I have thoughts on this concept people call The Devil. The problem is, we have all these stories, preinstalled. Some people simply don’t care, and I think that’s valid. For the vast majority, I would suggest that none of this is applicable, it’s not important, it doesn’t mean anything. And most people would simply dismiss these ideas as a symptom of mental illness, to invalidate it. Then there is the other school of thought that has opinions about the devil, and my ideas would more than likely bring up a lot of conflict, because if they are true, would invalidate that reality.
From the Eastern Orthodox Christian perspective, it’s my understanding that they believe the devil hates humanity because humanity is made in the image of God, so the devil wants to destroy humans. I guess this motivation is fueled by an idea of Jealousy or Envy. I personally find this perspective to be childish, and doesn’t really fit. At the same time, even though I don’t think it’s valid within the scope of being true, I can see it being important in creating a human experience. That this model too, has a purpose.
I talk about my meditation, Harvesting, where the goal is to penetrate using a silent mind through the energy of the personal identity. The idea is to move into a “higher truth”, I say higher truth because what is truth? In my experience if this meditation is done consistently for multiple hours a day for multiple weeks, it can bring forth what I call a storm. A storm is like hitting into a new arena of massive emotion.
In this, it can seem that an intelligence comes into the arena, the adversary. What many would call the devil. I remember one time the idea of the adversary being spoken about in the Eastern Orthodox Christian church that I participated in. The priest said if someone were to encounter this phenomenon to simply call up Jesus Christ as your advocate. Maybe that would be valid for some, maybe… It didn’t work for me.
So what is it, this concept called the devil? In my experience the devil is not a person in the traditional sense, like we think of this angry being with horns and a tail. Instead I see it as an energy, but even that word is a limitation. I think a better way to try to express it is that of an AI program but on the Spiritual Plane. In the way an AI works, you give it a prompt and it spits out an output. It doesn’t operate independently, instead it uses you, what you put into it, to give it life.
Some people talk about how the devil knows and uses the scripture and all that. It knows or uses what the individual knows and understands against the individual. It’s the adversary. Anything you know can and will be used against you.
Its whole goal is to move the individual into a higher truth. But it is either incapable of communicating in the traditional sense, or what I believe, simply knows that it’s pointless. If the truth is spoken to an individual not ready to receive it, the truth will be misunderstood, perverted, or corrupted. So instead it operates adversarily, to assist the individual into discovering it for themselves.
Though it might be a mind bending and mind altering experience, with many intense emotions, where the stakes feel very high, unlike the Eastern Orthodox perspective, the goal of the devil is not to destroy or torture the human because it’s jealous or envious. The goal of the devil is to move the individual to a higher truth, a stronger rock in which to stand on. You can’t convince someone of that, instead you have to push and pull them until they find standing on their own accord.
We often personify this sensation, this experience. And Human Nature naturally wants to label it as something, and more often, they simply call it the Devil. But that’s just a word, a name, based on stories and understanding. We have to categorize it as something.
I often categorize it as Jesus Christ. I get this from the bible story of Jesus going into the wilderness and defeating the devil. Because he defeated the devil, the adversary, he moved up the chain, becoming the next adversary because he proved himself stronger. So often in my model, Jesus Christ is the devil. But at the end of the day, it’s just a name, a limitation to label this phenomenon.
But that’s not bad, none of this is bad. Instead I see it as necessary, necessary for the purposes of a container, containing the creation. And this then shows up again and again, about having two opposing sides of a container, whatever that may be, the personal identity, the creation, the collective unconscious. In my experience, there are always two sides. I know in the Gnostic Tradition they talk about the Heavenly Mother and Heavenly Father, from my experience these are two opposing energies, and both existing simultaneously, that create a container for the identity to be experienced.
That said, in my eyes, the devil is not bad, it’s a necessary element for the purposes of a container for this thing we could call reality so that it may be experienced.
