Doug Tales 71: Competence, Part One

Conquering spiritual evil in a competent way is a skill. It is partly an intellectual concept, but even more something learned in the conscious doing. Doug Mendenhall used various analogies of learning skills in his writings. He returned to the skill of competence and awareness again and again, as summarized in I See…Awake! (2015), pp. 34-35:

How do we process new information? There are four steps:

1. Unconscious Incompetence: Don’t know you don’t know.

2. Conscious Incompetence: Know you don’t know.

3. Conscious Competence: Know that you know.

4. Unconscious Competence: You know and it happens automatically, like being on auto pilot.

Tying a shoelace demonstrates all four steps:

1. When you are one year old, you don’t know that you don’t know about shoe laces and tying them.

2. You are now two years old and see others tying shoe laces so now you know you don’t know.

3. You are four, and mom has taught you how. With effort you can do it and know that you know.

4. You are ten, and can tie your shoe laces without even thinking about it—it is automatic. You look down and see that your shoelace is untied, and you unconsciously reach down and tie it with no thought at all about the process.

Let’s take this to a gospel principle like keeping yourself free of dark entities:

1. You don’t know about them and they have free reign over you.

2. You find out about them but have not been taught what to do.

3. You get some knowledge and start casting out and shielding.

4. Unconsciously you cast out and shield; it has become automatic. You don’t even think about the process. You just do it when you feel the need; you are unconsciously competent.