The Text - Section 248
248. THREE PRINCIPLES OF THE FORCES OF EVIL -- PERSONIFICATION OF EVIL
My dearest friends, God's blessings envelop you. Jesus Christ is present here, warming you,
giving you courage and love, truth and hope that is always justified. Turn to Him, for He is God's
human manifestation. He is the Cosmic Christ who transcends all human bickering, separatism, and
the "me versus you" attitude. When you look at this series of lectures from some distance, you will
clearly perceive that there is a profound meaning in their specific sequence. Retrospectively you can
recognize this rhythm and meaning in the sequence of lectures. The topic of each lecture and its
sequence spell out an articulate message the spirit world is sending to you to help you take the
further necessary steps on your path.
In this lecture I wish to instruct you again about certain realities and laws concerning evil. It is
very important that you understand more about this so controversial subject at this present moment.
For many centuries the power of evil was fully recognized. Humanity had a sense of the invisible
and what is usually referred to as supernatural regarding both the forces of light and the forces of
darkness, as well as their manifestations, their effects, their influence in your realm, and their
personification as spirit entities -- as angels and as devils.
It has always been said that the individual's free will determined whose influence would
predominate in one's life. While human beings were still in their immature mental and emotional
states, their wills were not sufficiently developed to make conscious, appropriate, and wise choices.
The strength of their lower selves and their inability and unwillingness to face and therefore
transcend the lower self, frequently made them the prey to evil influences. Lack of self-knowledge
inevitably led to lack of self-responsibility. Thus humanity felt victimized by evil spirits. Fear of
them often led to submission to them -- and this happened on a quite conscious and intentional
level. The worship of Satan occurred openly. And when this was not the case, it certainly occurred
unconsciously by choosing the influences that corresponded to the intentionality of the lower self.
As history proceeded, a disconnection from the invisible world occurred. This disconnection
itself is a manifestation of evil, as I shall explain more specifically later. Now I just want to say what
I have often mentioned before: evil and its manifestation must itself become the medicine to
overcome evil -- at least in the long run. Therefore this disconnection from supernatural realities
inevitably had very regrettable effects. But it also created an arena in which people could no longer
blame the devil for their own misdemeanors. They had to look within themselves to correct the
effects of evil. So humanity had to go through a period of isolation and separateness from the
invisible realities in order to grow into self-responsibility. However, what was ridiculed as
superstition was in reality a half-truth. It is indeed a kind of superstition to make outside forces
responsible for one's fate. Yet invisible forces do exist and do have their influences.
In other words, we are dealing once again with a duality: either the self is responsible for the
individual's fate or the angels and devils are. Humanity has matured sufficiently to be able to unite
this duality. After a long period of concentrating on the self at the expense of invisible forces, the
time has come when you can combine the two facets of reality and truly make them the one reality it
is from our spirit-world's vantage point.
Although I have discussed the existence of these forces ever since my task with you began, for
a considerable time we concentrated mostly on your own inner being with all its subtleties and all
the various levels of consciousness and their interaction within you and around you. Occasionally I
did return to the power of the invisible forces, but always in conjunction with your own determining
voice. You have begun to understand that to the degree your lower self is conscious, thereby
enabling you to choose not to act upon it and to pray for help to purify it, you are invulnerable to
evil. To the degree you commit yourself to the will of the highest and dedicate your life to follow in
Christ's footsteps, spirits cannot approach you. But it is not enough to voice such good intentions
on the surface of your being. The decision must penetrate the most hidden levels of your
personality if you are to become the shining light that repels dark spirits. The purification process of
this path is a deep-rooted system that totally renews the personality on all levels.
My beloved friends, the time has come for you to understand more profoundly how you are
an electromagnetic field that always attracts what is commensurate with certain levels of your
innermost being. To attain this awareness completely and clearly, you need more information. For
this reason I should now like to discuss three specific principles of evil. Your understanding of this
material will prove immensely useful and will bring into clearer focus your view of life in general and
of your own life in particular.
The first of the three basic principles of evil is the most obvious to humanity. The devil was
always associated with the principle which aims to destroy and to inflict suffering at all cost. The
separation between the self that perpetrates suffering and the victim who suffers is so great that the
perpetrator is deluded into being unaffected by the further effects of his or her acts. It is known
that everything about Satan is earmarked by separation -- not only from God, but also from others
and from the self. This aspect of separation exists in the case of all three principles I shall discuss
here. The delusion of evil in the case of this first principle lies in the misperception that your
brother's or sister's pain is not unavoidably also your own pain. Instead of recognizing this basic
truth, a person, whether in human form or as a discarnate entity who is filled with evil, experiences
excitement and pleasure when spreading destruction, suffering, and pain.
The second principle of evil is materialism. This not only applies to the earth sphere, but
equally and often even more to a variety of hellish spheres in which entities live in a totally
disconnected way, convinced that the dead state of thickly condensed matter -- much more thickly
condensed than your living matter -- is the only reality that exists. In such hellish spheres the
suffering is not the same as the suffering deriving from the first principle which was often depicted
by visionaries in your earthly sphere. This second principle is less often understood and sensed.
Visionaries have not seen the spheres corresponding to and manifesting this principle.
I'll give one illustration. Imagine a life in which nature is totally absent. Nothing is alive; all is
condensed matter. Nothing has flavor. By the same token the entity's inner nature is equally
inaccessible. Everywhere there is only deadness, mechanicalness, and alienation from all that is
pulsating life, within and without. There is no birth and no death, yet the unchanging existence here
is not the eternal life that is truly heavenly. This manifestation is the distortion of eternity. It is
hopelessness itself as if no change were ever possible. Existence is totally mechanized. Such
hopeless kind of suffering is neither more nor less desirable than suffering through direct infliction
of pain. It is simply a suffering of a different kind corresponding to a different principle of evil.
It should be easy to see that until fairly recently in your history your earth sphere manifested
the first principle of evil in a much stronger way. In the last hundred years or so, the influence of
the second principle has taken over. With the disappearance of the superstitions the connection
with the subliminal levels of reality has also disappeared. The life line to pulsating reality and re-
enlivening was broken. The result was an alienated reality in which humanity prided itself on its
advanced state -- advanced because the emphasis on matter actually did result in technological
progress, but also "advanced" because human beings became the only reality unto themselves. This
had its positive and negative ramifications. The positive manifestation brought people back to
taking responsibility for themselves, and therefore led them to search within themselves, to an ever
increasing degree, for the causes of their fate. It is not coincidental that at this point the human
psyche became a matter of scientific study, with psychology as a helpful tool in this endeavor. The
negative manifestation was that a life was produced which is not totally different from the second
sphere of evil I described.
These two principles have been known by spiritually aware people. Since every principle and
every aspect of spiritual reality can and frequently does also manifest as an entity, two different kinds
of devils were also recognized by some visionaries. They represented and personified these two
principles. Each one held its own kingdom and ruled its own world with many spirits of lesser
power serving it. The hierarchy that is recognized in divine spheres also exists in satanic spheres.
The third principle of evil is little known. Although it has been only recognized in a vague
way, perhaps as a byproduct of evil but hardly ever as a powerful principle itself, it is as effective as
the other two principles, and like them also has its own personification, hierarchy, and realm. It is
the principle of confusion, distortion, half-truth, and all the variations that may possibly exist in
connection with it. It includes using truth where it does not belong or is not applicable, so that the
truth subtly turns into a lie without being easily traced as such because it is presented under the guise
of divine truth and seems unassailable. The resulting confusion is not just an extremely effective
weapon of evil; it is an evil principle in itself.
It will be easy to see, my friends, how important it is for you to understand this now. You will
find all these principles represented in your world, around you and within your own lower self. You
will see that in its negative intentionality your own lower self contains all three principles of evil.
Only when you become clearly aware of this can you recognize when devilish forces and spirits want
to destroy you and inflict pain on you by enticing you to inflict pain on others. They also want to
convince you of the illusion that you are separated and isolated, that neither God nor any life exists
beyond the life of your present body. Finally, they want to drive you crazy with confusion, dualistic
splits, false either/ors, half-truths, and subtle distortions that you cannot sort out. To recognize all
this is of tremendous value for you. You cannot deal with an enemy whose existence you ignore
and whose weapons you cannot recognize.
The time has come when you can clearly see how the corresponding type of distortion in the
unpurified areas of your soul becomes an inevitably compelling field of attraction to powerful forces
of evil that you can only neutralize and render harmless by your own determination to remain true to
God. You can use the light of Christ to help you work within yourself and purify yourself so that
this field of attraction within you can be transformed into a different magnet attracting different
forces.
It must also be understood that these principles always coexist but one may be stronger in
manifestation at certain periods of history or during certain phases of an individual's life. It is the
individual characteristics and personal inclinations of each entity that determine which of these three
principles are most compatible with the individual in question. Collectively speaking, at different
periods in the cycle of evolution, one or the other of these principles will be most prevalent. That
does not mean that the other two principles will be absent. They all contribute to the ultimate aim
of the forces of darkness: to alienate creation from the Creator.
Here is an example of how the three principles interact. Confusion and distortion of reality --
making a truth out of a lie and a lie out of the truth -- create a numbness toward the cosmic, eternal
aliveness that can be felt deep in the soul of any individual when there is truth and clarity. This
numbness, created out of confusion and chaos, inevitably inflicts pain and suffering just as the lie
must inflict pain and suffering. Starting with any one of the three principles most prevalent in an
individual or in a collective manifestation, you will see that they must all coexist and reinforce one
another.
Today's human mentality can accept the principle of good and evil more easily than the fact
that they are both also personified. However, even the principle of good and evil is still often
disputed, as if good or evil were merely subjective perceptions. Here again we are dealing with a
half-truth. In fact, both good and evil are often experienced on a very superficial level according to
limited, personal, and highly subjective perceptions. When the issues are seen on a deeper level of
consciousness, what was first believed to be good can often be seen as questionable and possibly as
a mask of something evil. By the same token, what appears bad on the surface might turn out to be
a very good experience or manifestation. So it is quite true that good and evil should be both
viewed with caution and discernment and examined in as much depth as possible. However, it is a
grave mistake to assume that because of this fact good and evil do not exist in a very real way. The
denial of good and evil as absolutes, in spite of the relative perception humans have of them, leads
to nihilism, hopelessness, and the void -- as if that were the ultimate reality. For quite a while it was
considered very fashionable and intelligent to postulate this nihilism. It obviously expresses the
same separation from deeper and cosmic realities as the second principle of materialism. The
confusion and half-truth inherent in the denial of absolute good and evil is an expression of the
third principle which breeds the second principle, until that ultimately causes the first principle.
In this age, humanity has made a step in the right direction because it begins to recognize that
good and evil actually exist above and beyond the relativity of limited human perception. Humanity
is open to accepting God as a creative principle and also sees the existence of another principle that
countermands the divine creative principle. But people nowadays are still very hesitant to accept the
fact that all principles can and do manifest as entities. It is as though you still hesitated to let
yourself be called childish and primitive by people who believe themselves to be wiser and more
knowledgeable when they ridicule other manifestations of reality.
If personification of principles and creative forces did not exist, how could you exist as human
beings? A human being is merely one form of personification. You personify both principles of
good and evil, as you now know very well. Why should it be so hard to accept, or why should it
appear so primitive and unintelligent to believe that along the scale of development there exist
beings who manifest more or less of each principle? And finally, why should there not exist entities
who manifest total goodness and total badness? In the latter instance you may say that all created
beings are ultimately divine, so they cannot be all bad. This is true in a much wider sense, but it is
possible that in their present state of manifestation their divine core is so overlaid by evil that
nothing of it manifests. We are here to deal with the fact that personification does exist in all
gradations, and to deny this would be far from being knowledgeable or intelligent. Knowing that
angels surround and influence you need not lead to worshipping the angels and overlooking Jesus
Christ -- the divine manifestation as personification -- who is the ultimate source of all you need and
of your life itself. You need not overlook that direct contact with Jesus Christ is what opens the
channel of communication between Him and you. Nor should such awareness of spiritual presence
lead you to fear the devils you sporadically attract according to certain cyclic rhythms.
Like all disease, the devils near you are cause, effect, and medicine. Their proximity and their
effect on you is caused by your own unpurified, limited, and undeveloped consciousness. Your
unpurified consciousness has the effect of drawing devils near you who confuse you with lies so that
you no longer know what is truth and what is untruth. Your confusion induced by them can be
used by you as a medicine, if you so choose. You can use it as an indication that you need to
develop and purify these unattended parts of your soul. Instead of fearing the devils or denying
their existence so you can overcome your fear, you need to recognize their voices and learn to
distinguish where these voices come from. This is in itself a very necessary step in your
development. If you ignore or deny their existence, how in the world can you become aware of
them and counteract them? If you do not know that at times they surround you and inspire you,
you unknowingly become their tool. If you do not consider that lies may be whispered into your
thinking apparatus, you will not use your capacity to question and doubt the thoughts that filter
through you.
It is necessary to become aware of the connection between your lower self, which, due to its
ignorance, fear, and lack of faith, creates destructive defenses and negative intentionality, and the
voices of satanic entities. Together these two sources of negativity wreak havoc in your life and in
the lives of those around you. The time has come when you need to know clearly, fearlessly, and
intelligently what the facts of life are in this respect. Because the stronger you become in your
higher self and its positive intentionality while at the same time leaving certain aspects of the lower
self unattended to, the more you become prey to evil influences who are much more concerned with
you than with those who are not particularly aware of subliminal forces and whose life is not
dedicated to God.
Now is the time when you particularly need to know as much as possible of the enemy and its
weapons, so that you can combat this enemy force which is drawn toward you to the degree that you
do not heed these periods of contact and fail to decide to make them a medicine.
It is often not understood that Satan does not regard God, the source of all life, the creative
principle of all universes, as the opponent against whom all his efforts and warfare are directed.
Satan, the ultimate personification of all evil containing all three principles personified as entities,
recognizes God as creator and bends to His will and His laws. He cannot help doing so. It was
God's will for evil to have its sphere of activity and influence, for only in this way can evil be truly
overcome within the soul of all fallen spirits, all entities who have chosen thoughts and actions that
plunged them into darkness. It is to ensure this ultimate overcoming of evil that very exacting laws
and rules exist, preventing Satan from acting outside these laws. Definite limits are being set, always
according to the will and choice of the individuals in question.
I think I have made it quite clear how the interaction between an individual's lower self and
evil spirits follows certain very definite laws. When one makes the effort to question one's own
thoughts and to claim one's determination to follow the way of truth and light, the power of the
spirits of lying instantly wanes. This may not be immediately discernible to the entity who cannot
see the light of its own will to be in truth, nor can he see the entities surrounding him or feel their
influence. The effect may come only some time later, but come it must. How often do you allow
yourself to be submerged by thoughts of untruth and confusion and be drowned in them, until their
effect disconnects you from the spark of life, until you suffer the pain of untruth and confusion!
This is sad because it is unnecessary.
If God, the creative principle of all universes, is not the enemy of personified evil, who then
is? It is God in the manifest personification of the Christ. His light of truth and of eternal life is
unbearable to all satanic spirits. This same light will inspire you with truth and life, will connect you
with the source of all life and will light up your path. But you must make the decision whether you
wish the Christ light to shine on your way and make following the light of Christ your way, or
whether you unwittingly wish to submerge yourself in thoughts of untruth and confusion because
momentarily this seems easier, and perhaps even more pleasurable and exciting. Ultimately you fall
into a state which you call depression because you do not have the faith that Christ will come to help
you with truth and clarification if you desire it.
Satan's real opponent is Jesus Christ who came to open a way for all creatures captivated and
weakened by satanic influences. This has to do precisely with the fact of personification. When the
Christ manifested God as man, thus being both divine and human, he accomplished the greatest feat
imaginable. He proved that it was possible to remain true to God, true to truth, and not succumb to
the strongest of influences and temptations that the personification of evil could unleash. Through
this tremendous act of steadfastness, the man who was God manifest and the God who had put on
human nature opened the doors in the souls of all created beings. He forged ahead, enabling those
who were submerged in darkness to gradually find their way back to light. Jesus Christ has saved
every single entity who ever was created, and every particle of consciousness and energy that ever
manifested and ever will manifest as personality. Since he came to earth the great light is always
available for the building of a tunnel to the world of light.
When satanic entities encounter this Christ light, they suffer physical pain. All divine
attributes are contained in this light, but the light of truth stings evil spirits; the light of love is
unbearably oppressive to them, and the light of positive aggression is fearsome and terrifying. Only
God manifest can become visible and perceivable to other personifications. God's other aspect, the
unmanifest divine principle, can only be indirectly experienced by personalized
energy/consciousness units.
The great light of the cosmic Christ reaches a soul in darkness at first through pain. To some
degree all of you on this wonderful path have occasionally experienced this, to a much lesser degree
of course than the dark spirits. You have come in touch with a reaction which at first seems
inexplicable: where you retract from happiness, fulfillment, pleasure, and love. You close up your
centers of receptivity against God's abundance. First this puzzles you, but later you learn to see and
observe this reaction in you, just as you learn to observe any other irrational and destructive
reaction. Often this seems to make so little sense that you become discouraged when you see this
reaction in you again and again. You meditate, you visualize yourself being receptive to happiness,
love, and fulfillment and yet this automatic reaction continues.
Is it not clear to you yet that the hidden part of your lower self that resists exposure and
transformation is unable to allow the personality to stand the light? So prayer is not enough, neither
is good will and meditation, visualization and logic. None of them will make you really accessible to
the light as long as there exists a hidden agenda in your soul. In that area you react similarly to
demonic entities who hide from the light of Christ, which contains all happiness, eternal fulfillment,
and life itself. Your hidden agenda makes you react with pain to Christ's light. In this area you
become connected to the forces of darkness and you are a target for them.
When you observe your own similar reactions of contraction, restlessness, and anxiety when
great pleasure and fulfillment come to you, you can then connect with the principle I am trying to
convey here. And you will understand very well what I mean when I discuss the demonic spirits'
flight from Christ's light. You will also comprehend what history has tried to convey again and
again: that Christ is the great adversary of Satan.
What exists in microcosm within the human soul also exists in the macrocosm. Every inner
drama is a reflection of an outer drama and vice versa. Every battle within the human soul between
the forces of light and darkness, between the higher self and the lower self, is also waged on a
universal level, enacted by many entities at different stages of development. Every personality goes
through this battle within himself or herself; every personality experiences it occasionally in his or
her surroundings; and, last but not least, every personality will become involved in larger issues that
also represent the universal battle between good and evil.
The individual's role in this battle -- on whatever level it takes place -- very much depends on
his or her conscious, deliberate choice of where he or she wants to be. When issues are tinged by
personal emotions, desires, or interests that belong to the realm of darkness, and these personal
emotions are not recognized as fogging the vision, then one truly becomes a target for one or all of
the three principles of evil. Cruelty will be hidden under the guise of expressing your feelings, while
maligning and distortion will become the tools of cruelty and the intent to hurt. Disconnection
from deeper reality will blind you to the true meaning of events. Confusion will be rampant so that
truth will be used for lying and lies will be called the truth. The forces of evil have been allowed to
find entrance through your lower self which you have not dealt with sufficiently.
My dearest friends, do not allow yourself to become enmeshed in this battle: do not
unwittingly lend yourselves as tools for the aims of the prince of darkness. Use your good will to
see the truth. See both the truth of your hidden lower-self motives and the truth of your higher-self
good will, and give up the line of least resistance and its negative pleasure which makes you persist in
a destructive course bringing clouds of pain and darkness to you and those around you. The key is
really quite simple. It is so tempting to follow negative thoughts and come to believe them. It
furthers a lower-self fixation to indulge in the negative pleasure of negative thoughts, suspicions,
blames, and accusations which may or may not be true.
Raise the pertinent questions. The first would be, "What is the truth here? I want to know
the real truth." The second question is, "Do I want to know the truth in this or that issue?" If you
can answer these two questions truthfully and in depth, you will dispel the clouds of darkness which
carry the three principles of evil.
Clarification will come when the truth is really wanted, even if a part of the truth at this
moment is still that you do not want the truth, that you want to attack, to blame, to see people or
events in the worst light. The reason why you secretly wish this can only be explored when you no
longer deny feeling this way. The truth will shimmer through slowly but inexorably, once you admit
a negative intentionality which then attracts expert spirits of lying and of confusion. Clarity will
dissolve the pain of your guilt that is frequently not allowed to surface. You keep it down by
strengthening the destructive process of projecting on others what you fear in yourself. Clarity will
also help dissolve the pain you inflict on others with this evil projection.
Do not ever delude yourself into believing that negative intent and negative thoughts do not
inevitably reflect in your actions and affect others in an insidious way. Thoughts can never remain
separated things. They create results and events in one form or another. The clarity which comes
from honestly pursuing and answering the above questions after you have delved into your hidden
thought processes which are seldom completely unconscious will dissolve the pain. It will
reestablish your connection with eternal life.
My beloved friends, you are all reaching the point in your development when taking
responsibility for your creation must be combined with a profound knowledge of the invisible
worlds and the laws according to which you attract or repel entities of different nature and
development who then influence you and reinforce the force field within your soul. Each of the
many areas of your soul may be influenced by the highest or by the lowest forces. The choice is up
to you.
It is also important to understand that a person does not experience temporary evil influences
because he or she is undeveloped, or evil, or bad. One individual may be more accosted by evil even
though what needs to be purified in his or her soul may be much less dark than another person's
soul substance who may be less accosted by demonic influences. I mean this in an absolute sense.
The law of attraction and repulsion is purely relative here. For example, if you have reached a
comparatively high level of development, the areas which remain to be transformed and are not
recognized by your consciousness -- even though they may not be particularly destructive or outright
wrong -- exert through their unrecognized parts a greater attraction to evil than does the negative
charge of a person who is on an altogether lower plane of development. It would be good if you
pondered this law and could feel into an understanding of it.
With this, my dearest ones, I give all of you the blessings of truth and love. The light I bring
is always the light of Christ. He has said he is the truth and he is the way and he is life. In his light
you find the way to truth in the smallest and largest issues, in personal and impersonal issues. This
way leads to the love of the Creator who has given eternal life. Eternal life can be found only in
truth. The way to the truth leads through the mazes of the dark areas in your own soul; through
encountering the temptation to remain in them and savor their passing gratification; through the
deliberate overcoming of this temptation. The great Christ light is the overpowering love of the
Creator, of creation, of all that is. Be blessed; choose this way.