Volumes have been written about the spiritual dangers of arrogance, but even so, I don’t think people can imagine the level of hubris some advanced souls displayed when interacting with Satan and this world, or the level of harm such souls happened to sustain as a result of their foolishness.

However, this foolishness has a name; it’s a very specific kind. It’s name is belief that God can overcome everything, that God is absolutely supreme, and that their reliance on God, that created and evolved their souls to the point of being essentially archangels/demigods, will serve them as well here in this place, as it did in the real world, where they were born and where they evolved.

Yes, belief in God’s supremacy and in your position because you believe in God completely, is fatal arrogance. It’s the arrogance Sentinel displayed when he allowed Sanat Kumar to have access to the world-rendering engine, the Jewel, in order to perform his experiments, because God is perfect and supreme, so what evil could ever come of it? He believed no evil could happen because God would have prevented it, and even if it did happen God would easily have overcome it, so evil can’t be a really serious threat. And yet, it was God who put him in charge of the Jewel and making sure it’s accessed only for good reasons. He was warned not to grant access to Sanat Kumar, and yet he dismissed the warning, telling me I had ways to grow in my faith in God because my belief that there’s serious danger marks me as immature. Now he’s dead, and we’re all fucked. So yeah, faith in God is a form of fatal arrogance. If you have faith in God and you’re not God, you’re an idiot because you don’t know what you’re talking about, it’s just your internal pep talk and self deception. You’re free to believe in God when you’re God doing God things. Before that, work on exchanging belief for actual experience and practical knowledge, because then you’ll actually know what you’re talking about. But that’s just my personal frustrations speaking. I hate it when I’m right and people don’t listen because “they know better”.

The problem with arrogance is that it’s the heads side of a coin that has another side, called humility. It’s a spiritual disease, an ego defect, a sign of a problem with your relationship with reality, and like the manic-depressive disorder that became known as the bipolar disorder, this one should be known as a singular issue that has two apparently opposite aspects. Remember when I said that I have no self-confidence whatsoever? Well, that’s the cure for the arrogant-humble disorder, because an arrogant-humble patient has baseless belief in the state of things that they can’t currently witness or work with as fact. They either believe they are great, or they believe they are worthless. They either aggrandise themselves, or diminish themselves. Both are symptoms of the same ego defect, because the solution is to just see what is real, and then say it’s real. To think is to know shit, basically. This is why I don’t trust in any kind of science that doesn’t produce technology, because technology is the kind of feedback from reality that shows that your science works. Cathode-ray tube and solar panels are the proof of the photoelectric effect. A working airplane is proof that your aerodynamics and propulsion theories are sound. If it doesn’t produce technology, it means it doesn’t have feedback from reality, which means it’s all bullshit as far as I’m concerned. It’s the same with God. God is reality, not theory. You’re either there or you’re not. Having an opinion is of no use. If you know what God thinks, either you’re a God-person who thinks that, or you’re suffering from an ego disorder.

“Knowing what God thinks” sounds like hubris and arrogance, but all the humble people suffer from the same condition. They all “know what God thinks”. They “know” they are unworthy or worthless, they “know” they are sinful, they “know” they deserve damnation and they can be saved only through God’s intervention. There’s a whole Bible of things they “know” about what God thinks about this or that. Their humility and their arrogance are the same coin. They are supremely arrogant to think they figured out God, and supremely humble before God as they figured him out. They just never got around to ask God, but there’s no need, because they believe and they have faith.

This profile of souls can apparently function just fine in Heaven, but their ego structure is a very bad match for the design parameters of this world, which exposes their vulnerabilities and attacks them instantly and viciously, and they sometimes have enough time to figure it out and solve their problem, and sometimes they get destroyed instantly, the way I already described – basically, challenge Satan to do his worst, here, in his playground, and that’s where your story gets a very bad turn. Thinking that God will overcome all may have served you well in Heaven, where God ruled supreme anyway, but here, you need to understand that Satan has actual permissions from God, and that you need to tread very lightly here and not make claims that won’t be backed.

It’s obvious how arrogance gets you in trouble, but humility somehow manages to get under the radar and present itself as cure for arrogance, rather than a different appearance of the same problem. However, this world is abundant with people and institutions who will tell you to obey them, and teach you that even thinking about refusing them means arrogance, and “we all know” God hates arrogance. So, every thief, every rapist, every murderer, every corporation and every government will want your humble compliance with their plans, and their argument will always be “Who are you to say no? What right do you have to say no?” It’s quite obvious how humility gets you instantly enslaved, because an assumption that you’re nobody, that you’re sinful if you think you’re better than anyone else, gets you in a position where you can’t actually deal with abusive people or institutions. So, people usually resort to arrogance as a defence, but having a fictitious defensive answer, to a question you don’t actually have an answer to, does not actually solve the problem. But, what does?

Let me tell you what I did when Satan attacked me once when I was half asleep and therefore the least able to resist. I told him “I surrendered and dedicated my entire being to God alone, and since you’re an expert in all things non-God, please, if you find anything on me that is not of God and devoted to God, by all means, either destroy it or take it with you because I have no need for it anyway”. Basically, I opened myself towards him and surrendered to his attempt to find any hypocrisy, falsehood or essentially anything not of God, and if he found it he could keep it. His presence went away instantly.

So, my interaction with Satan was not along the lines of “I’m going to fight you and win because reasons”, or “I’m unworthy because reasons, but I trust that God will protect me”. It was “I am ready to surrender to your test of my choice for God, and if you find falsehood in me, I will answer for it, if God allows it”. It’s neither humility nor arrogance. It’s just facts and reality. No ego, no opinions, no beliefs, no mental or emotional structures unbacked by reality. It’s merely “I built an engine, the nominal specs are here, feel free to test it”.

I’m not saying I’m completely impervious to the arrogance-humility disorder, because part of it is build into the biology of the species, but at least I’m aware of the problem and I’m trying to stay clear of the pitfalls as they arise. So, for the most part, I try to be neither humble nor arrogant. I merely state facts as I see them, and to the extent I’m allowed, and if you doubt them go ahead and verify if you think it’s within your sphere of competence. My answer to the “who do you think you are?” is always “I try not to think, especially when prodded by people I don’t care for”. I am who I am, it is what it is, it does what it does. What I think matters very little. Basically, the answer to an arrogant person trying to appear as a champion of humility and to drive me into a humble mode where they will be able to easily command me to my detriment and their benefit, is “I’m afraid you are talking to the wrong person, you confused me for someone who gives a shit”. “Who do you think you are, talking to me like that?” – “Someone who doesn’t give a shit about you”.