Worldly rhetoricians harp on the fact that emotion is normal for people—but only because such feelings work to their benefit. If we didn’t respond emotionally, we could never be used or exploited.

And as long as we believe them (which we will, as long as it suits us), we can never rise above our slavery and problems. Understanding of these principles does not come under the category of institutional knowledge.

Understanding, you see, is the wordless language that becomes conscience. If we don’t want to understand, then we employ high-sounding intellectual arguments to escape guilt. Once we use the (emotion-based) intellectual remedy, we become addicted.

More guilty after more study, the ego spurs on the intellect to serve it with bigger and better reasons to explain its growing faults.

Armed with a veritable arsenal of knowledge, we can (emotionally) bamboozle people and blind them to our faults.

We use our keen minds as rapiers to win unfair advantage and to cut others apart for glory and pleasure. We become part of an intellectual tyranny. Like drunkards thirsting at the bar of knowledge with the familiar bartenders: the psychologists, professors and ministers serving up what our egos thirst for.

When you look to the worlds of science, philosophy and religion for examples of people “helping” people, you almost never see the forces of good pitted against crime and corruption. What you almost always see—when you look carefully—is evil merely playing different roles.

"the ego spurs on the intellect to serve it with bigger and better reasons to explain its growing faults."

This is why the world never improves. So stop making excuses. Stop seeking advice and emotional security. Give up a few “friends.” Be alone for awhile. See then if your embryo conscience doesn’t become more tangible, informative, even friendly.

Failing this true experience, your only recourse will be to return to the usual comforters in search of a futile band-aid for your wounded pride.

Most counselors will tell your ego what it wants to hear. They won’t tell you the truth lest they lose you as a plum patient.

Most of them are aware of the games they play with you, but your weakness and the profit motive are far too strong a temptation for them. Using the classic excuse of all tempters, they justify their loathsome practice with a secret rational such as: “If it weren’t for me (motivating, “healing” and helping them to be something), where would they be, what would they have? Nothing!”

What with all these games and self-delusion, it is not long before the doctor becomes a patient himself. After his treatment, he promptly feels guilty again for the kind of help he gives.

He no more understands what is happening to him under the care of his doctor than his patient can understand what is happening under his care. What doctors do for people sends doctors off to their own doctors