Heresy, Delusion, Words & Logic As Stumbling Blocks - The Psychology of Religious Engineering & Unstable Individuals

Ortho-spergs often find themselves lost in performative displays and unrealistic expectations that lead to serious errors, mistakes and purity spiraling.

I have spent 25 years in various religious circles and in various religious debates, engaging in hundreds of discussions with experts and average people, academics and parishioners among Western Religions, including Muslims and Jews. Throughout that time, I’ve experienced several recurring patterns in regards to fundamental errors in reasoning and argumentation, particularly concerning naive philosophical errors, psychological imbalances and ignorance in the hermeneutics of religious texts.

This is not to say that every opponent or disputer had all of these traits and I myself had some of these traits as a 20-something Calvinist turned traditional Roman Catholic intent on debating and solving all theological dilemmas with the utmost idealistic zeal only a 23 year old could have. Now that things have shifted into formal public debates over the last several years with varying degrees of opponents ranging from experts and academics to wild eyed cultists, the same patterns are there and bear analysis.

What commonalities amongst traditional Roman Catholics, Calvinists, Muslims, atheists and cultists can we see? What imbalances might be present as contributors to extreme religiosity on public display? What degree does autism play in young new converts to Christianity or atheism? For some, religious zeal characterizes a period of youth following a time of rebellion, while for others extreme religiosity is an enthusiastic delusion that progresses into the creation of new cults and sects with a rigid, black and white perception of all things - morals, ontology, history - all external reality must bend its will to the idealist with no flexibility for new knowledge, information or circumstances.

Below are some of the trends and patterns I see that actually underlie the doctrinal, textual or ideological extremes which must be understood for the appropriate healing to occur, since the root issue of these manifestations is not intellectual, but matters of the heart. Credit also goes to Fr Dcn. Dr. Ananias Sorem who has suggested a couple of these terms and concepts as helpful explanations and remedies. Some of these problem patterns are intellectual, however, while others, more fundamental, are psychological / emotional.

1. St. Basil notes that many heretics err on basics of language and grammar. Confusing words and referents, or assuming that a word only has a single referent leads many ignorant people into cults and delusion due to a lack of education on how language and philosophy work together. There are simple and complex versions of this mistake, but all violators of these principles extend their absurd, inflexible assumptions about language to metaphysical realities. Here are some examples of the word / concept fallacy I have seen countless times over the last 25 years:

   A. “Logos” - logos is one of the most infamous examples due to the amount of religious baggage attached the to the term, but the Logos of John 1 is not identical to the Logos of Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations. Much of the so-called “classical theist” discourse however trades on this 1:1 correspondence between two very different philosophical systems (Christianity and Stoicism) using the same word. While there may be overlap, the notion that St. John’s concept of the Logos as the Second Person of the Triad is synonymous with Stoic impersonal “logos” is absurd.

   B. “god” - “god,” like the word “deity” is not a Proper Noun. It might be, but that depends on the intentional context and the referent. The word “god,” as Dr Beau Branson has shown, in the patristic corpus (especially in the Eastern Fathers) almost always refers to the Person of God the Father, also known as monarchical Trinitarianism. While it’s certainly theologically correct to refer to the Triad as “god,” the term itself is not a singular referent, as it might pick out a number of distinct things: A Divine Person, a divine energeia, the divine ousia, an angel, a demon or even a human. Thus, it is the context and the internationality that determine the concept intended by the use of “god,” not the three letters g, o, and d themselves. Ironically, much of Islamic apologetics relies on errors like this, as do arguments from various Arians or unitarianism.

1. Often new converts turn to elements of church history or ecclesial law (canon law) as a means to morally pontificate and piety signal how today’s clergy and moral leaders no longer follow the “ancient canons.” While it’s true that many of today’s religious leaders are corrupt and degenerate, when such situations in the past occurred the laity had a duty to step forward and defend the truth - yet even these cases were not led by novices and neophytes. St. Paul warned about not making a new convert a teacher for precisely this reason - they are puffed up and lack experience. While this is common in Orthodoxy, the same manifestation occurs in traditional Roman Catholicism where individuals who may be highly intelligent take it upon themselves to become experts in canon law (almost always with no formal training in any category relevant to canon law: a legal degree or church history, etc.).

   One reason some find the canon law obsession and piety signaling appealing is due to a limitation or lack in more advanced theological and philosophical topics. Ontology and patristics can be highly technical and time consuming to become fluent in, so why not take the shortcut route and cut everyone off with your moral superiority for ancient canons you googled that pertain to attending the “theaters” or “secular shows.” In fact, some ancient canons forbade clergy to “ride horses,” so spergs could have a tremendous time with this rigor if they were aware of it! The hyper-moral, hyper-pious approach is also common amongst youth due to their idealistic approach to the world: they haven’t experienced death, betrayal, loss, failure, corruption, and their own sin. There is a reason elders are typical elder - they have lived experience which idealistic, rash youth lack. In other words, the difference between knowledge and wisdom. Mao, for example, knew he could harness the energy of the idealistic youth for his cultural revolution to purge the past. The same goes for FBI honeypots or devious government who would like to make use of religious extremism: a patsy that is a young idealistic religious extremist is ripe for manipulation and handling. Of course, if you combine this with sex, it’s all the more potent!

2. Narcissism and the Dark Triad traits - the virtuous victim piety signaler. For those that don’t know, a recently highlighted a psychology paper that dealt with case studies relating to how individuals with Dark triad traits like Machiavellianism, narcissism and sociopathy can attain status and extract value (wealth and time) through virtuous victimhood signaling. This means it’s a known technique in “democratic” and purportedly egalitarian societies. Virtuous victimhood signaling allows for the narcissist and cunning social climber to establish status by signaling persecution and oppression, sometimes called a persecution complex. Religious societies and circles are perhaps even more susceptible to such manipulation due to the desire to both be pious and appear pious. Thus, the desire to display online through Twitter how often one prayers or sharing countless public prayers and devotions or even religious iconography gives the hyper-religious signaler an emotional feeling of having proven his piety, either to himself or to God.

3. Often these displays may be actually coming from a motivation of fear or doubt, indicating an inner imbalance or nagging their theological position or religious devotion is not authentic, leading to public displays of religiosity as a demonstration. This demonstration then attracts attention, especially if it is extreme or coupled with intense forms of asceticism or denial and the dopamine is even stronger. This form of prelest then requires greater and greater forms of public display to keep up appearances. However, the strictures of this nature that are self-imposed are inauthentic and when failure occurs, the individual has a breakdown or spiritual break and is then tempted with atheism or a new religious practice and the cycle repeats. In fact, this cycle is often an indicator of bipolar disorder and can even be a sign of more serious problems like schizophrenia and manic delusions. Many of the individuals and cultists I have debated and interacted with over the years displayed these traits, and often left their hyper religiosity phase, while a few unfortunately went into cults. Not all religious experiences are psychosis, of course, but a third of psychoses include religious delusions:

   “As psychiatrist Harold G. Koenig, professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Duke University, wrote in his 2007 review of the literature on the subject, "While about one-third of psychoses have religious delusions, not all religious experiences are psychotic."

Sadly, these kinds of errors and mistakes are not limited to reasoning, but underlying fears, insecurities, traumas and emotional damage, which then manifest as errors in reasoning which are coping mechanisms where the damaged person erects and builds a false persona - the self-imposed creation of a new identity as a special, chosen one - a new identity construct as a “saint,” a truly pious one, a “reformer,” a “true monotheist,” etc. In fact as a result of fear, insecurity or real trauma, our minds might even have the power to erect an entirely false facade - a mask made to project to the external world an authority and qualification and competency one doesn’t actually possess.

Coupled with the rise in autism, this is a dangerous and difficult situation (think for example of the “Incel” attacks). Suddenly, with no religious or philosophical training, one is competent to interpret thousands of years of tradition, canon law, and church - state relations without any real work or qualification: a concocted delusion rooted in pride and insecurity. While intellectualism can be an idol of its own, there is an opposite error of anti-intellectualism cloaked by pride and spirituality that derides education and philosophical competency while making one susceptible to fallacious reasoning about words and concepts.

This is an introduction post: in coming posts I will continue to document these relationships, including more associations between foundations, think tanks, NGOs, churches and the state, with an eye to highlighting how the world really works for the benefit of readers and viewers. This will also focus on all kinds of operations and strategies, not merely the Orthodox or religious world. Keep in mind we have also done many videos and interviews on this topic on my channels and outlets! For more on there related topics you can purchase my books here.