Initial doubts may be sown with such websites as the skeptics guide to the bible, pointing out a host of human perceived contradictions. They may also come by a myriad of testimonies, witnesses, using the same language the saints are used to using but testifying that one knows by the Holy Spirit the scripture verse means something it does not and never has. It is good to remember in such cases that just because some other human claims revelation from the holy spirit does not mean it was so. Each of us is individually accountable to try the spirits, with direct access between us and God, where in a spirit of humble submissiveness we can know truth.
Parents: The natural human tendency of growing into adult hood is to put aside parental guidance. It becomes almost a right of passage, "well now I am grown, I need not listen to my parents anymore." Of course, Satan will magnify that natural feeling to seek to build a wall between the person and righteous parents. It must have always been so, since the scriptures are filled with admonitions to not disregard the righteous council of loving parents.
Here Satan uses false memory syndrome to cast doubt upon the parent’s righteousness. He focuses on the weakness or perceived failing of the parents, usually based on a few incidents in abject ignorance of a plethora of other righteous actions, and then convinces the child that since the parent was flawed, their council and teachings were also flawed and will always be flawed. The irony of that position is that it convinces a person to reject the council of parents based on the very weakness (flawed humanity) that plagues their own rise to becoming their private source of absolute truth. In other words, they reject parents because they are flawed humans and trust themselves, even though they are also flawed humans.
Personal Revelation: Since Personal revelation corrects all the reasoning of flawed humans and by sanctification overcomes the personal flaws of human flesh, it is a firm foundation that Satan hates. Since he cannot fake the spirit, no matter his mighty power to fool the flesh, he is at a loss in this arena and there remains to him only one avenue. That is to speak fear and doubt to the recipient of personal revelation, until he erodes their confidence in that feeling of the Holy Spirit. If he can cause doubt to get between the Holy Spirit and the recipient, then there is no other remedy for them. In that state all sources, (since the spirit has been destroyed as a qualifier), become flesh based and of equal import.
In such a world the master of deception will always win, for he can deceive flesh with great power and proficiency. That is why one can witness the true doctrine that an apostate, becomes harder, more impenitent and more unreachable than those who never new the truth. Those who have truth, then come to distrust and later expel it, by that means become unreachable.
The remedy is trust. It comes with the other steps already discussed; Remembrance, Focusing on the needful and Exercising humility.
The great mystery here is why those who mock the spirit and claim it is a fraud, feel properly positioned to do so, in that if it is in fact a fraud, then the only source left to human kind is flesh reliance, which is totally unreliable. It is like the Gadianton robbers calling their evil association good and urging those in a much better and more blessed place to descend to their level and join them. Why? To what end? Satan’s argument is, the Holy Spirit is a flawed and unreliable source of truth, so you should drop it and embrace his, which by the way is flesh based and so is both flawed and unreliable.
To all who suggest such a foolish decent, I stand as a witness that the Holy Spirit is real, powerful and perfect. I am a witness that its is not controlled by man, nor the result of a frenzied mind or emotion. It is a powerful force, controlled by Go, given under his direction and loving guidance. It is a sure foundation of truth, that no flesh reliance or human reason can ever impeach. It truly is the rock of revelation upon which if we built “the gates of hell cannot prevail against us.”