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THE PROFITS OF RELIGION
An Essay in Economic Interpretation
By UPTON SINCLAIR
OFFERTORY
This book is a study of Supernaturalism from a new point of
view--as a Source of Income and a Shield to Privilege. I have
searched the libraries through, and no one has done it before. If
you read it, you will see that it needed to be done. It has meant
twenty-five years of thought and a year of investigation. It
contains the facts.
I publish the book myself, so that it may be available at the
lowest possible price. I am giving my time and energy, in return
for one thing which you may give me--the joy of speaking a true
word and getting it heard.
The present volume is the first of a series, which will do for
Education, Journalism and Literature what has here been done for
the Church: the four volumes making a work of revolutionary
criticism, an Economic Interpretation of Culture under the
general title of "The Dead Hand."
CONTENTS
Introductory
Bootstrap-lifting
Religion
Book One: The Church of the Conquerors
The Priestly Lie
The Great Fear
Salve Regina!
Fresh Meat
Priestly Empires
Prayer-wheels
The Butcher-Gods
The Holy Inquisition
Hell-fire
Book Two: The Church of Good Society
The Rain Makers
The Babylonian Fire-God
The Medicine-men
The Canonization of Incompetence
Gibson's Preservative
The Elders
Church History
Land and Livings
Graft in Tail
Bishops and Beer
Anglicanism and Alcohol
Dead Cats
"Suffer Little Children"
The Court-circular
Horn-blowing
Trinity Corporation
Spiritual Interpretation
Book Three: The Church of the Servant Girls
Charity
God's Armor
Thanksgivings
The Holy Roman Empire
Temporal Power
Knights of Slavery
Priests and Police
The Church Militant
The Church Triumphant
God in the Schools
The Menace
King Coal
The Unholy Alliance
Secret Service
Tax Exemption
Holy History
Das Centrum
Book Four: The Church of the Slavers
The Face of Caesar
Deutschland ueber Alles
Der Tag
King Cotton
Witches and Women
Moth and Rust
To Lyman Abbott
The Octopus
The Industrial Shelley
The Outlook for Graft
Clerical Camouflage
The Jungle
Book Five: The Church of the Merchants
The Head Merchant
"Herr Beeble"
Holy Oil
Rhetorical Black-hanging
The Great American Fraud
Riches in Glory
Captivating Ideals
Spook Hunting
Running the Rapids
Birth Control
Sheep
Book Six: The Church of the Quacks
Tabula Rasa
The Book of Mormon
Holy Rolling
Bible Prophecy
Koreshanity
Mazdaznan
Black Magic
Mental Malpractice
Science and Wealth
New Nonsense
"Dollars Want Me!"
Spiritual Financiering
The Graft of Grace
Book Seven: The Church of the Social Revolution
Christ and Caesar
Locusts and Wild Honey
Mother Earth
The Soap Box
The Church Machine
The Church Redeemed
The Desire of Nations
The Knowable
"Nature's Insurgent Son
The New Morality
Envoi
INTRODUCTORY
Bootstrap-lifting
Bootstrap-lifting? says the reader.
It is a vision I have seen: upon a vast plain, men and women are
gathered in dense throngs, crouched in uncomfortable and
distressing positions, their fingers hooked in the straps of
their boots. They are engaged in lifting themselves; tugging and
straining until they grow red in the face, exhausted. The
perspiration streams from their foreheads, they show every
symptom of distress; the eyes of all are fixed, not upon each
other, nor upon their boot-straps, but upon the sky above. There
is a look of rapture upon their faces, and now and then, amid
grunts and groans, they cry out with excitement and triumph.
I approach one and say to him, "Friend, what is this you are
doing?"
He answers, without pausing to glance at me, "I am performing
spiritual exercises. See how I rise?"
"But," I say, "you are not rising at all!"
Whereat he becomes instantly angry. "You are one of the
scoffers!"
"But, friend," I protest, "don't you feel the earth under your
feet?"
"You are a materialist!"
"But, friend, I can see--"
"You are without spiritual vision!"
And so I move on among the sweating and groaning hordes. Being of
a sympathetic turn of mind, I cannot help being distressed by the
prevalence of this singular practice among so large a portion of
the human race. How is it possible that none of them should
suspect the futility of their procedure? Or can it really be that
I am uncomprehending? That in some way they are actually getting
off the ground, or about to get off the ground?
Then I observe a new phenomenon: a man gliding here and there
among the bootstrap-lifters, approaching from the rear and
slipping his hands into their pockets. The position of the
spiritual exercisers greatly facilitates his work; their eyes
being cast up to heaven, they do not see him, their thoughts
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