The slave or the master?
On the Need for Healthy Skepticism in UFOlogy
By Brent Braten
<Edited by Robert D. Morningstar>
The following question
“Who is more Bound?… The slave or the master?”
was posed several years ago by a friend as we traveled to a mutual friend’s home for a celebratory dinner. Given the topics of conversation that had been discussed up to that point in our journey, this particular question quite literally “came out of left field
The “slave,” on the other hand, is mentally free to consider any number of possibilities that lie outside the “master’s” restricted and restrictive intellectual field set or mind set.
That said, I will now relate this analogy to UFO research and the mind set of the “True Believer,” asking:
To expand upon this, let me state, simply, that the “masters” are so caught up in myopic views of reality that they are incapable of considering any other possibilities, i.e. that (Heaven forbid!) they might be wrong or that there might be more to life than they think they can imagine.
The “slaves,” however, though bound are “free inside” to take an honest look at the world outside around them, gathering all kinds of information and to make any number of observations that may (or may not) challenge the status quo.
Indeed, the honest “slave” is not afraid to consider the possibility that they might be wrong because they know that It is by considering the possibility that their current world-view might be wrong (judging by their current condition) that they are then able to consider that other possibilities exist and, by extension, expand their world-view to attain freedom.
Now then, the reason I bring this up is because I have a question to ask of you. Are we not all masters of our own minds?
Yes, I know we think so and I know all the arguments about falsified data and media manipulation, but that is beside the point.
You, or someone or “something” else?
Are you going to accept the “master” mentality, which holds that so long as you are comfortable and happy, there is no reason even to consider any information that is outside of or that would alter your “comfort zone”?…
Or, are you willing to consider the possibility that you could possibly be wrong and that you might be subconsciously operating in a “slave” mentality, challenging yourself to explore other possibilities so as to draw your own conclusions independently?
We know there are all kinds of “Powers That Wannabe” out there in UFOlogy that “wannabe” the one and only authority on UFOs and many of them will strive to lead you this way or that, asking you to believe exclusively their individual visions of reality. Please don’t fall into any of these “UFO Mind Traps.”
Go out there on our own, take a look at the information for yourself, compare it to the information you have gathered through your life’s experiences – and draw your own conclusions.
The only piece of advice I have to offer is that whatever you do, no matter how long you might live, and no matter how many experiences you may have, that you never refuse to consider the possibility that you might be wrong.