Russian army officer's daughter, whose career reads like a tale
out of the Arabian Nights. And there is Annie Besant, who was
once an ardent worker in the Social-democratic Federation; H. M.
Hyndman tells of his dismay when she went to India and walked in
a procession between two white bulls! Here in California is
Madame Tingley, with a colony and a host of followers in a
miniature paradise. Men work at money-lending or manufacturing
sporting-goods, and when they get old and tired they make the
thrilling discovery that they have souls; the theosophists
cultivate these souls and they leave their money to the
soul-cause, and there are lawsuits and exposes in the newspapers.
For, you see, there is ferocious rivalry in the game of
cultivating millionaire souls; there are slanders and feuds, just
as in soulless affairs. "Don't have anything to do with Madame
Tingley," whispers a Theosophist lady to my wife; and when my
wife in all innocence inquires, "Why not?" the awe-stricken
answer comes, "She practices black magic!"
Let me add that I do not say that she practices black magic. I do
not believe that she could practice it, even if she wanted to--I
do not believe in black magic. My purpose is merely to show how
theosophists quarrel: going back to the days of Anu and Baal and
the bronze image of the Babylonian fire-god:
Let them die, but let me live! Let them be put under a ban, but
let me prosper! Let them perish, but let me increase! Let them
become weak, but let me wax strong!
Mental Malpractice
This is the other side of the fair shield of religious faith.
Why, if there be a power which loves and can be persuaded to aid
us, may there not also be a power which hates, and can be
persuaded to destroy? No religion has ever been able to answer
this, and therefore none has ever been able to escape from
devil-terrors. Even Jesus was pursued by Satan, and the Holy
Catholic Church has its ceremonies for the exorcising of demons,
and a most frightful formula for cursing. And here are our
friends the Christian Scientists, proclaiming the unreality of
all evil, their ability to banish disease by convincing
themselves that they are perfect in God--yet tormented by a
squalid phobia called "Mental Malpractice", or "Malicious Animal
Magnetism".
Christian Science is the most characteristic of American
religious contributions. Just as Billy Sunday is the price we pay
for failing to educate our base-ball players, so Mary Baker
Glover Patterson Eddy is the price we pay for failing to educate
our farmer's daughters.
That she had a power to cure disease I do not doubt, because I
have a little of it myself. At first my opinion was that her
"Science" made its way by curing the imaginary ailments of the
idle rich. If a person has nothing to do but think that he is
sick, you can work easy miracles by persuading him to think that
he is well; and if he has nothing to do but think that he is
well, he will help you to build marble churches and maintain
propaganda societies. But recently I have experimented with
mental healing--enough to satisfy myself that the subconscious
mind which controls our physical functions can be powerfully
influenced by the will.
I told the story of some of these experiments in Hearst's
Magazine for April, 1914. Suffice it here to say that if you will
lay your hands upon a sick person, forming a vivid mental picture
of the bodily changes you desire, and concentrating the power of
your will upon them, you may be surprised by the results,
especially if you possess anything in the way of psychic gifts.
You do not have to adopt any theories, you do not have to do it
in the name of any divinity, ancient or modern; the only bearing
of such ideas is that they serve to persuade people to make the
experiment, and to make it with persistence and intensity. So it
has come about that "miracles" of healing are associated with
"faith"; and so it comes about that scientists are apt to flout
the subject. But read of the work of Janet and Charcot and their
followers at the Salpetriere; they have proven that all kinds of
seeming-organic ailments may be entirely hysterical in nature,
and may be cured by the simplest form of suggestion.
Understanding this, you may find it more easy to credit the fact
that cripples do sometimes throw away their crutches in the
grotto of Lourdes. For my part, I can believe that Jesus
performed all the miracles of healing attributed to him
--including the raising up of people pronounced to be dead by the
ignorance of that time. I am convinced that in the new science of
psycho-analysis we have a universe as vast as the universe of the
atom or of the stars.
The Christian Scientists have got hold of this power; they have
mixed it up with metaphysic and divinity, and built some four or
five hundred churches, and printed the Mother Church alone knows
how many million pamphlets and books. I once invested three of my
hard-earned dollars for a copy of the Eddy Bible, and let myself
be stunned and blinded by the flapping of metaphysical wings. It
is unadulterated moonshine--as the Platonist and Berkeleyan and
Hegelian and other orthodox collegiate metaphysical magi can
prove to you in one minute. What interests me about the
phenomenon is not the slinging of tremendous words, but the
strictly Yankee use which is made of them. There is no nonsense
about saving your soul in Christian Science; what it is for is to
remove your wen, to nail down your floating kidney, and to enable
you to hustle and make money. We saw in our politics the growth
of a Party of the Full Dinner-Pail; contemporaneous therewith,
and corresponding thereto, we see in our religious life the
development of a Church of the Full Pocket-Book.
It is a strict religion--strictly cash. The heads of the cult do
not issue cheap editions of "Science and Health, With Key to the
Scriptures", to relieve the suffering of the proletariat; no--the
work is copyrighted, in all its varying and contradictory
editions, and the price is from three to seven-fifty, according
to binding. Treatments cost from three dollars to ten, whether
you come and get them or take them over the telephone. And we
have no nonsense about charity, we don't worry about the poor who
fester in our city slums; because poverty is a product of Mortal
Mind, and we offer to all men a way to get rich right off the
bat. You may come to our marble churches and hear people testify
how through the power of Divine Mind they were enabled to
anticipate a rise in the stock-market. If you don't avail
yourself of the opportunity, the fault is yours, and yours also
the punishment.
As to the management of the Church, the Roman Catholic hierarchy
is a Bolshevik democracy in comparison. The Church is controlled
by an absolutely irresponsible self-perpetuating body of five
men, who alone dictate its policy. I have in my hand a letter
from a Christian Science healer who was listed as an "authorized
practitioner", and who withdrew from the Church because of its
attitude on public questions. He sends me a copy of his
correspondence with the editors of the "Christian Science
Monitor", containing a detailed analysis of the position of that
paper on such issues as the Ballinger land-frauds. He writes:
I am thoroughly convinced now that the policy of the Church is
consciously plutocratic. The only recommendation I have heard of
the latest appointee to the Board of Directors is that he is one
of the richest men in the movement.
After the Titanic disaster, Senator La Follette brought in a
carefully drawn bill to compel steamship companies to provide
life-boats and trained crews. The "Christian Science Monitor"
opposed this bill; and when my correspondent cited the fact, he
brought out a quaint bit of metaphysical logic, as follows:
One would prefer to travel on a vessel without a single boat,
rather than on some other vessels which were loaded down with
life-boats, where the government of Mind was not understood!
Science and Wealth
The truth is that the brand of Mammon was on our Yankee religion
from the day of its birth. In the first edition of her new Bible
"Mother" Eddy dropped the hint to her readers: "Men of business
have said this science was of great advantage from a secular
point of view." And in her advertisements she threw aside all
pretense, declaring that her work "Affords an opportunity to
acquire a profession by which one can accumulate a fortune." When
her pupils did accumulate, she boasted of their success; nor did
she neglect her own accumulating.
It has been a dozen years since I looked into this cult; in order
to be sure that it has not been purified in the interim, I
proceed to a street corner in my home city, where is a stand with
a sign: "Christian Science Literature." I take four sample
copies of a magazine, the "Christian Science Sentinel", published
by the Mother Church in Boston, and turn to the "Testimonials of
Healing". In the issue of August 11, 1917, Mary C. Richards of
St. Margarets-on-Thames, England, testifies: "Through a number of
circumstances unnecessary to relate, but proving conclusively
that the result came not from man but from God, employment was
found." In the issue of December 2, 1916, Frances Tuttle of
Jersey City, N. J., testifies how her sister was successfully
treated for unemployment by a scientist practitioner. "Every
condition was beautifully met." In the same issue Fred D. Miller
of Los Angeles, Cal., testifies: "Soon after this wonderful truth
came to me, Divine Love led me to a new position with a
responsible firm. The work was new to me, but I have given entire
satisfaction, and my salary has been advanced twice in less than
a year." In the issue of January 27, 1917, Eliza Fryant of
Agricola, Miss., testifies how she cured her little dog of
snake-bite and removed two painful corns from her own foot. In
the issue of August 4, 1917, Marcia E. Gaier, of Everett, Wash.,
testifies how it suddenly occurred to her that because God is
All, she would drop her planning and outlining in regard to real
estate properties, "upon which for nine months all available
material methods were tried to no effect." The result was a
triumph of "Principle".
While working in the yard one morning and gratefully communing
with God, the only power, I suddenly felt that I should stop
working and prepare for visitors on their way to look at the
property. I obeyed this very distinct command, and in about an
hour I greeted two people who had searched almost the entire city
for just what we had to offer. They had been directed to our
place by what to material sense would seem an accident, but we
know it was the divine law of harmony in its universal operation.
After this no one will wonder that John M. Tutt, in a Christian
Science lecture at Kansas City, Mo., should proclaim:
My friends, do you know that since the world began Christian
Science is the only system which has intelligently related
religion to business? Christian Science shows that since all
ideas belong to Mind, God, therefore all real business belongs to
Him.
As I said, these people have the new-old power of mental healing,
They blunder along with it blindly, absurdly, sometimes with
tragic consequences; but meantime the rank and file of the
pill-doctors know nothing about this power, and regard it with
contempt mingled with fear; so of course the hosts of sufferers
whom the pill-doctors cannot help flock to the healers of the
"Church of Christ, Scientist". According to the custom of those
who are healed by "faith", they swallow line, hook, and sinker,
creed, ritual, metaphysic and divinity. So we see in
twentieth-century America precisely what we saw in B. C.
twentieth-century Assyria--a host of worshippers, giving their
worldly goods without stint, and a priesthood, made partly of
fanatics and partly of charlatans, conducting a vast enterprise
of graft, and harvesting that thing desired of all men, power
over the lives and destinies of others.
And of course among themselves they quarrel; they murder one
another's Mortal Minds, they drive one another out, they snarl
over the spoils like a pack of hungry animals. Listen to the
Mother, denouncing one of her students--a perfectly amiable and
harmless youth whose only offense was that he had gone his own
way and was healing the sick for the benefit of his own
pocket-book:
Behold! thou criminal mental marauder, that would blot out the
sunshine of earth, that would sever friends, destroy virtue, put
out Truth, and murder in secret the innocent, befouling thy track
with the trophies of thy guilt--I say, Behold the "cloud" no
bigger than a man's hand already rising on the horizon of Truth,
to pour down upon thy guilty head the hailstones of doom.
And again:
The Nero of today, regaling himself through a mental method with
the torture of individuals, is repeating history, and will fall
upon his own sword, and it shall pierce him through. Let him
remember this when, in the dark recesses of thought, he is
robbing, committing adultery and killing. When he is attempting
to turn friend away from friend, ruthlessly stabbing the
quivering heart; when he is clipping the thread of life and
giving to the grave youth and its rainbow hues; when he is
turning back the reviving sufferer to his bed of pain, clouding
his first morning after years of night; and the Nemesis of that
hour shall point to the tyrant's fate, who falls at length upon
the sword of justice.
New Nonsense
In a certain city of America is a large building given up
entirely to the whims of pretty ladies. Its floors are not floors
but "Promenades", and have walls of glass, behind which, as you
stroll, you see bonnets from Paris and opera cloaks from London,
furs from Alaska and blankets from Arizona, diamonds from South
Africa and beads from the Philippines, grapes from Spain and
cherries from Japan, fortune-tellers from Arabia and
dancing-masters from Petrograd and "naturopaths" from Vienna.
There are seventy-three shops, by actual count, containing
everything that could be imagined or desired by a pretty lady,
whether for her body, or for that vague stream of emotion she
calls her "soul". One of the seventy-three shops is a
"Metaphysical Library", having broad windows, and walls in pastel
tints, and pretty vases with pink flowers, and pretty gray wicker
chairs in which the reader will please to be seated, while we
probe the mysteries of an activity widely spread throughout
America, called "New Thought."
We begin with a shelf of magazines having mystical titles: Azoth;
Master Mind; Aletheian; Words of Power; Qabalah; Comforter;
Adept; Nautilus; True Word; Astrological Bulletin; Unity; Uplift;
Now. And then come shelves of pretty pamphlets, alluring to the
eye and the purse; also shelves of imposing-looking volumes
containing the lore and magic of a score of races and two score
of centuries--together with the very newest manifestations of
Yankee hustle and graft.
As in the case of Christian Science, these New Thoughters have a
fundamental truth, which I would by no means wish to depreciate.
It is a fact that the mysterious Source of our being is infinite,
and that we are only at the beginning of our thinking about it.
It is a fact that by appeal to it we can perform seeming miracles
of mental and moral regeneration; we can stimulate the flow of
nervous energy and of the blood, thus furthering the processes of
bodily healing. But the fact that God is Infinite and Omnipotent
does not bar the fact that He has certain ways of working, which
He does not vary; and that it is our business to explore and
understand these ways, instead of setting our fancies to work
imagining other ways more agreeable to our sentimentality.
Thus, for example, if we want bread, it is God's decree that we
shall plant wheat and harvest it, and grind and bake and
distribute it. Under conditions prevailing at the moment, it
appears to be His decree that we shall store the wheat in
elevators, and ship it in freight cars, and buy it through a
grain exchange, with capital borrowed from a national bank; in
other words, that our daily bread shall be the plaything of
exploiters and speculators, until such a time as we have the
intelligence to form an effective political party and establish
Industrial Democracy. But when you come to study the ways of God
in the literature of the New Thought, do you find anything about
the Millers' Trust and the Bakers' Trust and how to expropriate
these agencies of starvation? You do not!
What you find is Bootstrap-lifting; you find gentlemen and lady
practitioners shutting their eyes and lifting their hands and
pronouncing Incantations in awe-inspiring voices--or in Capital
Letters and LARGE TYPE: "God is infinite, God is All-Loving, GOD
WILL PROVIDE. Bread is coming to you! Bread is coming to you!!
BREAD IS COMING TO YOU!!!"
You think this is exaggeration? If so, it is because you have
never entered the building of the pretty ladies, and sat in the
gray wicker chairs of the metaphysical library. One of the
highest high-priestesses of the cults of New Nonsense is a lady
named Elizabeth Towne, editor of "The Nautilus"; and Priestess
Elizabeth tells you:
I believe the idea that money wants you will help you to the
right mental condition. Be a pot of honey and let it come.
I look over this Priestess' magazine, and find it full of
testimonials and advertisements for the conjuring of prosperity.
"Are you in the success sphere?" asks one exhorter; the next
tells you "How to enter the silence. How to manifest what you
desire. The secret of advancement." Another tells: "How a Failure
at Sixty Won Sudden Success; From Poverty to $40,000 a year--a
Lesson for Old and Young Alike." The lesson, it appears, is to
pay $3.00 for a book called "Power of Will." And here is another
book:
Master Key: Which can unlock the Secret Chamber of Success, can
throw wide the doors which seem to bar men from the Treasure
House of Nature, and bids those enter and partake who are Wise
enough to Understand and broad enough to Weigh the Evidence, firm
enough to Follow their Own Judgment and Strong enough to Make the
Sacrifice Exacted.
"Dollars Want Me"
I turn to the shelves of pamphlets. Here is a pretty one called
"All Sufficiency in All Things," published by the "Unity School
of Christianity", in Kansas City; it explains that God is God,
not merely of the Soul, but also of the Kansas City stockyards.
This divine Substance is ever abiding within us, and stands ready
to manifest itself in whatever form you and I need or wish, just
as it did in Elisha's time. It is the same yesterday, today and
forever. Abundant Supply by the manifestation of the Father
within us, from within outward, is as much a legitimate outcome
of the Christ life or spiritual understanding as is bodily
healing..... "Know that I am God--all of God, Good, all of Good.
I am Life. I am Health. I am Supply. I am the Substance."
And here is W. W. Atkinson of Chicago, author of a work called
"Mind Power". Would you like to be an Impressive Personality? Mr.
Atkinson will tell you exactly how to do it; he will give you the
secret of the Magnetic Handclasp, of the Intense,
Straight-in-the-eye Look; he will tell you what to say, he will
write out for you Incantations which you may pronounce to
yourself, to convince yourself that you have Power, that the
INDWELLING PRESENCE with all its MIGHT is yours. Mr. Atkinson
rebukes mildly the tendency of some of his fellow
Bootstrap-lifters to employ these arts for money-making; but you
notice that his magazine, "Advanced Thought", does not decline
the advertisements of such too-practical practitioners.
Next comes a gentleman with the musical name of Wallace Wattles,
who tells in one pamphlet "How to Be a Genius", and in another
pamphlet "How to Get What you Want". The thing for you to do is--
Saturate your mentality through and through with the knowledge
that YOU CAN DO WHAT YOU WANT TO DO..... Look upon the
peanut-stand merely as the beginning of the department store, and
make it grow; you can.
And Mr. Wattles wattles on, in an ecstasy of acquisitiveness:
Hold this consciousness and say with deep, earnest feeling: I CAN
succeed! All that is possible to any one is possible to me. I AM
success. I do succeed, for I am full of the Power of Success.
Imagine, if you please, a poor devil chained in the treadmill of
the capitalist system--a "soda-jerker", a "counter-jumper", a
book-keeper for the Steel Trust. His chances of rising in life
are one in ten thousand; but he comes to the Metaphysical
Library, and pays the price of his dinner for a pamphlet by Henry
Harrison Brown, who was first a Unitarian clergyman, and then an
extra-high Bootstrap-lifter in San Francisco, an Honorary
Vice-President of the International New Nonsense Alliance. Mr.
Brown will tell our soda-jerker or counter-jumper exactly how to
elevate himself by mental machinery. All calculations of
probabilities are delusions of the senses; if you have faith, you
can move, not merely mountains, but Riker-Hegeman's, Macy's, or
the Steel Trust. "How to Promote Yourself " is the title of one
of Mr. Brown's pamphlets, in which he explains that--
Your wants are impressed on the Divine Mind only by your faith. A
doubt cuts the connection.
A second pamphlet, which we are told is now in its thirtieth
edition, bears the thrilling title of "Dollars Want Me!" In it
Mr. Brown lays claim to being a pioneer:
I believe that this little monograph is the first utterance of
the thought that each individual has the ability so to radiate
his mental forces that he can cause the Dollars to feel him, love
him, seek him, and thus draw at will all things needed for his
unfoldment from the universal supply.
"What are Dollars?" asks our author; and answers:
Dollars are manifestations of the One Infinite Substance as you
are, but, unlike you, they are not Self-Conscious. They have no
power till you give them power. Make them feel this through your
thought-vibrations as you feel the importance of your work. They
will then come to you to be used.
"What is Poverty?" Mr. Brown asks, and answers himself:
Poverty is a mental condition. It can be cured only by the
Affirmation of Power to cure: I am a part of the One, and, in the
One, I possess all! Affirm this and patiently wait for the
manifestation. You have sown the thought seed.
And our author goes on to hand out packages of these
thought-seeds--"Affirmations" as they are called, in the jargon
of the New Conjuring:
I desire a deep consciousness of financial freedom. I desire
that the flow of prosperity become equalized. I desire a greater
consciousness of my power to attract the dollar. The Indwelling
Power cares for my purse. I own whatever I desire. I can afford
to use dollars for my happiness. I always have a good bank
account. I actually see it. My one idea of the law is to use,
use, USE.
Spiritual Financiering
If the symbolism of the Episcopal Church is of the palace, and
that of the non-conformist sects of the counting-house, that of
the International New Nonsense Alliance is of Wall Street and the
"ticker". "What is your rating in the Spiritual Bradstreet?" asks
William Morris Nichols in the publication of the " 'Now' Folk",
San Francisco:
Is it low or high? Is your credit with the Bank of the Universe
good or poor? If you draw a spiritual draft are you sure of its
being honored?
If you can answer that last question affirmatively, you are on
the road to become a Master in Spiritual Financiering.
Have you an account with the First (and only) Bank of Spirit? If
not, then you should at once open one therewith. For no one can
afford to keep less than a large deposit of spiritual funds with
that Bank.
And how do you proceed to open your account? It is very simple:
Intend the mind in the direction indicated by your desire. Seek
for the Light and Guidance by which you may open up the way for
your Spiritual Substance, which governs material supply, to reach
you and make you as rich as you ought to be, in freedom and
happiness. All this you can, and when in earnest, will do.
I turn over the advertisements of this publication of the " 'Now'
Folk". One offers "The Business Side of New Thought." Another
offers "The Books Without an If", with your money back IF you are
not satisfied! Another offers land in Bolivia for two dollars an
acre. Another quotes Shakespeare: " 'Tis the mind that makes the
body rich." Another offers two copies of the "Phrenological Era"
for ten cents.
There is apparently no delusion of any age or clime which cannot
find dupes among the readers of this New Nonsense. One notice
commands:
Stop! A Revelation! A Book has been written entitled "Strands of
Gold" or "From Darkness into Light!"
Another announces:
The Most Wonderful Book of the Ages: The Acquarian Gospel of
Jesus the Christ, Transcribed from the Book of God's Remembrance,
the Akashic Records.
And here is an advertisement published in Mr. Atkinson's paper:
Numerology: the Universal Adjuster! Do you know: What you appear
to be to others? What you really are? What you want to be? What
would overcome your present and future difficulties? Write to X,
Philosopher. You will receive full particulars of his personal
work which is dedicated to your service. No problem is too big or
too small for Numerology. Understanding awaits you.
And looking in the body of the magazine, you find this
Philosopher imparting some of this Understanding. Would you like,
for example, to understand why America entered the War? Nothing
easier. The vowels of the Words United States of America are
uieaeoaeia, which are numbered 2951561591, which added make 45,
or 4 plus 5 equals 9. You might not at first see what that has to
do with the War--until the Philosopher points out that "9 in the
number of completion, indicating the end of a cosmic cycle."
That, of course, explains everything.
And here is a work on what you perhaps thought to be a dead
science, Astrology. It is called "Lucky Hours for Everybody: A
True System of Planetary Hours by Prof. John B. Early. Price One
Dollar." It teaches you things like this:
Saturn's negative hours are especially good for all matters
relating to gold-mining..... The Sun negative rules the emerald,
the musical note D sharp, and the number four. The lunar hours
are a good time to deal in public commodities, and to hire
servants of both sexes.....
A recent lady visitor informed me that she had made several vain
attempts to transact important business in the hours ruled by
Jupiter, usually held to be fortunate, while she was nearly
always fortunate in what she began in the hours ruled by Saturn.
Upon investigation I found her name was ruled by the Sun
negative, and that she had Capricorn with Saturn therein as her
ascendant at birth, which explains.
And finally, here is a London "scientist", reported in the
"Weekly Unity" of Kansas City, who proves his mental power over
two-horse power oil engines which fail to act. "Going a little
apart, he came back in a few minutes and said: 'The engine is all
right now and will work satisfactorily.' and without any further
difficulty it did." We are told how Dr. Rawson gave a
demonstration of his method to a newspaper reporter the other
day. Fixing his gaze as though looking into space, he apparently
became absorbed in deep contemplation and said aloud: "There is
no danger; man is surrounded by divine love; there is no matter;
all is spirit and manifestation of spirit."
You might at first find difficulty in believing what can be
accomplished by "demonstrations" such as this; not merely are
two-horse power oil engines made to work, but the whole gigantic
machine of Prussian militarism is prevented from working. You may
recall how Arthur Machen's magazine story of the Angels of Mons
was taken up and made into a Catholic legend over-night; now here
is a New-Nonsense legend, complete and perfect, going the rounds
of our Nonsense magazines:
London, Dec. 14.--Shell-proof and bullet-proof soldiers have been
discovered on the European battle-fronts. Heroes with "charmed
lives" are being made every day, according to Frederick L.
Rawson, a London scientist, who insists he has found the
miraculous way by which they are developed. He calls it "audible
treatment". "Practical utilization of the powers of God by right
thinking," is the agency through which Dr. Rawson declares he can
so treat a man that he will not be harmed when hundreds of men
are being shot dead beside him. This amazing treatment includes a
new type of prayer. It is being administered to hundreds of men
audibly, and to hundreds more by letter. Nothing since the war
began has aroused so much talk of modern miracles as have many of
the statements of Dr. Rawson.......
At the taking of a wood there were five hundred yards of "No
Man's Land" to be crossed. Our troops could not get across. Then
Capt. --------, who practices this method of prayer, treated them
for an hour before they started, and not a man was knocked out.
He was the only officer left out of eighty in his brigade. He
simply held onto the fact that man is spiritual and perfect and
could not be touched. A bullet fired from a revolver only five
yards away hit him over the chest, tore his shirt and went out at
the shoulder. But it never penetrated his chest. He was
frequently in a hail of shells and bullets which did not touch
him.
The Graft of Grace
All this is grotesque; but it is what happens to religions in a
world of commercial competition. It happens not merely to
Christian Science and New Thought religions, Mazdaznan and
Zionist, Holy Roller and Mormon religions, but to Catholic and
Episcopalian, Presbyterian and Methodist and Baptist religions.
For you see, when you are with the wolves you must howl with
them; when you are competing with fakirs you must fake. The
ordinary Christian will read the claims of the New Thought fakers
with contempt; but have I not shown the Catholic Church
publishing long lists of money-miracles? Have I not shown the
Church of Good Society, our exclusive and aristocratic Protestant
Episcopal communion, pretending to call rain and to banish
pestilence, to protect crops and win wars and heal those who are
"sick in estate"--that is, who are in business trouble?
The reader will say that I am a cynic, despising my fellows; but
that is not so. I am an economic scientist, analyzing the forces
which operate in human societies. I blame the prophets and
priests and healers for their fall from idealism; but I blame
still more the competitive wage-system, which presents them with
the alternative to swindle or to starve.
For, you see, the prophet has to have food. He has frequently got
along with almost none, and with only a rag for clothing; in
Palestine and India, where the climate is warm, a sincere faith
has been possible for short periods. But the modern prophet who
expects to influence the minds of men has to have books and
newspapers; he will find a telephone and a typewriter and
postage-stamps hardly to be dispensed with, also in Europe and
America some sort of a roof over his meeting place. So the
prophet is caught, like all the rest of us, in the net of the
speculator and the landlord. He has to get money, and in order to
get it he has to impress those who already have it--people whose
minds and souls have been deformed by the system of parasitism
and exploitation.
So the prophet becomes a charlatan; or, if he refuses, he becomes
a martyr, and founds a church which becomes a church of
charlatans. I care not how sincere, how passionately proletarian
a religious prophet may be, that is the fate which sooner or
later befalls him in a competitive society--to be the founder of
an organization of fools, conducted by knaves, for the benefit of
wolves. That fate befell Buddha and Jesus, it befell Ignatius
Loyola and Francis of Assisi, John Fox and John Calvin and John
Wesley.
A friend of mine who has made a study of "Spiritualism" describes
to me the conditions in that field. The mediums are people,
mostly women, with a peculiar gift; whether we believe in the
survival of personality, or whether we call it telepathy, does
not alter the fact that they have a rare and special
sensitiveness, a new faculty which science must investigate. They
come, poor people mostly--for the well-to-do will seldom give
their time to exacting and wearisome experiments. They come,
wearing frayed and thin clothing, shivering with cold, obviously
undernourished; and their survival depends upon their producing
"phenomena"--which phenomena are capricious, and will not come at
call. So, what more natural than that mediums should resort to
faking? That the whole field should be reeking with fraud, and
science should be held back from understanding an extraordinary
power of the subconscious mind?
Ever since we came to Pasadena, various ladies have been telling
us about the wondrous powers of a mulatto-woman, a manicurist at
the city's most fashionable hotel. The other day, out of
curiosity, my wife and I went; the moment the "medium" opened her
mouth my wife recognized her as the person who has been trying
for several months to get me on the telephone to tell me how the
spirit of Jack London is seeking to communicate with me! The
seance was a public one, a gathering composed, half of wealthy
and cultured society-women, and half of confederates, people with
the dialect and manners of a vaudeville troupe. A megaphone was
set in the middle of the floor, the room was made dark, a couple
of hymns were sung, and then the spirit of Dr. Oliver Wendell
Holmes spoke through the megaphone with a Bowery accent, and gave
communications from relatives and friends of the various
confederates. "Jesus is with us", said Dr. Holmes. "The spirit of
Jesus bids you to study spiritualism." And then came the voice of
a child: "Mamma! Mamma!" "It is little Georgie!" cried Dr.
Holmes; and one of the society ladies started, and answered, and
presently burst into tears. A marvelous piece of
evidence--especially when you recall that the story of this
mother's bereavement had been published in all the papers a
couple of months before!
And this kind of swindling is going on every night in every city
of America. It goes on wholesale for months every summer at Lily
Dale, in New York State, where the spiritualists hold their
combination of Chautauqua and Coney Island. And the same thing is
going on in the field of mental healing, and of all other
"occult" forces and powers, whether real or imaginary. It is
going on with new spiritual fervors, new moral idealisms, new
poetry, new music, new painting, new sculpture. The faker, the
charlatan is everywhere--using the mental and moral and artistic
forces of life as a means of delivering himself from economic
servitude. Everywhere I turn I see it--credulity being exploited,
and men of practical judgment, watching the game and seeing
through it, made hard in their attitude of materialism. How many
men I know who sit by in sullen protest while their wives drift
from one new quackery to another, wasting their income seeking
health and happiness in futile emotionalism! How many kind and
sensitive spirits I know--both men and women--who pour their
treasures of faith and admiration into the laps of hierophants
who began by fooling all mankind and ended by fooling themselves!
In each one of the cults of what I have called the "Church of the
Quacks", there are thousands, perhaps millions of entirely
sincere, self-sacrificing people. They will read this book--if
anyone can persuade them to read it--with pain and anger;
thinking that I am mocking at their faith, and have no
appreciation of their devotion. All that I can say is that I am
trying to show them how they are being trapped, how their fine
and generous qualities are being used by exploiters of one sort
or another; and how this must continue, world without end, until
there is order in the material affairs of the race, until justice
has been established as the law of man's dealing with his
fellows.