"I have sworn upon the altar of God,
eternal hostility against every form
of tyranny over the mind of man." A Jefferson Profile: As Revealed in His Letters (New York: The John Day Company, 1956), p. 120.
The point dawns slowly for most of us that we can't be made to believe something unless we give our consent. And we can be made to believe anything if we give our consent. But more important is the growing awareness that we can watch for and guard the light—a spiritual sense of things—that is always present in human consciousness. The recognition that it is the nature of truth to make itself known and felt in the human experience is what nerves many of the extraordinary endeavors today in the fight against mental tyranny.
Not long ago, I read a tremendously moving account of a railway switchman who single-handedly began a fight for religious freedom under the rule of a totalitarian government. Despite repeated unjust incarcerations in mental institutions, his efforts grew to include about five hundred thousand participants.
