Reliable Writing, LLC

(an incomplete essay, begun Apr. 11, 2006)

by Dennis Mannisto

Sometimes the ancients were simply, well, wrong.  Aristotle certainly made mistakes, as he, for example, did when he called a small, tentacled sea-floor animal known as a sea anemone a plant.  Nonetheless his work “owned” Western civilization for a millennia, and still controls much of it.  But ancience does not, in itself constitute validity.

Reliance on ancient manuscripts as evidence of Great Truth persists, both among mainstream religious peoples and among many current New Age advocates with an eagerness to compensate for the modern perversions of people’s spiritual and religious urges.  Whether it’s Islamic terrorism, a Catholic Inquisition or genocide of Incans, or simple theft of sacred plants for getting high, perversions of ancient texts persists because few people dare to challenge any ancient “Word.”  Its age and survival “proves” its validity.

Neither agedness, nor unalterableness can suffice as a test of truth.  Only the durability of old notions is proven by age.  We can, though, easily attribute such resilience to other truthless factors: “believe or be killed,” has always been popular, even now, but so have common misunderstandings that self-perpetuates like anger in a mob or libertinism at rock concerts.  Persistence, durability, age, and popularity have no direct connection to truth.  That was science’s great insight, and its lesson to us.

Do we dare challenge the ancient masters who, themselves, may have been eating hallucinogens in the deserts, forests, caves, or mountain tops?  Do we dare not?  I have had many old relatives upon whom I, as a child, was expected to rely for knowledge and wisdom.  Yet, many were alcoholics, some verbally abusive (though rarely physically except in bar fights.)  Although fond of them, I think they make good examples of authorities worth challenging.

If we pose a challenge then where can we seek Truth?

The (now dubious) ancients suggest that we “look within.”  It seems to me a simpler matter to apply common sense, if only to examine the validity of those old conclusions, regardless how they reached them (fasting, drugs, angels, psychosis.)  However, "common sense" requires careful attention to detail, and to rules of logic.  This applies even though the final test of validity -- even for me and even for logic -- is intuition.  When you conclude your logic, you must ask if it "feels right."  If not, then you risk reaching the same insane results that violent fanatics and brilliant schizophrenics reach.

-- more to come, assuming I make the time --