The revolutionary changes in mental outlook that took place in western Christendom four centuries ago, and that produced the modern scientific movement, are the major cause of the crisis in which the world finds itself today. By setting the modern scientific picture of the universe and man's place in it against the background of pre-Christian and Christian cosmology and anthropology, the author shows how our acceptance of this picture has literally enslaved us to a vast collective lie whose ramification in the major spheres of our thoughts and action cannot but vandalize and desecrate both ourselves and the world we live in.