<HTML>Hi Anthony,
Although I agree in part with your assessment of GH's impact, I believe there is more appeal than just a human need to impatiently grasp the big picture (without the necessary work of studying the smaller pieces). I think we all like to believe that our brains are capable of understanding the basic "hows" and "whys" of our species, including those who have gone before us. We may not agree with some of those basics that we discover (cannibalism, sacrificial murder, racism, etc.), but we possess a need to understand them anyway (in order to categorize them in our mental data banks). Some of the anomolies and enigmas out there defy simplistic categorization... naturally resulting in an insatiable curiosity to "find the answer" (ie, to complete our understanding and categorization). I believe that this curiosity exists at different levels in each individual based upon many personal dynamics (hence, we often seem to have difficulty even agreeing on the importance of some things). To those with a strong personal "spiritual" sense affecting their personal dynamics, books like GH's offer the hope that we may have overlooked something in our "standard" historical analyses that would shed additional light in areas where our personal categorizations are not working. Whereas to those devoid of that "spiritual" influence in their thinking, such enigmas and anomolies are simply some "extra" nuts and bolts that are set aside after the engine has been rebuilt and is running without them.
I realize that this may be heading in a different direction than your original posting... but I will personalize it in order to hopefully illustrate the relevance. I was raised a very strict Catholic (strong spiritual emphasis) when young, but as I grew older, I became one of those who also learned to think, and therefore began to question all the inconsistencies of the religion (and the world around me). My later efforts towards a degree in science forced me to embrace the opposite side of the world as well (a world of logic devoid of spirituality and personal bias). Due to these backgrounds, I do not feel that I have any difficulty in objectively seeing both sides of issues... and often end up a fence sitter because the "truth" is often somewhere between the extremes. In any case, I was drawn to GH's works because of the "potential" for further definition of the simple question "Why are we here?" For those who have abandoned the spiritual completely, I believe this question requires no more of an anwser than "Because we evolved!" Hence, the path of their philosophy of life is chosen. But for those who still either believe in or accept the possibility of a spiritual component to existence, the door is not yet closed... nor will it be for some until the anomolies and enigmas are laid to rest (and, granted, never will it be for still others).
In finality, please note that I am NOT saying that theories should be accepted based upon feeling (spirituality?) rather than evidence. What I am saying is that people who kill a snake just because it is a snake have no true understanding of the role of snakes in nature. Is the only role of GH's work really just as a holistic pied piper (as if it contains only fiction)? Thanks to it I discovered that some areas of supposed "fact" are actually unproven hypotheses!!! Thanks to it and the GHMB, I also learned that there are actually published techniques for "Debunking Anything"!!! ;-)
(Apologies for the long post)
Litz</HTML>
