A Theory of Good and Evil

As we come closer to drawing an end to this Hermit year, it feels natural to enter a stage of review. Reviewing myself, my believes, my choices. What parts of myself do I want to bring forth into the next 9 year cycle? What needs reconsideration? What needs to be recycled into something new?

One thing in particular that has been on my mind lately is this concept of “Good” and “Evil”.

A History of a Catholic

As someone who grew up in the Catholic faith (father’s side) and came to learn about my Jewish heritage (mother’s side) a little later in life, these concepts weighed extremely heavily on me growing up.

For quite some time, I believed a personal, somewhat-knowable god whose power manifested in the objective, conscious force of “Good”, and a devil whose power manifested in the objective, conscious force of “Evil”.

I feared both, quite honestly.

I cried that my sins caused Jesus pain on the cross. A heavy sense of guilt followed me wherever I went. As I started discovering Judaism and the weight of the Torah and following the laws- I would joke about how I’m doubly-guilty. Through Catholicism I was born a sinner, through Judaism my acts made me a sinner. Praying to be a better person, a good person- yet consumed by temptation to do the wrong thing.

I was so sure that worldview was real.

An Earth-Based Practice

Now that I’ve grown and studied, I can honestly and comfortably say that I don’t know how the universe works, how these forces work- or if they even exist. Yet, I try to understand this world that we live in.

I consider myself an Earth-based practitioner. Which, for me, means as humans we have to start in the physical realm, then reach up into the spiritual or metaphysical. Understand what is happening physically around us to help reveal metaphysical Truths. “The above is of the below and the below is of the above.” They are metaphors for each other.

What are the metaphors we use for Good and Evil? Light and dark. And this made me think…

As I review what I’ve learned over the last nine years, I’ve thought about how much I’ve learned about Science (thank you, Sci Show and Sci Show Tangents!). I’m no scientist, but I got fun facts for days. One thing I learned that I really love is that light acts as a particle (photon) and a wave. Without getting into the knitty-gritty of that - the reason I bring it up is that light is physical. It’s a thing you can point to and say- that is light. It is a physical thing/entity.

I also had this moment on a walk in late summer where I was walking toward the Sun and had the passing thought … well, it was silly, then it went deeper. The thing that popped into my head first was Monty Python and the Holy Grail when Arthur is averting his eyes. The bright rays of the sun made me bow my head, look away- and it just clicked how obvious Sun worship began (and how anyone in power wanted their subjects to behave similarly… but that’s a different point for another time).

Undeniably, light exists and is physical.

But, darkness? Does darkness exist?

The False Dichotomy of Light and Dark

Ok, this may sound… silly? But hear me out.

We understand and function in our day to day lives with Light and Dark being opposites. A true dichotomy of our reality. It’s one of the first things we teach our children to understand opposites.

Light is matter- it’s real, it’s physical.

But, darkness… doesn’t exist?. It’s not real. It’s not physical.

Darkness is how some living beings experience the absence of light. It’s simply a subjective experience. Not objective Truth.

Darkness is simply a spectrum of less and less light.

And for awhile, I used to believe that the separation from Goodness/Light is Evil/Darkness- that’s what makes Hell so scary. It’s a place that is absent of the Christian god’s love, god’s light. If Light is Good- then Dark is Bad.

But then, I learned Tarot and my personal beliefs blossomed, and that theory simply no longer made sense.

Let’s briefly look at The Sun and Devil Cards for this. The Sun represents fertility, joy, and enlightenment in its best expressions, but reversed it can represent razing the ground, famine, and burn out. The Devil can mean constriction, addiction, and being out of control in its worst expressions, but well placed it can represent owning your power, bringing out hidden truths, and an expansive sex life. Both of these cards have positive and negative meanings, depending on the question and position in the reading. The Sun/Light isn’t always a good thing, and The Devil/Darkness isn’t always a bad thing.

A more mature, holistic view of light and dark show that they aren’t necessarily opposites spiritually. Physically, darkness is just varying low levels of light. Physically, darkness can’t overtake light- it’s not “real”. And too much light can be a bad thing.

So if Light and Dark aren’t good metaphors for Good and Evil- what would fit better?

Good is Authenticity and Evil is… Uniformity?

For now, I’m much more comfortable equating Good with Authenticity and Evil with Uniformity.

Let me show you how I got here.

It starts with my belief that we are all One. Ultimately, we’re all different parts of G-d/Universe/Source experiencing itself in all possible manifestations of life. In a sense, our purpose is to be wholely and uniquely ourself because Source wants to experience something it has never experienced before. Part of the beauty of nature is the hundreds and thousands and millions of different plants, animals, minerals, etc. How diverse life is. Even if this is not your belief system, I think this is fairly easy to understand.

So, what’s the opposite of that? To blend in, to go against what you desire, and live inauthentically. I’ve dubbed this uniformity.

Coming from my Earth-based practice, this started to click and make a lot of sense to me. Let’s look at some real-world examples of where we see uniformity trending toward what we would call “evil”.

Viruses. They inject their genetic material into the host’s cells to turn them into new virus cells. Their ‘goal’ is to overtake the host to make everything itself. Weeds. We call plants that take over areas, that choke out all other life, weeds. Their ‘goal’ is to overtake the land to make everything itself. What about our mythic vampires? This evil creature looks to consume human life and make more and more vampires. Almost all of our stories and fears are creatures whose aims are to make everything themself, one way or another.

This got my thinking about Evangelicals. People looking to convert everyone to their religion. Genociders. People looking to kill everyone who is not like them. Racists. Homophobes. Transphones. Fascists. People who only believe in someone’s right to exist if they are just like them. People who only see one way to be. An un-consenting uniformity of life.

Our differences, our authentic selves, is Goodness embodied. Forced uniformity is Evil embodied.

It’s a theory, anyway.