It comes to mind, that after 30 plus years of doing
this stuff, certain things have become abundantly clear, although not very
obvious to the uninitiated.
First: Spirit and Spiritual is
real ... it is something
other than we can see, or quantify properly for that matter. We can see the results
but it is difficult to actually see spirit itself. It seems to be a force
quietly at work under it all, working on our way of doing things. Personally,
now that I think of it, I have spent an entire life time coming up against all
the various facets of spirit; some pro and some con. There are two sides to
this coin.
Second (a): what I have found is there is a “bright
side component” to the whole thing and this is often referred to in the
literature as “the Light.”
Most religions claim a connection to “the Light side”
of things. Now don’t get me wrong but
just because someone claims to be connected doesn’t mean they are, all that it
means is that they are claiming they are connected. The proof is not in what they say but more so
in what they do. I’ll deal more with
this later.
Second (b): and there is a distinct “the dark” side to
spirit. It manifests itself in religious
literature as the Devil, and it is real. Now it seems that the Devil has a mythical
quality and this quality is supported because no one has shown up here on the
face of the planet claiming to be the son of the Devil etc. Although there are
many, if you stop and look at them and what they did, would appear to be just that.
Whereas the “Light”
side of things seems to have repeatedly sent a messenger into our midst. Each of the major religious aspects have the
story of the garden, the flood, and a person who comes into their presence and
says he represents God.
Many people write off this “dark side aspect” as mid-evil
cock-a-mammy. Scott Peck, in the Road
Less Travelled gets into this with some depth. He comes to the conclusion that original
sin is not the eating of the apple from the tree of knowledge, but instead, succumbing
to the forces of entropy we face on a daily basis and our lack of willingness
to exert enough energy to overcome the entropic forces; it follows that spiritual
growth is effortful. Peck put it bluntly
... to grow we have to overcome our “laziness.”
If we have been paying attention to the world and its
ways over the past two centuries in particular, you will notice that many a
good cause has turned into a disaster for someone. Supposed Good causes turn into wars of wills;
who is on God’s side. Well, to the victor go the spoils... not the truth...
just the spoils. This does not dampen the business of good vs evil. Evil has many faces ... as does Good ...
So, let’s take this thing apart, because Good vs Evil
might not be exactly what we think it should be, nor what it appears to be.
Statement of Fact: the
best lie, the Devil ever told was that he does not exist. This implies that
the Light side of things does not exist either.
This one makes me wonder.
We all have a pretty good idea of what the Good side
of things should look like, so for the sake of this exercise, I’ll start by
examining the Darker side of things. To see if there are any commonalities in
the world that surrounds you, or the one you were raised in, or the school or
church where you were educated. Politics
at many levels, bureaucracy, the functioning of our very society is at stake
and most probably the component parts of the society are players, the people
who in their own fashion conduct the business of evil for a number of righteous
reasons.
First Principle: Evil can’t function without people.
It seems that animals can’t be evil, tigers can only
be tigers and snakes can only be snakes.
They do what they need to do to survive. Evil cannot exist purely on its
own. The Devil operates through people. Why?
Because people have over active Ego’s that seems to need to feed the need to compete.
That much is a given.
There are people, places, institutions, that respond
to life and life’s situations with hatred.
They, given the opportunity, will destroy, crush or kill any “Good” they
chance upon no matter where they find it. All appears to be for righteous
causes, but destroy, crush and kill none the less. It is not necessarily done
with malice of forethought; these people actually believe they are doing right.
They believe they are on “God’s team,” on the side of Light and justice so to
speak unaware that they are working the processes of evil.
The rules of Cognitive
Dissonance apply here. That is, any
evidence that refutes the misbelief structure individuals or institutions are
holding, is immediately cast aside. Every effort is made not to see the truth, and
the maintenance of the propositions that supports their non-truths are of the
highest priority for them.
Evil hates the truth. That much is true. It hates the Light,
for one simple reason, the Light reveals the truth about themselves (to
themselves). These people will inflict
crushing control on their children or family or fellow workers, in an attempt
to extinguish any Light, anyone of the aforementioned may be displaying. Thus,
passing it on from generation to generation.
This is one of the developmental principles of Codependency, “a multi-generational
problem.”
It is very simple from this point on, Evil doers hate
good because it reveals their sickness to both themselves and the world;
similarly, they hate love because in Peck’s terms it exposes their laziness.
Second Principle: Evil is laziness (succumbing to the power
of entropy) carried to its “ultimate extreme.”
Fact (a): Love is the extreme opposite of laziness. Sin
is described in A Course In Miracles
as “the absence of Love.” Whereas ordinary laziness is the passive form of failure
to love. Those people who fall into the category of ordinarily lazy, will not
and do not extend themselves unless they are compelled to do so. This is a form
of lazy... not really Evil.
Whereas the truly evil person will actively avoid
extending help to someone or something that is in serious need. One of the
better-worst-examples of this is the USA’s response to the Puerto Rican crisis
after the hurricane (Maria 2017). These types
of phenomena are so clearly present in first world countries, those that have,
toward third world countries in crisis, for those that don’t ie. Africa and all
its many problems are another prime example.
One of the characteristics of the truly evil person,
is they will take any action that is within their power to protect their
laziness, and maintain the integrity of their sickness.
It is a fact that rather than nurturing others they
will attempt to destroy others in the name of their cause. The sad fact is they will even kill to escape
the pain of their own spiritual growth.
Statement of Fact: For people who are Evil; as the integrity
of their own sickness is threatened (the rules of Cognitive Dissonance come into play here) by an outside force (often
seen as the spiritual growth by those around them in their social circle), they
will seek all manner of means to crush, destroy and stop the growth of that person
or persons. It is virtually an act of “social-political-power” amongst the
various aspects of a social network based the belief structure that binds that
network together. As an outsider might observe, it appears to be a power
struggle by one members of the system, or group of members of the system,
exerting or attempting to exert power over another member of the system. This can be individuals, groups,
organizations, countries. The scale only matters to the extent that the after
affect and collateral damage will be present in direct proportion to the
application of the attempt to crush, destroy or kill (look at Syria to
day).
It also seems that in the Syrian example various
factions of Evil can come into conflict and slaughter each other.
Peck’s Second Conclusion: Ordinary laziness is non-love, whereas
evil is anti-love.
Neil
Douglas-Tubb (RCC)
Therapist....
April
2019
