On Evil²
Poor great-grandmother Gertrude’s ancestral interest in “having people say good things” is not evil in itself, but the spirit of that desire is evil for our person due to the contrariness of that impulse, relative to the authentic interests of our person, risen to a compulsory level of compliance. Casual observation by the standard materialist might minimize the incident as a matter of lack of impulse control; it is not entirely false, but also not helpful. It is kind of common gaslighting specific to contemporary society that faults the individual for diseases caused by external sources. Honest psychoanalytical appraisal of the situation would find that our person has no power over that pattern; that it imposes itself as an autonomous complex, and resistance indeed makes it stronger.
Anyone who has struggled with addictions, or any sort of compulsory behaviors, understands that what our culture calls “willpower” often has limitations and rarely alone provides results. Sure, if it was a lightweight impulse for our person to bury their own pride when faced with social conflict then this could be a different problem. The spirit of great-grandmother would be there, quietly voicing make nice as an option, and our person could choose a rational, game theoretic, optimum among conflicting desires. However, in this case the negative impulse is neither optional nor optimal: it is involuntary, mechanical, recurrent, and self-destructive. The individual as such is not yet in a position to cope with the challenge. For our person, willpower is still an imaginary power.
Now, in order for the subject to effectuate a solution to this circumstance, and similar circumstances, in accordance with their true will, there must be several breakthroughs: (1) emotional recognition that there is a contrary desire, (2) analytical comprehension that this internal conflict is causing significant damage to the life of our person, (3) experiential observation that the repetitious pattern is autonomous (i.e. not under will), and (4) personal understanding that the problem is in fact, irreconcilably, spiritual. These stages are more or less standard in secular addiction recovery cycles. However, for the occultist, the autonomous and animistic characteristics of this power struggle are elevated and translated into a transpersonal and transtemporal problem.
