Going further on what we learn from young children, dogs, and Adam and Eve when they were in the garden. Much to learn about psychology!

Rather than take all the known principles of psychology and try to organize them from there, let's start from zero, as best we can, and build up from there. A child, like Adam and Eve before they partook of the forbidden fruit, is both innocent (doesn't sin, doesn't know good and evil), and is not self-aware (doesn't know he's naked, for example). I feel like the big insight from this episode is how the two are related - that is, how a knowledge of good and evil and self-reflection have to happen at the same time. You can't know good and evil if you aren't self-aware, if you can't look at yourself from the outside, as it were, and judge yourself, whether you're doing right or not. See what you think. Thanks for listening!

This is my most comprehensive discussion about principles of psychology - what they are, how self-deception is just one of them, and how different psychological principles interact and counteract each other to produce the actual outcome of human behavior, just as they do in the physical world.

The tendency of most theorists, it seems, is to try to use their one principle to explain all of human behavior, or more of it than their little principle can actually explain on its own. I haven't seen a good effort to organize them and put them in their place. I'd love to see that happen one day.

In this episode I talk about a few things:

1. Clarified from previous video that psychology is in the dark theoretically, though many in the field do good/helpful things (and also some bad things).

2. Talked about the price we pay for self-deception. Self-deception works great for supposedly justifying stuff, but then we're stuck with all kinds of false beliefs that don't serve us well (for example, we make ourselves a victim.)

3. Self-deception is actually a great tool to help us see good from evil. If we see ourselves or anyone else start to justify, by seeking validation or whatever, we can know that we or they are wrong about that thing.

Little embarrassed about the camera work here, maybe just listen and don't watch!

Thanks for joining!

This episode is a kind of overview of the podcast, as it's been a couple of years since I was posting regularly.

In the podcast we discuss self-deception, a huge psychological principle that has immense implications, yet is basically unknown to mainstream psychology. Self-deception happens whenever we act contrary to the truth/light that ultimately comes from God, which tells us right from wrong for all situations at all times. If we do so (whether we know it consciously or not) we are forced to justify ourselves by adopting an understanding (or keeping it) that is false, about the world. We make other people evil or dumb or anything other than equals to us, deserving of our love and respect, whether they're wrong or right. We make ourselves undeserving of love and respect. We make even God either non-existent or to have a nature that is something other than a loving, merciful, all-knowing, all-powerful father. We make His servants into incompetent, corrupt fools, not called of God. We make the laws to which we are subject faulty and irrelevant to us, so that they become non-binding. We tell ourselves whatever we have to think to justify our acting against the truth and the law that binds us.

Self-deception obviously has implications for religious belief. It also has implications for common psychology, not just with interpersonal interactions, but with how we treat and think about ourselves. Depression is a good example, and we talk about that in the podcast (not so much in this episode).

Glad you're here and hope you enjoy and/or find benefit from the podcast!

In this episode I discuss the difference between the Light of Christ/Spirit of Christ (/Spirit of God/Spirit of the Lord - yes, all synonymous) and the Holy Ghost, having recently read a little book called The Spirit of Christ by one Daniel K. Judd.

Basically the Holy Ghost is a member of the godhead, an actual personage, who has no body so that he can dwell in our hearts, which an embodied person, like God the Father and his Son, Jesus Christ, cannot do. (Nor can we, as long as we have a body, but Satan and his unembodied followers can.) The Holy Ghost reveals specific knowledge to man, in the form of words, visions, dreams, etc. It's detailed, it's specific, it's stuff we may have never had any idea of before. Then the Holy Ghost reveals it to us and the knowledge is impressed upon our spirits in a way that's more sure than sight, and more permanent. The Light of Christ is much more general, makes manifest to every man good from evil in every situation, and is actually the same light that lights our understandings in general, and our eyes, and is the power by which the universe was made, as I understand from the scriptures. According to Joseph F. Smith it is the spirit that strives with man to move him to do good, and which will cease to strive with him when he's past a certain point of rejecting it, I guess. And according to one explanation at least, it's the medium by which the Holy Ghost itself works, bringing intelligence to our minds.

Lot I don't understand yet, but this is a start. Enjoy!

Maybe I should mention that the Holy Ghost has synonyms too - Holy Spirit, Comforter, and Spirit of truth are the ones I know for sure. I don't know if the scriptures use the Spirit of the Lord and the Spirit of God to refer to the Holy Ghost or if that's the Light of Christ/Spirit of Christ always. Maybe read and see what you think!

It is apparent that one property of self-deception is a need to have others validate your wrong-ness (as right-ness). You can't be settled or peaceful about your untruthfulness, to use a term I like to use. You must constantly seek justification from others, or attempted justification, we might say, since it is not real and is never satisfied.

The scriptures are filled with examples of people who weren't satisfied to ignore the testimony of the prophets or the righteous and go about their lives. They needed to cancel them - kick them out of their cities, or kill them. The Zoramites couldn't even handle that the righteous whom they had kicked out were accepted by another people, and so they began a great war. Obviously the crucifixion of the Savior is another example of this need to cancel the person who is challenging your erroneous beliefs and works. There's no, oh well I don't feel the way he does but he's free to express and live his beliefs as long as my rights are maintained. No, there's not a feeling of equality, but a need to squelch the opposing viewpoint, to the point of harm.

So there are extreme examples and there are far more common examples of people who are in the wrong seeking to impose their views on others, or not being comfortable with others having differing views. I don't know if I need to cite current societal trends, probably not.

But if your view is correct and in line with God and your knowledge of the truth, through the light of Christ, which everybody has constantly, you don't have this need. You might not agree with people, their views may disturb you in a way, but not because it threatens your correctness. You might have a desire to convince others to your way of thinking, but it's out of love and a desire to do good and serve God and fellow man.

So this becomes a clue to everybody, it seems to me, to detect if you're in the wrong about something or not. Do you feel a need for others to believe something you believe? Do you feel a need to silence or eliminate those who don't? If so, it's time to examine your position.

This happens in more subtle ways every day in normal interactions, and that should probably be talked about sometime...

I discuss the mechanics of willpower and choice in the face of temptation. Basically, #1, in the face of temptation, should you have gotten yourself out of the situation or otherwise avoided it in the first place, or can you now? When Joseph in Egypt found himself in a bad situation with Potiphar's wife, he "got him out". He has been described (by Niel A. Maxwell) as having had good legs. So first avoid the situation or get out of it in the first place. Does a certain situation present temptations for you and you know it? Then avoid that situation, if you can.

You don't have to ever go to the bar. You don't have to go to that party in the first place. You don't have to even touch alcohol, or drugs. You might not need to hang around that person. You might not need to use that app, or that website. You don't have to stay up way late at night with that person or those people. Be smart. Don't be dumb. Keep yourself out of those situations in the first place.

#2, if you HAVE made some bad choices, or are otherwise struggling with a bad habit, or a resentment that's not good for you (they're all not good for you), and you can't seem to break free, you might need to do like the alcoholics anonymous people do, and acknowledge that you can't do it without a higher power. There are many traps in life, not just alcoholism or drug addiction or pornography addiction. Maybe we need God's help with even the "little" things, as well as the "big" things.

So pray for that help. Your deliverance may not be immediate, like it wasn't for the people of king Limhi, but "That soul who on Jesus hath leaned for repose, I will not, I cannot desert to his foes. That soul, though all hell should endeavor to shake, I'll never, no never, no never forsake." God will make a way for your escape, and "though [you] were dead, yet shall [you] live."