When Someone Else's Opinion Feels Like Reality: Breaking Free from Mental Manipulation
You know that feeling when someone else's version of you feels more real than your own? When their narrative about what's wrong with you starts playing on repeat in your head? When you can't tell anymore where their voice ends and yours begins?
That's not you being weak. That's actually what this week's Bible lesson is about—just with a really weird title.
"Ancient and Modern Necromancy, alias Mesmerism and Hypnotism, Denounced" sounds like it belongs in a Victorian séance, but it's talking about something painfully current: the illusion that someone else's thoughts, opinions, or energy can have power over your reality.
The lesson isn't about literal hypnosis. It's about this: What if the only real power is Truth, and everything that opposes truth—manipulation, gaslighting, false narratives, mental control—is just noise claiming authority it doesn't actually have?
We've all felt it. The boss whose mood determines your entire day. The relationship where their version of reality somehow became the official story. The family member whose disapproval feels like a physical force. The cultural narrative that tells you you're broken and need fixing.
These things feel powerful. They feel real. But what if they're only powerful because we're giving them airtime?
The Bible lesson keeps saying: evil has no intelligence, no reality, no power. It can't create anything. It can only destroy itself. That sounds abstract until you realize it's talking about lies.
Lies can't build. They can only tear down. And they eventually expose themselves because they're not based on anything real.
The Jesus Example:
There's a story in the lesson about Jesus healing a woman who'd been bent over for eighteen years. The text says "Satan bound her"—which sounds dramatic until you translate it. She'd been imprisoned by a false belief about her limitations. For eighteen years.
Jesus didn't fight the "demon." He simply told the truth: "Woman, you are set free." And immediately she stood up straight.
Not because he overpowered some dark force. Because he recognized the lie had zero authority, and she heard him.
Your Mental Real Estate:
Here's the thing nobody tells you: you get to decide what has authority in your mind. Not your circumstances. Not other people's opinions. Not even what feels overwhelmingly true in the moment.
When you start recognizing that manipulation, fear, and false narratives are just... thoughts with zero backing, zero substance, zero actual power unless you agree with them—everything changes.
That doesn't mean you won't encounter them. You will. Constantly. The world is full of voices trying to tell you who you are, what's wrong with you, what you should fear.
But you don't have to give them a lease in your brain.
Next time someone's version of you feels more real than your own, try this:
Ask yourself: Is this based on Truth (capital T), or is this just someone's story that I'm temporarily believing?
That person who says you're too much, too sensitive, not enough? That's their story. It has exactly as much power as you give it.
The diagnosis that feels like a life sentence? That's matter talking, not Truth.
The family pattern that says you're doomed to repeat history? That's a belief, not a law.
The societal narrative that you're inherently broken and need fixing? That's the oldest con in the book.
You're not fighting external forces. You're recognizing which voices actually have authority—and which ones are just loud.
God/Truth/Love (whatever word works for you) is the only power. Everything else is just error claiming to be something it isn't. And error destroys itself. You don't even have to fight it. You just have to stop agreeing with it.
The Invitation:
So here's the question: What false power are you currently negotiating with that you could simply... stop believing?
Not through willpower. Not through positive thinking. But by recognizing it never had any substance to begin with.
That's the work. That's the freedom.
