Three Principles Of The Forces Of Evil -- Personification Of Evil

By The Pathwork Guide

My dearest, dearest friends. God's blessings envelop you. Jesus Christ is present here again, warming you, giving you courage and love, truth and hope, 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, all separatism, and the "me versus you" attitude. He has nothing to do with the mass image of Jesus Christ I talked about in the last lecture.

In this lecture I wish to instruct you again about certain realities and laws concerning evil. I spoke about this already some time ago. I give you more information about this facet of your reality at certain intervals. I am doing so today because it is very important that you understand more about this controversial subject at this present moment.

For many centuries the power of evil was fully recognized. Mankind had a sense of the invisible, of what is usually referred to as the "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 man's free will determines under whose influence he puts himself.

When man was still in his immature mental and emotional state, then his will was not sufficiently developed to make conscious choices that were appropriate and wise. The strength of his lower self and his inability and his unwillingness to face it, and therefore to transcend it, frequently made him the prey of evil influences. The lack of self-knowledge inevitably led to the lack of self-responsibility. Thus mankind felt itself to be victimized by evil spirits. The fear of them often led to submission to them. And this happened on a conscious and intentional level. So, the worship of Satan occurred openly. When this was not the case, then it occurred unconsciously. It took place by choosing the influences that correspond 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. I shall explain this more specifically later in this lecture. Now I just want to say what I have often mentioned before: evil and its manifestation must become the medicine to overcome evil -- at least in the long run. Therefore, this disconnection from the supernatural realities inevitably had regrettable effects. But it also created an arena in which man could no longer blame the devil for his own misdemeanors. He had to look within himself to correct the effects of evil. So mankind had to go through a period of isolation and separateness from the invisible realities in order to grow into self-responsibility. What was ridiculed as superstition was really a half-truth. It is indeed a kind of superstition when outside forces are made responsible for one's fate. But the other side of this picture is the fact that these invisible forces do exist and do have their influence.

Once again, we are dealing with a duality. Either the self is responsible for the individual's fate, or the angels and the devils are. Now humanity has matured sufficiently to unite this duality. After a long period of concentrating on the self at the expense of invisible forces, the time has now come when you can combine the two facets of reality and truly make them the one reality it is from our 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 inner being -- with all of its subtleties, with all the various levels of consciousness, and with their interaction both within you and around you. Of course, I did return occasionally to the power of these forces, but always in conjunction with your determining voice. To the degree your lower self is conscious -- and therefore you are able to choose not to act upon it and you pray for help to purify it -- to that degree you are invulnerable to evil. To the degree you commit yourself to the will of the Highest and to the degree you dedicate your life to follow in Christ's footsteps, to that degree evil spirits cannot approach you. But it is not enough to voice such good intentions on the surface of your being. This decision must penetrate the most hidden levels of your personality if you are to become the shining light who repels dark spirits. The purification process of this path is a deep-rooted system that totally renews your personality on all levels.

My beloved friends, the time has come for you to understand that you are an electromagnetic field that always attracts what is commensurate with certain levels of your innermost being. In order to attain this awareness completely and clearly, you need more information, which I give you as it becomes necessary on your path. Now I want to discuss three specific principles of evil. Your understanding of this material will prove immensely useful and it will bring a clearer focus into your field of vision both of life in general and of your own life in particular.

There are three basic principles of evil. The first is the most obvious to mankind. The devil was always associated with this principle. It aims to destroy, to inflict suffering at all costs. The separation between the self that perpetrates the suffering and the victim who suffers is so great that the perpetrator deludes himself into being unaffected by the further effects of his acts. It is known that one of Satan's earmarks is separation -- separation not only from God, but also separation from others, and separation from the self. This aspect of separation exists with all the 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 your sister's pain is not unavoidably also your own pain. Instead of recognizing this basic truth, the person filled with evil, whether in human form or as a discarnated entity, experiences excitement and pleasure when spreading destruction, suffering, and pain.

The second principle is materialism. This applies not only to the earth sphere, but equally, and often even more, to a variety of hellish spheres in which the entities live in a totally disconnected way. They are convinced that the dead state of thickly condensed matter -- much more thickly condensed than your earth matter -- is the only reality that exists. In such hellish spheres the suffering is not the same as the suffering applicable to the first principle, which was often depicted by visionaries in your earthly sphere. This second principle is less sensed and therefore not understood. Visionaries have not seen the spheres corresponding to and manifesting this principle.

I will give you one example as an illustration. Imagine a life in which there is a total absence of nature in your surroundings. Nothing is alive, all is condensed matter. Nothing has flavor. By the same token, the entity's inner nature is equally inaccessible. There is only deadness and mechanicalness. There is alienation from all that is pulsating life, both within and without. There is no birth and no death. Yet the unchanging existence here is not the eternal life that is truly heavenly. In this form of manifestation it is the distortion of eternity. It is hopelessness itself, as if no change were ever possible. Existence is totally mechanized. This hopeless kind of suffering is neither more desirable nor less desirable than the suffering through the direct infliction of pain. It is simply a suffering of a different kind, corresponding to a different principle of evil.

Your earth sphere manifested the first principle of evil in a much stronger way until fairly recently in your history. 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 lifeline to pulsating reality and re-enlivening was broken. The result was an alienated reality in which mankind prided itself on its advanced state; not only advanced because the emphasis on matter actually did result in technological progress, but also advanced in that man became the only reality onto himself. This has both positive ramifications and its negative ramifications. The positive I mentioned before. It brought man back to taking responsibility for himself and therefore led him to search within himself for the causes of his fate. It is no coincidence that at this point the human psyche became a matter of scientific study. Psychology is a helpful tool in this endeavor. The negative manifestation is that a life was produced which is not totally different from the sphere of evil I described before.

These two principles have been known by spiritually aware people. Since every principle and every 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 principles. Each one holds his own kingdom and rules his own world, with many spirits of lesser power serving him. The hierarchy that is recognized in the divine spheres also exists in the satanic spheres.

The third principle of evil is little known. It may be recognized in a vague way as a byproduct of evil. But it is seldom recognized as a powerful principle itself. This principle is just as effective as the other two principles I discussed above. This principle, too, has its own personification, its own hierarchy, and its own realm. It is the principle of confusion, of distortion, of half-truth, and of all the variations that may exist in connection with it. It includes using truth where it does not belong, or where it is not applicable. As a result, the truth turns into a lie. Yet it cannot be traced easily because it is presented under the guise of divine truth. Therefore, it seems unassailable. Thus confusion is wrought. This is not just an extremely effective weapon of evil, it is an evil principle in itself.

Now it is very important for you to understand this. You will find all these principles represented in your world, both around you and within your lower self. You will see that your lower self contains, in its negative intentionality, all three principles. Only when you become aware of this can you recognize when devilish forces and evil spirits want to destroy you. For example, when they want to inflict pain on you by enticing you to inflict pain on others. When they want to convince you of the illusion that you are separated. When they want to convince you of the illusion that you are isolated. When they want to convince you of the illusion that no God exists. When they want to convince you of the illusion that no life exists beyond the one of your present body. And, finally, when they want to drive you crazy with confusion, with dualistic splits, with false either/ors, with half-truths, and with subtle distortions -- that you cannot sort out because they are subtle. This recognition is of tremendous value for you. You cannot deal with an enemy whose existence you ignore and whose weapons you do not know, and which therefore you do not recognize.

The time has come when you can see clearly how the corresponding principle within your unpurified area becomes an inevitable field of attraction to powerful forces that you can neutralize and render harmless only by your determination to remain true to God and only by using the light of Christ to help you to work within yourself and to purify yourself so that this field of attraction within you can be transformed into a different magnet, one that attracts different forces.

It must also be understood that these three principles always coexist. But one may be stronger in manifestation at certain periods of history, or during certain phases of an individual's life. The individual characteristics and the personal inclinations of each entity determine which of these three principles is compatible with the individuality in question. As I indicated, collectively speaking, in the cycle of evolution either one or the other of these principles will be prevalent at different periods. But 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 the creation from the Creator.

Let me give you an example of how this interaction of the three principles works. Confusion and the distortion of reality -- making a truth out of a lie and making a lie out of the truth -- create a numbness toward the subliminal reality, toward the cosmic aliveness, the 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. For the lie must always inflict pain and suffering. You may experiment with these three principles. If you start with the one that is most prevalent -- either in an individual manifestation or in a collective manifestation -- then you will see that they must all coexist and that they reinforce one another.

Today's human mentality can accept the principle of good and evil more easily than it can accept the fact that they are both personified. However, even the principle of good and evil is often disputed, as if good and evil were merely subjective perceptions. Here we are dealing with a half-truth once again. In fact, both good and evil are often experienced on a superficial level according to limited personal -- and hence highly subjective -- perceptions. But when the issues are seen on a deeper level of consciousness, then what at first was believed to be good can often be seen as being questionable, and possibly as being a mask for something that is truly evil. By the same token, what appears bad on the surface might turn out to be either a very good experience or a positive manifestation. So both good and evil should be viewed with caution and with discernment, and they should be examined in as much depth as possible. However, it is a mistake to assume that because of this fact good and evil do not exist in a real way. The denial of good and evil as absolutes -- in spite of the relative perception that man has of them -- leads to nihilism, to hopelessness, and to the void, as if that were the ultimate reality. For quite a while it was fashionable and considered intelligent to postulate this nihilism. This expresses the same separation from deeper cosmic realities as the second principle of materialism. The confusion and the half-truth inherent in the denial of absolute good and of absolute evil are an expression of the third principle, which breeds the second principle, which in turn must ultimately cause the first principle.

Now mankind has taken a step in the right direction because it begins to recognize that good and evil actually do exist, above and beyond the relativity that is due to man's limited perception. Mankind is open to accepting God as a creative principle. Mankind also -- at least to a degree -- sees the existence of another principle that countermands that divine creative principle. But contemporary man is still hesitant to accept the fact that all principles can -- and often do -- manifest as entities. It is as though you still hesitated to let yourself be called childish and primitive by those who believe themselves to be wiser and more knowledgeable when they ridicule other forms and manifestations of reality.

If the personification of principles and of creative forces did not exist, then you could not exist as human beings. A human being is merely one form of personification. You personify both principles of good and evil. 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 beings who manifest 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 the state of their present manifestation their divine core is so overlaid by evil that nothing of it manifests. Here we are dealing with the fact that personification exists in all gradations. To deny this fact of life would be far from being knowledgeable or intelligent. But knowing that angels surround you and influence you should not result in your worshipping the angels and in overlooking Jesus Christ -- the divine manifestation as personification -- Who is the ultimate source of your supply, the ultimate source of your life, and the ultimate source of all you need. Your sincere desire to direct contact with Him opens the channel of communication between Him and you. The awareness of the presence of spirits should not lead you to fear the devils that you sporadically attract according to certain cyclic rhythms.

The devils who are near you -- like all disease -- are cause, effect, and medicine. Their proximity and their effect on you is caused by your unpurified, limited, and undeveloped consciousness. This cause in you -- your unpurified consciousness -- has the effect of drawing near you devils who then confuse you with lies. As a result, you no longer know what is truth and what is untruth. This effect -- your confusion -- can be used by you as a medicine, if you so choose. For example, you can use it as an indication that you need both to develop and to purify the parts of your soul that you have not paid any attention to. Instead of fearing the devils -- instead of denying their existence to assuage your fear of them -- you need to recognize their voices and then you need to learn to distinguish where your inner voices come from. This is a necessary step in your development. If you either ignore or deny their existence, then how in the world can you become aware of them and therefore counteract them? If you do not know that at times they surround you, then you unknowingly become their tool.If you do not consider that lies may be whispered into your thinking apparatus, then you will not use your capacity to question and to doubt the thought material that filters through you. It is necessary to become aware of the connection between your lower self -- which due to its ignorance, to its fear, and to its lack of faith creates destructive solutions and negative intentionality -- and the voices of the satanic entities. These two factors together wreak havoc both 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. When you become stronger in your higher self and its positive intentionality, but at the same time you leave certain aspects of your lower self unattended to, then you become a prey to evil influences. These evil spirts are much more concerned with you than with those who are not aware of subliminal forces and whose life is not dedicated to God. The reason for this is obvious and therefore needs no further elucidation.

So now is the time when you need to know as much as possible of the enemy and his weapons, so that you can combat this enemy force that is drawn toward you to the degree that you do not heed these periods of contact and decide to make them a medicine.

When you look at the series of this year's lectures from some distance, then you will perceive that there is a profound meaning in their specific sequence. One lecture follows the other. They could not have come to you in a different sequence. To some degree you already sense this. Retrospectively you have recognized this rhythm and this meaning about the sequence of lectures in the past. Both the topic of each lecture and their sequence spell out an articulate message that the spirit world is sending you in order to help you to take the further necessary steps on your path.

Generally it is not understood that Satan does not regard God -- i>the Source of all life, the Creative Principle of all the universes -- as the opponent against Whom all his efforts and his warfare are directed. The ultimate personification of evil -- containing all three principles, which are also personified as entities -- who is usually referred to as Satan recognizes God as the Creator and bends to His will and to His laws. He cannot help doing so. I have spoken about him extensively in a series of lectures I gave at the beginning of my task with you, so I will not repeat myself here, for you can go back to those lectures. Here I mean to stress particularly why it was God's will that evil can have its sphere of activity and its influence. The reason is that only in this way can evil be overcome within the soul of all the fallen spirits. In other words, all those entities who have chosen thoughts and subsequent actions that plunged them into darkness. It is to ensure this ultimate overcoming of evil that very exacting laws and rules exist. They are designed to prevent Satan from acting otherwise than according to these laws. So definite limits have been set. They always depend on the will and on the choice of the individuals in question. I think I have made it clear that the interaction between an individual's lower self (whether incarnated or not) and evil spirits follows certain definite laws. When one makes the effort to question one's thoughts and makes the effort to claim one's determination to follow the way of truth and of the light, then the power of the spirits of lying wanes instantly. This may not be discernible by the entity who cannot see the light. He cannot see the entities that surround him, and therefore he cannot feel their influence. The effect of such a vital decision to be in truth sometime may come only later. But come it must.

Often you allow yourself to be submerged in thoughts of untruth and in thoughts of confusion -- in other words, to be drowned in them -- until their effect disconnects you from the spark of life. As a result, you suffer the pain of untruth and the pain of confusion. This is sad because it is unnecessary.

So if God -- the Creative Principle of all the universes -- is not the enemy of the personified evil, then who is it? It is God the manifest personification, the Christ. His light of truth and of eternal life is unbearable to all the satanic spirits. But this same light will inspire you with truth and with life. It will connect you with the Source of all life. It will lighten your way. But you must make the decision as to whether you wish this Christ light to shine on your way and to make your way, or whether you prefer to submerge yourself in negative thoughts. That is, thoughts of untruth and thoughts of confusion. The latter course may either seem easier or feel more pleasurable and exciting. Ultimately you fall into the state which you call depression because you do not have the faith that He will come to help you with truth and with clarification if you truly desire it.

Satan's real opponent is Jesus Christ. He came to open the way for all the creatures captivated by -- and therefore weakened by -- the satanic influences. This explains His personification, why He came to earth. When the Christ manifested God as a man -- thus being both human and divine -- then He accomplished the greatest feat imaginable. He proved that it is possible to remain true to God -- true to truth -- and not to have to succumb to the strongest of influences and to the temptations that the personification of evil can unleash. Through His tremendous act of steadfastness, the man Who was God and the God Who was man opened the door in the soul of all created beings. He enabled those who were submerged in darkness to gradually find their way back into the light. So Jesus Christ has saved every single entity who was ever created, every particle of consciousness and energy that ever manifested and that will ever manifest as a personality. The Great Light is always available for the building of a tunnel to the world of light.

When satanic entities encounter this Christ light, then it causes them physical pain. All the divine attributes are contained in this light. To them the light of truth stings, the light of love is unbearably oppressive, the light of positive aggression is fearsome and terrifying. Only God manifest can become visible to and perceivable by other personifications. The unmanifest Divine Principle can be experienced only indirectly by personalized units of energy and consciousness.

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. Of course, to a much lesser degree than the dark spirits. You have come in touch with a reaction -- which at first seems inexplicable -- in which you retract from happiness, from fulfillment, from pleasure, from love. You close up your center of receptivity against God's abundance. At first this puzzles you. But later you learn to see it and to observe it, just like 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, to love and to fulfillment, and yet this automatic reaction continues.

This means that the hidden part of your lower self that resists exposure and transformation is unable to allow your personality to stand the light. So prayer is not enough. Neither are good will, 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 must react similarly to the demonic entities who hide from the light of Christ. This light contains happiness -- eternal fulfillment -- and eternal life. This hidden area in you makes you react to this light with pain. In this area you become connected to the forces of darkness, and therefore you are a target for them.

When you observe your reaction of contraction, of restlessness, and of anxiety when great pleasure and fulfillment come to you, then you can connect with the principle I am trying to convey to you. Hence you will understand what I mean when I discuss the demonic spirits' flight from the light of Christ. You will also comprehend what history has tried to convey, namely that Christ is the adversary of Satan.

What exists in the 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 the forces of darkness -- between the higher self and the lower self -- is also waged on a universal level. It is enacted by many entities who are 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 every personality will become involved in larger issues that also represent this universal battle between good and evil.

The individual's role in this battle -- on whatever level it takes place -- depends on his conscious and deliberate choice of where he wants to be. When issues are tinged by personal emotions, by desires or by interests that belong to the realm of darkness -- and these personal emotions are not recognized as fogging one's vision -- then one becomes a target of either one or all of the three principles of evil. Then your cruelty will be hidden under the guise of expressing your feelings, while maligning and distortion will become the tools of your cruelty, of your intent to hurt. The disconnection from the deeper reality will blind you to the true meaning of events. Confusion will be rampant in you. As a result, the truth will be used for lying and your lies will be called the truth. This means that the forces of evil have been allowed to find entrance in you through your lower self that is not being dealt with sufficiently.

My dearest friends, do not allow yourselves to become enmeshed in this battle. Do not unwittingly lend yourselves as tools for the aim of the prince of darkness. Use your good will to see the truth. See the truth of the notives of your hidden lower self. Use the truth of your higher self good will to give up the line of least resistance; see the truth of the negative pleasure that make you persist in a destructive course which brings clouds of pain and darkness both to you and to those around you. Then give up this destructive pleasure. The key is really simple. It is tempting to follow negative thoughts and to come to believe in them. It furthers a lower self fixation to indulge in the negative pleasure of negative thoughts, of suspicions, of blame, and of accusations that may or may not be true. The key is to raise pertinent questions. The first question would be: "Do I really want to know the truth of this issue?" The second question is: "What is the truth in this issue. I truly want to know the truth of this issue." If you can answer these two questions, not superficially but truthfully and in depth, then you will dispel the clouds of darkness which contain the three principles of evil. Clarification will come when the truth is really wanted, even if part of the truth at this moment in time is that you do not want to know the truth. In other words, that you still want to attack, that you still want to blame, that you still want to see either people or events in the worst way. The reason why you secretly wish this can be explored only when you no longer deny feeling this way. The truth will shimmer through -- slowly but inexorably -- once you admit your negative intentionality that draws to you the expert spirit of lying and the expert spirit of confusion. Clarity will dissolve the pain of your guilt that frequently is not allowed to surface. You keep it down by strengthening the destructive process of projecting onto others what you fear in yourself. This clarity will dissolve the pain of your guilt for the hurt or for the pain that you have inflicted on others by this evil process.

Do not delude yourself into believing that your negative intents and your negative thoughts do not inevitably reflect in your actions and do not affect others in an insidious way. Thoughts never remain separate things. They create both results and events in one form or another. The clarity that results from first honestly asking and then candidly answering these questions -- by delving into your hidden thought processes (which are seldom completely unconscious) and into the process of your intent in any given issue -- will dissolve the pain and will re-establish your connection with eternal life.

My beloved friends, you are reaching the point in your development when taking responsibility for your creation must be combined with a profound knowledge of the invisible worlds and of the laws according to which you either attract or repel entities -- of different nature and development -- who influence you. In other words, who reinforce the nuclear power field within your soul. Each one of the many areas of your soul can be influenced either by the highest forces or by the lowest beings.

It is also important to understand that a person does not experience evil influences because he is undeveloped or evil or bad. One individual may be accosted by evil more often, although what needs to be purified in his soul may be much less dark than the soul substance of another person who may be accosted less often by demonic influences. I mean this in an absolute sense. The law of attraction and repulsion is purely relative here. Let me be more specific. If you have reached a comparatively high level of development, but the areas in you that remain to be transformed are not recognized by your consciousness -- even though these areas may not be particularly destructive or outrightly wrong -- then the charge of these unrecognized parts exerts a greater attraction to evil than the charge of a person who is on a lower plane of development. It would be good if you pondered on this principle and law and if you could gain a more feeling understanding of it.

With this, my dearest ones, I give to all of you the blessings of truth and love. The light that I bring is always the Christ light. He has said that He is the truth, that He is the way, and that He is life. In His light you will find the way to the truth both in the smallest issues and in the largest issues, both in personal issues and in impersonal issues. This way leads to the love of the Creator Who has given eternal life. Eternal life can be found only in the truth. The way to the truth leads through the maze of the dark areas in your soul; it leads through the temptation to remain in them and to savor their passing gratification; and it leads through consciously and deliberately overcoming this temptation. The truth, the way, life. The great Christ light is the overpowering love of the Creator, of creation, of all that is. Be blessed. Choose His way.

February 8, 1978