I now know that he produced some very insightful
and inspirational material.
He could be a goldmine, so his writings are
on the list to be investigated. In the meantime, a little research has found
these very relevant quotations:
“I discover that hardly a week passes
that someone does not start a new cult, or revive an old one; if I had a
hundred life-times I could not know all the creeds and ceremonies, the services
and rituals, the litanies and liturgies, the hymns...”
From The Profits of Religion: An Essay in
Economic Interpretation (1918), Introductory,
"Bootstrap-lifting".
He was speaking about American-style
religious organisations, but his words apply to many other types of cult. There
is no end to them, and many do indeed perform brain-washing ceremonies.
“He was burning with a sense of outrage. He
had been tricked and made a fool of; he had been used and flung aside. And now
there was nothing he could do — he was utterly helpless. What affected him most
was his sense of the overwhelming magnitude of the powers which had made him
their puppet; of the utter futility of the efforts that he or any other man
could make against them. They were like elemental, cosmic forces; they held all
the world in their grip, and a common man was as much at their mercy as a bit
of chaff in a tempest.”
From Metropolis (1908)
Upton Sinclair could be speaking for many
people who realise that they have been cheated, lied to and made a fool of and
that there is nothing that they can do about it. They are helpless pawns; they
are up against something huge, invulnerable, inexorable and remorseless.
This is a perfect description of how devastated
some people feel when they realise that they have been used and destroyed by a
cult or an energy vampire and there will be no justice and no compensation.
November 25th this year was the 50th anniversary
of Upton Sinclair’s death.
