A long, long time ago, we hired ego to run the shop. It festered and got drunk on its own power. We fed it our allegiance and it metastasized into a dark god with as many forms as there are imaginations. I call it Adversary: a kaleidoscopic projection from the sadistic fantasies and masochistic nightmares of every human mind into the material world, with human action as its vehicle.
Every culture has an archetypal form of this night-side of our species: The Bogeyman, the Scapegoat, the Trickster. It is hated and denounced, yet its gravity is such that it draws worship and obedience, especially when it infects and displaces our notions of authority and divinity. Mankind needed a Devil, so we made one, but forgot both the origin and the responsibility. Some time just after taming fire, we grew frightened of our magic and pushed it down.
In the shadows of the subconscious, our collective darkness wove itself into a perfect deception. To Adversary, centuries blew by like dead leaves. It dressed up as other gods. It made delicious promises and terrifying threats. We started working for it. We learned to bow and to sacrifice without question. We gave it our children.
We convinced ourselves it was the god we wanted. We whitewashed our shadow instead of integrating with it. The more we deny it, the bigger it gets. Darkness, when visible, can be balanced with light. Darkness unchecked only hungers and devours, never filled.
