Blasphemous Thoughts and Unforgivable Sins -A Hell Of Fear (OCD and Scrupulosity)
88“…but whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will never be forgiven; they are guilty of an eternal sin.” - Mark 3:29 (NIV)
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If you or someone you know seems to be suffering from the disorder I describe in this article, and you want to talk to someone about it, please feel free to email me.
My Hell of Blasphemous Thoughts
“F*<K the Holy Spirit” was the last thing I thought before I went to sleep. It was the last thing I thought every night before going to sleep, and the first thing I thought upon waking up. In fact, I had thought that single phrase, in many different variations, an average of at least four thousand times a day (by my best calculations), every day, for going on three months. It was exhausting. I was exhausted. I didn’t want to think these thoughts. Quite the contrary: I loathed the thoughts. I feared these blasphemous thoughts and phrases more than anything, but I absolutely could not stop thinking them. The more I feared the blasphemous thoughts, and the more I wished to stop thinking them, the more I thought them. Every day, I was terrified that I was guilty of the "unforgivable sin" of blasphemy against the holy spirit, and was condemned to hell for eternity.
The short, catchy blasphemous phrases were just a small part of my situation. Additionally, I would sometimes struggle for hours a day with thoughts that I might be God. Terrified, because I knew that the real God must surely not like people who thought they were God, I would try for hours to convince myself of why I was not God. Then in the shower every now and then, Satan (or some voice presuming to be Satan) would quote Nietzsche to me in an attempt to convince me that the real God respected power, not meekness, and would thus torment Christians in hell for eternity to amuse himself, whilst the strong and ruthless would inherit the kingdom. Thus, the Holy Spirit really was evil, and I was to worship the voice presuming to be Satan, as therein was salvation. One time, these thoughts became so overpowering that, falling, I put my face to the ground as I begged God to deliver me. Then I thought I heard God say to me: “peace, be still”. But His tone of voice was a menacing whisper. Evil. I didn’t know who was God and who was Satan. I blacked out. I don’t remember anything else from that day.
I absolutely can not and will not try to describe the level of suffering I experienced for those four or five months. There’s an interesting thing about great suffering: it produces a new level of loneliness. There you are, the sufferer, and out across an almost infinite chasm, you can barely make out the forms of people around you. People who aren’t suffering. Not like you are. You can not possibly tell anyone what you are going through. You can not cross over to them, and they can not cross over to you, even if they wanted to do so to help you in some way. That is what hell is all about. Even though I no longer suffer like I did during those months, I am still alone. I’ve changed. Who I was before those months died. Who I am now is not who I was: in order to survive, that part of my personality had to die.
Short Video About Scrupulosity
A Relatively Unheard of Mental Disease
It’s called scrupulosity. It is obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) centered around religious themes, such as blasphemy, unforgivable sin, perdition, the end of the world and the return of Christ, and eternal damnation. In the most extreme cases, such as my own, it can manifest with psychotic delusions (like my thoughts that i was God). John Bunyan, who wrote The Pilgrim’s Progress, certainly suffered from it. Carl Jung battled with it. Martin Luther may have suffered from it. I, and many other people like me, have suffered hell from it while the rest of the world goes around completely unaware of our pain. The facts that I lost my job and dropped out of school were trivial. Even the fact that I was almost never able to leave the house or be in public was petty. Nothing mattered to me whatsoever except the hell I was in, and the one forlorn, relatively hopeless longing to be freed from it.
OCD is a horrific disorder, but the religious variation of it (scrupulosity) may be even more complicated in its own way. To illustrate this: if a person’s OCD centers around germs, it is simple enough to repeatedly perform tasks such as hand-washing to alleviate the obsessive thoughts about germs and illness. But if one’s obsessive thoughts are things like, “F*<K the Holy Spirit”, what exactly can one do? One can pray and read the bible obsessively in search of some loophole that might grant them salvation despite their blasphemous thoughts. And that is about all I did during those months.
OCD is often manageable with a combination of cognitive-behavioral therapy and antidepressants. Scrupulosity, however, may be an especially difficult form of OCD to treat, for the simple reason that its sufferers may be less likely to seek treatment in medicine or psychotherapy. When OCD centers around religious themes, it does so for a reason: religious themes have been a central concern in the life of the affected individual, probably long before OCD symptoms ever appeared. In other words, someone whose parents were atheists and who is herself an atheist will be very unlikely to develop scrupulosity. If such a person does suffer from OCD, it will probably center around germs/illness or something else. People who develop scrupulosity often come from very religious backgrounds. The kinds of backgrounds capable of instilling such potent fears of things like eternal damnation and unforgivable sin. I came from such a background (although it should be noted that my parents never intentionally tried to center my religious experience around fear). People who come from such a background are more likely to see their suffering in purely religious terms, rather than medical terms. The people around them are more likely to see things in such terms as well. The first solutions I looked for (with, not surprisingly, the help of my mother) were religious in nature: meetings with pastors and faith-healers... a few exorcisms.
If you're enjoying my writing in this article, please take a moment to look at some of my short poems: click here. This opens in a new window, so you won't lose the article you're currently reading.
"There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear..." - 1 John 4:18 (NIV)
The Heart of the Matter
OCD is an anxiety disorder. This means that the root of my problem was fear. Religious fear. I was raised to believe that there was an all-powerful God who would forcibly send many, many (indeed, most) people to a cosmic torture chamber where they would suffer the most indescribably horrific torments for a literal eternity. That is, forever and ever and ever and ever. If one believes such a scenario to actually be true, we ought to question their emotional soundness if they are not terrified. For me, recovery from my debilitating, soul-crushing mental disorder did not come from medicine or therapy. In my case, I seriously doubt how effective any combination of those treatments might have been.
I began to recover only after I stumbled across the notion of universalism on the internet. I discovered that from the very dawn of Christianity all the way up until now, many, many eminent and astute leaders in the faith have professed a belief which is heard of by relatively few today, and accepted by even fewer. The belief: God is such that He will send no human being to suffer in eternal torment. Hell exists only to chasten souls until they repent, and thus are fit for reconciliation with God. I was initially extremely wary of this doctrine. I had been programmed my entire life to run in terror from anything that sounded so “heretical”. It seemed that heresy, after all, was one of the surest ways to land yourself in eternal hell. But I studied universalism deeply, for months. I was shocked to find so many scriptures and spiritual teachers which all pointed to the truth of it. Also, I was desperate. My sanity, my very life, depended on the truth of what I was reading: that God truly is good and merciful. I was like a drowning man: when a ship comes along to rescue him, he sees little alternative to climbing aboard.
Thankfully, the ship I climbed onto turned out to be sure and steady. By the grace of God, I am being born safely to land. Today I am completely free from my hell of fear and from all the blasphemous thoughts. This kind of release seemed completely impossible during those months of torture. The Holy Spirit is the spirit of perfect Love. The religious leaders in Christ’s time were willfully blind to this fact, as many religious elite are today. The religious elite in Christ’s time were so blind to this truth that they attributed an act of divine love and mercy to the power of Satan. This, Jesus said, was the blasphemy against the Holy Spirit. It is the reversal of what is good and what is evil. It is the inability to see that the Spirit of God is the spirit of Love. Love can heal our bodies and our minds. When I began to realize the perfect love of God, I was freed from my hell of religious OCD. And that, dear reader, is a miracle.
- Why I Don't Believe in an Eternal Hell
I was raised in a strict Christian fundamentalist family, so as I was growing up, I developed a deep-seated terror of the idea of an eternal hell. Because of this, I eventually suffered a devastating mental...
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This comment is to japtaker'sdaddy. If the play was something like "Hell House" I understand where his fear comes in. But, also I know his struggle with the whole concept of eternal damnation according to conventional Christianity. And if your soul is so attuned to the Spirit that you have an internal war going on in your mind about every decision that you make it can be torturous. You stand every moment in the presence of the Father in your action but you feel so apart in the physical. And you question things that conventional Christians would consider blasphemous. If the condition of your soul could be so lost, with whom would you speak? I am sure alot of the torment that this article relates was very much internal and so he felt it everywhere. There are many logical questions that arise that could make you seem blasphemous if you discussed them with anyone other than our Abba Father. Such as If God is Love why will so many perish eternally? How is it Good News to a child in Iran (growing from birth a devout Muslim) that Jesus sacrificed all to break the bonds of satan over mankind. Oh but you have to rebuke all that you have been given for this free salvation. How Good is this message? And there are many others that are hard to understand until our Abba Father reveals the true power of Jesus' sacrifice to you. That Jesus truly did die for all mankind. :)
In Peace and Love Always.
Reading this article din't give me the impression that the writer was "blaming" his parents for what happened. Sounded very evenhanded to me. He described his experience, and the factors he thinks contributed.
To me, the statement "I believe that the dread of eternal hell and unpardonable sin was something you just got hold of and ran with" sounds a more accusatory note toward the writer than any statement in the article describing the parents.
"Your depiction of me in the article, in my opinion, paints me as a Bible-thumping, fire-breathing religious wacko who played a significant part in your downfall.'
I did not see the article painting such a picture of the parents. If anything, they sounded like run-of-the-mill church going people, like many I have known. They seemed neither threatening nor uncaring. They seemed to be dealing with their son's trouble the best they knew how, they just didn't know how to help. The same could be said for many caring parents.
I first read this hub some time ago, and my conclusion at the time was that the writer was a more imaginative person than most, and so both more prone and more able to picture a thing like the vast majority of humanity suffering horrible torture for eternity. While this is a doctrine believed by many, I think most don't make much of a mental or emotional connection to this as a reality. It is an image extremely painful to bear - but i think most people are simply not very imaginative.
I thought the writer was commendably free from blaming others for this painful episode, which leads me to believe he was done a great deal of recovery. Something like this aleinates many from God for a long time if not for life.
From your writing here, you clearly made it through and have become even closer to Him.
Dear writer,
your mom and my mom could be twins. "I'm right"... And always fighting even when there is no war. I was Gay... I was not religious all that much... But I suffered a breakdown about sinning against the Spirit a month ago... Now I've become straight (which is fine), I've been to confession three times this month... I keep sinning in my head... When I do I start hearing "I love Satan in my head", which I don't at all... I'm totally OCD, but I don't want it in my medical charts because I wanted to be a COP... Talked myself out of it recently... I don't think crazy people should have guns. Plus as messed up as this sounds I'm lazy... Yep OCD and lazy... So they even each other out and I have been able to fly under the radar. I'm overly creative... And obsessed about solving problems... I'll create problems in my head and solve them incase they ever happen in real life. That's just the tip of the iceberg... I don't feel comfortable writing what I can actually create... Entire worlds of fiction actually... And yes I can tell the difference between real and not... I don't know why my brain keeps picking at this Spirit thing over and over... I read that in the Bible years ago and I never did it... But my mother mentions is once at the dinner table and I can't let it go... I'm scared of watching TV that may offend God, or
listening to bad music, or art work I did in my early 20's that I burnt because I thought it was going to be held against me. So I went on line for help (totally dangerous for people with OCD by the way)... And I'm glad I found your article... Only because my brain started thinking on it's own... "if God is all good and all loving he would not create a hell to send us to because then its like his love for us is based on punishment... Meaning we run to him to escape from hell"... What a shitty way to interpret God's love. I've on a occasions changed "save us from the fires of hell..." to "Jesus please save us from being separated from God". That's hell enough... I felt a brief moment when I felt that separation... It was the worst fear I've ever felt ever... And I've had some pretty nasty images and dreams in my life time thanks to the OCD... I won't share them for fear of harming others. Plus, my priest said bad angels were cast down to earth to and that's why we have temptations and free will. I'm either really stupid... And don't understand.... Or really smart... And understood that evil gives us our freedom??? What in good graces does is going on???? By the way, in one of my crap episodes I did have thoughts that I must be god just like you did... It was during the cross over from one thought of good to another of evil. And I felt totally nuts like I was having a mental breakdown. We are good, we come from God... This past month I've felt like I've been in judgement, end times are here, maybe aliens are picking through my brain... And all kinds of crap, on top of my usual crap.
This completely sucks... The other day though I thought hell must be here... And purgatory must be were everyone goes. Think about it... The bad angels were cast to earth... The devil consumes us, we are a community of mass consumers... We are being brain washed everyday to consume. I don't need anything more... Just food, water and shelter... Everything else is just more stuff I don't need... Yet I have this crazy urge to buy stuff... It's totally nuts. We spend 8 to 10 yours a week or more watching TV and one hour on Sunday with God. We are basically zombies... Hell is here... We literally need love in the world right now. God must be so incredibly sad that we are so confused.
Dear Stef,
I wish I could address your response to my article as thoroughly as I would like to. But I will do the best I can in the time I'm allowed. I'll reply to some of the things you said that really stood out to me.
"I don't think crazy people should have guns."
OCD does not equal crazy. As you said yourself, you know the difference between reality and fiction. Although we will have OCD for the rest of our lives, we can certainly recover from the worst of the symptoms. I have. Thanks to neuroplasticity, the brain circuits that malfunction due to OCD can, in fact, be "rewired" by the power of thought itself.
"art work I did in my early 20's that I burnt because I thought it was going to be held against me."
I also destroyed all the poems I wrote in my early 20's for the same reason, and threw away a whole lot of books. Fortunately, it turned out that my poems still existed online, so I was later able to recover them.
"if God is all good and all loving he would not create a hell to send us to because then its like his love for us is based on punishment... Meaning we run to him to escape from hell"... What a shitty way to interpret God's love. I've on a occasions changed "save us from the fires of hell..." to "Jesus please save us from being separated from God". That's hell enough"
Absolutely. Love and compulsion (as in, "force", not as in OCD) have nothing to do with each other. You can not force someone to love you, and neither would any God worth worshiping. And of course, hell IS simply separation from God. We are all in hell, to whatever degree we are currently separated from God. The good news is, nothing is permanent, and our current state of hell can, and will, give way to its opposite. The New Testament clearly defines "eternal life" as "knowing God".. let me know if you want a reference for that. So "hell" is simply not knowing God.
"What in good graces does is going on????"
This, my friend, is a question that continually plagues me, and I have yet to figure out. But I continue living in the hope that all will be revealed to those who really need to and want to know. In any case, I've learned that I no longer have to rely, in my search for truth, on what the masses believe or what their leaders teach. Better to trust in the things that God gave me: conscience, reason, and whatever wisdom I can glean from the words of the ancients.
Blessings,
Justin
Thanks for your words... I should add... There is no real way of knowing until we die. I ignorance and arrogance tent to go hand and hand... I don't know enough about my religion to be having opinions really... I think once I start believing more in Christs love then my OCD will go away. Also Catholics don't believe you get sent to hell, we believe that you choose to go there. My brain is currently being musher up by my OCD thoughts... I hope and pray that I don't get so confussed again that I actually would choose to be separated from God. I definitely believe that Satan exists... I don't understand why... And I don't want to start worshiping him... Some of my OCD thoughts seem to revolve around him...most. Him being light and all that crap... The dude is pure evil. I had some pretty scarry thoughts today trying to work... It prompted me to go to church. I really want my thoughts to go back to the way they were when God was God, Christ was Christ and therefore I never had to worry about the devil. I want to add... I love my mother very much... She is a wonderful woman... And I wish I had not made a jab at her last night when I started writing. That was juvinile of me. And incase Hell does exist... I would like to apologies for my comments. Cause the bottom line here.. Is that we just don't know. I really don't want to look to myself for answers because I don't know squat, and I am prone to arrogance. Hmmm I guess I'm taking back a lot of what I wrote last night... Except for the parts about me having OCD. Peace be with you Justin.
My scrupolosity is now controlled by doubt even though I sometimes hear the words you big fat pig after the name of Jesus. Also, I say who is the son of God and I answer Jesus and then I hear no. This is with most of what he did also. I continue to pray but wonder if I will be answered. My faith has never been as strong as I would like and I heard a lot of arguments against that I thought I had pushed aside.
The nos are stupid though as they give no reason for being. The yeses have the strongest and smartest as they have the word of God to back them but recently it was even attacked. I have seen demons (confirmed by others) and believe in Heaven and Hell and God, Jesus and Satan..
Please pray for me.
Keith
japtaker
You are not alone my friend in your experience. I became a Christian in 1992 and had a very powerful spiritual experience with Christ. After reading the scriptures the fear of the unpardonable sin consumed me(it had consumed me even before I was a Christian). It got to the point I lost my job had panic attacks and divorced my wife who just could not take my depression any more.
I went to many fundamental pastors and all had different "spins" on this sin but the common theme was that you were lost if you did it and you could lose your salvation as well so no one is safe. I finally decided to no longer go to church, nor listen to fundamental preachers and just put my spiritual life on hold.
It really wasn't until a few years ago I stumbled on a web site (in 1992 I didn't have the internet) which had challenged many of the traditional Christian hell theology and the unpardonable sin theology that had plagued me for so long. The author of this web site not only disproved these theories but he did it by examining the scriptures original translations. And as you pointed out I learned the early church did not peddle the hell torture theology it was not even something they believed in. In fact the concept of the tortures of hell itself has Pagan origins.
Jesus said the sin against the Holy Spirit would not be forgiven in this age or the age to come. He at the time was living in the age prior to his crucifixion the next age is the Church age so the age after that is his triumphant return and reign on earth when hell (the grave) gives up it's dead and all are judged and ultimately forgiven even if it means being thrown in a lake of fire for a season for purification of the soul (lake is not literal) . Brimstone by the way is not a fire accelerant in fact it is used to cleanse (there's a hint for you right there).
It would take pages and pages of explaining scripture to disprove these misinterpretations of the bible and I believe you touched upon many of them. You can also check out bibletruths web site to discover what I did.
In retrospect many carnal Christians will continue to deny the absolute forgiving power of Jesus Christ and that all man will be saved in fact many believe more in a torture chamber hell than an unconditionally loving God. But isn't it God's will that none shall perish? And did Jesus not pray thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven? If God's will won't be done even after Jesus prayed it would well then we are all lost.
Thanks for sharing. Your experience was ironically similar in nature to mine. I pray for those still struggling with these misguided perceptions of God and our Savior Jesus Christ.
Thank you, AEQUANIMITAS. It's good to know I'm not alone. It is quite striking how similar our stories really are. It makes me wonder how many more there are like us, who were driven to an understanding of grace through this hellish sort of experience.
I go through this scrupolosity. I hate this because the thigs i hear are so evil and blasphemous. I do not think these things against my savior. Hiw do i get the evil voice to stop? If i see somethig about evil on TV its triggered an i hear the voice.. I absolutely believe in Jesus christ. I cry all the time to the lord and say please this isnt my thoughts or images i hate the devil make him stop please. Am i sill saved even though i hear this? I need prayers to banish this voice from
Vassula Rydén
Anyone know her or read her work?
Its Christ speaking to her... and he is specifically saying "Blasphemy against the Spirt", in mind or other will never be forgiven. That's why I've lost my mind over this. But then I think I am not a religious person... what do I know.
For those who just commented above and still have these thoughts hounding them in their heads. You are being tormented and it is not of God. Jesus forgives all sin. I went through this I promise you there is light at the end of the tunnel. Jesus said the sin against the Holy Spirit would not be forgiven in this age and an age to come NOT for all the ages. Once you meditate on the fact you are forgiven and this sin IS forgivable and that Jesus died to take the sins of the WORLD these thoughts no longer have any power. Meditate on his forgiveness, meditate on the fact that it's God will that none shall perish and Jesus prayed thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. God's will shall be done and his will is that all are redeemed once you understand this you can "reboot" your brain and think like God. We have been programmed to believe God loves some of the time, he forgives some of the time and it's not our fault because we have been programmed by religious leaders who have preached a different gospel not the good news we also compare God's love to our parents love or our friends love and God's love goes way beyond any love we experience by human beings. That's why Paul prayed you would know the height and width and depth of Gods love it's endless.
Hello :)
Okay, you can check these facts just like I did so you know what I'm about to write is true and you will feel better almost right away... Totally cured in seconds... And total truth :)
Jesus turned to Simon whom he called Peter and said "go and start my church". And Peter did exactly what Jesus said. And that was infact the Roman Catholic Church. Jesus also told Peter "whatever you make doctrine in my church, so will it be honored in heaven".
The Roman Catholoc Church believes that Sinning agaist the Spirit, is actually thinking Christ is the Devil... The reason Chist can not forgive you of your sins if you think this, is because you literally are rejecting his forgiving love. In all sense you are rejecting Gods forgiveness because you think God is evil. Now you KNOW Chrit is pure good and pure love, so if you are losing your mind about that passage, as I was... Please say this over and over "Jesus I know you are God, I know you Love me, and I consecrate myself to your loving forgiveness".
I promise your fears will vanish.
Blessed Be... Peace and truth be with anyone suffering with your OCD.
I wanted to add, "The Evil One"... Likes to place fear and aggravation in people... God, would never set his children up for failure. I don't agree with the writer completely but I respect that he has peace in his life. There is another way you can separate yourself from Gods love...
This is what a scholar shared with me:
Dear Stefani,
Please believe me when I tell you this. You cannot commit the “unforgiveable” sin if you do not want to. The blasphemy against the Holy Spirit is not just words or thoughts, it is a persistent refusal to accept the truth. It can also take the form of what is called “final impenitence” which is the persistent refusal to repent of serious sin or despair by which we deny hope. If you are distressed about it, you CANNOT have committed this sin. Please do not be unduly alarmed about this matter. Many people do not understand what is meant by “blasphemy against the Holy Spirit”. Please calm down and be at peace. Do not struggle too much against these thoughts because in doing that you are giving them attention. Just try to divert your thoughts on to other things. if you do not want these thoughts you are not sinning.
God bless
Fr. JA
japtaker'sdaddy 14 months ago
Hi japtaker,
I've been checking out some of your writings today (stayed home from work, sick). Pretty interesting, well-written stuff.
I've copied three parts of your article below. After the quotes, I'll make a few comments.
"People who develop scrupulosity often come from extremely religious backgrounds. The kinds of backgrounds capable of instilling such potent fears of things like eternal damnation and unforgivable sin. I came from such a background."
"I was raised to believe that there was an all-powerful God who would forcibly send many, many (indeed, most) people to a cosmic torture chamber where they would suffer the most indescribably horrific torments for a literal eternity."
"The first solutions I looked for (with, not surprisingly, the help of my parents) were religious in nature: meetings with pastors and faith-healers... a few exorcisms."
Now for my comments:
While I did believe in an eternal hell, I don't recall ever pounding you, or anyone else, with thoughts of the most indescribably horrific torments, or anything else along those lines. Actually, I don't recall "hell" and eternal torments ever being a serious part of my thoughts or conversation.
I know your mom once took you to a play about Hell, and it had a big impact on you, but, apart from being a too-serious disciplinarian (which I regret)I can't fathom how you became so crushed and shipwrecked about hell and unforgivable sin by anything I was imparting to you. Can you explain that?
As far as unforgivable sin, I have sought, on several occasions, to alleviate, rather than foster, the idea that you might have committed it.
Also, please remind me when I had any part in taking you to even ONE pastor, faith-healer or exorcist? I can't recall even one instance.
Your depiction of me in the article, in my opinion, paints me as a Bible-thumping, fire-breathing religious wacko who played a significant part in your downfall. Is that how you truly see me and the way I related with you?
Personally, I believe that the dread of eternal hell and unpardonable sin was something you just got hold of and ran with. The play you went to probably was a significant factor, but was I truly someone who was nurturing and fostering these ideas and fears within you? We probably need to talk this stuff over.
Love ya, kid.