taught men to destroy their life; if a Mohammedan, that Mohammed visited the seventh heaven, and there learned the law, according to which a fivefold prayer and a pilgrimage to Mecca procure for man paradise in the future life!

191. Parents and teachers, although they know that other men instil other ideas into their children, pass on each his own particular superstition, knowing, in the depth of his soul, that it is only superstition, and they transmit this to innocent, trustful children, at an age when impressions are so deep that they are never afterwards completely effaced.

THE EVIL CAUSED BY RELIGIOUS DECEPTION.

192. Sin, causing man to at times commit acts contrary to his spiritual nature— to love,-impedes his birth to the new true life.

193. Snares, by justifying sins, lead man into a life of sin, so that he not only commits certain sinful acts, but, while living an animal life, does not perceive it to be in contradiction to the true life.

194. Such a position is possible only when the truth is perverted by religious deception. No man, whose understanding is not thus perverted, can be blind to the falsehood of snares.

195. Religious deception is, therefore, the foundation of all the sins and calamities of mankind.

196. Religious deception is that which is called in the Gospel blasphemy against the Holy Ghost," concerning which it is said that it cannot be pardoned -i. e., it can never, in any life, fail to be ruinous.

THE WAY TO LIVE ACCORDING TO THE TEACHING OF CHRIST.

197. In order to live according to the teaching of Christ, man must destroy the obstacles which impede true life, or the manifestation of love.

198. These obstacles are sins. But sins cannot be destroyed until man frees himself from snares. And freedom from snares is possible only to the man who is free from religious deception.

199. Therefore, in order to live according to the teaching of Christ, man must first of all free himself from religious deception.

200. Only after having freed himself from this can a man liberate himself from the falsehood of snares; only after seeing the falsehood of snares can he free himself from sins.

ESCAPE FROM RELIGIOUS DECEP

TION.

201. In order to free himself from religious deception in general, man must understand and remember that the only instrument he possesses for the acquisition of knowledge is reason, and therefore that every teaching affirming what is contrary to reason is a delusion, an attempt to set aside the only instrument for acquiring knowledge which God has given to man.

202. In order to escape from religious deception, man must understand and remember that he has not, and cannot have, any other instrument of knowledge but reason that, whether he will or no, every man believes only in reason. They therefore deceive themselves who say that

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