Chapter 10

When the False Beliefs Fail

In order for anything to survive it requires an environment that is at least permissive of its growth. In order for anything to flourish it requires an environment that encourages its growth. So it is with our denial of our spiritual needs. Society employs ways of protecting our denial when it’s challenged.

As the pace and complexity of day-to-day living have increased it has become more common for people to seek counseling. We’ve become more enlightened about our need for help in dealing with difficult situations. Whether after divorce, the death of someone significant, the loss of a job or for a number of other reasons, people voluntarily or involuntarily enter counseling. If they seek professional assistance because they’re questioning their identity, worth, or security, however, they may be in store for a massive dose of spiritual victimization. While counseling can be beneficial in dealing with various types of problems, it may also reinforce the denial at a time we are most likely to acknowledge it. In the absence of any definitive test or standard to determine emotional or spiritual health, we assume that health is a function of normalcy and behavioral conformity.

There are two tenets assumed in pursuit of health or normalcy. The first tenet is: those people who feel good about themselves, who relate well to those around them, and who demonstrate socially-acceptable behavior are healthy.

The second tenet is: those people who don’t feel good about themselves or who demonstrate behavior that is not socially-acceptable can become healthy by learning to relate better to those around them.

These tenets assume that people can become healthy by relating better to those around them through behavioral changes. If people display behavior that isn’t accepted by their society, then the feedback they get from those around them is negative. The more unacceptable the behavior, the more negative the feedback. Since spiritual denial teaches us to depend on those around us for a sense of identity, worth, and security, we tend to think poorly of ourselves when we get negative feedback. If we get defensive about negative feedback, our behavior may become even more unacceptable, the feedback more negative, and our self-image may deteriorate even further. In an attempt to break this cycle, counselors may try to encourage these people to change their behavior to something more socially-acceptable. By doing this, they can begin to get less negative feedback. By making continuous progress and showing a sincere desire to change, they can begin to get positive feedback. As the negative feedback diminishes and positive feedback increases, their self-image improves. Since society’s denial of spiritual needs believes that health is a function of self-acceptance and relating well to our society, these people are considered healthy when those two conditions are met.

We’re courted by these tenets because of their persistence. We’re seduced by them because of their sincerity. We’re brutalized by these assumptions because we listen most closely when we’re most vulnerable. We’re victimized by them because they deny our spiritual needs.

When we think of perpetrators, we sometimes associate them with malice or evil intent. But they are most insidious when wearing a cloak of concern. At those times when we feel worthless, insecure, and wonder who we are or why we’re here—at precisely those times when we’re most apt to question the validity of what we’ve been taught—we’re overwhelmed by the misguided message. We’re told that what we need is a better relationship with our society, reinforcing the damage done by previous teachers. At precisely the time we’re most apt to acknowledge our spiritual needs, we’re discouraged from doing so by people in whom we place our trust. The goal of contemporary psychological therapy is not spiritual health. Its goals are normalcy and conformity. In seeking those goals, it is perpetuating spiritual denial rather than treating it. It inhibits and retards our spiritual growth. Though contemporary psychology can help in dealing with issues unrelated to identity, security, and worth, it frequently offers a better relationship with society as an alternative preferable to acknowledging our spiritual needs. It encourages us to deny them.

What are the implications of a society in which the vast majority of people deny their spiritual needs? By definition, people who are in a state of denial will refuse to acknowledge their need. What would make a majority different from a minority in that respect? If the vast majority of society is in a state of denial, then anyone who tries to get them to deal with the need they’re denying will alienate them. It would not be socially-acceptable behavior simply because it would not be acceptable to society. That does not mean that it would be unhealthy for society to acknowledge the need. If society is in a state of denial, it would be most healthy to acknowledge and satisfy the need.

As I said before, denial is inherently argumentative. Before it can even take place, something with which it refuses to deal must have preceded it. The arguments that it offers, though commonly accepted, are more indicative of the nature of denial than they are logical or compelling. What kinds of things do we deny? What kinds of arguments do we offer in defense of our denial?

1. We are taught to deny our need for a sense of absolute identity. We learn that our identity is established only as we relate to society generally, and to specific people and things like parents, spouses, children, friends and careers.

As these people and things constantly change and we constantly change, our sense of identity is constantly dependent upon our ability to control these changes. Our inability to control them leaves us constantly vulnerable to questioned identity. It also makes us easy prey for those who would take advantage of that vulnerability.

2. We are taught to deny our need for a sense of absolute worth. We learn that our worth is dependent on appraisals—both ours and society’s.

As we and those around us appraise our attractiveness, our desirability, our competence, and our level of conformity, we establish our worth. Our sense of worth is dependent on our ability to control those things. Our inability to control them leaves us constantly vulnerable to a sense of diminished worth. It, again, makes us easy prey for those who would take advantage of our vulnerability.

3. We are taught to deny our need for absolute security. We are taught that there is no such thing. While we may recognize our vulnerability physically, emotionally, and intellectually, we are taught little or nothing about spirituality. We are told we must accept our inevitable insecurity and mortality without dwelling on them. We are taught to put them out of our minds except to the extent that we can control them.

Our belief in these lessons encourages us to depend on people, institutions, and society for our sense of security. This leaves us not only vulnerable to manipulation, but also unaware of the attainability of absolute security.

4. Spiritual denial denies the wisdom of love. As we look at the world around us and see the injustices of poverty, starvation, war, and pollution, we tend to ache as we wonder why they’re allowed to continue. Spiritual denial argues that we can’t be preoccupied with the injustices of the world. It tells us we have a vague responsibility to those in need, but we must accept that we cannot eradicate the injustices. It tells us we must find personal peace of mind and contentment in the midst of them.

Love is the willful desire to protect and to assist in the healthy growth of all that exists. Envision yourself standing at the shore of a lake. In the middle of the lake, your child is alone in a canoe. The wind begins to gust and the waves across the lake begin to swell. The canoe capsizes. Your child is flailing in the water as you watch. You don’t know how to swim and you have no idea what to do to help. You have a willful desire to protect and to assist your child, but you’re powerless to do it. Fearing that the death of your child is imminent, can you have peace of mind without employing every resource at your disposal to prevent the drowning? Can you find contentment in the midst of the crisis? The wisdom of love, willfully desiring to satisfy the needs of the totality of creation before our own wants, could eradicate the injustices.

Unless we acknowledge our spiritual needs and allow them to be met, giving us the spiritual health that is capable of love, we deny the wisdom of love. Instead, we maintain our belief in the false teaching. We seek contentment and peace of mind in the midst of monumental needs and pain, denying our own need to love.

5. Spiritual denial denies the need to discuss politics and religion openly. It argues that these subjects are too volatile or provocative to be safely brought up in a social setting. It argues that no individual should question or challenge the political or religious beliefs of anyone else except within the political or religious arenas.

Open discussions of political and religious beliefs would allow us to deal with social and spiritual needs. But these are the very needs society denies. The denial is threatened by social activists. It’s threatened by spiritual activists. If a person takes too much personal risk in the pursuit of social or spiritual reform, those who foster the denial view the person with suspicion. If the activist refuses to respect the prevailing social convention, severe consequences may follow. Though history views martyrs with great affection, contemporaries have generally viewed them with disdain. In order for us to discuss political and religious beliefs openly and freely, we’d have to acknowledge our spiritual needs. The perpetuation of the denial can’t permit that. Acknowledgment of need is the end of denial. In the absence of denial, the absurdity of its arguments would be apparent.

As our lives on this planet become increasingly threatened by war, natural disasters, our poor management of the environment, our refusal to love, and our willingness to apathetically jeopardize future generations, the insecurity of our worldly existence becomes increasingly hard for many of us to deny. Those who refuse to concede the bankruptcy of conventional beliefs are compelled to strive for even greater wealth, greater power, and greater recognition. They must strive harder to create their illusion of security. Those who recognize the bankruptcy but are also discouraged from seeking a healthy alternative simply look for places to hide. Large numbers of people are hiding behind alcohol, drugs, food, television, and anything else that can distract them from having to acknowledge their needs for a sense of absolute identity, absolute worth, and absolute security. Hiding behind anything that can numb them to the pain of their self-imposed isolation, some even look for the ultimate hiding place in suicide.

People, institutions, and society-at-large are teachers who have taught us to look to them for validation of our identity, worth, and security. At those times when we question the validity of their teachings, professional counseling may only reinforce our prior beliefs. The truth of the matter is that our primary focus needs to be placed somewhere else.