For so long as the root of wickedness is hidden, it is strong. But when it is recognized, it is dissolved. When it is revealed, it perishes. … It is powerful because we have not recognized it. — The Gospel of Philip
Looking at the state of the world, one could be forgiven for believing that there’s an evil global conspiracy pulling the strings from behind the scenes. In a certain sense, there is—and every one of us has a vital role to play in bringing it down.
“Evil people” want you to hate them—or more precisely, the evil in their minds wants you to hate the people themselves instead of aiming it at the darkness that is possessing them. Why? Because hating people is fundamentally malicious, thereby signaling to them that even the “good people” are only frauds, and that genuine goodness is a myth—and thus darkness is the only solution. This, in turn, reinforces the illusion you harbor that evil lives only outside yourself—making it easier for you to overlook the darkness already present within you.
The darkness thus ingratiates itself further to both of you. Part of you knows this is what’s really happening, but you find it nearly impossible to admit to yourself. Why? Because the darkness is manipulating your mind in exactly the same way it is controlling theirs. In fact, it is controlling all of society, so that we harbor the collective delusion that hating “bad people” is righteous. This give us each plausible deniability, so that we never look too closely. We never notice that it’s really just a backdoor that the darkness uses to seize control of our minds whenever it wants.
It is a horrifying trap of devastating proportions, but make no mistake: something in you is agreeing to fall for it any time you willingly feel malice for anybody. In fact, even malice isn’t required. It is enough to harbor contempt—that sense of being fundamentally superior to others. Doing so signals your willingness to make a deal with the Devil. What it gets is a darker world, and what you gain is the ability to better hide your own darkness from yourself—because the darker the world gets, the harder it is to notice the self-serving aspects of your own actions and agendas. They magically become necessary—in order to fight evil, of course.
But the true brilliance is that you don’t have to do anything to darken the world. Your contempt alone is sufficient, because it signals your true intention. This itself is enough to darken other minds, because it informs them of where the real power lies. And because part of you knows you are doing this, your enemy’s suspicion that even the good people are frauds is accurate in your case. Moreover, you know this too—that you’re intentionally robbing them of any hope that real goodness exists; shoving them deeper into the abyss, just to help you better hide your own complicity from yourself. But this is malevolent, and so you must hide this, too, from yourself. The whole thing thus spirals into a black hole of self-deception—which is why none of us ever recognize our own complicity.
Thus, what “evil people” are subconsciously sensing—and what we want them to sense—is this collective willingness to sacrifice them at the altar of darkness in order to keep our own dirty laundry hidden. After all, what better way to drive a person insane? Who could possibly believe in a conspiracy this contorted? We are driving people into the arms of darkness while calling it righteous, specifically so that we can scapegoat them for it, thus never having to confront our own sins. It is a trap of such sinister cleverness that it couldn’t possibly be true—and yet it is.
It is this giant mass of self-deception that we subconsciously detect as an evil global conspiracy. It is what ultimately enables governments to wage unjust wars to line the pockets of the rich; corporations to desecrate nature in the name of profit; and factory farms to inflict unimaginable suffering upon helpless creatures. All of this and more is only possible due to a vast shroud of darkness—a shroud that is woven, thread by thread, from our individual willingness to turn away from ourselves, and from a commitment that we each made before the dawn of Time.
We are all One. All the victims; all the perpetrators—they are you. All the forests, rivers, and mountains—they are your blood and bones, too. Contempt for any part of yourself breeds contempt for the whole. It is completely inescapable. The deepest part of you knows this, whether your conscious mind is ready to accept it or not. The more you awaken to this truth, the more your very being becomes an inspiration for others to do the same. This is the only thing that actually evicts the darkness from people’s minds, thereby weakening the evil conspiracy.
It is like seeing through the Matrix. You stop trying to fight darkness with darkness, perceiving directly why this can never work. The aspect of your mind that once tried to “get away” with tiny white lies stops too, because you realize the impossibility of getting away with anything. It’s all you. Who would you be hiding it from, and how? No act of kindness is ever lost; and no act of darkness ever disappears, either. The actions you take when no-one is watching—they matter in ways that no instrument may ever be capable of detecting—because you will always know, and what you ultimately are is vaster than what any philosophy could ever contain.
Awakening to this truth feels like being freed from a demonic possession. Its core trick was to convince you that you needed it to protect you from the evil “out there,” by hijacking your mind at such a fundamental level that you never even suspected you were being fooled. This is why cleverness alone cannot save us. If you rely only on your thoughts—no matter how sophisticated—you will always end up justifying your own darkness. Modern culture fetishizes the intellect for this very reason: by getting us to trust the cognitive apparatus it so easily controls, the darkness ensures that our attempts to think our way out only deepen the trap.
The solution to the climate crisis, biosphere collapse, etc., is not through more cleverness alone, but through a different mode of perception. The darkness tricks us into perceiving reality as an intrinsically lifeless collection of “stuff” over which we have dominion. The profound contempt embedded in this perception is what creates and sustains the horrific systems—from factory farms to unjust wars—that are rapidly turning our world lifeless. In the same way, our perception of certain people as intrinsically evil is what provokes them into justifying this belief. Both are self-fulfilling prophecies born of our willingness to turn away from a fundamental truth.
Reality is radically alive, even magical—a truth our modern culture cannot afford to legitimize. Our rationalist, materialist culture safely quarantines it in the categories of “spiritual” or “religious” for a simple reason: to truly recognize reality as alive would expose the foundational lie that fuels our world-devouring machine. Yet you can recognize it in the ineffable scent of a rose, in the laugh of a baby. Most of all, you recognize it in your profound desire to be of service to all of Life, at any cost to yourself—a commitment that defies all logic and self-interest. This is your true nature; your primordial connection to genuine goodness. It is called compassion.
Do not worry that this realization will dull your ability to fight evil. True compassion is not weak or passive; it is the ferocious expression of your intrinsic goodness. It can be fierce; even violent—but it is incapable of malice, contempt, or self-righteousness toward anyone for any reason. It surgically targets the parasite in people’s minds—the darkness itself—instead of the confused beings who unwittingly harbor it. The profound integrity of this act robs the parasite of its power to justify itself, and it is thereby weakened.
You must never believe that this capacity is limited to you, or to a select group of “good people.” Do not divide the world into those who deserve compassion and those who deserve contempt—or else you will only fall back into evil’s oldest trick. Never forsake anyone. Your fellow beings are hopelessly lost, just as you once were—and by awakening to the truth in yourself, you increasingly serve as a guiding Light for the rest of Us to remember it, too.
Call it what you want—God, Love, Truth—or let it remain a whisper on the wind. But abide by it at all times, and at any cost; whether anyone knows that you are or not. For it is the only weapon we have against the evil conspiracy—and it is needed now more than ever.