Examining the Nature of Evil
The idea of “evil”, like so many ideas that are formed through an interpretation, has become greatly distorted and exaggerated through hype and superstition. This world (experience of reality) is referred to in spiritual texts as the world where we attain knowledge of good and evil, and while we tend to view these as being separate from each other, they’re actually two branches of the same tree. In the most basic sense, they can be thought of as polar opposites of a single force that are complementary in nature. This can be understood by realizing that electromagnetism, which is usually viewed as two forces, originates as a single force that divides into polar opposites of itself in order to create the movement necessary to construct a 3-dimensional field of organized light, within which activity takes place through the continued interaction of polar opposites within that field. The entire material world is formed by polarized forces that form a single or unified reality by moving between poles that are set apart from each other or spinning around a central point or axis. One power, mind, and source divides into two (represented by Adam and Eve) aspects that reflect each other as the means of “knowing itself” (perceiving itself) through its own manifestation. Polar opposites stimulate each other into an active state of expression while also serving to define each other through contrast and relationship.
While polarity is a fundamental law that pertains to the very basis of the material world of form, for some reason, when it comes to the supposed creator of the material world, the All of All, so to speak, we step outside universal law and make it out to be a single power that’s all good. We then perceive this all-good power to have an evil adversary that not only competes for power and control over the human soul but often seems even more powerful than the all-good force. But if we work within the universal laws that we know govern the entire material world, said to be God’s creation, we can realize that God is both good and evil, the light and the dark, the saint and the sinner, and possesses all possibilities for creation. Reality itself (creation) exists in a fundamental state of probability. This means the field of light that makes up what we perceive as reality, contains the information necessary for producing all possibilities, and only becomes fixed into one possibility through our perception. It’s our conscious mind, which is electric and projective, that activates (selects) correlating information within the outer field, collapsing the wave of probability around a single construct, forming a subjective experience. Our perception is formed through the lens of our mental model, which is formed by our conscious mind as memory of various sorts we’ve acquired throughout our lifetime up to that point in time. Our mental model vibrates at a particular frequency and acts to shape our outer world as an analogous reflection of our inner world through resonance. To fully understand the relationship between good and evil we must look at how we define each one, especially evil.
Two ideas that seem to contrast and contradict each other are polarities that are complementary in nature. While they seem to oppose each other, in reality they serve to define each other. We can only know good by how it exists in relationship with evil. The more defined our concept of evil becomes, the more defined our concept of good becomes. One of the problems we have in society is we believe it’s about one or other, rather than combining them in a balanced state of equanimity. Anytime we go from one extreme to the other, we act to antagonize the opposite into an active state, without realizing that’s what we’re doing. To be considered a good person, we have to recognize, disown, and hide away or refuse to express what we consider bad, and as we repress or stuff down the parts of ourselves we consider bad, they remain alive and active within us. Because they’re still active within us, they usually become diverted into unconscious behaviors that we don’t recognize or acknowledge for what they are, and so we project them onto others, form a strong reaction to them, and consider them our adversary.
This idea of complementary opposites is represented symbolically in mythology as twins – usually brothers, one good and godly, the other dark and malicious, where the evil one is always trying to undermine and murder the good one. The evil twin usually ends up betraying, deceiving, and killing the godly twin, then dismembering and scattering the parts so they can’t be put back together. The parts are eventually found and reassembled, and the good twin is resurrected and ascends into the higher, heavenly realm after spending three days in the underworld. Dismembering the body of the good twin symbolizes the fragmentation of the mind, which forms the basis for all psychological complexes and mental illness. We can recognize how one part of our mind acts as an adversary to another part of our mind by examining our own internal conflict and the constant discussion, argument, or debate going on between what seems like different parts of us.
If we move away from religious models of God, which usually portray God as a manifest being on a higher plane overlooking and ruling over this one (usually with a heavy hand and heart), we can see God as the creator and essence of all life, and all life as a material or astral manifestation is bipolar. It’s both positive and negative, masculine and feminine, electric and magnetic, projective and conceptive, at the same time. Yet conventional religious models, usually based purely on a belief-system, makes God out to be singular in terms of only being “good” (whatever that means), while making Its negative side, generally referred to as evil, It’s adversary. We’ve lost the concept based on law and universal archetypes, that what we call God, is the source of all, which means both good and evil. Both dark and light. Both god and animal. Everything is contained within God and God is in everything. All humans have a dual nature comprised of both masculine and feminine qualities, regardless of sex or gender. Humans are a hybrid species, formed out of both a divine (higher conscious mind) and an animal (lower subconscious mind) nature, formed as an amalgamation. What we need to look at in order to form a more accurate understanding of these two terms, is how we’re interpreting the idea of good and bad. It’s our interpretation that shapes the idea of both good and evil to one extreme or the other.
This model, when applied to us and the dual nature of our own mind and soul, reveals that, whether we realize it or not, we are our own adversary. The battle of good and evil is describing the duality that exists through polar aspects of our own mind and nature. We were made in God’s image and likeness, which basically tells us that the way to understand what or Who God is comes by examining our own nature, rather than imagining God as some sort of superpower or entity that exists outside of us, constantly being challenged by another superpower or entity that also exists outside of us. Once we understand the power of our own mind in forming our perception of reality, we can realize that both good and evil are an outer reflection of our own internal nature and that this realm, called the material world, is where we gain knowledge of the relationship between good and evil, between the light and dark aspects of our own character. What we see in others and the world around us is a direct reflection of our own internal, unconscious nature.
Breaking it Down to Form a New Perspective
Let’s open this idea up and examine the obvious clues that we tend to ignore or only briefly consider, from a detached and rational perspective. The word evil is “live” spelled backwards. The word devil, the archetype associated with evil, is “lived” spelled backwards. For those who understand Gematria, the words evil and live have the same numeric value (Lamed = 30, Vau = 6 > 36=9, the principle of man), which indicates they’re of a corresponding nature and meaning. The idea of the devil, or what later came to be called Satan, is a concept developed by Abrahamic religions (Catholicism/Christianity, Judaism, and Islam), and is commonly referred to as the “tempter” who corrupts and leads people astray by mentally seducing them or making a deal, where the person surrenders their eternal soul (will) for pleasure or power of some kind. There’s a universal rule that no one or no spiritual entity can violate, no matter what their status or reason is, and that is an individual’s choice and free will. This means evil cannot be imposed on us by an outside force, and we can’t be overtaken against our will. This is why the devil is always portrayed as “making a deal” where the person willingly sells their will and eternal soul for the purpose of becoming the channel for evil to work in the world. Whatever we become a channel for expressing, which means we become one with it in mind and spirit, we become like in nature.
If we step outside of religious concepts of evil as being an adversary to good, and look at it from an esoteric point of view, where archetypes are commonly represented as gods, angels, daemons, and instinctual forces that govern the natural world, we can form a much more practical idea of what the term evil is actually referring to. In esoteric sciences, evil is associated with the Earth element of Nature and the material world. This was represented by the archetype of the Satyr, which was a combination of man and goat, or god and animal. When we (our higher mind and soul) incarnate into a physical body, we become a hybrid species. Our physical body is an animal (mammalian) body, while our eternal mind and soul inhabiting our animal body, is divine or god-like. This means that when we become an animal in physical form, we enter into an unconscious state (literally), losing all memory of our divine nature and origins, and become subject to instinctual drives and impulses that we experience as passions or emotional states. All of what we call evil, selfish, or bad, results from our mind being governed by our emotions and instinctual drives, forming delusions we experience as being real.
Mythology provides us with a model for understanding how this process works, but, because we lost our ability to understand archetypes and metaphors, we grossly misinterpreted it. The god Dionysus, which is a solar deity (like Mithra, Jesus, Apollo, Sol, etc.), is the medium that acts to combine two polarized planes, normally too far apart in nature to ever merge naturally, into one plane and a single being. He is shown drinking wine (symbol for blood-essence) from a starry (solar) cup, clearly becoming “intoxicated” with the passions of the flesh. He is often accompanied by a Satyr, the archetype of half man, half animal, with an exaggerated erect penis (regeneration and sexual drive is a major instinctual impulse). The Satyr represents the god of Nature, the wilderness, and shepherds who watch over the flocks. The satyr was later made into the image of what became known as the devil in religious traditions, with a head and upper torso of a man, and the hind quarters (sexual organs) and legs of a goat, and eventually became the general image associated with the entity called Satan. Unfortunately, most people didn’t understand what this allegory represented about our own dual nature and turned Dionysus into a drunk partying fool who had wild orgies. The process that led to his “second birth” was commonly left out of the equation, where he separated from his animal body and was resurrected back into divine, godly status.
Our subconscious, associated with our physical body (the aspect of the mind we share with all beings of the natural world), is motivated by instinctual drives of pleasure and pain. We always unconsciously move towards pleasure and away from pain. Instinctual behaviors themselves aren’t good or bad, they’re devoid of meaning and morality, and based purely on survival, self-preservation, bearing offspring to ensure the survival of the species, a hierarchy of territorial dominance, and a fight or flight response to fear and anxiety. What makes humans different from animals is we are self-creating beings who have a will and creative imagination, and we allow instinctual impulses, usually experienced as passions that are pleasurable, to enter our mind and take hold, where they motivate our thoughts, and what we imagine, causing us to become self-oriented, selfish in our pursuits, and ultimately hurtful and destructive in our behavior. Only humans derive pleasure from killing and hurting other people and animals or getting even with those we imagine have hurt or done us wrong somehow. Only humans kill for pleasure or personal reasons. We find violence entertaining, derive a sense of satisfaction from torturing and killing, and brutally murder other people, animals, and life in all its forms, usually feeling completely justified in doing so.
When a god or divine being becomes (combines with) an animal, will and imagination form the basis of our initial conditioning, which, once formed as the nucleus of our mental model, is used to form and maintain our perception of what we call reality. Our higher mind, which isn’t fully developed until we become an adult, is used for selfish reasons and striving to fulfill wishes, desires, and whatever we’ve been programmed with, forming a delusion that we use as the means of shaping ourselves through our own mental construct. One of the things to notice about what we now call evil or satanism is that it works to corrupt the soul through what is clearly animalistic behaviors undertaken for the pursuit of physical pleasure, power, greed, and domination. The most prevalent of these drives are sexual (pleasurable) in nature, and act to further corrupt the soul by breeding energetically (morally) with others who lack moral values or have a selfish nature. Not moral values in terms of a belief about good and evil, or right and wrong, but in terms of universal laws. As we fuse energetically (in essence) with another we become like them in essence and morality. We unconsciously take on their energy, and it alters or reshapes our own inner character.
There’s no such thing as an evil force or entity that exists outside of man. Some people believe there are evil forces or invisible entities prevalent in the atmosphere, waiting to prey on and feed off innocent souls, but this is not the case. These demonic forces are a product of the will and imagination and projections of an excited and untamed human mind. Evil is the result of intention and will. We fabricate illusions of evil beings out of belief and fear of them, without realizing we’re the one creating them. Any scarry or grotesque idea that excites the imagination becomes a seed for producing as experience. If you don’t believe in or have a fear of what we call evil, demonic beings, or energetic parasites that are lurking in the shadows waiting to possess you or torture you mentally, then you don’t experience them. When you do experience phenomenon of some kind that seems supernatural, it doesn’t scare you or invoke a sense of terror, but instead makes you feel curious to find out what’s causing it. You’re only subject to the energies you attract and naturally engage in through your own mental projection.
While I encountered and dealt with several situations that involved what you might call ghosts or etheric apparitions, none of them were evil, mean, or aggressive. For the most part, they weren’t even aware of this realm but were the result of a momentary bleed-through from the invisible realm that accompanies this one, and were not what you would call conscious, living entities, but more like a memory-form still lingering in the atmosphere from suicides, violent deaths, or unexpected accidents. These astral forms are the “empty shell” of deceased souls that are caught between dimensions, wandering spirits, or etheric bodies of recently deceased souls that haven’t fully disintegrated yet. None of which have the ability to directly work in the material world (because they no longer have a physical body), or cause harm to a living being. We actually scare ourselves using our imagination when mentally stimulated by these shadowy figures.
Unfortunately, we have a tendency to fear what we don’t know or understand, and create our experience as an expression of our fear. The idea of daemons, which are usually astral forms that personalize instinctual forces of Nature, originated as the polar opposites of angels. All forces or living beings, whether in physical bodies or astral forms, exist as polarities that are opposite of each other, while also being complementary. Both angels and daemons are astral-etheric beings of the mental plane that exist as fundamental archetypes capable of taking on any form based on how they combine with us mentally. Just as the gods of mythology are portrayed as twins, one male and one female, and one light and the other dark, all beings, natural forces, and universal principles come in polarized pairs. Everything in the material world exists as pairs that are identical twins, one invisible and purely energetic and the other crystallized into a physical manifestation of the invisible one. In this same manner, humans have a dual mind and nature that are polarities, one good, positive, and creative, and one that’s animalistic, negative, and automated.
All form, including not only physical forms and energetic ones, but space and dimension, are born and maintained out of the relationship and interaction of polar opposites. While polarities appear as two forces, they’re actually polar aspects of a single force. In their divided state we tend to call them either electric or magnetic, but in reality, they are still polarized (dual) and switch back and forth between states. The magnetic absorbs the electric force, becoming electric, and the electric force, after discharging becomes magnetic, and acts to reabsorb its own electric charge on its return. So, each force switches back and forth (alternating current) being both electric and magnetic based on whether it’s charged or discharged. Vibration, which is the basis for all forms of life, results from a single force dividing into two forces, one electric, the other magnetic, which combine to construct a visible form through “movement” between two poles set apart from each other, or as a circular movement around a central point or axis. This movement generates the light which it then constructs (weaves) into a pattern that appears as a 3-dimensional hologram or spatial light form, that creates an outer shell which it then inhabits as a means of experiencing itself through its own mental construct. Polarity is the basis for all movement, activity, and form throughout the entire universe. Polarity is the basis of life itself in all its forms. All material forms are accompanied by an energetic double that’s a mirror image or diametrical twin. One solid and dark, the other invisible and light.
This world, perceived as the earthly realm, is the realm through which we gain knowledge of good and evil through our own inner nature and outer activities. This innate duality forms the basis for our human nature as both a spiritual and physical being. We each have two aspects of our mind, the conscious and subconscious, which function as a single unit in creating and maintaining what we experience as a coherent reality. We can only know one aspect by how it exists in relation to the other, because, though they appear to function independently of each other, they’re actually different parts playing complementary roles in creating the same thing. They’re dual aspects of the same mind which act “on each other” to stimulate each other into an active state of expression. Each one is necessary to shape and define the other. We can only know good by how it exists in relationship with what we also consider bad. As these contrast each other as opposites, they simultaneously serve to define each other with correlating qualities and characteristics. We then shape ourselves by which aspect we relate to more, and which one forms the basis for the decisions we make.
There’s no such thing as evil (willed intention) in the world of Nature, only man is capable of being evil, because evil results from a willful, creative mind combining with an animal body driven by instinct, passions, and unconscious impulses. When we embody and live primarily out of our lower, animal nature, governed by emotions that drive our thoughts and determine our behaviors, we become evil. We shape our identity (Self) out of instinctual impulses that we allow to govern our higher mind and become the motive for delusions that promote animalistic (unconscious-reactive) behaviors. When governed by instinct and animalistic drives, we lose our morality and become selfish, power hungry, seek to dominate others, cruel, violent, and sexually perverse. We become the vehicle and means for evil to express in the world by allowing it to take control of our will and utilize our creative ability. When we shape ourselves to be animalistic and governed by our own mental delusions, we bond ourselves to the earthly plane, lose our morality, and stay within the Earth’s astral plane when we die. We’re absorbed into the instinctual field of mass consciousness and lose our identity as a self-made individual of a divine nature. This is referred to as self-annihilation, being consumed by the fire of the astral light, where we eventually cease to exist as an individual.
Transpersonal Psychologist, Personal Transformation Coach, and Spiritual Teacher
