THE DANGERS OF POWER.

It says in the Bible that the love of money is the root of all evil but I think that it’s man’s love of power and his reluctance to relinquish it which causes most if not all the trouble in the world. Of course money is implicated in this since the powerless poor are kept so by their poverty while those with money can exert influence and do so to the detriment of all if their intentions are not honourable.

There seems to be an insatiable need for people to control others and this is done by everyone from church elders to overly authoritarian parents who exercise their power in the wrong way. It’s our lust for power which has caused wars, resulted in the abuse of children; those with mental illness and those with physical and sensory disabilities. It begins with very small children’s love (seemingly harmless and possibly done for the purposes of experimentation and done in ignorance)who find that by chopping worms in half and pulling the wings off flies gives them a sense of power over these smaller creatures. It ends with blustering statesmen strutting around and parading their authority like peacocks do for all the world to see, thinking they are impressing others while desperately trying to book a place for themselves in the annals of history, thereby gaining for themselves the immortality which is nobody’s to claim.

Men in religious sects (and it is usually men) claim to have direct instruction from God and manage to dupe millions of people into believing their claims to the point where these gullible and often lonely people are persuaded to give up the gift of life itself for the promise of a better world beyond the grave. I worry when I meet someone who wants to be a leader for it’s they who cause all the trouble even if they don’t set out to do so because their followers, often too scared or in awe of them to say anything, trail along blindly after them like automatons who have lost the power of thought.

I was recently involved with a religious sect for seven months and learned a lot. The wisdom of what they taught was in the main very sound but the psychological tactics used to manipulate people and all the contradictions that they uttered made me get out fast. So indoctrinated were their members that one who had just undergone a serious operation for cancer was back among them within two weeks and out with them trying to gain more converts. Of course I learned that the men at the top of the organisation are to be in a more privileged position than the rest of us after the great comeback of the compassionate carpenter and various people were encouraged to dissociate themselves from all former trappings associated with their past lives. There was no room for argument or debate when little scenes of pretend interactions between converts and would-be converts (played by actual converts) were acted out – All in the name of stifling debate or reasoned thought. I felt enormous guilt and fear when I broke free from these people at first, thinking that bad luck or worse would follow but also I felt enormous relief which is largely the emotion which persists to this day.

Had I not read “Animal Farm” and “Nineteen-eighty-four” and taken an interest in psychology, had I not been intelligent and strong minded, had I been desperately lonely and gullible, I’d have been dancing like a puppet on the string pulled by a secret group of unknown men in their little huddle, exercising their immorally obtained power over masses of people who en masse act like sheep. Doubtless such people, reading this will say I have been taken over by the devil who has infiltrated my mind and taken me far from God. All I have to say to that is that if you remove from the word “devil” its first letter, you end up with the word “evil” and absolute power in the hands of fallible men makes them evil, goes to their heads and as the Bible also says

“When man dominates man it is to his injury” and this is no less true of religious cults and sects than it is of politicians, presidents, army generals or those wielding power over disabled people. To remain free you need to be able to think for yourself and take responsibility for your own actions and conduct and when anyone seeks to stop you from exercising the power of thought then you must resist them with all the power at your disposal.