AUTHORITY FIGURES I

I am glad the election is over. The idiot box won't be quite as idiotic. We may be in for some interesting times. When the political scene isn't horrifying it can be amusing.

I forgot that I was going to talk about our worship of authority figures. Let me introduce the subject with a little story. When I was in my early twenties I found myself in the living room of a man who had a PhD in chemistry. I think I was a tag a long with an Aunt who was visiting him. The subject of banana oil came up and I tried to convince this gentleman that banana oil was made from a selected species of miniature bananas. He was gentle with me and explained that banana oil was a synthesized product that was labeled such because of its odor. Gradually it dawned on me that what I thought was knowledge wasn't.

One of my uncles who I held in high esteem for his erudition told me the banana oil story in great detail. I don't recall the details of his description, but I know he went at great length in describing these miniature bananas. He was an artist and he was painting a picture at the time. He not only created a picture on canvas, he created a vivid picture of the creation of banana oil in my young mind. I don't know his motivation. Was he having fun with me? Did he believe it himself? I have no idea.

I do know I wouldn't have accepted the idea uncritically if I did not consider him a very bright and knowledgeable person.

It was harmless, right? I learned something and I was only mildly embarrassed when I realized my obtuseness, but it could have been humiliating if the learned gentlemen had not been loving and gentle.

As we are growing up we learn all kinds of things. Some ideas are truths, some are grave errors. Things we learn from teachers, parents and religious spokesmen have a different value than what we pick up from more casual contact.

As we grow and evolve we learn empirically what we can throw out of our treasure trove of knowledge and what we can affirm.

There are some things that are beyond our finding out. I can't travel to the inside of a dense cloud and check out the spacing of the molecules or measure the degree of chemical contamination the cloud may carry nor can I find myself in the cambium layer of my favorite tree to find out just how and what kind of substance does it carry up and down its length to the towering branches above and the roots below. Yes, I have to depend on others for this kind of insight and how do we know they are more dependable than my dear uncle?

Well we figure it out. We do have intuition and there is scientific agreement on clouds and cambium layers and our curious minds do meld.

Let me pose a question: what occurs, when what happens in a cambium layer or in a cloud, will bring a great deal of wealth or power to a group or individual? We will examine that later.

There is so much we cannot know for ourselves. We learn to trust people in authority that should know. When we suspend our critical thinking and refuse to listen to our intuition that becomes a dangerous practice.

For the last several thousand years we lived in world where our thoughts and beliefs were shaped by those who could benefit the most. We are now trying to sort through a raft of ideas and concepts we have taken for granted and whose only purpose may have been to control us. This is all part of our awakening.

Friday I want to discuss the origin of some of these mechanisms of control and specifically look at how we have been encouraged to give up our own critical thinking in favor of following an authority figure.

Let us think for ourselves. We carry the truth inside us.

Love and Peace, Gregg