The following day, reporters arrive wanting to interview him. A group of Delta-Minus workers witness John whipping himself one day. He feels the need to purge himself of civilization’s contamination. He establishes his own garden and carries out rituals of self-punishment. Mond refuses this request because he wishes to continue with “the experiment.” John later sits alone in an abandoned lighthouse in the wilderness. John asks Mond if he can accompany them to the islands. Bernard says he is sorry for the scene in Mond’s office. John says that he knows this is true but that his wishes remain as they are. Mond declares that these wishes will cause him unhappiness. John says that he prefers to have God, real danger, poetry, goodness, sin, and freedom. Mond says that soma is “Christianity without tears.” Christianity without tears-that’s what soma is. If something negative happens by accident, soma is provided to take away the pain.
In World State civilization, no one needed to deal with anything unpleasant. They simply live by different values than John does. John claims that God is the source of “everything noble and fine and heroic.” Mond states that no person in the World State is degraded. They would find themselves having a reason for chastity and self-denial. He says that “Providence takes its cue from men.” John protests, saying that if World State citizens believed in God, they would not find themselves degraded by their pleasant vices. Mond says that people only believe what they have been conditioned to. John asks whether it is natural to feel that God exists. Mond argues that in a society that is youthful and prosperous, nothing can be lost and that therefore there is no need for religion. He reads aloud extensive passages from Cardinal Newman, a nineteenth-century Catholic theologian, as well as Maine de Biran, an eighteenth-century French philosopher. Mond lets John see his collection of banned religious writings. While the conversation in Chapter 16 dealt with human experiences as well as the institutions that the World State has done away with, in Chapter 17 they talk about religion and religious experience, which have also been eliminated from the society. John and Mustapha Mond continue in their philosophical discussion when Helmholtz goes to check on Bernard.
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