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?