What a childhood fairy tale reveals about social conformity, the fear of judgment, and learning to trust our own intuition.
Have you ever known something wasn’t right but stayed silent because everyone around you seemed to believe otherwise?
Maybe you’ve ignored warning signs in a relationship because everyone told you how wonderful the person was. Or perhaps you’ve found yourself agreeing with something at work, in your family, or in your religious community, even though deep down, you questioned whether it was true.
Why are we so afraid to speak up when something doesn’t feel right?
In this week’s episode of Know Thy Soul, we’re revisiting Hans Christian Andersen’s classic fairy tale, The Emperor’s New Clothes.
Most of us remember the story. Two swindlers convince an emperor that they’ve woven the most magnificent fabric imaginable, but there’s a catch. The fabric is invisible to anyone who is foolish or unfit for their position.
Of course, there’s no fabric at all.
Yet the emperor, his officials, and eventually an entire kingdom pretend to admire clothes that don’t exist. Not because they can’t see the truth, but because they’re terrified of what might happen if they admit it.
Until a child finally speaks up.
The emperor isn’t wearing anything.
As children, we laugh at the foolishness of the adults. But as we grow older, we begin to recognize something uncomfortable about this story.
We do this too.
We go along with the crowd. We accept beliefs we’ve never examined. We ignore our intuition because acknowledging what we know might mean disappointing someone, challenging authority, or changing something in our lives.
And sometimes, in our efforts to fit in, we become so accustomed to denying our own perceptions that we begin losing touch with our inner knowing altogether.
In this episode, we explore the psychology of social conformity, the dangers of blind obedience, and the surprising connections between the emperor, impostor syndrome, and the wounded masculine we’ve encountered in earlier stories.
We also consider what the child might teach us about trusting ourselves and why questioning what we’ve been taught can be an essential part of our spiritual journey.
Because perhaps the most important question isn’t why an entire kingdom pretended the emperor was wearing clothes.
It’s where in our own lives are we doing the same thing?
Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Youtube or your favorite streaming platform, or click below:
Mentioned in this episode:
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The Emperor’s New Clothes — Hans Christian Andersen (1837)
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The Handless Maiden — Brothers Grimm
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Perceval — The Grail legend
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Dame Ragnell — The Wedding of Sir Gawain and Dame Ragnelle
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Tao Te Ching — Lao Tzu
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Matthew 18:3 — Becoming like little children
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Matthew 7:7 — Seek and you shall find
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Proverbs 25:2 — The glory of God to conceal a matter
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Acts 17:10–12 — The Bereans examining scripture
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1 Thessalonians 5:21 — Test everything; hold fast to what is good
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Proverbs 14:15 — The simple believe anything
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Robert Jay Lifton — Psychiatrist; the concept of sacred science
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Cognitive dissonance — Psychological discomfort caused by conflicting beliefs
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Social conformity — The pressure to agree with the crowd
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Impostor syndrome — Fear of being exposed as inadequate
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Adolf Hitler and Nazi Germany — Conformity and obedience to authority
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Adam and Eve — Genesis 2–3
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The full episode transcript is below.
Hi Friends,
Welcome to Know Thy Soul, where we explore the stories, symbols, and truths that help us have eyes to see.
If you’ve been following this podcast from the beginning, you probably know that I’ve been pretty intentional about the stories we’ve explored and the order we’ve explored them in.
We’ve spent a lot of time with stories like The Handless Maiden, Perceval, and Dame Ragnell. And one of the things I love about those stories is that for most of us, they are new. Many might have heard them for the first time on this podcast, so we don’t listen to them with closed eyes and ears, already thinking we know what they mean.
When we listen to a new story, we can just listen and allow it to shape us.
But in the next few episodes, we’re about to move into much more familiar territory. Into stories that carry centuries of assumptions, interpretations, and beliefs about what they mean.
And before we do that, I wanted to tell you one more story.
You’ve probably heard it before. In fact, you may think you already know exactly what it means.
I know I did.
It’s The Emperor’s New Clothes.
The Emperor’s New Clothes was published by Hans Christian Andersen in 1837, but Andersen actually borrowed the basic story from a much older Spanish tale written about five hundred years earlier.
So let’s take another look at this childhood classic, this time through fresh, adult eyes.
Chapter: The Emperor’s New Clothes.
Long ago, there lived an Emperor who absolutely loved clothes. And when I say loved clothes, I mean this man was obsessed. He spent nearly all of his money on them.
He wasn’t particularly interested in his soldiers, and he didn’t care much about going to the theater or hunting either, unless, of course, it gave him another opportunity to show off something new. He had a different outfit for every hour of the day.
And while people might say of another ruler, “The king is sitting in council,” in this kingdom, everyone joked, “The Emperor is sitting in his wardrobe.”
Now, the Emperor lived in a large and bustling city where travelers were constantly coming and going. And one day, two strangers arrived claiming to be weavers.
Except they weren’t weavers at all. They were con men.
They claimed they could weave the most magnificent fabric imaginable, with beautiful colors and elaborate patterns. But this fabric had one very unusual quality.
It was supposedly invisible to anyone who was unfit for the position they held, or who was simply a fool.
Now imagine you’re the Emperor and someone tells you this. He immediately thought, These clothes would be incredible.
Not only would he have the most magnificent outfit in the entire kingdom, but he could use it to figure out which of his officials were actually fit for their positions. And he would finally be able to tell who was wise and who was foolish.
So the Emperor paid the two men an enormous amount of money and told them to get to work immediately.
The men set up two looms and pretended to weave, even though there was absolutely nothing on them. They asked for the finest silk and the purest gold thread they could get their hands on, stuffed it all into their own bags, and then continued pretending to work at their empty looms late into the night.
After some time had passed, the Emperor began wondering how the fabric was coming along. He wanted to go see it for himself, but then he remembered the catch.
Anyone who was foolish or unfit for their position wouldn’t be able to see it.
Now, of course, the Emperor was quite certain that he wasn’t a fool. And surely he was fit to be Emperor. But still, he decided it might be better to send someone else to check on the weavers first.
By this point, word about the remarkable fabric had spread throughout the entire city. Everyone had heard that anyone who was foolish or unfit for their position wouldn’t be able to see it.
And naturally, everyone was very curious to find out just how wise, or foolish, their neighbors might turn out to be.
After thinking about it for a while, the Emperor decided to send his faithful old minister to check on the weavers first. He trusted him completely. He was sensible, experienced, and as far as the Emperor was concerned, there was no one better suited for his position.
So the old minister went to the hall where the two men were supposedly hard at work. And there they were, moving back and forth around their looms, working away as though they were weaving the most magnificent fabric in the world.
There was just one problem.
The looms were completely empty.
The minister stared at them. He opened his eyes wide and looked again, but no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t see a single thread.
What is going on? he thought. I can’t see anything.
But he didn’t dare say that out loud.
The two weavers invited him to come closer. They pointed to the empty looms and began asking him what he thought of the beautiful pattern. Weren’t the colors magnificent? Had he ever seen anything quite like it?
The poor minister looked and looked. But of course he couldn’t see anything, because there was nothing there.
And that’s when he started to panic.
Could I actually be a fool? he wondered. He had certainly never thought so before. And worse, what if he wasn’t actually fit for his position?
He couldn’t let anyone know that.
So when one of the weavers finally asked, “Well, Sir Minister, what do you think? Don’t you like it?” the minister knew exactly what he had to say.
“Oh, it’s excellent,” he said, peering through his spectacles at the empty loom. “The pattern, the colors. It’s absolutely beautiful.”
The weavers were delighted. They began describing all the different colors and intricate details of the pattern, and the minister listened very carefully so he could repeat every word of it to the Emperor.
And that is exactly what he did.
Meanwhile, the weavers asked for even more silk and gold so they could finish the fabric. And once again, they stuffed everything they were given into their own bags and went right back to pretending to weave.
After a while, the Emperor sent another trusted official to see how things were coming along and whether the cloth was nearly finished.
And exactly the same thing happened.
The man walked into the room, looked at the looms from every possible angle, and couldn’t see a thing.
I know I’m not stupid, he thought. So does this mean I’m not fit for my position?
That couldn’t possibly be true. And even if it was, he certainly wasn’t going to let anyone else find out.
So he praised the fabric too.
He told the weavers how much he loved the colors and the pattern, and when he returned to the Emperor, he assured him that the cloth was absolutely magnificent.
By now, the entire city was talking about the Emperor’s extraordinary new clothes.
And finally, the Emperor decided it was time to see the fabric for himself.
He gathered a group of his most trusted officials, including the two men who had already claimed to have seen the cloth, and together they made their way to the weavers.
As soon as the two impostors heard that the Emperor was coming, they began working harder than ever.
Their hands moved quickly over the looms. They adjusted threads that weren’t there and examined patterns that didn’t exist.
And still, not a single thread passed through those empty looms.
When the Emperor arrived, the two officials who had already seen the fabric were quick to point it out.
“Isn’t it magnificent, Your Majesty? Look at the design. Look at those incredible colors.”
And of course, they were pointing at completely empty looms.
The Emperor looked. And looked again. He couldn’t see a thing. This is terrible, he thought. Am I a fool? Am I not fit to be Emperor?
That would be the worst thing imaginable.
So instead of admitting what he actually saw, the Emperor smiled and said, “Oh, it’s beautiful. I completely approve.”
And with that, everyone else crowded around the looms and stared at the exact same nothing.
But no one was willing to admit it.
“Oh, it’s beautiful,” they said. “Magnificent. Charming. Excellent.”
In fact, they told the Emperor that fabric this extraordinary simply had to be made into a new suit for the upcoming procession.
And suddenly everyone was celebrating something that not one of them could actually see.
The Emperor was so pleased that he rewarded the two impostors, even giving them the title of “Gentlemen Weavers.”
The night before the procession, the two men stayed up all night pretending to finish the Emperor’s new clothes. They had sixteen lights burning so everyone could see just how hard they were working.
They pretended to take the cloth off the looms. They cut through the air with their scissors and sewed with needles that had no thread.
And finally they announced, “The Emperor’s new clothes are ready!”
The Emperor arrived with his court, and the two men lifted their arms as though they were holding up the different pieces of his new suit.
“Here are your trousers. Here is your scarf. And here is your mantle.”
They told him the fabric was as light as a cobweb. In fact, it was so delicate that when you wore it, it almost felt as though you weren’t wearing anything at all.
“Yes, indeed,” the courtiers agreed.
Even though, once again, none of them could see a thing.
Then the weavers asked the Emperor to remove his clothes so they could dress him in his new suit in front of the mirror.
So the Emperor undressed, and the two men went through the motions of dressing him in clothes that didn’t exist.
The Emperor turned from side to side in front of the mirror, pretending to admire himself.
And his court couldn’t praise him enough.
“How splendid His Majesty looks! What a beautiful design. What incredible colors. These are truly royal robes.”
Finally, the master of ceremonies announced that the canopy for the procession was waiting.
“I am ready,” the Emperor said.
But before leaving, he turned around one more time in front of the mirror, pretending to examine how beautifully his new clothes fit.
Even the men whose job it was to carry the long train of his mantle bent down and felt around on the floor, pretending to pick it up. They couldn’t admit there was nothing there either, because then everyone would think they were foolish or unfit for their positions.
And so the procession began.
The Emperor walked through the streets beneath a great canopy, completely naked, while the people lining the streets and watching from their windows praised his magnificent new clothes.
“Oh, how beautiful!”
“Look at the Emperor’s magnificent train!”
“Look how gracefully the scarf hangs!”
No one wanted to admit that they couldn’t see the clothes, because admitting it would mean admitting that they were either a fool or unfit for whatever position they held.
And then, from somewhere in the crowd, came the voice of a little child.
“But the Emperor doesn’t have anything on.”
The child’s father heard him and said, “Listen to the voice of innocence.”
And then something began to happen.
The child’s words moved quietly through the crowd, from one person to another.
“The Emperor doesn’t have anything on.” (whisper)
Until finally, the whispers became voices.
“But he doesn’t have anything on!”
And suddenly, everyone was saying it.
The Emperor knew they were right.
But by then, he decided the procession had to go on.
So he kept walking.
And behind him, the members of his court held their heads high and continued pretending to carry the long train of a mantle that had never been there at all.
The End
CHAPTER Why We Follow the Crowd
At first glance, it seems impossible.
How could an entire kingdom pretend not to see something so obvious?
How could the ministers, the noblemen, the emperor himself, all convince themselves that clothing existed where there was none?
As children, we laugh at the story because it seems ridiculous.
As adults, we think, oh shit, and begin to realize that it may be describing us.
Not because we have ever admired an invisible suit of clothes. But because all of us have inherited ideas, beliefs, customs, and assumptions that we rarely stop to question.
We assume something is true because everyone around us believes it. We assume something is right because it has always been done that way. We assume something must have value because important people tell us that it does, even though internally, we know these things not to be true.
And little by little, we begin abandoning our own inner knowing to fit in.
Each person sees the truth, but looks around and sees everyone else pretending and is terrified as being seen as a simple or stupid. And so they pretend too.
And that may be the deepest lesson hidden inside this story.
The danger isn’t obedience. The danger is losing contact with your own experience. The danger is becoming so dependent on the crowd, the authority, or the accepted story that you no longer trust what you can plainly see.
The Tao Te Ching suggests that the healthiest societies are not those with the most control, but those filled with people who have learned to govern themselves. People who live from an inner compass. People who can trust what they see. People who can stand apart from the crowd long enough to ask a simple question: Is this actually true?
And then comes the child. The same one Jesus calls us to emulate in Matthew 18:3 where he says “Unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.”
The only person in the story who is able to see clearly and hasn’t yet learned the rules of fitting in. Not because he is smarter. Not because he is braver. But because he has not yet learned to distrust his own eyes. He looks. He sees. And he says what is true. The emperor has no clothes.
So perhaps the question to ask ourselves is this: Where am I holding onto a story that isn’t there?
We like to imagine we would be the child in this story. But if we’re honest, most of us have probably been both the child and the crowd.
Have you ever stayed silent in a meeting because everyone else seemed to agree? Have you ever watched your friends mistreat someone and knew they were being unfair, but went along anyway? Have you ever laughed at a joke that wasn’t funny, or was even offensive, because everyone around you was laughing?
I remember speaking with a woman about her religion. When I asked her about one particular belief, she paused and said, “I don’t know. I’d have to look up what we believe.” Think about that for a moment. Not what *I* believe. What *we* believe.
Have you ever remained in a relationship, a job, or a situation long after you knew something wasn’t right because everyone around you told you it was?
I have a friend going through a horrific divorce. Looking back, she told me she had seen the warning signs from the very beginning. She watched the way he treated other people. She watched what happened when someone crossed him. And she remembers thinking, “I’m just glad I’m not the one fighting him.” She saw it. But like so many of us, she found a way not to see it.
Have you ever believed something simply because it was what your family believed, your church believed, your political party believed, or your community believed? Have you ever accepted an interpretation because it was repeated so often that it felt unquestionable?
Throughout history, questioning accepted stories has often come with a cost, a cost that could end in death. It is far easier to repeat what everyone else is saying than to stand apart from the crowd and ask whether it is true.
Have you ever been told that one group of people is somehow closer to God than another? That one gender is superior to the other? That one was created to lead while the other was created to follow?
Most of us inherit ideas like these long before we ever examine the stories for ourselves. We assume they must be there because everyone around us says they are. But have you ever gone back and really looked?
Not at what someone told you the story says. Not at what your tradition says it says. Not at what you’ve heard repeated your entire life. The story itself.
CHAPTER Scripture Invites Us to Question
I’m not here to tell you what to believe. I’m inviting you to ask the question. To seek. Just as Jesus called us to do.
The book of Proverbs says: “It is the glory of God to conceal a matter; to search out a matter is the glory of kings.”
And in the book of Acts, the Bereans (Buh-REE-uns) were considered more noble than others because they did not simply accept what they were taught. They listened. They questioned. And they searched the scriptures daily to see whether these things were so.
In fact, this idea appears in many places throughout scripture.
Paul writes: “Test everything. Hold fast to what is good.”
Notice he doesn’t say to accept everything. He doesn’t say to believe everything. He says to test it. Examine it. See whether it is true.
And Proverbs 14:15 says: “The simple believe anything, but the prudent give thought to their steps.”
The simple accept whatever they are told. Isn’t that exactly what is happening in the Emperors story?
The prudent stop and look. They question. They discern. They seek.
CHAPTER The Dangers of Blind Obedience
And before we go any further, I want to tell you something about everything I share on this podcast.
I’m not here to start a religion, or to tell you what you should believe about God. I’m simply sharing a perspective that has profoundly changed my life, my relationship with myself, and my relationship with God.
And the last thing I want is for you to unquestionably follow me.
I want you to challenge me. I want you to ask questions. I want you to seek for yourself, because I am a relentless seeker of truth, and one of the things I’ve come to believe is that the more sincerely we seek, the more we discover.
As Jesus said, seek and you shall find.
Which brings me to something else I’ve been thinking about.
Why is it that some people, and some organizations, work so hard to discourage us from asking questions? Why do they demand absolute obedience, or make us feel that questioning their teachings means there’s something wrong with us?
Because if what they’re teaching is true, shouldn’t they welcome our questions? Wouldn’t inquiry simply help reveal that truth more fully?
And there’s actually some fascinating psychology behind this.
Psychiatrist Robert Jay Lifton studied how people become caught up in systems of thought that discourage independent thinking. He identified something he called the sacred science, which happens when a group’s beliefs are treated as unquestionable truth, and challenging them becomes almost a moral offense.
There’s also something called cognitive dissonance. When we encounter information that contradicts something we deeply believe, it creates psychological discomfort. And sometimes, rather than reconsidering what we believe, we reject the information.
Especially when our identity, our relationships, or our place in a community depends on those beliefs.
And then there’s our tendency to conform to the people around us, particularly when someone in authority is telling us what to think or do.
We’ve seen the devastating consequences of these dynamics throughout history.
Think about Nazi Germany and how Hitler was able to gain support and obedience from so many people. There were many forces at work, including propaganda, antisemitism, economic desperation, fear, and the promise of restoring national pride. But social pressure and obedience to authority also played important roles.
Some people genuinely believed what they were being told. Others went along because they were afraid, because they benefited, or because everyone around them seemed to be doing the same thing.
And that’s something I find so troubling about human nature. We can become so concerned with belonging, with being accepted, or with obeying authority that we stop questioning what we’re participating in.
Of course, these dynamics don’t only exist in governments. We see them in religious institutions, organizations, families, and even our personal relationships.
Throughout history, religious authorities have sometimes imprisoned, tortured, and even executed people for challenging established teachings.
And I find myself wondering, what exactly were they protecting?
Was it God? Was it truth? Or was it their authority to tell everyone else what the truth was?
And I think that’s where we need to return to the Emperor.
Because here’s what I find so fascinating about this story. The swindlers didn’t have to threaten anyone. They didn’t have to force people to pretend the fabric existed.
They simply made people afraid of what it would mean if they couldn’t see it.
And once that fear took hold, the people began policing themselves. Nobody even needed to tell them to lie anymore.
They were so afraid of what others might think that they abandoned what they could see with their own eyes.
And perhaps that’s the question we need to ask ourselves.
Where in our own lives have we been taught that asking questions is dangerous? Where have we mistaken obedience for goodness, or conformity for truth?
And what might we discover if we allowed ourselves to look again?
And that’s what The Emperor’s New Clothes invites us to do. Something many of us were never taught to do.
To look for ourselves. To question what we’ve been told. And to develop eyes to see and ears to hear.
And perhaps that’s the question we need to ask ourselves.
Where in our own lives have we been taught that asking questions is dangerous? Where have we mistaken obedience for goodness, or conformity for truth?
And what might we discover if we allowed ourselves to look again?
And that’s what The Emperor’s New Clothes invites us to do. Something many of us were never taught to do. To look for ourselves. To question what we’ve been told. And to develop eyes to see and ears to hear.
And perhaps that’s what all of these stories have been teaching us from the beginning.
How to grow our hands back. How to lay down the armor. How to ask the questions. How to bring back into balance what has been pushed aside.
And how to recognize naked emperors everywhere, especially, in ourselves.
Think about the moment each person looks at those empty looms and realizes there’s nothing there. That’s the inner maiden speaking. The part of us that knows something isn’t right, even when everyone around us insists otherwise.
But she’s still handless. Her knowing is intact, but she’s lost the ability to act on it.
And then we see the wounded masculine, so concerned with maintaining appearances, protecting his position, and being seen as worthy that he denies the very truth his inner maiden is trying to show him.
And doesn’t this remind you of something we see in impostor syndrome? That fear of being found out, of someone discovering that we’re not as capable, knowledgeable, or worthy as everyone thinks we are?
And here’s the irony. In their desperate attempt to avoid being exposed as impostors, they actually become impostors. They pretend to see something they cannot see, because admitting the truth feels more dangerous than living a lie.
And here’s something else I find fascinating. They’re not just deceiving everyone around them. They’re deceiving themselves.
Because every time they deny what they see, every time they pretend to believe something they know isn’t true, they’re teaching themselves to distrust their own perceptions.
And I wonder how often we do this in our own lives. How often do we convince ourselves that something is fine when deep down we know it isn’t? How often do we ignore that quiet voice within us because acknowledging what it’s telling us would mean having to change something?
And that might be the greatest danger of all. Not simply that we lose the courage to tell others the truth, but that we become so accustomed to denying our own knowing that we can barely hear it anymore.
This is the armored life we explored in Perceval. A life disconnected from our own inner world, where our sense of worth comes from what we accomplish, how others perceive us, and the image we present to the world.
And the more energy we spend protecting that image, the harder it becomes to recognize what’s actually happening within us.
And then comes the child. The one who hasn’t yet learned to separate what he knows from what he’s willing to say. His inner world matches his outer one.
And this is why I believe these stories are so important. Because they aren’t simply stories about emperors, knights, kings, or maidens. They’re stories about the different parts of ourselves, and what happens when those parts become disconnected.
They give us a way to recognize our own wounds, to understand the patterns playing out in our lives, and perhaps most importantly, to begin bringing those disconnected parts of ourselves back together.
That’s what it means to know thy soul.
And over the next several weeks, we’re going to revisit what is arguably the most influential story in Western civilization, and perhaps one of the most weaponized stories in the Bible: the story of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden.
For thousands of years, interpretations of this story have shaped how we understand ourselves, our relationship with God, and especially the place of women in the world.
They’ve been used to justify the idea that women are responsible for humanity’s fall, that they’re somehow less trustworthy, less capable, and ultimately subordinate to men.
But what if there’s something in this story we’ve been overlooking all along?
What if we were willing to set aside everything we think we know about this story and look again, this time with eyes to see, with the eyes of the child?
And what if, this time, we’re finally willing to call out the naked emperor for what he is?
Until next time, my friends.
May you know thy soul.
It already knows the way.
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