Higher Power! Who you callin' a Higher Power?

I know it's hard to believe, but for all my religion-bashing, I think that praying to one's Higher Power – correctly conceived – is a useful part of the retraining of the addict's conscience. The problem is that the superstitious continue to believe that their Higher Power is external to themselves and somehow communicates clear bright-line ethical precepts that are true for all persons at all times. All of the evidence and argument I have considered leads me to disregard the theory of God to understand myself and the world. So obviously I am led to physiological and evolutionary considerations when I try to understand the conscience.

Napoleon: Monsieur Laplace, what about God?
Laplace: I no longer need that hypothesis.

My first encounter with the idea that "god" might be a substructure of the brain was Julian Jayne's The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind. This book is either whack or way ahead of the data. Professor Jayne cited electrical stimulation experiments involving the right side of the human brain corresponding to the left-brain's Wernicke area. The Wernicke area is one of the major brain substructures governing language. Jayne noted that brain imaging shows that this right region is relatively unused by modern human beings – a notable exception being schizophrenics. Jayne wrote that when this area is stimulated, the test subjects reported hearing authoritative voices and thunderous noises. Jayne noted that this was not unlike the reports of schizophrenic symptoms. In later parts of the book, Jayne theorizes about the usefulness of recalling the commands of alpha individuals when they were not present, and he correlates this to the observation that the first temples seem to have grown around tombs of tribal leaders.

What are these churches now if they are not the tombs and sepulchres of God? – Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra

Another book that has proven useful in thinking about this topic is Why God Won't Go Away by Dr Andrew Newberg, MD, et al. Using brain imaging, the authors theorize about mystical experience and its association with overloading the occipital regions of the brain. The occipital regions create the awareness of the boundaries of our bodies and our bodies' locations in space-time. When these areas are shut down, the person no longer thinks of themselves as a separate ego and "experiences" timelessness and spacelessness.

So what?

Well, my theory about why the Twelve Step programs work for some people – and the parts that I believe helped me – is that the meetings, step-work, and slogans work as a gradual reinforcing hypnotism. Over time, the addict is hypnotized into retraining and strengthening their conscience – especially the suggestion to stay away from drugs. However, most people with self-esteem issues are going to disregard their personal ethical positions unless these are glorified and overstated as "God's will". The problem is that "God's will" is still their own glorified personal conscience. This conscience – this substructure of the brain – has been groomed by the elder primates in their troop. If their parents and teachers are screwed up, then their conscience will be screwed up as well.

Many people come into AA with a mean, arbitrary, and screwed-up Higher Power – a leftover from our dark and brutish history. They are told to get a new Higher Power. A useful Step Two exercise for me was listing the attributes I wanted my Higher Power to have. Although I don't think that the Universe took on these qualities just because I made a list, I did have, at the end of the exercise, a good idea about who I wanted to be when I grew up.

I think it is stupid and dangerous to replace chemical dependence with an overblown fantasy of our personal conscience writ HUGE across the starry sky. The religious (including Communists and Manifest Destiny Capitalists) are notoriously cruel because they know or suspect that their positions cannot be defended by reason. Their only tool for persuasion is the horrible use of force and the threat of such force. I've seen this religious bullying too many times in AA meetings, and people that might have been helped are turned out to try sobriety alone.

CONCLUSION?

1. You are a dumb monkey who has been taught by even dumber monkeys.
2. Your biology and training tells you that certain things are good for dumb monkeys and other things are bad for dumb monkeys.
   
3. Your biology and training are right part of the time and wrong part of the time – practice learning which is which and when is when.
4. Do not think in terms or right or wrong but in terms of smart and stupid.
5. Understand that there are only facts and the value we place on those facts.
6. Understand that your values are YOUR values...
   
7. It's up to you to make the world the way you like it.