I can’t deny that Alan
was my first true guru, and I owe a debt to him that he himself would have been
embarrassed to accept. However, I have surpassed the master in my thinking, and
part of that transformation was to clamber out of the Relativistic Stage of
Kohlberg’s Moral Development into the Universal Stage. There is, in fact, a
natural order to the Universe that has Good and Evil at its poles. In THEORY, Good
and Evil are relative, but that is only because one’s Love for Beings inspires
one to pardon them and to love most the forgiving father (a God-image that Alan
himself invokes via his own stage persona). Yet once one has WITNESSED Evil
firsthand, via a betrayal that is unbearable to accept without condition, such
love is mitigated, for it creates a rift between love for the Other and love
for the Self. The Other, in pursuing its own Self, creates this rift by
segregating you from its community (which is often, as in the case of Host and
Parasite, the community of one’s own invention.). Thus one has to follow the
example of self-service because to serve the Other is to serve an arbitrary
authority. If the traitor is not simply an arbitrary authority, then he is an
example of Self-Interest. But to follow that example one must contend with him.
Thus relativism disappears, because it pardons the traitor, and that endangers
the Self.
The Self can be
transcended by learning again to love Others. In loving Others one finds Solidarity
and Compassion that heal the wounds left by the betrayal. This love is not
found by accommodating the selfish impulses of others, but by aggrandizing
their altruism. So it is that in turn one can love one’s own Self, but not in
solitude, by choice, but rather by the Grace of God as seen in Other People.
One loses one’s Will to this Love, because it happens INVOLUNTARILY; one cannot
help but to see one’s Self in the eyes of the Other, for one has begun again to
LOVE the Other more highly than one loves the Self.
So it is that Humanity
is divided into two camps: those who serve Others, and who attain Self-Love by
that Noble Path, and those who serve their own SELVES. But since the Self of
the latter party is illusory, borne out of narcissism rather than compassion,
they will all ways find themselves at the Source of their own Sufferings. They
have then a choice to admit fault for not only their OWN sufferings, but for
those of Others as well. But if their character is weak then they will instead
hold the Noble Ones to Narcissistic standards, insisting that the Noble Ones
take responsibility for the Nobles’ own conditions whilst the Narcissists take stock
of the Narcissists’ own conditions. This perpetuates the Rift, but only to the
mind of the Egoist. The Selfless Person KNOWS that he is not at fault for what
OTHERS have done TO him, so he absolves himself of that duality. There is only
ONE condition to his mind, and its nature is not that of favouring either PARTY
in a COMPETITION, but RATHER it is one of either favouring GOD or the DEVIL.
The Devil represents
the temptations into sin: to inflict harm and to violate the core principle of
Harmlessness that is at the root of Hinduism, Buddhism and Taoism. He is Matter
Without Spirit, a perversion created by the SEGREGATION of Matter and Spirit
from their Primordial Whole. The Individual is the reunion of these forces, via
the Soul (Spirit) inhabiting the Body (Matter). He is the seed of the Universe’s
reunion from its accidental break in two. And he is threatened by Matter
Without Spirit (the Devil) who would commit such sins as to sever the Soul from
the Body and thereby to create greater disharmony in the Universe. Hence the First
Sin is to Kill: to sever the Soul from its Body, permanently.
God is that Union that
we are striving to recreate. The German poet Rilke said that we are “Building God”.
As time accelerates the Universe becomes more self-aware. So even as Evil grows
so does Good. The force of division accelerates, but so does the force of Union
that is the Holy Spirit.
The Evil Man suffers
because of himself. The Good Man suffers because of Others. Each chooses a path
to begin with: one suffers for those that one serves. But the Good Man triumphs
when God surmounts the Devil and Balance is restored to the Force. Evil does
not need to be INTEGRATED into Good; it is, in itself, the very PROCESS OF
DISINTEGRATION, and thus it is the antithesis of Integration that is destroyed
by Synthesis.
Good and Evil must only
be relative WITHIN THE SOUL, for there they are in fact simply various parts of
the psyche that have been arbitrarily segregated. But who segregated them? The
NARCISSIST did so, in order to CONTROL the Other! So the internal conflict that
Alan and Jung try to resolve was created by an EXTERNAL conflict! Satanism
taught us to look INWARDS to find the Source of our sufferings, only because it
BEGAN by CREATING SUFFERING through service TO THE SELF. (So NATURALLY the SELF
would be at the root of all problems there!) But in fact the INTERNAL PROBLEM
was one of DISINTEGRATION, not of Sin, and the EVIL was all ways EXTERNAL,
created by the willful DISINTEGRATION of Self and Other via the Betrayal by the
Narcissist. If the Narcissist is ALLOWED to continue to betray, then he will
continue to damage the Soul by setting it against itself. The Soul must turn
its aggression OUTWARDS again, AT the Narcissist, in order to become Whole
again. Only then can it save itself and hope to play its part in restoring
Harmony to the Universe and to create God.
So even though I
disagree with Alan Watts, I all so agree with him. There is no Evil within my
Soul, because I have not CHOSEN that path.* But it is only by CONTENDING with
Evil EXTERNALLY, fighting those entities that CHOSE Evil (and not the Evil that
the Church warns against, but the Evil of the Devil, of which I have been a
witness) that I can restore my own Dignity and Balance to my Soul. It is not I
that seeks to control people. The Relativist has literally nothing to stop him
from turning instantly to an Absolutist, for his Relativism prevents him from
accepting accusations of hypocrisy. His will all ways acts in a way to OPPRESS
the Will of the Other, but after the fact it looks as though all willing agents
were presented with the same freedom. Not all of us can AFFORD to sin, so it
cannot be a prerequisite towards Grace, which is available to all who put
themselves upon God’s Path (and who thus avoid God’s Wrath when Evil caves in
on itself and finds itself to be its own biggest problem).
* May the record show: none of this has been “convenient” to
me. Only through immense pain could I produce it.
Dm.A.A.
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