Handling Self-Doubt

This would be a HOWTO, except I’m not sure how much applies to other folks. This is simply how I handle it.
It’s possible I’m completely delusional about God. That is, I can’t prove to even my own satisfaction what I know about Him, and how I interact with Him. By no means is there any shred of doubt about His existence, but I grant it’s pretty hard to nail down from these many centuries later how the original crew in the Bible heard from Him. What’s in doubt here is me.
The way to handle self-doubt is to work from things for which there is no doubt. For example, I find the biblical Laws unshakable. That is, when properly approached from a Hebrew Mystical analysis, what I read in the Bible as the fundamental morality of Creation works as claimed. It works for me so consistently you can’t get me to question it. However much of modern Western morality dimly reflects something in the Bible, I don’t fight it. Reading over my posts, you’d realize there’s precious little overlap between Western mythology and biblical assumptions about reality, but there is a some — just a little. But sometimes people deeply wedded to the West do stumble across the truth. Thus, I endorse the basic ideas behind Game, but precious little of the application. To the degree Game reflects the biblical understanding of human nature, I’m fine with that.
Thus, the one sure thing in my life is God’s Laws and the Hebrew mystical outlook. That’s the touchstone of reality, the infallible element in my world.
So if, say, none of my prophetic warnings pan out, I would plead insanity. There was no intent to deceive. Not only did I avoid profiting from those declarations, but pointedly prevented profit. I’ve turned aside several advisers trying to help me make money off my writings. If I can’t give it away for free, I refuse to be involved. There may well be a free mobi download version, but it won’t appear on the Kindle library offerings, because Amazon insists it must sell for no less than US $0.99. Nor would you likely sense I’m trying to steer policy so as to profit indirectly. All I’ve done is warn people and let them choose. If what I have to say doesn’t strike you as self-evident, please ignore me. Thus, if my prophetic statements don’t pan out, only a Western legalist would insist on stoning me; just dismiss me as a crazy crank and get on with your life. I’m actually quite harmless.
What of the opposite possibilities? Should my warnings come quite literally true, I actually dread the vague possibility of cultic attention. I don’t want to be famous. I’ve come close enough on the small scale in a couple of communities to find I’m very uncomfortable with that kind of attention. I hold the greatest contempt for the system which makes idiots into stars, buries the real genius of true artists, and demands the worst from the best of human talent. In this world, as it now is, the least bit of attention from the masses makes it extremely hard to avoid manipulation and corruption. The deception seems so overwhelming, top to bottom, so pervasive we should fear any attention at all. The world system is utterly untrustworthy. It’s not so much there is virtue in obscurity and anonymity, but that what we have is completely broken, insufferably false across the board.
That would be the whole point. When I say the Laws as I’ve tested them are infallible, I am suggesting something so alien, so radically different from what we now have, a little self-doubt is frankly normal.

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2 Responses to Handling Self-Doubt

  1. mandala56 says:

    I had some professors once who taught me how to analyze things that are hard to accept…either the person is telling the truth, they’re a liar, or they’re crazy. And I think I heard somewhere that it’s only a sane person who would question their own sanity, a crazy person KNOWS he’s sane. So even if I don’t accept all of the foundation of your beliefs, I still don’t think you are crazy or a liar (for what that’s worth!)
    I always enjoy reading and respect your clarity of purpose and approach.

    • Ed Hurst says:

      Thanks, Sister. The reason we raise the sanity issue is because, even if it turns out I’m all wrong on the prophetic issues, I am unable to do anything different than I have done. Even through the full depth of self-doubt, I’m not able to do any different, because I don’t have any other options, as it were. I don’t lack for a sense of purpose, or even zeal. Seeing it break in front of my eyes won’t change much, and by the world’s definition, that’s dubious sanity. I accept that.

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