The Library of Consciousness

Many people never grow up. They stay all their lives with a passionate need for external authority and guidance, pretending not to trust their own judgment, willy-nilly, that there exists some authority greater that their own. The fervent fundamentalist—whether Protestant or Catholic, Jew or Moslem—is closed to reason and even communication for fear of losing the security of childish dependence. He would suffer extreme emotional heebie jeebies if he didn’t have the feeling that there was some external and infallible guide in which he could trust absolutely and without which his very identity would dissolve.