The Profits of Religion, Fifth Edition by Upton Sinclair (list of e readers TXT) 📖
- Author: Upton Sinclair
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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 [266] 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.
[267]
"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.
[268] 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—
[269] 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 isto use, use, USE.
[270]
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!
[271] 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 is the number of completion, indicating [272] 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
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