Sinspiration

I've been reading about psychic poison lately in science fiction. It's an interesting concept whereby a trained assassin plants a mental suggestion in the subject that breaches the victim's internal fortifications to seek out and destroy any willingness to resist a nasty end (check out Frank Herbert's "Dune Messiah" for the discussion in Chapter One). The funny thing about all of this was that I realized it had happened to me already... and it started when I was four.

Listen, Sunday School teachers once had me believing that the Holy Ghost talks through people by filling us with warmth and upliftment when we do what is right or hear what is true. I thought that this was the most amazing thing I had ever heard, having felt the warmth and upliftment on many occasions at church during hymn singing. So, if the Holy Ghost was talking through me and acting as God's intermediary then the feeling I got inside was actually God talking to me. Right on, proof that God exists, I thought...that's bitchin'. It got so that I could talk to the Holy Ghost pretty much whenever I wanted while doing different things. '

Warmth and upliftment used to fill me until tear ducts spilled the excess whenever Dad told me a good story. The Holy Ghost used to come around for a chat every time I put my hand down my pants. I told my mom about that one and she spanked me so I learned to keep those conversations to myself. But I was just a kid and didn't understand the difference between fact and metaphor...I actually thought the feeling I was getting was the Holy Ghost speaking inside of me. I actually thought that I was doing right and hearing truth all over the place.

I started having my doubts at around seven. The first time I ever saw a naked woman, I told the friend who showed me that the Holy Ghost was saying this gash was right and true by filling my dingle with warmth and upliftment. Buddy pissed himself laughing. Honest, his mom sent me home so that she could change him. And it started me wondering why my Sunday School teachers never picked me to offer an example of the Spirit speaking to me after the time I told them that God loved Theoden, King of Rohan.


Why else, I advocated, would the speech he made to the Rohirrim before charging on Peleanor Field affect me so if not for the Holy Ghost communicating God's approval? They told me I was wrong. See, without knowing it, I had already realized that any number of unholy things could make me feel the same way as the "Holy Ghost" speaking to me. I was a sinner. What a fucking nightmare for the son of a father who stood true to the faith despite constant testing and daily trials. I'd also fallen for the line that I would die and come before God whose recording angels would have offered up an account of my life entire. All of my sins would be presented to the Lord of Hosts via Betamax and all of my dead relatives would be watching. The Holy Ghost began whispering God's shame and guilt every time He caught me tucked away with Tolkien and a meat sandwich. Masturbation was actually the Devil using my idle hands despite the warmth and upliftment. It was all too much for a kid to deal with. No wonder I left the straight and narrow way to cavort on the wide road down to Hell.


That was years ago - too many to admit and I stopped believing in Hell before I started getting laid. Nowadays I sit around wondering how I could have ever fed in to that whole line of shit and think about psychic poison. I've since built my life on a foundation of understanding that people can be inspired to do pretty much anything they damn well want and make others believe it's right and true. Look at Hitler and the Heaven's Gate - see how many people have tasted poison for one man's being inspired with warmth and upliftment. I doubt that it was the Holy Ghost goading Hitler and his psyched out minions to attempted genocide and I don't think God would have wanted Marshall Applewhite and his crew of martian loving misfits in Heaven with Him anyway. And the boy I was in Sunday School would hardly recognize the man I am today for all of the psychic poison he'd been fed about voices in his belly and the warmth and upliftment brought by God.

I wish that I could meet that kid I was...really and truly. Maybe then I could get to him before he realized the lies he was being fed would hurt him bad in the long run. I could tell him that the warmth and upliftment he feels when something rings true is body chemistry and nothing to do with a Father in Heaven. I could tell him to jerk it as much as he wants and that no one will get hurt so long as he does it in private. I could tell him that being inspired by what Dad calls sins is okay and that people will appreciate him for it some day (hint hint). I'd tell him to talk to someone about the despair he experienced every time something "bad" made him feel good and that contemplating suicide was nothing an eight year old should ever have to think about.

But I probably wouldn't have believed myself, that's just the kind of kid I was. Maybe it's better that I discovered the truth behind sinspiration all by myself. Otherwise I wouldn't be able to sit here and tell you all about it. But then maybe that wouldn't be such a bad thing either. Meh...I'll always have Tolkein, meat sandwiches and masturbation.