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Feringer Notes - CIRCULATION OF THOUGHT - 1954 14 of 65
one'slife,bringing us to life.
4.Reading is self-exploration.One can read under orders or read under one's own motivation.The
former is obeying, the latter is in the spirit of reading.By the time one reaches high school and
certainly college, one should not have to be told to read.IN MY OWN UNIVERSITY
EXPERIENCE MOST STUDENTS DO NOT READ, THEY WISH TO BE TOLD, which is not
reading.And they will never come to much.
To be in command, to be an authority, should mean to engender spontaneity.No one can
command or authorize arbitrarily IF THE COMMUNITY IS TO BE SERVED.True authority,
the right to command, can only be motivated by necessity.Perhaps most of all, real teaching does
not create an automaton. To teach requires love of students (not liking necessarily), and this in
turn means spontaneity.
5.The dialectics of listening and reading and the other eightcommandments must be in
balance.As suggested above, each stage begets the next, but one always practices the previous
commands to some extent in each act.To command, or listen, or obey, or doubt,once one reaches
maturity, will depend on what the situation may require of you at that point in time. IF one has
not first learned to listen, one is stifled in any attempt to read.
6.One cannot know what freedom is if one has not had to obey first.We are not born free, our
thoughts are put into us in the beginning; thinking for one's self begins slowly after a time, and
only slowly increases with time.Most people believe they respond to their own thinking when
actually they are "using" the thoughts of others without knowing it. Those who have not learned
to obey in youth usually end up being blind followers later in life.
"..if you do not listen from the first to the seventh year, then you will have to listen from the 20th
to the 70th year." (p.7)
7.To learn anything, one must begin with a reference point which is specific, meaning unique,
coming from one's own experience.One cannot learn in general.One can memorize
generalizations, but that is not learning in a sense of being able to apply the information.Only
specific situations give one reference points.
Lord Charnwood:"Every religious experience begins with a command. Now a command is
always specific." (p.10)
8."In the mental process harkening comes first, thinking comes second, speaking comes
third."Most believe that thinking comes first and speaking second.
9.Play is an important interval in our lives.In a subtle way it follows a command, "There is time,
rest, relax, play."It is like silence in music, a rest in music.
Memory is a promise, a waiting for when something is needed, to be fulfilled. An anticipation of
something needed in the future.