Where will I find the low voltage R,W,Y,G,C connections to disconnect them as you suggest?

I'll check

KenCan,

Found a 4-wire lead (from the thermostat?) holding finer gauge blue, green, red and white leads. The blue was pigtailed (via wire nut) to a pair of larger gauge yellow wires.

I'm not sure whether these were the wires you were describing.

However, I should tell you that I before I contacted you I turned off the power to the unit by way of an externally mounted single pole/single throw "light" switch mounted on the furnace cabinet exterior.

On my second trip to the basement to check for the wires you described, I flipped that switch back on, and the blower motor did not activate. If you recall, I'd already set the fan to "auto" at the thermostat, and turned the thermostat "cool/heat" switch to "off" at the start of all this.

By the time I returned to the basement the second time, a unit mounted to the right and above the on-off-pilot switch that had been very hot to the touch now was cool. The unit has two wires connected at the top, one brown, the other black. When I disconnected them one at a time while the blower was running non-stop, it didn't seem to affect the blower motor at all, as it continued to run.

At any rate, after flipping the externally mounted switch back on, since the blower remained off this time and having let nearly an hour pass before trying to fire up the furnace, I relit the pilot. After 60 seconds, I turned the pilot to "on," set the thermostat to "heat" and the fan to "auto." Now, everything seems to be working just fine.

Is it possible that there really was no problem in the first place and the component I described above just needed to cool down in order for the blower to shut off?

One more thing, we were gone overnight for four days, and the pilot could have blown out due to extremely high winds soon after we left. Could that have contributed to any of this?

Thanks for your patience.