Real psychology

As people catch on to the garbage nature of modern day psychology (early 20th century onward) it should be stated that there is a legitimate psychology. It is a psychology not of the sub-normal (which, by the way, assumed the sub-normal as the normal as the decades of the 20th century rolled on) but of the normal, or the good householder, to put it metaphorically. This is psychology Christians should be aware of.

Real psychology tells you things like resentment is not a noble emotion. The world, the flesh, and the devil teach you the opposite. Real psychology will tell you further that gratitude is the opposite of resentment and should be cultivated.

Real psychology will tell you the difference between waking sleep and true self-consciousness, let alone objective-consciousness.

Real psychology will tell you that a human being has different centers and they all like to hijack each other's energy. For instance, our emotional center loves to operate on sexual energy which turns into violence. Our intellectual center also likes to hijack sexual energy which creates things like seething jealousy and suspicion and paranoia. Intellectual center also likes to 'think' using emotional energy. The problem is these different energies have different speeds they operate at. Sexual energy, for instance, is very fast and when used in the intellectual center, which is the slowest center (sorry, public intellectuals) it's like putting a very refined fuel into a very crude engine. Explosion and other phenomena occur.

Real psychology will tell you we aren't unified in our inner presence. We determine to do one thing one minute, and do something entirely opposite an hour later. What we call 'I' is as stable and enduring as bubbles on the surface of boiling water.

Real psychology will actually teach us the concrete features of our fallen nature. That is shining light on them so that we can actually identify them and become conscious of them. As it is they are like an invisible opponent who is able to punch us in the face at will forever.

Real psychology will give us an idea of how to see things from another person's perspective. Not in an "everybody is more holy than us" but in a self-interest way that is win-win for all. Sometimes called 'tact.'

Real psychology can explain to you the difference between self-will and real-will.

There are more things real psychology can teach us that are too subtle and complicated to list concisely here.

These are things the devil does not want you to know. Neither does the world want you to know it. Neither does your inner fallen nature which fights you daily to stay alive and in power.

You can call this knowledge progressive sanctification, you can call it spiritual warfare. You can call it ancient psychology, you can call it New Testament psychology once you begin to see the connections between it and what Jesus is teaching. It helps a Christian to understand watchfulness (or be awake) and love your enemy, for instance. Among numerous examples. It's not extra-biblical (in the bad way) if the concepts are the same. Any more than a Bible commentary is something to avoid. The worth, judged by the standard of the truth of Scripture, is what we use to discern the value of such things.

Now here's where I sound like a cult recruiter: the knowledge listed above and much more can be found in a language called the 'Work', or the Fourth Way. It's called the Fourth Way because it's not knowledge solely of the Monk, the Yogi, or the Fakir (ascetic). I.e. it's not solely concentrated on the emotions, the mind, or the body. It's above that and includes all. And it's done in the traffic of your everyday life.

It's not for everybody, but it's available to anybody. It requires a bit of a unique prior development. You have to be somewhat developed intellectually (a book reader, a writer, a thinker, etc.), and emotionally (a musician, an artist, or just some raw experience that gives you sympathy for the human condition), and physically (a developed athletic discipline, performing arts, life of a soldier, etc.). Just a balanced development of these things that sort of coalesces, or fuses together to create a sort of inner platform where a somewhat stable 'I' can appear. That is the 'I' associated with things like a dawning conscience or a sense of self-awareness we associate with a kind of real folk intelligence (as opposed to the fake, piece-of-paper, Ivy League 'intelligence'). It also is accompanied with an inward motivation to learn things as opposed to a solely worldly motivation to learn things. The plumber who's reading Thucydides in his off hours but isn't doing it for a class at a college, just on his own. That kind of thing.

It also requires one be beaten down in life quite a bit. That happens to many of us without our effort in the process. We have to feel our own nothingness, so to speak. Not in a low self-esteem sort of way (though we might be there too despite ourselves) but in a sort of awakened conscience sort of way where we've seen our own idiocy and shortcomings, to put it mildly.

Then we are more able to truly connect with such a language and value it. Such ideas, practices, and goals are found in the book by Ouspensky titled Fourth Way. Also, Psychology of Man's Possible Evolution. Evolution in that title not having anything to do with the garbage science of the 'theory of evolution.' These are books that are off the radar, for the most part of academia, of books that warn of cults, etc. Though the ideas are often used by cults, just as the Bible is. In the same way. Dishonestly, distorted, twisted, turned upside down.

We need discernment that comes with the Holy Spirit. I met the Work, or the Fourth Way, before I was a Christian and rejected it. Which is ironic because before I was a Christian I was eager to learn about anything that wasn't Christianity, or, i.e. that didn't have hard truth in it. At least to a great degree. Obviously the Work has hard truth in it, to a great degree. Only Scripture is pure wheat, though. There is some chaff in anything else.

If you learn 1) the Bible and real, hard truth biblical doctrine; 2) this ancient psychology I've been talking about in this post; and 3) worldview analysis (another big subject altogether, but just see James Sire's Universe Next Door, David Naugle's Worldview: The History of a Concept, and Nancy Pearcey's Finding Truth for starters), then you will have the trinity of real knowledge and understanding as a Christian that will truly make you an exceptional soldier of Christ on the spiritual battlefield doing battle with the Devil, the flesh (your inner fallen nature), and the world respectively.