The astonishing thing is not that some people steal or that others occasionally go out on strike, but rather that all those who are starving do not steal as a regular practice, and all those who are exploited are not continually out on strike: after centuries of exploitation, why do people still tolerate being humiliated and enslaved, to such a point, indeed, that they actually want humiliation and slavery not only for others but for themselves?

Many thousand years ago, the first lunatic appeared. How or why he was produced I do not claim to know. People were natural and unarmored in those days they still felt nature in themselves and around them. They had no concept of “mental illness”; they could not imagine it. When the first lunatic appeared, these simple, natural people could not understand that there was something wrong with him. They listened to his hallucinations and delusions and accepted these visions as reports from a higher world. There were fantasies of demons and flames such as schozophrenics still experience today. When such myths were believed, the delusions of the first lunatic were believed also. Many biological drives, such as humans have in common with all animals, were called “Evil.” In the attempt to repress these drives, muscular tension and respiratory blocks developed: and out of this armoring of the biological being, secondary drives of a perverted nature arose-sadism and masochism. Furthermore armoring was then created to contain these destructive forces. The human race became completely unnatural, robotic, emotionally plagued. The process has continued and worsened over the centuries. There is no political solution to the problem: no matter who is in power the armoring continues and sadism and masochism continue. People do not know what they are doing or what is going on around them. In order to oppose the emotional plague, people must first know that it exists; in order to liberate themselves; people must first understand how they have been enslaved; in order to realize a jail-break, we must first realize we are in prison. Since we know none of these things we continue acting out the fantasies of dead lunatics. We are mad, and have the delusion that we are sane. We are robots and have the delusion that we are free. We are obsessed and have the delusion that we are scientific and rational. To state these facts bluntly is to insult the vanity of every man and woman on the planet, and to be denounced as a fanatic, an extremist, an anarchist. But if we are to have any chance of survival at all at least one person must speak out frankly and tell the truth about the horror of the situation. No matter how it offends religious dogmas about our own rationality, or political dogmas that the problem exists only in some other country full of bad people. The problem exists in each and every one of us. In your shallow breathing. In your tense muscles. In your anger at hearing the truth about yourselves. That is why I have been condemned again and again, and why I will be condemned one more time tonight.