The other evening, I picked up an
A.A. “Conference Approved” pamphlet
at a meeting I attend quite often.
The pamphlet bore the date, February,
1998. It was titled “The Twelve
Steps Illustrated.”
Step 3 quoted the language of our
Step Three. It had a picture of
a man at the helm of a boat with
his hands on the wheel. It said,
“I let a Higher Power take over.”
Step 7 correctly quoted the language
of our Step Seven. It had a picture
of a man with some chain that appeared
to have been broken. It said, “I
ask a Higher Power to help me be
free.” Step 11 correctly quoted
the language of our Step Eleven.
It had a picture of a man at the
helm again, with a searchlight beam
shining on what might have been
a compass. It said, “I ask a Higher
Power for help to live the right
way.”
The foregoing were the only words
and illustrations on the pages.
And let’s take a closer look. In
each, there was a reference to “a”
higher power. In each, the phrase
higher power had been capitalized
to read “Higher Power.” And we might
ask, why the phrase “higher power”
was substituted for reference to
God. We might ask why the reference
was to “a” higher power, thus implying
there was a choice, rather than
one God, one Heavenly Father, one
Maker, one Creator of the heavens
and the earth. We might also ask
why the first letter in each of
the words was capitalized so that
the phrase read “Higher Power,”
implying some A.A. conferred special
divinity or special status or special
“god.”
If you know your A.A. history, you
know that the Steps do not now and
never did have the phrase “higher
power” in them. You know that the
First Edition of the Big Book did
not capitalize the first letter
in both words. And you know that
the Big Book text to this very day
only refers to “higher power” twice.
Both times, the reference and the
context are to God–the same God
that the Big Book called “Creator,”
“Maker,” “Father,” “Spirit,” and
“Father of lights.” All terms that
refer to the God of the Bible. All
terms that refer to the Big Book’s
urging that there is ONE that has
all power, that this ONE is God,
and an imperative wish that the
newcomer “find Him [the same ONE
God, ONE Creator, ONE Maker] now!
We are never going to see a reversal
of this trend, this literature,
or this new god of one’s choosing
which is “a” “Higher Power.”At best,
I wanted to know where it came from
because it certainly wasn’t from
the Bible or early A.A.’s writings,
sources, or roots. The pioneers
never invented a new “god” or new
“gods.” As far as I can tell, the
origins of this strange new deity
may be in the writings of (1) Ralph
Waldo Trine (See In Tune with the
Infinite), (2) Professor William
James–James having some other strange
names for this “higher power,” names
that were hardly biblical (See Varieties
of Religious Experience), and (3)
Victor Kitchen’s I was a Pagan.
It is only fair also to take a look
at the reference in Romans to “higher
powers” (which has nothing to do
with Almighty God, nor with some
new god or gods, nor with anything
other than civil authority (Romans)
What we can do is get to the definitions
which early AAs understood when
they employed the words found in
their Big Book and Twelve Steps.
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