Art Credit: Rursus. (CC BY-SA 3.0)

Every culture has had its own concept of evil or the devil. In Genesis, there is the famous temptation of Adam and Eve by evil—personified by the snake—in the Garden of Eden. While the Hebrew Bible mentions Satan by name only in the book of Job, the idea of evil permeates Jewish mystical and religious thought.

If we go back further, we discover that Zoroastrianism laid the groundwork for our modern understanding of good and evil. Zoroastrian belief in good and evil was an important development in spiritual thought, as it taught about personal responsibility.

It was an act of empowerment for people to realize they had a choice in life to align with either divine or evil powers. Their actions made a difference. The lessons of good and evil are a teaching tool of morality. People were not simply pawns in the hands of the gods.

The Concepts of Good and Evil

The concept of good and evil is center stage in Christian theology. Here, Satan is the antagonist in the great drama of human life. In the Christian concept, our spiritual destiny of heaven or hell is determined by which spiritual force we align ourselves with.

Islam has its belief in evil. As a monotheistic religion, it shares much with the Judaic/Christian concepts of evil. In Islamic theology, Satan is known as Shaytan, or “the rejected.”

In Hinduism, there is no concept of a single devil who is the source of all evil, but there are many evil spirits and demons known as asuras. Asuras are the antithesis of the angelic suras.

Questioning The Concepts of Good and Evil

In more recent times, humanity has questioned the concept of the devil. Some believe that the entity we call Satan is really our own creation—there is no such thing as the devil, only the evil we create ourselves, and that we personify evil as the devil so that we can better deal with the dark side of our own nature. As always, metaphysics has a very definite insight into this age-old question.

To understand the problem of evil and the devil, we must bring into play several spiritual concepts. The first is the concept of the One. Clearly, if there is only one divine power in the universe, there cannot be a power opposed to it. According to the law of the One, there cannot be two ultimate sources in creation, God and a devil. There can be only God.

The second principle to consider is free will. We are all creations of God, but it is our choice to express that divinity or not. And the third concept is the differentiation between an actual spiritual being called “Satan” and evil actions.

Physical Matter Itself Is Evil?

Metaphysics takes several different approaches in understanding evil. There is an esoteric definition of evil as “an inherent quality of matter resistant to the divine impulse.” This philosophy has made many devout people mistakenly think that physical matter itself is evil—hence physical life is bad, something to be negated in preference to the spiritual life.

Certainly, all of us on the spiritual path can recognize the inherent challenges of physical life. If we see the physical as part of the spiritual, rather than something contrary to the divine, then we start to spiritually master the physical. The physical pulls are not something to succumb to, fear, or avoid. They are something to face and master. Conquering physical resistance not only elevates one’s soul, it transforms physical matter as well.

Evil As The "Adversary"

This brings us to another interpretation of evil or Satan as the “adversary.” In this definition, the purpose of Satan and the evil impulse is to test humanity’s spiritual strength and devotion to God. This is the theme that runs through the book of Job. We see this challenge in our everyday life.

Sometimes our worst enemy can be our greatest opportunity. It forces us to muster up courage and strength that we thought we never had. In all mystical stories, there is a great adversary the hero must conquer. We are all heroes in our own life and must not shrink when adversarial situations present themselves.

Evil As A Behavior 

I would like to emphasize another interpretation of evil—evil as a behavior. What is an evil act?

Evil acts are a deliberate misuse of spiritual principles for selfish ends. In other words, you have to willfully and knowingly commit acts that you know are against divine or natural laws to be committing something evil. An evil act is deliberately perverting spiritual laws.

Evil acts are the true anathema to the soul. By doing an evil act with conscious knowing, you are cutting yourself off from your spiritual source, and the act you commit will obviously be very destructive, because there will be no Divine Light in it.

Evil is a behavior that exists, whether the devil does or not. By aligning yourself with the Divine Light, you give evil no opportunity to influence you. Your job is to keep yourself a clear channel of the Divine Light.

©2014 by Barbara Y. Martin and Dimitri Moraitis.
Reprinted with permission of the publisher, Jeremy P. Tarcher/Penguin,
a member of Penguin Group (USA). www.us.PenguinGroup.com.

Article Source

Communing with the Divine: A Clairvoyant's Guide to Angels, Archangels, and the Spiritual Hierarchy
by Barbara Y. Martin and Dimitri Moraitis.

This book will teach you to work closely with angels, archangels, and other divine beings who guide you in day-to-day living and help you achieve your destiny.

Click here for more info and/or to order this book on Amazon.

About the Authors

Barbara Y. Martin is among the foremost clairvoyants and metaphysical teachers in the world. One of the first lecturers on the aura and the human energy field, she speaks across the United States and is cofounder of the renowned Spiritual Arts Institute, where she has instructed thousands on working with spiritual energy. Barbara is the award-winning coauthor of Karma and Reincarnation, The Healing Power of Your Aura, and the international bestseller Change Your Aura, Change Your Life.

Dimitri Moraitis is cofounder and executive director of the Spiritual Arts Institute. An accomplished teacher and spiritual healer, he is coauthor of Karma and Reincarnation, The Healing Power of Your Aura, and Change Your Aura, Change Your Life. He lectures with Barbara Martin across the country.

Watch an interview with Barbara and Dimitri (in which Barbara does a mini aura-reading): The Healing Power of Your Aura