University Professors, A Sorry Lot

After I wrote my recent book Electrical Christianity, published in July, 2013, I figured I could market it most effectively by letting Christian professors sample it. I figured that emailing a sample PDF (5 of the book’s 15 chapters) to a couple thousand Doctors of Divinity at top universities and professors of electrical engineering at Christian universities would jump-start heavy interest in my book and its intriguing core thesis: the correlation between an electrical circuit (Ohm’s Law) and the true Eucharist (the practice of Holy Communion). I figured wrong.

I received next to nil interest from the professors. Not a single one of the couple thousand I sent my PDF to responded with a positive comment or critique. And only one responded with a negative one. In other words, the Christian academics did not want to even contemplate the revolutionary spiritual arguments I present in my book. The professors revealed themselves as compartmentalized thinkers, as spiritual parochialists not open to even considering a ground-breaking new Christian paradigm.

I probably shouldn’t be surprised by the reaction of the Christians professors, because university professors, in general, are a sorry lot. In his book The DIM Hypothesis, Objectivist scholar Leonard Peikoff, a philosophy professor himself, writes:  “I am as far from today’s philosophy departments as an atheist is from the Pope.” The fact is, finding a needle in a haystack is easier than locating a truly brilliant professor in the humanities. The vast majority of them possess circumscribed intellects, and don’t venture into areas outside of their specialized area of study.

A cousin of mine, Howard Gardner, is a world-famous Harvard psychology professor. He has been universally lauded for his theory on multiple intelligences, and schools that subscribe to his theory have been established across America. In fact, I drive by a Howard Gardner Charter School almost daily – and every time I do, I laugh out loud, because I know my thinking on multiple intelligences eclipses Howard’s. But because I’m not a university professor at a top university and because my ideas are occult- based, it is unlikely that anyone from the academic establishment would seriously consider them.

Although I was surprised the Doctors of Divinity at the top theological schools weren’t interested in even considering my ideas, I was shocked the professors of electrical engineering at Christian universities had no interest in them. I still can’t comprehend why a Christian with a PhD in electrical engineering wouldn’t be excited to read about and contemplate a connection between Ohm’s Law and the Eucharist.

Four decades ago I spent four years (1969-1973) at a putatively top university–the University of California, San Diego—and never encountered a professor with an impressive intellect. I studied under some big-name professors, such as Herbert Marcuse, the famous neo-Marxist; but once I made my way out of the “fog” enshrouding the Ivory Tower and began to think clearly, I realized that every one of my humanities professors had been clueless and closed-minded. The more things change, the more they stay the same.