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Docta Ignorantia XL Blood and Ritual : Experience and Station There are two kinds of authority: the authority of station and the authority of experience. The authority of experience can exist without the authority of station. The authority of station cannot exist without some authority of experience. Therefore, authority of experience antecedes and has prerogative over the authority of station. The authority of station is transmitted impersonally through rituals. The authority of experience is transmitted personally through bloodlines. For denominating leaders, bloodline is a better guarantee of a coincidence of the authority of station with the authority of experience than is ritual. Secular and spiritual affairs are equally important. Both guarantee or garrote the welfare of humanity. The church cannot elevate or depose leaders by enacting rituals, such as coronation and anointing. The church cannot interfere with and must accept the dynamics of the process of transmission of authority by bloodline. The Donation of Constantine was composed by the Roman Curia in order to justify their attempt to entirely replace the authority of experience with the authority of station -- that conferred by the Curia of the Roman Church. This action put the whole church in the position of disrespect it suffers today. Now the church is under attack and threat of usurpation by opportunistic, ego-ridden lawyers and businesspeople because the church's own improper behavior gave these people an opening. The original fault is not with the lawyers and businesspeople but with the church leadership themselves: trying to replace the authority of experience -- family and bloodline -- with the authority of station -- ritual and sacrament.
Adwaitha Hermitage
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