Psalms 36

When Hearts Deceive and Mercy Reigns: The Quiet Drama of Psalm 36

Read as a psychological map, Psalm 36 is not an account of people and places but a narrated inner crisis and its cure: a drama of consciousness where two currents contend — the low, self-serving intelligence that calls itself 'wicked' and the deep, restorative intelligence called 'LORD'. The passage stages these as states of mind, each with a geography of its own: the bed where mischief is devised, the heavens where mercy dwells, the great mountains of righteousness, the deep judgments, and the river of pleasure. Each image names an interior condition and shows how imagination shapes experience.

The Psalm opens with the voice of transgression speaking within the heart. This is the ego-speech that rationalizes harm: the little inner prosecutor who insists there is no accountability. Psychologically, 'there is no fear of God before his eyes' means the state that refuses reverence for the higher self. Fear of God in this language is not terror but the discipline of awe: an inner orientation toward the I AM that restrains destructive impulses. When a part of us flatters itself — 'he flattereth himself in his own eyes' — it is simply a self-concept feeding on its own reflection. This flattering creates a bubble of identity that will eventually burst when its iniquity is revealed. The phrase captures the narcissistic loop: the mind that admires only its own pattern until reality — imagination's consequences — expose its falsity.

'The words of his mouth are iniquity and deceit; he hath left off to be wise, and to do good.' Here the Psalmist describes the deterioration of inner counsel. To speak iniquity is to voice the stories that justify fear, scarcity, and blame. They are words birthed by lesser imagination, repeated until they harden into habits. 'Left off to be wise' indicates an abandonment of the inner Teacher: the willingness to consult only small senses instead of the stillness that knows. The 'mischief devised upon his bed' points to nocturnal imagination — the dreaming mind where fantasies take shape. The bed is the creative workshop of the subconscious; it can either ferment mischief or incubate healing. To 'set himself in a way that is not good' is to occupy and rehearse states that later outwardly manifest as life circumstances.

The Psalm then turns decisively. 'Thy mercy, O LORD, is in the heavens; and thy faithfulness reacheth unto the clouds.' This is a turn to higher imagination. The heavens are no longer far-off territory but the high, luminous states that are available within. Mercy and faithfulness are attributes of consciousness that when assumed, radiate outward. They are described as lofty because they transcend the small, reactive mind. 'Thy righteousness is like the great mountains; thy judgments are a great deep' — righteousness is stable, an inner axis around which life orders itself; judgments as the deep indicate the inexorable return of causal imagination. In these metaphors we see a principle: inner states of order and integrity produce an internal gravity that preserves and orients perception.

'O LORD, thou preservest man and beast.' The 'preserving' action indicates that imagination that identifies with the High Self sustains all internal images — both human and animal aspects of psyche. The 'beast' is appetite, instinct, raw drive; it too is held in the field of consciousness and transformed when bathed in higher regard. The Psalmist exults: 'How excellent is thy lovingkindness, O God! therefore the children of men put their trust under the shadow of thy wings.' This is a description of protection afforded by entering a state: placing attention under the shadow of wings means assuming the mood that shelters lesser feelings. Trust becomes an available action when one rests in that higher mood; it is an imaginal posture that alters perception.

'They shall be abundantly satisfied with the fatness of thy house; and thou shalt make them drink of the river of thy pleasures.' Here imagery becomes functional: abundance is not a ledger of things but a felt saturation provided by dwelling in the source-state. The 'house' is the inner abode of imagination; its fatness denotes richness of experience. Drinking from the river of pleasures means conforming attention to flows of joy and creative delight. The river is movement — imagination in action — and to drink is to allow this dynamic to permeate consciousness. This is the practical core of the Psalm: what you consistently imagine and feel supplies your living world.

'For with thee is the fountain of life: in thy light shall we see light.' The fountain is the originating imagination, the wellspring from which all subjective realities emerge. The 'light' is revelation, clarity, and understanding. When one lives from this fountain, perception itself clarifies — one sees less as external facts and more as reflective states. This statement reframes the purpose of spiritual practice: not to accumulate doctrine but to access the fountain so that seeing itself becomes the activity of aligned imagination.

The Psalm includes a petition: 'O continue thy lovingkindness unto them that know thee; and thy righteousness to the upright in heart.' Consciousness can petition itself. This is an intentional act: persist in the assumed state and allow the world of outward events to reconfigure. 'Let not the foot of pride come against me, and let not the hand of the wicked remove me.' Pride here is a subtle, dangerous state that mimics the higher self but is actually the ego in borrowed garments. The request is to be guarded against misidentifying with inflated selfhood and against the seductive tactics of the small mind that would steal the stable state. Pride 'coming against' the psalmist destabilizes the inner citadel; the remedy is vigilance in imagination and humility in feeling.

The final image is decisive: 'There are the workers of iniquity fallen: they are cast down, and shall not be able to rise.' This is not a prophecy about others; it is the inevitable collapse of miscreated states when the higher imagination is fully occupied. 'Workers of iniquity' are habitual thought-forms and feelings that prosper in neglect. When attention returns to the fountain, these forms lose their sustaining energy and dissolve. They 'shall not be able to rise' because their power rested solely on assumed attention. In the inner economy, what is upheld by light cannot stand in shadow; what is nourished by the fountain cannot endure in the drought of higher feeling.

Taken as a whole, Psalm 36 maps a method: identify the ego-voices that claim autonomy; trace their patterns (flattery, deceit, mischief on the bed of imagination); withdraw attention from their projects; turn deliberately to the higher qualities named LORD: mercy, faithfulness, righteousness, lovingkindness; dwell under that imaginal protection; drink from the river of pleasures; stand in the fountain of life. The Psalm is not passive piety but a staged practice in shaping consciousness. It tells us where the power resides — in imagination — and how moral transformation occurs — by reassigning the will to the higher mood.

This reading makes the Psalm intensely practical. The 'bed' becomes the nightly rehearsal: whatever one pictures before sleep seeds the next day. The 'heavens' are the morning practice: the chosen inner scenes one cultivates as the first orientation upon waking. The 'mountains' of righteousness are the disciplines that stabilize feeling; they do not function as moralistic rules but as anchored states (generosity, patience, integrity) that support creative imagining. The 'deep judgments' remind us that every imagined state carries consequence; imagination is not innocent but formative.

Finally, the Psalm affirms an optimistic psychology: redemption is not external rescue but an inner re-assumption of identity. The LORD here is the ground of being within the individual, and His attributes are qualities anyone can adopt by imagination. As the light of the fountain is allowed to shine, the false structures of pride and deceit collapse; satisfaction and preserving care become the felt experience. In practical terms: refuse the flattering inner narratives that excuse harm; notice what you rehearse in bed and replace those images with mercy and abundance; practice receiving — drink from the river — until the outer world mirrors the inner state. The 'workers of iniquity' fall, not by force but because they lose the attention that gave them life.

Psalm 36, then, is a manual for inner governance: it teaches how imagination creates reality, how states of mind are places we occupy, and how the creative power operating within human consciousness can be redirected from ruin to restoration. It invites a simple experiment — choose the higher picture, live from the fountain, and watch how the geography of your life reshapes itself accordingly.