Ayn Rand Quotes About Mysticism

• Faith and force ... are corollaries: every period of history dominated by mysticism, was a period of statism, of dictatorship, of tyranny.

  Ayn Rand

  Force, Periods, Tyranny

  Ayn Rand (1988). “The Ayn Rand Lexicon: Objectivism from A to Z”, p.174, Penguin

• The three values which men had held for centuries and which have now collapsed are: mysticism, collectivism, altruism. Mysticism — as a cultural power — died at the time of the Renaissance. Collectivism — as a political ideal — died in World War II. As to altruism — it has never been alive. It is the poison of death in the blood of Western civilization, and men survived it only to the extent to which they neither believed nor practiced it.

  Ayn Rand

  War, Men, Civilization

  "Philosophy: Who Needs It".

• In western civilization, the period ruled by mysticism is known as the 'Dark Ages' and the 'Middle Ages'. I will assume that you know the nature of that period and the state of human existence in those ages. The Renaissance broke the rules of the mystics. "Renaissance" means the "rebirth". Few people today will care to remind you that it was a rebirth of reason - of man's mind.

  Ayn Rand

  Mean, Dark, Men

• The Middle Ages were an era of mysticism, ruled by blind faith and blind obedience to the dogma that faith is superior to reason. The Renaissance was specifically the rebirth of reason, the liberation of man's mind, the triumph of rationality over mysticism - a faltering, incomplete, but impassioned triumph that led to the birth of science, of individualism, of freedom.

  Ayn Rand

  Men, History, Mind

  Ayn Rand (1971). “The New Left: the Anti-Industrial Revolution”

• Mysticism requires the notion of the unknowable, which is revealed to some and withheld from others; this divides men into those who feel guilt and those who cash in on it.

  Ayn Rand

  Men, Guilt, Cash

  Ayn Rand (1988). “The Ayn Rand Lexicon: Objectivism from A to Z”, p.332, Penguin

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