Self-Deceit: A Comedy on Lies; A Way of Overcoming Them

Pendle Hill Pamphlets

by Frederick William Faber

These essays on self-deceit come from the volume that Faber named Spiritual Conferences, because they have neither the formality of a lecture nor the dignity of a sermon. In editing them I have contented myself, for the most part, with trimming their Victorian drapery. Faber has written much else that still speaks to our condition, but I have chosen these essays in the conviction that the failure of our world is the failure of worship; and all worship, be it Quaker, Episcopalian, Muslim, or what not, must have within it some place for self-examination. Here we are at a loss and Faber speaks to that loss. Perhaps you are one of the many who say, “There is enough darkness in the world. When I go to church I want to hear happy things.” Faber’s point is precisely much, if not most, of the world’s darkness comes from self-deceit and illusions about ourselves. Shall we not bless the man who is able to lead us into the dark parts of holy disillusion and out again to a new height?

In our worship, of course, self-examination must always give way to adoration, to a beholding of God, whose goodness and love fill our need. In this act of simply feeling God’s presence the poor little self just subjected to examination is in a large measure lost sight of, and in that loss, purified. But we dare not skip the first steps. Without self-examination and confession to God, common morality, acts of charity and worship itself will turn sour within us and we shall be ten times worse than if we had never heard of religion.

The intricacies of self-deceit are so complex they make the involvements of a modern detective story read as simply as a nursery tale. But no matter, read this as you would a mystery story — life is a mystery story. And, if courage fails, glance at the end and see that all may end well — not just happily, but truly well.

45 pages, Kindle Edition

Published February 10, 2017

About the author

Frederick William Faber, C.O., was a noted English hymn writer and theologian, who converted from Anglicanism to the Catholic priesthood. His best known work is Faith of Our Fathers. Though he was a Roman Catholic writing for fellow Catholics at that point, many of his hymns today are sung by Protestant congregations.

Reviews

[Mark · Rating 5 out of 5]

The essays in the pamphlet were first published by Faber in 1858 as part of a larger work entitled Spiritual Conferences. They are edited by Gilbert Kilpack to make them more readable to mid-20th century Quakers in this 1949 pamphlet. All deal with self-examination, self-deceit and the darkness that arises from our unwillingness to address either. Kilpack warns in the introduction, “The way to the simple Truth is complex and hard. There is no path but the narrow path and it passes through a hard gate. Faber’s writings are of this deep, hard order.” (p. 8)

Faber begins by saying very few, if any, of us are truthful. “The fact is, we are all of us thoroughly untruthful, those of us most so who think ourselves least so, those of us least so who think ourselves most so.” (p. 9) We deceive ourselves and he wishes us to explore our self-deceit.

He identifies four “fountains of self-deceit:” the rarity of reliable self-knowledge; self’s power to deceive self; self letting itself be deceived by others; and self deceived by Satan.” (p. 10) Faber is a Roman Catholic monk so this last one fits his logic model of the universe. He says we avoid self-knowledge because it will be painful to know the truth.

He commits sections of the pamphlet to describing the dour fountains in more detail, outlining seven inter-related varieties of self-deceit from which myriad others stem, and listing many characteristics of self-deceit revealing its power and the difficulty in overcoming it.

The short final section of the 47-page work is titled "remedies of self-deceit" yet Faber conceded “I am anxious to keep down your expectations.” It is lifelong work with few victories and those only come when we don't mire ourselves in the battle for too long at a time.

One is left wondering, if the effort to improve is worth the effort, despite the strong negative attributes given to self-deceit. Faber doesn't provide a satisfactory description of the rewards for the effort, and how could he? All of them could easily fit the earlier descriptions of self-deceit and delusion.

Nevertheless, this Pendle Hill pamphlet is worth revisiting and applying to understand one's own intentions and motivations in our acts. Perhaps understanding the reward was elusive because my own path out of deceit is a long one?