Rules of Engagement

• Be committed to change. Acknowledge certain weaknesses in your thoughts and behavior and have the desire to change those patterns of living. We’re not going to ring your doorbell to see how you are doing. There is no individual or group therapy here. Those sessions rarely bring about change anyway. They merely provide a forum for you to trot additional excuses forward to justify bad behavior. Nobody is in control of your thoughts, but you. It’s OK to have a friend to talk things over with, but be careful how you chose such friends.

• Utilize private confession of sin to the Father through the Son, Jesus Christ, on a regular basis (1 John 1:9). If you don’t privately confess your sins to God as often as necessary during each day, you may as well give up now. You will never, ever, grow in grace and knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.

• Become interested in education, about your own thoughts and deeds, and especially the Bible. If you don’t have positive volition towards the Word of God, you may as well go play in the streets or take in a movie.

• Be responsible for your own decisions. It’s probably safe to say, “the devil didn’t make you do anything.” You aren’t important enough for him to give you the time of day! You thought it, you said it, you did it - all by your lonesome.

• Walk the spiritual life, God’s protocol plan, by yourself. Nobody can do it for you. You can’t take another person’s hand and walk it together every step of the way. You can’t live on another person’s doctrine.

• Do not expect results on your own timeframe. Did you design or invent experiential sanctification? Do you provide the obstacles in your own life? Did you plan all those distractions that come your way? Then don’t put an artificial time limit on your spiritual life. Give God’s protocol plan a chance to work.

• Learn how to deal with boredom, lack of excitement, absence of adrenalin – whatever you wish to call it. These are all cases of your emotions taking control of your thoughts, leading you by the nose.

• Reach a point where you are fed up with something that is causing you to stumble. It may be something a child could conquer if they did not have this weakness, but for you, it seems to overpower you and create havoc. You must be tired of being its slave and desire to think your way past the recurring sin.

• Be able to use doctrinal thinking skills automatically, so they function when you are under outside pressure, i.e., possible stress-inducing situations. You are not a victim of unconscious thoughts. You victimize yourself by blaming something or somebody else and not taking responsibility for your own thoughts.

• Learn how to observe your own thinking, probing your mind throughout the day for possible sin, and acknowledging it to the Lord. In other words, meet a sinful thought head-on and confess it to the Lord; don’t turn the channel and ignore its presence.

Sin/Solution

I don't like the traditional theological term "mortification of sin," but the confession of sin and its subsequent isolation from your daily life is crucial to your spiritual growth. I prefer Colonel Thieme's theological term: the rebound technique. Whichever term you prefer, here are some samples that may assist you in the restoration of fellowship.

Anger – excessive emotion aroused by a sense that you have been wronged in some way. It starts on the inside and often bursts outside upon somebody else, either deserved or underserved. It can begin as an isolated episode, but often spreads into other areas of your life until you lose all perspective. If it isn’t controlled, it metastasizes into fury and the desire to cause another person injury.

An angry person usually tries to gain control over the people who made him angry. Anger can become a way to achieve control over others, a way of life. I’ve seen children throwing anger tantrums in public places that should have been sequestered and spanked, but they were left alone to control their parents and everyone else in their periphery. These children actually use angry outbursts to induce fear in their parents in order to get their way.

This same type of anger occurs in undisciplined adults. Many adults are so thin-skinned that they are unable to tolerate a difference in opinion on most any topic. If anger does not change the environment back to where the angry person wants it, they may escalate their anger in a multitude of directions. This usually occurs when anger reduces a person to the “zero state.” This is a state of mind when you feel helpless and vulnerable and cannot escape. Anger zaps your energy, alienates you from others, and hampers objective thinking.

Prolonged anger often branches out into a sense of malaise, worthlessness, and illogical thinking. A burst of anger could lead to revenge motivation, plotting a way to get what you want, or seeking some way to obtain retribution. There are also some twisted individuals out there who thrive on anger, who like to instigate arguments and fights. Anger relieves them of an otherwise boring life. The only what they feel they can exert power is by manipulating others by anger. This manipulative exhibition of anger often takes the form of rebellion and defiance to legitimate authority, ranging from confrontation to physical violence.

Confess anger as a sin to the Father through the Lord Jesus Christ in prayer. Take time to cool off and deliberate. Realize that you are less effective and need to regain your composure. If necessary, physically separate yourself from the person or situation. Try not to stir things up any further. Refrain from insulting, slurring or putting down your antagonist. Perhaps the other person is embarrassed, out of control, and is desperately trying to regain control over their volatile emotions as well. Keep your mouth shut. Do not allow anger to overcome your soul. Try not to retaliate.

After you cool down, think about these things:

Try to put yourself in the other person’s position.

Take ownership & responsibility for your own emotions.

Try to endure the antagonist until you find a means of escape.

Control the desire to malign or insult the object of your anger.

Ephesians 4:31; Colossians 3:8; Ecclesiastes 7:9; Proverbs 15:1, 15:18, 16:32, 19:11, 21:14; Psalm 37:8, 38:3.

Lying – speaking a falsehood or making a false representation of something. Lies include anything intended to mislead someone, whether to cloak someone, to keep from hurting another’s feelings, to sidestep an issue, or to leave out certain components of a story or event in order to induce ambiguity. Sometimes lies are deliberate fabrications; sometimes they are flights of the imagination; sometimes they are exaggerations of the truth. For many people, lying is not occasional, but is habitual - a way of life. If carried on long enough, lying becomes automatic.

The habitual liar deals with the world by stringing one untruth after another into a web of deceit. Once the chain begins, additional lies are used to cover up previous lies. Life becomes a vicious circle of lying and covering the tracks of past lies. Compulsive liars tell lies so often that their conscience actually becomes immune (seared) to the verbal acts themselves. A habitual liar has no problem looking you right in the eye and telling a big whopper about most any topic. Compulsive liars are like spiders spinning a web. They develop over time an entire repertoire of lies that can be pulled up at will and altered to suit their purpose. Even small children have the capability of building an inventory of basic lies; they merely change the details as the occasion dictates, i.e., to build themselves up and preserve the entangled web of lies they have spun. Children learn at an early age how to lie and enjoy it; they like to fool others. “Putting one over” on someone is thought of an entertainment, not a sin.

Liars are actors and actresses. The world is their stage. Lying and getting away with it is fun and exciting, especially if they are bored. Liars love making fools of other people. Some liars even compete with others, so see who can tell the boldest lie, or who can “strap one on” another person. People who are afraid of what others may think often lie and cover it up by saying, “I was only trying not to hurt their feelings,” or “They didn’t really want to hear the truth, they wanted to hear a lie, so I told them one.” Misrepresentation of oneself is a lie, no matter what rationalization you create as an attempt to maintain your respectability.

Some people who have accomplished little or nothing in life lie to build themselves up before other people. They lie to cover up their fears of being a zero. Other people lie to escape punishment. The most common kind of “Christian” lie is a lie of omission. This is deliberately refraining to include vital facts about a person or situation. The common rationalization for these lies is “what they don’t know won’t hurt them.” These individuals redefine a lie to their own making; if it isn’t a deliberate commission, then they haven’t truly lied. They just left something unsaid, or was silent during an important conversation that requires the listeners to guess at the missing pieces of the story. Whether commission or omission, lies are still lies, and liars are still liars. If you only tell part of the truth, and deliberately leave other parts out, you are lying.

Some liars are also masters at being emotionless when interrogated. They can spin the wildest yarns and their pulse does not skip a beat; they remain outwardly composed, and when confronted by professions, they can often beat a lie detector test. Politicians often become adept at “calculated ambiguity,” meaning they can begin a seemingly innocent story and lead the listeners to fill in the worst possible scenario imaginable. Because they want everyone to have a favorable opinion of them, they also learn to agree or assent to almost anything – another form of lying. This concealing of true thoughts is the first stage of becoming a con artist.

There’s a sucker born every minute and a con artist every hour to take advantage of that sucker. The con artist will read your personal “signs” and then tell you whatever he or she thinks you want to hear to gain your confidence. Their philosophy is “when a lie will serve my purposes better than the truth, then I will tell a lie and tell it effectively.” Con artists even lie by being polite or sweet-talking you. This is a show, a drama, set up to make you a future object of exploitation. This category of liar is what we used to call “slick” or a “snake oil salesman.”

Some liars are so good at what they do that they actually come to believe the lies themselves. They usually get caught in the end, but as big as this world is, there is always another geographical location they can move to so their habitual lying can begin anew without suspicion. Compulsive liars rarely own up to their habitually sinning. They learn a host of psychological and sociological excuses to absolve themselves from responsibility for their words and deeds. They know right from wrong. They know when they are deliberately lying. But what is expedient for them at the moment is all that matters.

When caught, compulsive liars often defend themselves with the well-worn phrase, “But everybody does it.” This is, of course, irrelevant. Whether you call it playing, fooling, jiving, or BS’ing – it is nevertheless a lie and lying is a sin that must be dealt with before God. Many people think they are basically honest, decent persons, and “white lies” are inevitable and excusable. This erroneous philosophy is just another way of believing that “truth is relative.” Truth is not relative; truth is absolute. Lying is a volitional distortion of the truth. Because it is a volitional decision, lying is always under your control. There is no such thing as a disease called “lying” in which you have no control.

Confess lying as a sin to the Father through the Lord Jesus Christ in prayer. The Lord “knows the thoughts and intents of your heart,” so don’t play games with semantics. Whether you told a little white lie or a giant whopper is inconsequential; a lie is still a lie. Whenever you hear yourself concocting a lie about somebody or something, try to keep your mouth shut. Do not allow the distortion of the truth or the omission of some detail to overcome your better judgment.

Stop misrepresenting facts to make yourself look better. Stop telling vague or distorted facts to accomplish questionable ends. Stop making excuses for the “tiny little white lies” you think are necessary in everyday life. You’ve heard of the phrase “senseless crime,” which applies (of course) to all crime; in the same manner, lies are “senseless” and should be avoided whenever possible. When faced with hurting someone’s feelings or telling the truth, what did Jesus always do? If you think He ever told a so-called “white lie” to avoid hurting someone’s feelings, please email me the chapter and verse.

Lies are not necessary.

Lies destroy personal accountability.

You exploit others when you lie to them.

Take ownership & responsibility for your lies.

Try not to string a fresh lie (like a chain smoker) on top of a prior lie.

When choosing between the boring truth and an exciting lie, tell the boring truth.

Proverbs 6:17, 10:18, 12:22, 13:5, 17:4, 19:22, 21:6, 26:28, 30:6; Psalm 31:6, 31:18, 52:3, 59:12, 109:2, 119:29, 119:163, 120:2; Jeremiah 7:8, 15:18, 29:23; Isaiah 32:7; Hosea 4:2; John 8:44, 8:55; Ephesians 4:25; 1 John 1:10, 2:4.

Pride – an undue or exaggerated sense of self-esteem that interlocks with arrogance and conceit. We are referring to the unworthy definition of pride, when a person is haughty, overbearing, and often hateful against others. We are not referring to the sense of personal accomplishment over a job well done, or a victory obtained by hard work and ingenuity. There is nothing wrong with being pleased about an achievement, either your own or someone who know and appreciate. The pride we are talking about here is an undesirable quality, often associated with vanity and egotism.

The undesirable category of pride is when a person thinks he is better than others even when it is evident to everyone else that this assessment is false. A person consumed in pride is “too good to have to work for a living” or is “above the law” because he/she lives by their own standards and not those of legitimate authority. Socialists and communists, for instance, think they are too good to work because all jobs are beneath them. They insist that other hard-working “suckers” provide them logistical support through welfare, food stamps, housing projects, healthcare, etc. Pride has completely possessed a person’s soul when they tell you “I’m too good for such menial employment.”

People who are engulfed by pride get their kicks by outwitting or overpowering others. They usually end up opposed to all forms of legitimate authority, because they are “too good” to be under such authority. They reject bosses, teachers, law enforcement, governmental officers, pastors, etc. These systems of authority stand in the way of the life-style they believe they are entitled to. Those who exhibit pride also rarely yield to anyone else on any issue, because that would attack their entire position in life. When enslaved to pride, a person must be a big-shot, and must control all situations. They often use their pride to put others on the defensive and to get their way by manipulation.

Those who are overly proud often brag or boast about their accomplishments to the chagrin of others. If they are Christians, it seems like they have completely forgotten that the Lord provides the opportunities and means. If the proud person has high cultural standards, such as an appreciation of the arts, special talents of one sort or the other, interest in charitable causes, or selfless giving to the less fortunate – there is usually a highbrow air of superiority about them. In many cases, pride in their own decency and superiority is substituted for a true spiritual life. Their pride sits on a throne that must be maintained at all costs, or they might have to face the zero state.

Some people are trapped by the sin of pride when they become highly skilled or knowledgeable on one or more topics. A skillful doctor, for instance, may assume that since he is good at surgery, he must automatically be good at business, politics, religion, etc. In this state, no amount of persuasion or argument will convince the proud person otherwise. In order to protect their inflated opinion of themselves and their rather disgusted opinion of others, they must always be on top of every topic or issue in life. In order to always be on top, proud individuals made everything in life a contest, i.e., inordinate ambition and inordinate competition.

Confess pride as a sin to the Father through the Lord Jesus Christ in prayer. Pride is the opposite of genuine humility, which comes by being occupied with the Person of Jesus Christ. Stop exaggerating your own talents, skills, education and other victories in life as if there is no God and you possess these things inherently. You are no match for Satan; you can accomplish nothing of value without the Lord’s guidance; without the Holy Spirit you would be a slave to your sin nature.

Stop distorting your personal assessments. Start thinking objectively. If you are disobedient to legitimate authority, you have lost all sense of objectivity. Pride is a malfunction of objective thinking. Pride is overestimating your strengths and underestimating your weaknesses. If an officer of the law pulls you over, treat him with due respect. If you are in a classroom, and you are a student in need of training on an unknown topic, sit down, shut up, and take notes. If you are on the job, your boss has the right to expect certain standards of performance from you. Stop arguing with him!

In order to overcome pride, you must be: (1) oriented to reality, (2) obedient to legitimate authority, (3) and have an unwavering desire for the truth.

Job 35:12, 41:34; Psalm 10:4, 59:12, 73:6; Proverbs 8:13, 11:12, 13:10, 14:3, 16:18, 29:23; Isaiah 16:6, 25:11, 28:1; Jeremiah 13:9, 49:16; Daniel 4:37, 5:20; Hosea 7:10; Zephaniah 2:10; Mark 7:22; I Timothy 3:6; I John 2:16.

Rehabilitation

Identify a sin or sin complex       Confession to God       

            Isolate sin and its source           Mental and/or physical separation

            Regain objective thinking           Reject guilt and emotionality

Apply doctrinal rationales          Stay out of cosmic system

            Rebuild system of ideas            Bible doctrine every day

            Correct norms & standards        Eliminate false concepts

Erroneous Thinking Patterns

There are many references in Scripture to “wrongdoing,” a term which emphasizes sinful external activity. We’ll eventually get to the outward acts themselves, but first we’re going to deal with the erroneous thinking patterns that lend themselves to such wrongdoing. When we first become Christians, we bring with us a lot of mental baggage from our previous pattern of life as unbelievers. These patterns of thinking go beyond sin in that they are combinations of interlocking sins that lead to self-destructive lifestyles. Part of epistemological rehabilitation is identifying these erroneous thinking patterns, isolating them as we do individual sins, and replacing them with correct thinking patterns. Correct thinking patterns are synonymous with doctrinal rationales or principles obtained by building a reservoir of Truth in the soul.

Psychologists spend a lot of time stringing together unhealthy thinking patterns into various complexes. Since they devote untold hours observing behavior and getting to know the thought patterns that lead to such behavior, there are on occasion observational overlaps. Where psychology fails is not in the observation of bad behavior or the categorization of detrimental thought patterns, but in actually having a working program of thought rehabilitation. However, the observable characteristics of a believer in reversionism and an unbeliever with a fragmented mind are quite similar. In both, there is a “base” or “core” personality, which is eclipsed by erroneous thinking patterns.

Erroneous thinking patterns are caused by “chain sinning,” where one sin is added to another sin, ad infinitum. Each time an additional sin is added to the equation, a pattern of error and unreality is created in the mind. Since the list of possible sins is so great, it should be no surprise that the fragmented mind can change from one pattern of erroneous thinking to another with lightning-like speed. We have examples of such “chain sinning” all over the Old Testament, the lives of David and Saul being perfect examples. If Saul were alive today and you could ask him if he thought he was an honest, thoughtful, responsible person who loved God, he would probably say, “Yes.” He held honorable convictions when things were going as planned, but when crossed, he splintered (fragmented) his soul and became an unhappy, vengeful, murderous individual.

Erroneous thinking patterns share some common traits:

Volatile emotions – the individual plunges from the heights of happiness to the depths of the zero state like a roller-coaster ride. They are powerful one moment and helpless the next.

Irresponsibility – the individual succumbs to a stressful situation and decides he no longer desires “the miserable, empty existence of responsible living.”

Rationalization – the individual believes everyone operates in the same fragmented mode that she does, so any number of excuses are made to assuage a latent guilt complex. Explanations are proffered, but none of them contribute to correcting the problem.

Ambivalence – the individual recognizes he has a problem, but correcting it requires too much effort. Any desires to change, to get with a program of daily Bible study, pass quickly.

Exclusion – the individual begins with the assumption that Bible study cannot solve her problem, so they exclude themselves from participation. An often heard statement is, “I’m glad that works for you, but it doesn’t apply or work for me.”

Perfection – the individual demands 100% success in every attempt to apply doctrinal rationales from the Bible, otherwise he is not satisfied and studying the Word has no real benefit or virtue. One misapplication and his spiritual assets are obliterated.

Recalcitrance – the individual is coerced into Bible study by a friend or family member, but they have no genuine interest. They enlisted merely to score points with someone.

Superiority – the individual is not willing to acknowledge that she has a problem that can be addressed through divine protocol. Those who study the Bible and go to church so often are “suckers,” but she is too intelligent for such notions.

Display – some individuals are only interested in what others think of them, so the only time there is effort in the spiritual life is when they want to con someone into thinking they are “with the program.”

Resistance – the individual resists the continual acknowledgment of sin necessary for confession, resists learning the Word of God verse-by-verse, and resists any attempts by others to help “straighten them out.”

Fear of isolation – the individual is plagued by some very toxic friends, but is unwilling to part from their company because they are afraid of being isolated and alone.

Disenchantment – the individual begins a program of Bible study, but the teacher hits a topic that he doesn’t agree with and his interest in both the teacher and the subject matter disappears.

Reluctance – even though an individual identifies some erroneous thinking patterns that cause him continual problems, he is reluctant to make operational changes that would correct those erroneous thought patterns with doctrinal thought patterns.

Feelings – the believer who is controlled by her emotions rather than by her thoughts uses her feelings to justify anything. Failure to own up to a problem is the main emotional cover-up.

Bad attitude – an open person who is intent on growing in the grace and knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ is willing to engage in constructive self-criticism as he learns biblical principles and applies them to daily life. An individual with a bad attitude is dishonest with himself, distorts what he learns when it convicts him of sin, circumlocutes any issue that requires change, and conceals his lack of conformity to God’s protocol plan by substituting a plan of his own creation.

Substitution – a believer who is not interested in God’s plan (learning Bible doctrine and applying biblical principles to life) substitutes the divine plan with her own plan. This person eliminates Bible study from her life and replaces it with psychology, philosophy, sociology, works righteousness, rituals, ceremonies, activism, social functions, church programs, politics, etc.

Selective listening – this believer is attentive when the doctrines being taught appeal to his needs at the moment. When the Bible verses being taught do not meet his current needs for the moment, he rejects it and “goes off into another world” by one distraction or another.

Lack of receptivity – the believer who thinks he knows which doctrines are important and which ones are unimportant. Anything that is deemed unimportant is disregarded because it does not meet his purpose. This person often concentrates on the personality of the speaker rather than the message, and when the speaker irritates him, all receptivity ceases.

Lack of effort – the believer who dismisses studying and hard work by one rationalization or another has a plethora of “I can’t” or “What’s the point” statements to excuse herself from the program. She cannot live the responsible life required by divine protocol because it interferes with the lusts and gratifications of her flesh.

Adrenalin – the believer who is unwilling to give up his life of “excitement” for the “boring life” designed by God for spiritual growth is addicted to adrenalin. He regards the life of Bible study as being for weirdos and kooks. This believer makes a half-hearted attempt to learn the Bible, usually a con to impress a girl he’s interested in, but opts-out when the first opportunity to “party” comes along.

Victimization – this believer is so focused on something unfair in her past that she thinks God owes her a supergrace spiritual life without any effort on her part. A common heard excuse is, “I’ll start studying the Bible AFTER God gives me the blessings I deserve.” Until her needs are gratified, she refuses to submit to divine protocol.

Blame – many believers refuse to accept responsibility for their bad decisions. They create their own miserable dilemmas and then spend most of their time blaming others for the unhappy situation they find themselves in. They refuse to own up to the fact that they alone created their disagreeable situations; instead, they find a “friend” to hold captive and dump on - whining, sniffling, crying, cursing, etc. The intent is to bring some happy person down into the sewer where they are living, because it isn’t “fair” that their friend is happy while they are miserable.

Short-term perspective – a reversionistic believer is in a world of misery of his own making. If they “give doctrine a try” and it does not solve all their problems immediately, they tell everyone that “doctrine doesn’t work.” It took perhaps hundreds of bad decisions to get them into the mess they are in, but it is only supposed to take a handful of good decisions to reverse them.

Impatience – a reversionistic believer expects to be on a par with mature believers immediately, without having to exercise doctrinal rationales for years to get there. They balk at acquiring spiritual skills and experience. God is supposed to give them instantaneous enlightenment.

Inflexibility – many believers think they already possess certain doctrinal truths, and when they hear something contrary to what they believe, they won’t even listen to the pastor or teacher objectively. This believer will hold to his erroneous beliefs regardless of what the Bible teaches; any opposition to his erroneous view must come from "a faulty interpretation."

Cursing – a reversionistic believer creates misery and anguish everywhere she goes. They can shut down family dynamics, businesses, classroom settings, etc. They are the center of the universe; everyone is alive for the sole purpose of making them happy. They are “misery manufacturing machines.”

Lack of initiative – some believers have such a high regard for themselves that they are unwilling to take any initiative in the spiritual life, because they do not want others to know how ignorant they are about Bible doctrine. This is especially true of those believers who are highly educated in other fields, but who are woefully inadequate when it comes to doctrinal matters.

Independence – some believers refuse to submit to the authority of any pastor or teacher. They reject the notion of spiritual gifts entirely, or they believe they possess them all and have no need for instruction. This individual will read her Bible on her own, but will never come to understand its most needed truths.

Disparagement – these believers have no interest in spiritual growth at all and spend most of their time scoffing at others who take the Bible seriously and who spend hours learning it from a qualified teacher. These individuals usually have no education, training, or information on anything that is of value. They spend their time creating a façade, a pretentious manner, a window dressing for the real thing.

Blowhard – these believers learn a few theological buzzwords and pretend like they know everything about the Word of God, when in fact they haven’t even learned the basics. They want accolades from other believers without having to do the studying and hard work that precedes true accomplishment.

Failure to endure adversity – this believer falls apart every time something happens to them that isn’t “fair.” Their notion is that the spiritual life is not supposed to be difficult. Continual “effort” is contrary with the way life is supposed to be. They reject the daily grind; being tested or disciplined by the Lord is always disagreeable. When the going gets tough, they become disagreeable, angry, and abusive to others.

Anticipation – many believers fall apart when something happens to them that they did not anticipate. When the unexpected occurs, they demand that somebody in their periphery fix it and fix it now. Instead of meeting the unanticipated event head-on, they make everyone else miserable until someone “pats them on the head” and “tells them everything is going to be alright.” This is also called “helplessness from the zero state.”

Beware of psychological terminology

Do your best to avoid the modern psychological terminology that has invaded everyday conversation. The vast majority of it was invented by men who were addicted to drugs, mysticism, demonism, anti-Semitism, and had virulent hatred for Christianity and “military types.” For instance, Kraepelin and Freud struggled for years to develop a classification called “mania.” Their classification of mania only existed as a phase, a short-term phenomenon which reversed itself (alternating) into depression, i.e., manic depression. Subsequent writers attacked their mania hypothesis on the basis of formal logical grounds, clinical experience and experimental evidence.

The major outlines of Kraepelin’s descriptive model for mania ironically conformed to Janet’s descriptive model for the “integrated personality.” I’m going to discuss Janet’s model of the integrated personality in some detail, because it parallels quite closely how an “establishment-oriented unbeliever” or a mature believer should operate in daily life. While a few negative attributes have been assigned to mania by Freudians, the majority, by far, are desirable attributes, such as:

• A sense of well-being
• Happiness, light-heartedness
• Capable of getting gratification from a wide variety of experiences
• Love self, satisfied with most of his attributes
• Plunges into various interests with abundant zest
• Experiences both a broadening and intensification of interests
• Able to move from one activity to another
• Often extremely successful in pursuing a number of projects
• Reaches out to other people and enjoys their company
• Strikes up conversations with strangers
• Tries to influence other people to his way of thinking
• Able to stimulate other people toward a particular goal
• Unusually successful in breaking through the withdrawal behavior of others
• Full of fun, witty, good humor
• Has an infectious quality
• Has a highly positive view of himself (self-concept)
• Optimistic about anything he undertakes
• Confident he will find solutions to problems
• Positive expectations
• Able to make decisions rapidly
• Is driven by an abundance of energy
• Has an extraordinary strong drive in a multitude of directions
• Is action-oriented
• Has definite goals or objectives that would provide personal fulfillment
• Is highly versatile and successful at new tasks
• Has a drive for independence and self-sufficiency
• Assumes responsibilities by himself
• Has a drive for self-enhancement
• Wishes to take in everything that life has to offer
• Strives to develop superior attributes, self-esteem
• Engages in a high level of activity towards specific goals
• Has a high threshold for fatigue
• Endless energy, high level of mental activity
• Healthy appetite
• Healthy sex drive
• Is aggressive and animated
• Is bold, has lack of inhibitions
• Can move rapidly in thought & speech from one subject to another
• Demonstrates a unifying theme which underlies his tangential associations
• Responds quickly to external stimuli
• Enjoys joking, making puns, rhyming
• Shows no intellectual deterioration in old age

Janet believed a person could exhibit these desirable traits on a consistent basis, without alternating into depression, if a person had a unified, cohesive personality. Kraepelin and Freud could not see this because neither of them had ever experienced anything which even remotely resembled an integrated personality. Freud, especially, was obsessed with sex, drugs, hypnotism and mysticism. He was unhappy all his life and believed himself to have most of the syndromes he treated, which he probably did.

So it is not surprising that many contemporaries of both Freud and Kraepelin do not believe a “mania” syndrome exists as described. Because Janet was Dr. Charcot’s chief disciple, Freud has been accused by some to have invented “mania” as a hateful profile of Janet himself, to ridicule his search for the integrated personality and to classify his theory as a “mania.” It appears there was no love lost between the two professors. It is also of great importance that Janet was a Christian, while Freud and Kraepelin were atheists. If you can stomach page-after-page of hateful rantings, you can easily read some of Freud’s analysis on the Bible, including his psychoanalysis of Jesus Christ and all of His followers as “lunatics.”

In any case, if you exhibit the previously mentioned traits of “mania,” and they are consistent and not just a phase or temporary condition, you will be diagnosed as a manic by any psychiatrist who follows the Freudian or Kraepelinian philosophy. The one question you should ask them, however, is what therapy or treatment you should take to eliminate your happiness, abundance of drive and energy, healthy self-concept and outlook on life, and your ability to maintain many varied interests in life. More than likely, you will probably meet with the same antagonism that Janet did from the pen of Freud – the obsessive, compulsive, addictive, morbid personality that has headed-up psychiatry in the last century.

Don’t feel bad. Both Patton and MacArthur were diagnosed by Freudians as manic personalities. And if Jesus Christ was a lunatic by Freudian standards, then we should all be more than happy to join Him in His illness! Both of these ‘pure manics’ and the ‘lunacy’ of the Lord Jesus Christ, are most likely examples of Janet’s integrated personality type. So if you have been labeled by some psychologist or psychiatrist as having an ailment that you consider highly questionable, it might possibly be that you are more ‘normal’ than the ‘normal control group,’ i.e. the diagnosticians themselves. Stick to Bible doctrine for the analysis and treatment of your soul and you can’t go wrong.

Psychological Parallels

Psychological and philosophical speculation is nothing more than an obsessive malady of the human mind, what Thieme calls “anthropocentric academic speculation.” On occasion, a psychiatrist may stumble upon a concept that rings true in the Bible. Since biblical writers and psychiatrists both observe human behavior, you would expect them to have an occasional overlap. For instance, William James wrote on two mental cognition concepts that have parallels to biblical concepts:

“Knowledge of acquaintance” – direct familiarity

“Knowledge about” – logical insight

For you Greek students, these two distinctions parallel in theory the biblical concept of gnosis versus epignosis, and the nous versus the kardia.

Dr. Mayo, founder of the Mayo Clinics, wrote about the “hate, hostility, destruction attitude” in obsessive compulsives, which is a close parallel to what happens to a believer who has surrendered to Cosmic 2, Satan’s cosmic power sphere or hatred complex.

Two Alternating Personalities

Believers who are in fellowship one moment and out of fellowship the next often alternate between two distinctively different personalities. In one sphere of operation, the believer is controlled by the Holy Spirit; in the other sphere of operation, the believer is controlled by the sin nature. Janet observed this phenomenon in some of his patients and called it “splitting.” He observed a beneficial, primary personality which later changed into a detrimental, secondary personality. He classified these observations of two alternating personalities as a “dissociation” or clear-cut division between two “fragmented’ systems of response.

Just as a believer thinks and behaves one way when he is in fellowship and another way when he is in sin, Janet saw the secondary personality as one of "weakened integrity” with a lack of moral and ethical inhibitions compared to the primary personality. We can see an example of this in Romans 7, where Paul talks about wanting to do one thing, but being compelled by the sin nature to do the opposite. Paul wanted to do good, but he surprised himself on occasion and did exactly the opposite. When he was in fellowship, he performed admirably; when he was out of fellowship, he performed sinfully. “When two opposing sphere of power and activity alternate in this manner, the system of ideas and functions tend to take on an almost independent existence and development.”

These two polarized spheres of operation are at the center of the Christian way of life. Our goal during this earthly sojourn is to log (live) as much time in the sphere of God’s power and as little in Satan’s sphere of power as possible. All it takes to shut one down and start the other is to change an idea, and to confess or not confess sin. Janet said, “it is by reflection that we give unity to our experience … an inner self of attention, demanded by experience, intimately connected with the systematic arrangement or rearrangement of our knowledge.” In this manner, the believer is to reflect on his thoughts and behavior throughout the day, compare them to the content of Bible doctrine in his soul, and confess as sin the elements that destroy the unity of our soul with the soul of Jesus Christ.

It is not God’s plan for believers to live a double existence, an oscillation of mental activity, which rises in fellowship and falls in sin by the hour. Janet’s integrated personality is not supposed to live like this either. “These sudden changes, without sufficient transition, bring about two different states of activity: the one higher, with a particular exercise of all the senses and functions [sphere of God’s power], the other lower, with a great reduction of all the cerebral functions [sphere of Satan’s power].” The two states are supposed to remain separate from each other, but the mature believer (and the integrated personality) is supposed to gravitate toward the positive of the two. If a believer (patient) does not repeatedly function in the sphere of God’s power, he may gradually lose (by dissociation) his storehouse of doctrine in the soul (Janet’s system of moral and ethical thoughts).

Frantic Search for Happiness

The believer who is out of fellowship and is frantically searching for happiness, feels dull everywhere and always, for no impression any longer brings about lively thoughts that make her pleased with herself. These general sentiments of dissatisfaction, these sentiments of incompleteness, almost always give to the person a peculiar attitude or conduct. Either she is sunk in despondency and exhibits a doleful air, or she seeks everywhere for something that can draw her out of this state. Now, having rejected Bible doctrine, she has but few means at her disposal to rouse herself, to come out of such a painful state. Either she will use physical and moral processes of excitation (crying, shouting, clapping hands, tongues-speaking like holy-rollers) or she will appeal to other persons, and will incessantly ask them to excite her, to receive her with encouragement, through praises, and especially through devotion and love - what is erroneously called “Christian fellowship” today.

This carnal believer will be, at the same time, plaintive and agitated. She will commit all kinds of eccentricities, because eccentricity excites her and draws attention to her. She must (need) attract attention to herself in order that people may take an interest in her, speak to her, praise, and above all, love her. This need of attracting attention, of being praised and loved, is one of the things that has been most remarked by those in her periphery. While in a frantic search for happiness, there will be no true attention on anything, least of all Bible doctrine. There is a complete failure in the function of grace in this person’s life. She is unable to metabolize doctrine; she is unable to recall biblical principles; she is in a form of spiritual amnesia. This disturbance of emotion ends the higher functions of her mind.

This emotional ailment is not a disease; it is not produced by accident. It comes about by sinful ideas or suggestions, i.e. what Thieme calls garbage in the subconscious. These sinful ideas or suggestions, combined with a weak emotional condition, create a strange absent-mindedness in the believer in which she is unable to recall or apply doctrine. The mind is unable to concentrate on the Word of God and loses its spiritual poise. The doctrinal frame of reference for making good decisions is replaced by scar tissue. And if not corrected by confession of sin quickly, she may become what Janet calls a “sleepwalker in life,” a form of “waking somnambulism.” The sin nature is emancipated and begins to function regularly while doctrinal application is suppressed from the mind’s list of viable options.

In spiritual dissociation, the integrated personality is dissolved, the Christian way of life is blurred and the constitution of ideas (Bible doctrine) is destroyed. The system of ideas and principles that constitute the Christian personality becomes exhausted. The sin nature takes control of the higher functions of the encephalon. The outside adversity or emotional problem that brought the frantic search for happiness, expends an enormous amount of nervous strength, which brings fatigue, and eventually loss of fellowship. These believers can never complete an action and can never plunge into one with pleasure. When their unhappiness is far advanced, they cannot even call up a mental picture of a happy event, without having this picture promptly distorted, so that it becomes tinted with gloom.

Emotionalism

Emotionalism is a condition of natural and perpetual distraction, which prevents a person from appreciating any other idea than the one which actually occupies their mind. It is characterized by those who are excessively emotional, whose emotions are readily modified by trifling influences, i.e., whose god is their emotions. Objective mental activity is drastically lowered in emotionalism. Emotional stress disorganizes the mental synthesis, modifies the psychological tension, and induces mental conditions in which dissociation and the isolated development of the lower grade tendencies (operations of the sin nature) are very apt to ensue. The essence of an attack of depression is that the emotions for the time have lost enduring relation to current experience, and whatever their origin and integrity, they have achieved a sort of autonomy from objective thinking, i.e. emotional revolt of the soul.

When this happens, difficult adaptations to new situations (adversities) can no longer be effected. The higher tendencies, those which are most complex and have been most recently acquired (by metabolizing Bible doctrine), can no longer undergo complete activation – or they enter the field of activity slowly and late (failure to apply Bible doctrine). When under adversity, the sluggish process of reflection (recall of appropriate doctrinal principles) has no time to become active due to mental and/or emotional exhaustion. Such states of exhaustion only leave the mind free for the invasion of all kinds of inferior tendencies (lusts and trends of the old sin nature), and these inferior tendencies, developing without guidance (lack of Biblical norms and standards), give rise to other states which resemble somnambulism, i.e., sleepwalking through life.

The believer in emotional revolt of the soul suffers from undue fatigue, not because she has so much work to do, but because her mental and moral machinery revolves with so much internal friction (out of control emotions) of part upon part. In some case, rest, relaxation, and isolation is what it needed. When a patient (believer) then becomes stronger, what is needed is not more rest, but rather a Spartan discipline in moral guidance. Start a program of intensified study of the Word of God, and you will soon see whether this believer is capable of obtaining nourishment by methods which are on a higher moral plane (Bible doctrine).

Separation

“There are a great many folk who owe the unity of their mind to understanding their limitations.” (J.J. Putnam) There are also a great many folk who owe the continued forward progress of their spiritual life to understanding the limitations of others. Sometimes our beloved friends and family members exact a great toll on our spiritual life. A fatiguing friend can force us to make an excessive expenditure of moral energy, an expenditure we would not have to make were such a person not living or working with us. Such beings are “costly.” These people threaten us with exhaustion, and with mental depression as a sequel to exhaustion. The answer to these social problems is, of course, impersonal love – maintaining a relaxed mental attitude when they are “down.” This is not always easy and in some circumstances, not always possible.

We are all thrifty in our outlay of mental activity, and we have a feeling of aversion for persons who “wring from us,” as soon as they approach us, a greater expenditure of energy than we possess. We have a desire to spirit such persons away, out of our vicinity; consequently we experience an initial feeling of anger towards them, and resent the fact that they should compel us to squander our mental energies. The feeling of aversion will naturally vary according to individual powers of resistance: those who are strong and well-endowed with mental energy (large supply of Bible doctrine in the soul waiting to be applied), will hardly be aware of an increased expenditure when God brings them into contact with certain persons; such “lucky” people have few antipathies. The rest of us may require “treatment by isolation,” otherwise known as physical separation or social rest. In other words, stay away from believers in the cosmic system!

As mentioned in other studies on this site, physical separation is a LAST resort. Most of the time, we are able to switch from personal love to impersonal love to remedy the situation.

Rational Economies: Stress Reduction and Social Rest

There are certain common sense things we can all do to reduce the likelihood that outside pressures will become inside stress in the soul. These suggestions may help believers and unbelievers alike. Janet promised a slow increase in “psychological capital” by simply resting more often. You can reduce stress by:

• Organizing and disciplining your life to minimize energy expenditures and fatigue
• Categorize your goals and expectations to eliminate unwanted or unneeded complexities
• Balance your goals and expectations with adequate rest and recreation
• Economize your energy by simplifying your life
• In order to maintain energy, you need to monitor your level of tension and gauge your work and other activities accordingly
• Go on a long bicycle ride or other manual work or exercise; go until you drop from fatigue; then sit back and be tranquilized, free from mental disturbance
• Eat a healthy meal, digest it satisfactorily, and sleep like a dog

You also need to draw important distinctions between “expensive” and “inexpensive” persons in your periphery. I’m not talking about money; I’m talking about the mental and emotional energy required for social life. Sometimes, in order to recharge your battery, you need treatment by isolation. From time to time, you may need to do the following:

• Minimize social contacts that are exhausting
• Relieve impulses to dominate others or command obedience
• Relieve impulses to love or be loved, to help or be helped, to receive or give devotion
• Relieve impulses to tease, sulk, make scenes, be jealous, plot revenge, or be spiteful
• Avoid prolonged contact with exhausting and unstable people, associates who “suck you dry, live off your energies, and rob you of your thoughts”

There are people whose mere presence and behavior cause profound modifications in everyone around them. They are always suffering from some drama they have created. They transform every simple act into a complex event. They constrain their friends and family to maintain a high degree of tension, and to expend an abnormal amount of energy. If their friends and family are not plentifully endowed with mental and emotional strength, in the end they will become exhausted and possibly utterly ruined by the social contact. This kind of social “contagion” must be taken into consideration if you are trying to reduce stress and simplify your life.

Have you ever tried keeping up with a superior or condescending to an inferior for a prolonged period of time? Either of these can exhaust a person and even lead to sickness and antagonism for the other person. None of us have identical levels of energy, education, financial status, cultural acquirements, temperament, etc. More active individuals tend to involve less active individuals in a life which is too complicated for their inadequate powers, or the characteristics of the more active persons are thorny and exact great expenditures from those who are weaker.

Every civilized country ought to have “centers” where the most efficient nervous motors of society can retire for intellectual rest, and for refreshment by devotion to manual work for a time. Until such establishments have been organized (don’t hold your breath), we must be content to take refuge in the quiet countryside, mountain or beach whenever possible.

Mental Liquidation

Mental liquidation is getting rid of the concerns, worries and other mental attitude sins that plague your complicated daily life. If you are like most of us, there is an enormous amount of mental “garbage” floating around in your consciousness every day. The main goal of epistemological rehabilitation is to confess these mental attitude sins, get rid of all the human viewpoint garbage in your thinking, and replace these previous detriments with the Word of God, Bible doctrine. If this process is done in the filling of the Spirit, it is guaranteed to produce inner happiness.

In the case of human viewpoint garbage, there are several steps involved in correcting a habitual viewpoint gone awry:

·        Discover the erroneous idea (awareness)

·        Replace the human viewpoint idea with Bible doctrine

·        Assimilate the new biblical concept by applying it to some situation

·        Discharge the prior erroneous concept, which may require several correct applications of Bible doctrine, depending on the strength of the tendency

The "assimilation of the new biblical concept" and the "discharge of the old human viewpoint error" occur simultaneously during live application. How many times must you correctly apply a doctrinal rationale before the mental or emotional garbage is gone? That depends on how powerful the garbage is. Some human viewpoints grow and install themselves in your thought process like a parasite. Sometimes they are so ingrained that you are unable to check their development by all efforts made. Don’t give up! Repetition is the price of knowledge.

Stay Away From Psychoanalysis

Freudians, in particular, have extended many once sound concepts, into a strange system that you want to avoid at all costs. They want to discover a traumatic memory underlying every thought you possess. Psychoanalysis is not an ordinary kind of analysis which is trying to discover any kind of relevant phenomena, nor does it adhere to the common laws which govern such investigations. Psychoanalysis is a criminal investigation which aims at the discovery of a culprit, at the unearthing of a past happening which is responsible for the current troubles, an event which must be recognized and tracked through all its disguises.

This comparison of psychoanalysis to a criminal investigation, and of the psychiatrist to a police detective, should tell you something about the motivation of such practitioners. Dr. Oppenheim once commented, “Psychoanalysis is a modern method of torture, for psychoanalysts only torture their own imagination. It is a method of arbitrary construction. Probings into the past yield very little therapeutic material and are more likely to be hurtful than helpful.”

Mental Income Statement

Part of epistemological rehabilitation is accumulating capital, or storing Bible doctrine on the launching pad of your soul for future application. Some of the items on your mental income statement are:

Revenue: Bible study, rest, relaxation, elimination of stress, social isolation

Expenses: social life, personal goals, unreasonable expectations, mental agitation

The idea is to accumulate mental (biblical) capital in your soul to the extent that you reach the “breakeven point” at zero income ... and then you accumulate more! This requires a consistent routine of listening to Bible doctrine from a qualified pastor or teacher. Developing a routine of learning the Bible is critical; it must become habitual and effortless; it must be daily, without too much energy outflow; it must become second nature. You are trying to acquire new tendencies and thoughts by divine protocol. Thieme has said on many occasions, "Bible doctrine strengthens priorities."

At first, daily Bible study demands intense conscious effort to be there and to concentrate, but through repetition, in virtue of the mechanism of habit, you will show up and learn as desired with increasing ease and quickness. Eventually, you will be able to recall certain doctrinal principles and apply them correctly without attention, almost unaware. This is part of the re-educational process, eliminating human viewpoint and satanic concepts and replacing them with divine viewpoint, the mind of Christ.

Can you do this all by yourself at home? It is possible to do this at home, but it is not possible to do this without a pastor or teacher. That’s why God gave us these spiritual gifts! Epistemological rehabilitation consists in the repetition of a new action, the utilization of the grace apparatus for perception for learning Bible doctrine. It must be taught by a competent witness (trained pastor or teacher), who covers the Bible verse-by-verse. By placing yourself under a pastor or teacher, he will repeat and repeat and repeat what you need to know until your application of doctrinal rationales to daily life is not only correct, but automatic.

One of the goals of the Christian life is that each believer is eventually able to function on his own initiative. This will require Bible teaching and guidance (continuous influence) over a period of years while you are building an edification complex or doctrinal structure in your soul. Eventually, a believer may reach spiritual maturity, when he is able to get doctrine on his own. The number of persons who reach this stage of supergrace is rare, but possible. Some believers proceed at a rapid pace. Other believers must be allowed their slowness. If you try to hurry things, something is going to malfunction when application time arrives. Privacy of the priesthood is very important because there are always believers out front and others lagging behind. If slow learners are pushed, they are likely to renounce the entire process and give up the struggle. It is up to the pastor and teacher to provide an atmosphere of strict academic discipline. This will prevent distractions from occurring during Bible study, and keep the tempo rolling.

That said, you cannot learn Bible doctrine on your own. Unaided by a trained pastor or teacher, you will never make the necessary discoveries. Learning the Bible is to be done with the aid of a teacher who guides you, the apprentice. Understanding (gnosis), believing (epignosis), and obeying (sophia) are the essentials of epistemological rehabilitation. There are dropouts (casualties) along the way. Some believers will not even begin the treatment. They may accept the theory, but they do not begin the practice. They argue, hesitate, spend hours in mental contortions, and end up not applying 1/100 of the basic doctrines taught to them.

Some believers, after years of attending church, have not made any progress whatsoever. As soon as the teacher speaks, they think of other things. What should these believers do? They should apply Maurice de Fleury’s advice to Bible study: “A great thing is not to waste energy. Do what you are doing and do not do something else at the same time. If you are playing, give yourself up entirely to playing; when you are working, energetically banish everything which is not work.” Following this advice, when you are in Bible class, concentrate your mind, put on blinders, and restrict the field of your intelligence to a single object, the Word of God as taught by the pastor or teacher. Those who will benefit by Bible doctrine will be persons who are free of emotionalism, persons who are capable of a fair amount of attention, obedience, and fairly prolonged effort.

A believer with positive volition towards Bible doctrine is not alone. He has a powerful Ally which can be awakened (the indwelling Holy Spirit), Who will supply a large quantity of reserve energy which can be mobilized to learn line-upon-line, precept-upon-precept. The Spirit will also assist you in the early stages, by calming the inner agitations and emotions, and allowing you to be poised and relaxed in Bible class, even if the pastor’s message is hitting you square in the face! As you gain momentum by passing a test (stress situation), your face will brighten, you will no longer suffer for cursing, and any discipline you receive from the Lord will be for blessing.