Saturday, October 28, 2023

Progressive Monsters and How They Get That Way

Continuing with yesterday's post, 

Those beings inhabiting the worlds of evil are also called "angels," but they are rather subversive angels, angels of destruction (Steinsaltz).

But in addition to these preexisting demons, there are those that are co-creations, so to speak, of man, "the subversive angels created by the actions of men, by the objectification of malevolence: the evil thought, the hate-inspired wish, the wicked deed." In fact -- or in theory, rather -- these creatures

are not independent entities living by their own forces; their existence is contingent on our world.... 

Imagine arousing positive emotions in another person, and then being nourished in a healthy way by those emotions -- like say, an artist or entertainer who provokes the applause that come back to him. Or, as the Beatles put it, And in the endthe love you take, is equal to the love you make. 

Well, something similar occurs with subversive angels, who "receive their life and power as the result of something they have aroused." Thus, "the more evil a human being does, the more life-force do these angels draw from him for their world." 

Which is why Israel has no choice but to destroy the evil world of Hamas, which is a closed system existing for its own sake, i.e., for the furtherance of evil. Like Nazi Germany, it has no other purpose. And extending the entertainment analogy above, notice the character of the people who "applaud" the actions of Hamas. You can learn a lot from an assoul, for whom the evil they take is equal to the evil they make.

Shifting seers to another book, this one called Dominion, by Chad Ripperger, he notes that demons, in the respect just mentioned, 

are able to make something appear as true, that is, the person under the diabolic influence can become very convinced of the truth of what is being proposed.

Satan, whatever else he is, has been a liar and murderer from the beginning, the latter facilitated by the former (which is why ideology is so critical to committing wholesale evil in good conscience). 

Interestingly, while there is "no truth in him," the evil one is adept at not only convincing people that they possess the truth, but simultaneously closing them off from the very truth that would amend their error. In other words, as mentioned at the end of yesterday's post, they are enclosed in a darkness they call light -- even "enlightenment." 

You know the type. 

Now, if enough people are mentally ill in the same way, we flatter the collective illness by calling it a "community" or even "culture" -- like the so-called culture of the Palestinians. Of course, there are also plenty of cultured Israelis -- AKA self-hating Jewish leftists -- but fewer than there were on October 6.

Consider the following, and ask yourself how a human being could adopt such absurdities:

I'm only a psychologist, not an exorcist, but it seems that demons -- or something like them -- "are able to block a person from self reflecting or being aware of his behavior." Thus, 

A psychologist would call this "cognitive dissonance," but I think we need a more expansive concept, for even if demons don't exist, something like them surely does. To paraphrase the Aphorist, one who speaks of the farthest regions of the soul requires a theological vocabulary, in this case, a vocabulary capable of conceptualizing and articulating the nature of evil.  

It reminds me of an Israeli saying to the effect that "we don't believe in miracles, we only depend on them." Likewise, we might say that "we don't believe in demons, we only fight them." After all, there is some power in man that causes him to call evil good and vice versa. That much is obvious. Starting with Genesis 3, come to think of it. 

Ripperger suggests that demons can "block the individual's ability to either hear what is being said or to see something." They can also affect the imagination "by causing the image to be so garbled that the person cannot understand what is being said to them." They frankly cause an otherwise intelligent person to become stupid, right before your eyes. You know the type.

Now, Schuon makes the Very Important Point -- this touching on the metaphysics of ideological victimhood -- that 
man has the right to be legitimately traumatized only by monstrosities; he who is traumatized by less is himself a monster.

This is how it has come to pass that we are ruled by progressive monsters who are traumatized by non-traumatic microaggressions such as being mispronouned, or being kink-shamed, or being subjected to abortion-stigma when "all abortion stories are beautiful." If you don't want to traumatize someone, then DON'T YUCK THEIR YUM! Simple as. 

Yesterday my son was scrolling through the twitter feed of Planned Parenthood, and examples are too numerous to repeat here, but it's even crazier than you might have imagined, for example,


There's no shame in contracting or spreading syphilis. In fact, there's no shame at all, and believing otherwise is to perpetuate trauma.

Speaking of which, exorcists have observed that "there is usually some form of trauma or psychological illness in which the demon only has to do a little bit of work... in order to get significant reactions from the individual." 

In other words, trauma is a point of entry for demonic influence, so it follows that the more the person is traumatized by trivialities, the more opportunities for the demon to exploit such weakness and control the "victim." 

You know the type, and if you don't, just check out that twitter feed. Darkness visible. And risible. In other words, simultaneously evil and ridiculous, which tracks with what Chesterton said. In a book called Jousting with the Devil: Chesterton's Battle with the Father of Lies, the author says

Satan is real. That's the first thing. The second thing should be obvious: Satan is horrible. But the third thing may not be obvious: Satan is also ridiculous. But he is the only ridiculous thing that must be taken seriously.

This book was discussed in a previous post, so we won't repeat it here. Rather, why don't we consider some practical advice on now to conduct spiritual warfare -- starting with ourselves? In the next installment.

8 comments:

julie said...

In other words, as mentioned at the end of yesterday's post, they are enclosed in a darkness they call light -- even "enlightenment."

You know the type.


Reminds again of the main villains in the third book of CS Lewis' Space Trilogy, That Hideous Strength (lots of excellent quotes there, some of them almost Davilesque):

“Why you fool, it's the educated reader who CAN be gulled. All our difficulty comes with the others. When did you meet a workman who believes the papers? He takes it for granted that they're all propaganda and skips the leading articles. He buys his paper for the football results and the little paragraphs about girls falling out of windows and corpses found in Mayfair flats. He is our problem. We have to recondition him. But the educated public, the people who read the high-brow weeklies, don't need reconditioning. They're all right already. They'll believe anything.”

Gagdad Bob said...

The current madness is making me want to reread The Screwtape Letters.

julie said...

Yeah, it's probably time to revisit that one.

julie said...

Oh, wow - I just looked at the PP Twitter feed. I knew they were awful, but it's so much worse than I could have imagined. Also, what's with the anti-virginity obsession?

Gagdad Bob said...

Like a trip through a sewer in a glass-bottomed boat.

Gagdad Bob said...

'Like Nessie and Bigfoot, the term “late-term abortion” is completely made up. It’s pure anti-abortion propaganda with no basis in medicine, intended to confuse people.'

Gagdad Bob said...

"You and only you know how you feel about your gender identity, and you get to decide what identity fits you best. It’s perfectly normal if that feeling and identity changes day-to-day or over time, so don’t limit yourself to one gender if it doesn’t feel right."

julie said...

I love how they throw out that bit about intending to confuse people. That is literally their entire reason for existing. People who aren't confused about what's true are a lot less likely to support what they do.

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