self-deception

• Lucifer persuaded himself rebellion was good for system

53:2.5It is very dif­fi­cult to point out the ex­act cause or causes which fi­nally cul­mi­nated in the Lu­cifer re­bel­lion. We are cer­tain of only one thing, and that is: What­ever these first be­gin­nings were, they had their ori­gin in Lu­cifer’s mind. There must have been a pride of self that nour­ished it­self to the point of self-de­cep­tion, so that Lu­cifer for a time re­ally per­suaded him­self that his con­tem­pla­tion of re­bel­lion was ac­tu­ally for the good of the sys­tem, if not of the uni­verse. By the time his plans had de­vel­oped to the point of dis­il­lu­sion­ment, no doubt he had gone too far for his orig­i­nal and mis­chief-mak­ing pride to per­mit him to stop. At some point in this ex­pe­ri­ence he be­came in­sin­cere, and evil evolved into de­lib­er­ate and will­ful sin. That this hap­pened is proved by the sub­se­quent con­duct of this bril­liant ex­ec­u­tive. He was long of­fered op­por­tu­nity for re­pen­tance, but only some of his sub­or­di­nates ever ac­cepted the prof­fered mercy. The Faith­ful of Days of Eden­tia, on the re­quest of the Con­stel­la­tion Fa­thers, in per­son pre­sented the plan of Mi­chael for the sav­ing of these fla­grant rebels, but al­ways was the mercy of the Cre­ator Son re­jected and re­jected with in­creas­ing con­tempt and dis­dain.

• greatest s.-d. is seeking to deprive others of natural liberties

54:1.6True lib­erty is the as­so­ciate of gen­uine self-re­spect; false lib­erty is the con­sort of self-ad­mi­ra­tion. True lib­erty is the fruit of self-con­trol; false lib­erty, the as­sump­tion of self-as­ser­tion. Self-con­trol leads to al­tru­is­tic ser­vice; self-ad­mi­ra­tion tends to­wards the ex­ploita­tion of oth­ers for the self­ish ag­gran­dize­ment of such a mis­taken in­di­vid­ual as is will­ing to sac­ri­fice righ­teous at­tain­ment for the sake of pos­sess­ing un­just power over his fel­low be­ings.

54:1.7Even wis­dom is di­vine and safe only when it is cos­mic in scope and spir­i­tual in mo­ti­va­tion.

54:1.8There is no er­ror greater than that species of self-de­cep­tion which leads in­tel­li­gent be­ings to crave the ex­er­cise of power over other be­ings for the pur­pose of de­priv­ing these per­sons of their nat­u­ral lib­er­ties. The golden rule of hu­man fair­ness cries out against all such fraud, un­fair­ness, self­ish­ness, and un­righ­teous­ness. Only true and gen­uine lib­erty is com­pat­i­ble with the reign of love and the min­istry of mercy.

• logic largely obscured by self-interest

86:2.4Man nat­u­rally tends to be­lieve that which he deems best for him, that which is in his im­me­di­ate or re­mote in­ter­est; self-in­ter­est largely ob­scures logic. The dif­fer­ence be­tween the minds of sav­age and civ­i­lized men is more one of con­tent than of na­ture, of de­gree rather than of qual­ity.

• pleasant adjustment to paths of sin

139:12.5Ju­das was a good busi­ness man. It re­quired tact, abil­ity, and pa­tience, as well as painstak­ing de­vo­tion, to man­age the fi­nan­cial af­fairs of such an ide­al­ist as Je­sus, to say noth­ing of wrestling with the hel­ter-skel­ter busi­ness meth­ods of some of his apos­tles. Ju­das re­ally was a great ex­ec­u­tive, a farsee­ing and able fi­nancier. And he was a stick­ler for or­ga­ni­za­tion. None of the twelve ever crit­i­cized Ju­das. As far as they could see, Ju­das Is­car­iot was a match­less trea­surer, a learned man, a loyal (though some­times crit­i­cal) apos­tle, and in ev­ery sense of the word a great suc­cess. The apos­tles loved Ju­das; he was re­ally one of them. He must have be­lieved in Je­sus, but we doubt whether he re­ally loved the Mas­ter with a whole heart. The case of Ju­das il­lus­trates the truth­ful­ness of that say­ing: “There is a way that seems right to a man, but the end thereof is death.” It is al­to­gether pos­si­ble to fall vic­tim to the peace­ful de­cep­tion of pleas­ant ad­just­ment to the paths of sin and death. Be as­sured that Ju­das was al­ways fi­nan­cially loyal to his Mas­ter and his fel­low apos­tles. Money could never have been the mo­tive for his be­trayal of the Mas­ter.

• leads to fears, enslaving pleasures, envy, and hatred

143:2.5“Many times, when you have done evil, you have thought to charge up your acts to the in­flu­ence of the evil one when in re­al­ity you have but been led astray by your own nat­u­ral ten­den­cies. Did not the Prophet Jeremiah long ago tell you that the hu­man heart is de­ceit­ful above all things and some­times even des­per­ately wicked? How easy for you to be­come self-de­ceived and thereby fall into fool­ish fears, divers lusts, en­slav­ing plea­sures, mal­ice, envy, and even venge­ful ha­tred!

• one’s mind often justifies continuance in error

184:2.12Hav­ing taken the first step along the path of com­pro­mise and least re­sis­tance, there was noth­ing ap­par­ent to Pe­ter but to go on with the course of con­duct de­cided upon. It re­quires a great and no­ble char­ac­ter, hav­ing started out wrong, to turn about and go right. All too of­ten one’s own mind tends to jus­tify con­tin­u­ance in the path of er­ror when once it is en­tered upon.