9/26/2025
From the beginning, Satan has sought to enslave humanity through deception. His weapons of choice have often not been brute force or obvious attacks, but subtle deception, half-truths, and outright lies repeated over and over again until they are believed.
The scriptures affirm that he is the “father of lies,”¹ who deceives the nations.² His strategy is not merely to tempt individuals with sin, but to distort their very framework of thought—to convince people that bondage is freedom, indulgence is joy, and darkness is light.³
The primary battleground between good and evil has always been the mind. What you think, how you think, what you desire, and where you place your focus and attention are everything! Your focus determines your perceived reality. And so, Satan does his best to monopolize your attention and desires to conform to his beliefs and desires, which are false.
It is important to understand that much of Satan’s knowledge is actually quite accurate. This gives him great power because he has almost infinitely more knowledge than we do, because he is a being of spirit with a mind that thinks deeply and multidimensionally. And his knowledge and understanding of the universe is intergalactically vast. If this doesn’t scare you, it should.
What Satan believes, though, is another matter entirely. He believes many of the lies he tells, which for him are not lies, per se, but just half-truths. He rationalizes dishonesty because, in his amoral lexicon, the end 100% justifies the means.
Most religious people do not realize that Satan, too, works within the confines of what might be called a moral framework; his rules and morals are just different than ours. He understands better than most of us that without laws there can be no order; and without some semblance of order, nothing can thrive and no power can dominate, not even his. This is reflected within the Satanic order that rules the Satanic networks of power that control or manipulate so much of what happens in this world.
And so, we see that Satan, devils, and demons are not just mindless wraiths that madly or uncontrollably spread darkness and destruction throughout the world. They are insanely methodical. And in many ways, they are far more rational than we are. The difference is that they use their genius for evil, not good.
The rulers of darkness and evil are masters of the mind who manipulate, deceive, dominate, and control. That is their game.
They understand that fundamentally, we all want hope! We all yearn for a better world, one that brings more happiness, peace, and a clear path to achieving what might be called `real joy.’ And so, the carrot on the stick is what he claims is the better way to get there. However, the prophets emphatically warn us that his better way is complete fantasy, a dangerous façade, a lake of quicksand that will swallow us whole into the maw of doom.
To counter this, we need to learn to see reality as God sees reality. We need to learn to think as God thinks. And we need to evaluate value as God evaluates value. And lucky for us, He has given us many scriptures, teachings, and commandments to help us do this.
As we learn to see reality and evaluate value for what it really is, Satan’s lies, deceptions, and temptations completely lose their hold over us.
The Lies of the World
The world, under Satan’s dominion, preaches that happiness comes from self-indulgence—wealth, lust, power, pride, and all forms of self-aggrandizement and gratification. Yet the prophets warn that such pursuits are ultimately empty.
King Benjamin declared: “The natural man is an enemy to God, and has been from the fall of Adam, and will be, forever and ever, unless he yields to the enticings of the Holy Spirit.”⁴ The Holy Spirit inspires you to pursue real value. The Holy Spirit inspires you to pursue that goodness that brings the best value, benefit, and outcome, now and in eternity.
The adversary inspires the pursuit of instant gratification, short-term benefit, and counterfeit gain. Thus, the adversary binds humanity “with a flaxen cord, until he bindeth them with his strong cords forever.”⁵
Even when worldly success is attained, it brings no lasting fulfillment. Solomon testified after attaining wealth, wisdom, and pleasure: “All is vanity and vexation of spirit.”⁶ The Book of Mormon echoes the futility of worldliness, warning against those who proclaim: “Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die.”⁷
Perhaps the starkest reality we really need to face in connection with Satan’s temptations to seek after pleasure is the reality that whatever we get, it is never enough; and besides, for most of us, most of what we carnally desire, is not even physically possible anyway!
To lust is to seek what is not supplied by reality. So what’s the point?
Worldly entertainments and pleasures do not last. They are empty. And for most of us, most of what the world offers is out of reach anyway. So, it’s time to get real and live an authentic life, one that produces genuine and lasting joy.
The Deception of Carnal Happiness
Satan’s great lie is that indulgence equals happiness. He whispers that God’s teachings are hateful, His commandments are chains that keep us from the happiness we seek, that restraint is repression, and that yielding to the flesh is liberation.
Alma warned: “Wickedness never was happiness.”⁸ That is the reality.
Paul drew the same contrast when he said, “The works of the flesh are manifest… adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness… drunkenness, revellings… they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God.”⁹ Those who do not inherit the Kingdom of God are damned. They are miserable forever, or until such time as they repent.
By contrast, “the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith.”¹⁰ This fruit is enjoyed only by those who actually live the Gospel of Jesus Christ, not just by talking about it.
This inversion is satanic at its core: slavery marketed as freedom, misery sold as joy, and rebellion paraded as liberation and progression. The Book of Mormon repeatedly portrays societies that indulged in such deceptions, only to collapse into destruction.¹¹
The Path of Christ: Truth and Liberation
Against the backdrop of deception, Jesus Christ offers freedom. He declared: “If ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed; and ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.”²¹ His invitation is not to indulgence but to transformation: “If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me.”²²
Through the Atonement, we are not bound forever to sin or to darkness. Alma the Younger testified of his redemption after being “racked with eternal torment.”²³ He found relief in Christ and proclaimed: “My soul hath been redeemed from the gall of bitterness and bonds of iniquity.”²⁴ Jacob explained that God’s plan is liberty, not bondage: “Men are free to choose liberty and eternal life… or to choose captivity and death, according to the captivity and power of the devil.”²⁵
Liberation, peace, and joy come only through faith in Jesus Christ, repentance, and doing the best you know how to do. Learning how to live that faith through repentance and diligence requires great mental and emotional effort and discipline.
Satan’s purpose is to confuse us, distract us, disable us, and prevent us from making the effort required to fully align with Christ, cease from sin, and be truly filled with the Holy Ghost. This is evident by the false belief by most that it is impossible to cease from sin; it isn’t. If it were, God would have told us so, and He would not have commanded us to repent and to cease from sin. See: John 8:11, D&C 6:35, 24:2, 29:3, 82:7, 97:27.
As stated in other essays, Satan has found great success in hijacking the agency of many with cult practices combined with cult methods of mind control. These principalities and powers of darkness are directed at us from all aspects of life: governments, religion, technologies, cultures, and societal norms. Within all of these, we find institutional and societal instruments of psychological warfare against the human mind, conscience, and agency.
Practical Resistance to Satan’s Control
The scriptures prescribe concrete means of resisting and breaking free from the instruments of satanic mind control. They are as follows:
- We must learn to think, reason, and discern truth from error.
- We must learn to think and reason for ourselves, not outsourcing or depending on others to do the thinking for us.
- We must become men and women of great faith and initiative. We must learn to always do what God gives us ample reason to do by shunning sin and always doing what we sincerely believe is best. We must always be found doing good, which is to do that which has the best long-term value, benefit, and outcome.
- We must learn to discern and detect counterfeit gospel teachings, false prophets, and satanic control mechanisms that operate within the institutions and social structures in our lives.
- We are to fill our minds and hearts with the word of God by engaging in daily scripture study and prayer.
- We are to submit entirely to the will of God. We are to adopt as our own the purposes of God in our lives, conforming in every way to His ways, keeping all of His commandments, repenting in all things, and following the will of God in all things, with all our hearts.
- We must each learn to serve and follow Jesus Christ directly, with no middleman or intermediary between us and Him. We must each learn to operate by direct faith in Him, being led in all things by direct inspiration and revelation from Him.
Conclusion
Satan’s methods of deception are neither new nor unique. His strategies echo the manipulation tactics of cults and tyrants. But while Satan promises freedom, he delivers slavery; while he offers pleasure, he yields despair. Jesus Christ, by contrast, offers truth, transformation, peace, and eternal joy. The opportunity offered to each of us is clear: “Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free.”³² The battle for the mind is, in reality, the battle for the soul. Those who discern the lies, resist the cult-like tactics of the adversary, and embrace Christ will find joy beyond measure. For “the truth shall make you free.”³³
References
1. John 8:44
2. Revelation 12:9
3. 2 Nephi 15:20
4. Mosiah 3:19
5. 2 Nephi 26:22
6. Ecclesiastes 1:14
7. 2 Nephi 28:7
8. Alma 41:10
9. Galatians 5:19–21
10. Galatians 5:22
11. Helaman 12:2–3; Ether 11:7
12. 1 John 4:18
13. Mosiah 27:24
14. 1 Corinthians 6:18–19
15. Jacob 2:28
16. 2 Corinthians 4:4
17. 2 Timothy 4:3–4
18. Matthew 22:37
19. 1 Peter 1:7
20. Helaman 5:12
21. John 8:31–32
22. Matthew 16:24
23. Alma 36:12
24. Alma 36:18
25. 2 Nephi 2:27
26. Romans 12:2
27. Galatians 1:6–9
28. Alma 36
29. Hebrews 10:25
30. 1 John 4:18
31. Ephesians 6:10–18
32. Galatians 5:1
33. John 8:32
Related Essays:
PSYOP Recognition and Resistance
Elements of a Cult – An Introduction
The Deep State’s PSYOP Toolkit – Scheduled 9/25/205
GREATER LIGHT AND TRUTH 
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