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Correspondence from Aleister Crowley to J.W.N. Sullivan
[Undated - circa 1930]
Hitherto every revolution has failed partially in the long run because Christianity never abandons its hydraulic type of resistance. See recent events in Mexico, Spain, and Italy. It waits for its chance to destroy Freedom and Justice.
The Republic, or it, must perish.
True, "Religion is the opium of the People"—add Love and Alcohol. But, until the human race develops far higher moral qualities, this is, for all but very exceptional men, like sleep, a relief and a forgetfulness.
While we are toiling to raise the standards of consciousness, we should use religion, but draw its fangs by dissociating its theory and practice from Ethics. It should be as clean as sport, a relaxation with no power to interfere in the serious life of the people.
Apart from any rightness of this plan, it has a supreme tactical value. The Church can tolerate Science, Atheism, and all opponents which do not break into its hold upon the People by replacing its false remedy for superstitious fear by a true cure. We must allow for the present the psychological and physiological escape from reality; it will not injure the Republic if arranged frankly, on a basis of fact.
666
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