Synopsis
These excerpts from Faber’s Spiritual Conferences explain self-deceit, its varieties, characteristics, and remedies – the highest corrective being to serve God out of personal love.
About the Author(s)
Frederick William Faber (1814-1863) came from a long line of clergymen. While studying at Oxford, Faber befriended William Wordsworth, who became a lifelong influence. Incidentally, Faber also figured as the Reverend Aubrey St. Lys in Disraeli’s Sybil. His real life ecclesiastic career was novel in its own way. At age thirty-one, Faber left the Church of England for the Catholic Church. There, he started the Brothers of the Will of God of the Congregation of St. Wilfrid or the “Wilfridians.” Faber wrote eight religious treatises and a number of popular hymns in the vernacular. His treatise Self Deceit addressed the tendency to lose sight of God through narcissism. The concept of self-deception appealed to Friends such as Pamphlet Editor Gilbert Kilpack because it related to a concern familiar to Friends in the late 1940s and early 1950s: the relationship between religion and psychology. Pope Pius IX awarded Faber a doctorate of divinity in 1854. Faber died in 1863.
Pendle Hill Pamphlet #50
