293.-294.

293 – Watch the too indignantly righteous. Before long you will find them committing or condoning the very offence which they have so fiercely censured.

294 – “There is very little real hypocrisy among men.” True, but there is a great deal of diplomacy and still more of self-deceit. The last is of three varieties, conscious, subconscious and half-conscious; but the third is the most dangerous.

It seems to me that conscious self-deceit is the worst, isn’t it?

Conscious self-deceit is rare because it implies a great development of consciousness together with a perverted will to deceive, which leads to the most dangerous kind of falsehood; but it is perhaps also the easiest to cure, for the consciousness is already awakened and it only has to be made aware of its mistake and to take the decision to correct it in order to have the power to do so.

Others must first become conscious of what they are doing and this usually takes a long time.

21 January 1970