ABSTRACT
This chapter shows society making use of conviction, but in a different way. It examines, not creeds, but the films, veils, hidden mirrors, and half-lights by which men are duped as to that which lies nearest them—their own experience. The chapter explains that men led captive, not by dogmas concerning a world beyond experience, but by artfully fostered misconceptions of the pains, satisfactions, and values lying under their very noses. For this the fitting term is not control by belief, but control by illusion. The ascetic view of "the world" is an illusion it is scarcely necessary to show. The ecstasies, visions, insights, and Nirvanas for the sake of which the natural man is to be crucified are hallucinations. To pursue them as supreme blessings is to relinquish realities for mocking phantasms, to exchange solid earth for mirage.
