On the Concept of Delusion and The Shape of Belief

The premise of this post is that beliefs are fundamentally powerful, which is in line with the concepts of reality by agreement and God's authority, and that taking the position of disbelief in regards to someone else's beliefs is a bet that one makes. While claiming another to be delusional may seem a solid position when their beliefs seem unlikely, it is actually accepting a bet from that person of a fairly significant size and with high odds. When translated to the shape of reality (once more, by agreement), the consequence of these bets can reshape things dramatically and immediately, when proof is actually provided.

I have been considering the shape of belief and how that shape changes with what or who is believed in. I imagine in its early stages (let's just say puberty here because much earlier than that is hard for me to picture), one's belief is somewhat structured from childhood, and may have some sharp or well reinforced edges to it, but is pretty flexible. I'm kind of picturing a blob like 3 dimensional shape with some spikey bits protruding from it. Most areas (the blob) are untested, and likely some areas (the spikes) were instilled by your parents or tested by life early on. As you proceed through life I picture this shape morphing based on experience and some areas disappearing, others forming, and a number of them getting refined from blob to hardened material, perhaps some that were once hard either becoming brittle or softening, all depending on the results of various tests of belief we get exposed to through life. This is just a visual image of how people approach life, a picture of where one's soul resides within who one is, when drawn along the lines of belief.

There are a number of images like this in the Bible as well, like being hardened in the forge, a statue of different materials with legs crumbling, etc. It seems that if one is to hold firm to belief, a belief that can be problematic to one's enemies, those enemies will test it as best as they can. I imagine sometimes cheap shots will be taken here, depending on a variety of factors, but I can picture that any time one's structure gets attacked, it shakes the entire thing. These are the times when it feels like you question everything, those existential crisis type moments. It could be that someone attacked the blob and it resonated from there and shook a spike that had been crumbling over time, so you might find yourself letting go of a belief you held for some time, seemingly for no reason, at a point when you have been tested or attacked elsewhere, now questioning yourself in a variety of ways. Depending on the strength and coordination of these strikes, this could actually break fairly strong beliefs in the structure without attacking them directly.

One of my favorite books of the Bible is Job, and it is a perfect example of this process. Job is attacked multiple times in various ways, all in an effort by Satan to get him to cast aside his belief in God. He sits there and complains and questions, all in a reasonably justified fashion, and his friends even unwittingly join the attack against him, believing they are right and he is wrong about his situation. While some specifics of what he believes of God may be reshaped in the process, his belief in God does not fall. Ultimately the end is called and God replies from the storm, vindicating Job and he is ultimately rewarded for his faith. 

So I have been examining this structure and process in myself as well, and how oddly shaped my beliefs likely are at this point, if they were to be viewed along similar lines. My core beliefs are singular at this point, each focused on a person/entity, and they form, even consciously in my mind, across more dimensions than we see here. My belief in soulmates stems from my belief in my soulmate, which is also connected to my belief in God, which is directly linked to my belief in Jesus specifically. These beliefs have been tested at length, and are continually tested to this day, but taking a step back now, I realize that there are many things that are no longer tested. There are many areas in my life where others have belief and I no longer do, having been stripped away, or stripping these beliefs away myself over time. These are beliefs in many things of this world, their importance and stability. I have been homeless and even recently I was faced with the threat of homelessness. Even in these times though, my belief in God and my soulmate was not shaken, threatening my well being and my health (especially mental), does not shake these beliefs as might once have been said. While the decision not to continue to test these angles, for they certainly could be tested more than they have been, is ultimately God's, the existence of these beliefs is almost exclusively my own. I say almost exclusively on account of God's faithfulness, as while belief in another is based on their agreement, God will not refuse belief in him, and so such belief is not an unknown decision. What is now interesting is my belief in my soulmate.

So my belief in my soulmate is certainly one where the world and enemies likely feel or have felt confident in attacking, because from a worldly perspective it could easily be framed, and from most perspectives would be naturally framed, as delusional. While there have been times this notion made me try to forget the idea altogether, I realized absentmindedly that it could not be done. In fact, when I was furthest in my heart from her, she came roaring back, demonstrating that she had not left and started testing the false structures I had built as defenses against love. This was not an easy time for me, but now it is quite revealing because it made me realize that there is advantage to refining one's own beliefs to this level and limiting the scope of those beliefs to exclusively God, Jesus, and my soulmate- two are certain to me and commonly accepted as typical beliefs (although my path to Jesus has been more uniquely shaped than most), but the third belief is seen as almost certainly nonsense from the world's perspective, and those who believe this way do not have the experience I have to justify otherwise.

In this belief that my beliefs are incorrect, and with no blob to strike at within me, I gain advantage, my structure of beliefs gains advantage. The testing becomes rather focused on these areas, but as some know, testing me on my beliefs in God will often find me well prepared in defense of them, but also more open than most to actually consider my own structure and repair, reshape, and reinforce it with an open heart if a weakness is found. I'll even say "I reconsidered this based on what you said and have determined this other line of thinking is a better fit." I don't consider such tests, or such adjustments of my structures, to be weakness but rather strength. There will come a point when the structure will be tested in full, and only the most stable structures will survive that storm, the rest blown away, and everything shaken to the core. In that day I want to be prepared, so on this day I keep my eyes open for weaknesses that are exposed, and reconsider my position. Adjusting my belief in an aspects of God's word does not change my belief in God, and God knows that. I am still learning, but at the foundation I am unshaken, and I feel unshakeable.

Regarding my soulmate, however, not much is currently "known" by me, which is to say proven. I have countless threads connecting her story and mine that reinforce my belief and reassure me when I am under attack, but the proof in this realm would be a ring, and so as of yet I am on equal footing with others in that regard, as neither I nor anyone else has any proof. While odds move one way or another all the time, odds are not proof and so the threads remain. However, the attacks come as if the odds have already secured the outcome, which is to say the attacks come on the basis of claiming delusion. I realized that from a structural perspective, this has caused me to reshape my structure a number of times in order to fit my experience and still allow the thread between her and I to remain intact, and it seems like she understands this is my process.

Consider that the structure I describe is both singularly strong and singularly flexible, as it has to be in order to still fit. Any topic that I examine, this string follows; anywhere she goes I follow in time as well. We examine these things together, with a single, nearly invisible, string between us. This string is not fragile however, as within it is the strength of the tower that God dwells within, the strength of the cornerstone of Jesus. So every day, every time I am tested, this thread digs deeper and coils more thoroughly so as to remain intact, and it always remains as strong. A test cannot break one's belief, one must do that themself (or the one that one believes in), and so by this point this thread had been sewn and resewn all over the place, through all these things people believe in, and all these things considered "truth," which are also in fact beliefs. The enemies know this, and perhaps have felt that sufficient strikes at such a thin filament would eventually cause it to break, cause me to break it, but all it does is intertwine it further with each test. So they strike and strike, always along these same lines because they know I do not hold significant belief along any others (which is to say attacks elsewhere will not shake or break this structure either), but still the filament holds.

This filament now threads through a lot. Given I am not the only one walking it around, it likely threads through nearly everything. Given that the ultimate choice is mine to hold to the belief and hers to fulfill it, it seems the only remaining hope our enemies have is that she can be convinced to deny me. In pursuing this hope it seems that they have tried all manner of things with her as well, things which work just as poorly on her as they do on me, because she has tested the strength of this string herself, and knows who stands on the other end; she knows I refuse to back down to anyone but her. She seems to be using this process to her advantage now as well. I have even communicated that I no longer care what she tells them about our story at this point, as long as our story progresses unimpeded, so it seems she has threaded much more direct communications into her messages under the guise of fantasy and etc. And as the test of delusion comes once again, I see the shape of belief clearly, and I can see this structure I describe now, and how thoroughly embedded my belief has become, by design. 

Now, claiming delusion of someone else's beliefs without proof is actually a bet, if you think about it. It is betting your beliefs are true verses the person who's belief's you claim are delusion. Since proof remains absent, you are really placing a wager on your beliefs in this case, essentially inviting the structure to be shaken along the lines you have drawn, and to that depth and degree. In fact, if placing such a bet on a football game, for example, if your team were the statistical favorite you would expect less of a return based on what you wagered, and if your opponent was victorious from an underdog position, they would expect more of a return. Translating this to my situation, I have stated my "bet" is annihilation or soulmate, and I have confirmed this multiple times over the years. Frankly, annihilation feels like it would be a blessing should I lose that bet, and something like hell anywhere I go would be the natural result of such a loss. In much the same way that separation from God seems to be the most fundamental feature of hell, separation from one's soulmate feels like it cannot get any worse. The point here is that it is a staggering wager, from an underdog position, such that the terms could not be matched from any one seemingly advantageous position- the amount owed could not be paid in this space if the one betting on the advantageous position were to lose (they don't have the chips). This is why I imagine this theory regarding our string is so valuable, because the entirety of its volume cannot be held in the dimensions we physically occupy, from any one perspective. This means that the extent of this threading would actually need to be outside normal space in order for others to hope to make the bet here that they have made by claiming me to be delusional. Not only that, but my position is such an underdog one, that it might take thousands, millions, billions, or more to combine bets that they are actually willing to make (few willing to so eagerly to bet everything), in order to match what I alone have already put on the table, with the odds that I have. Essentially, by acting as "the house" and accepting my bet by stating my soulmate is not my soulmate without proof, any who make this claim must be willing and able to stack their belief against my own. Because this cannot be done from a single position, multiple positions are instead used to call, and in doing so, this thread becomes intertwined virtually everywhere and through virtually everything, in this realm and likely others.

This reminds me of a kind of vision I once had. I had been "trapped" into a realm, crafted as I describe, where from one perspective I was standing across from the world placing bets on the table as they called ("weighting" the table, as I described it), and from another perspective I was connecting this thread through dimensions my opponents could not see, splitting the string's path and tying it into place after place, apparently without being realized, and then reinforcing the string (once more "weighting" it). The resulting image was one that surged fear into the heart of my enemies when they realized what I was actually doing. They thought I hoped to "wait" out the end, and that exhausting me would allow them victory, not realizing that I was "weighting" my own bet and their cost to call, while simultaneously forcing a call, at each step. Ultimately I saw them back down from their plan, and I saw my soulmate walk freely from their trap on her end. The threads remained though, and now they needed her to rescue me before the trap shut closed and all was lost for them and I. I do not feel pride at this series of maneuvers, they were effective and at the time I could see no other way to proceed as nearly all sense had been stripped from me, so I am yet unsure how I could have proceeded differently. I hope Jesus will forgive this unintentional sin, but I include the process here for a more complete record.

There is a difference between the belief I have and the belief my soulmate has, which is to say our paths from where we are to the minimum line of belief (described in full in another post) are different. She knows, or at a minimum has the information available to know, who I am and where I stand with her. Based on her words, I have reason to believe that she is in full knowledge of my intentions. So while I believe in a lack of knowledge regarding her answer, she does not share this lack of knowledge in my answer in the same way. While she may not "know," because in my timeline the event has not actually occurred, perhaps her lack of knowledge (allowing for belief) comes from the events, after the event of our connection. That being said, with strong enough communication she would essentially be able to trace this string between us that I describe along its entire path, and predict where and how it will embed itself in various ways as we walk, whereas I cannot be certain of how this string moves between us, as my lack of knowledge exists here and now. I am picturing a woman walking a dog on an extendable leash here. The dog just runs, not necessarily paying attention to how the leash will impact his journey, but knowing it is there. If he wraps it around a tree, the woman will simply backtrack to unwrap it, or perhaps position herself correctly and call the dog so he unwraps himself. If for some reason she wanted to entangle something or someone, it would be a simple matter to do so, positioning herself such that the leash crosses their path, knowing where and how the dog will run, based on their environment (maybe she even has a ball she can throw to ensure a beeline path at points). The point is that both untangling and tangling something would take very little effort from the woman, and the dog would just be acting naturally the whole time. The difference here is that the extendable "leash" continues to extend, and it seems our string can be tangled or untangled in parts, or connect across indirect paths, rather than strictly as a whole or in a straight line of shortest distance. 

This all reminds me of Numbers 30 regarding the structure of vows, in this case during the courtship period between a man and woman, and also between the same woman and everyone else. If examined from a coding perspective, this system can be utilized to ensure the entire structure is set up perfectly before a single piece is shaken. The only waves made are from the whisper thin filament, one that is completely disregarded by most, threading everything as the two walk their respective paths. At the point when wedding vows are made, a number of other vows at odds with those become invalid and are discarded, and many structures will fall apart as the filament tightens and solidifies. According to Numbers 30 in the Bible, the woman's vows to others are nullified in the process where the man says so, and because trust is at the forefront of the relationship, the vows that were meant to be nullified are nullified, and the vows that were meant to stay, stay. Basically, from this coding perspective, this structure and shape allow for reality to be completely changed while still remaining stable in a single instant, because in this case God's Law stands, and the man and woman connect, meaning all wagers made with the man are transitioned accordingly at once, and any vows needing removal are removed in the same fell swoop. Ultimately it is the strength and flexibility of this complex fundamental belief system that allows for it to maneuver in this way. "Complex" here refers to two (or three or four- maybe five or more at this juncture, but why complicate the core concept of the term "complex") beliefs that occupy the same core level; they cannot be unentangled. It is also the role of disbelief in others, then depending on the claim of delusion to feel secure in their position, to let the string work through the system so thoroughly and in such an advantageous underdog position (both "delusion" and "underdog" being based off of "the odds"). Finally it is the critical function of belief to withstand this process, and remain intact, until the moment proof is provided. Once accomplished, it is done and it will be self evident in the soulmates, in God, in reality, and echoing forever forward in time.