In 1997, a strategic planning group at the CIA made a visit to my company in Washington. They brought with them a woman whose job and title were classified. I was not allowed to know them.  She communicated throughout the meeting that she held my work and me in utter disdain. Upon listening to my presentation on how small business and communities in America could be strengthened, she looked at me and sneered, “You know what your problem is? You don’t understand where evil comes from.”

She was right. Forced by circumstances — arranged, I suspect, by her colleagues back at Langley —  I spent the years after meeting her in a concerted effort to understand where evil comes from. Yet, here I sit many years later still not having an answer to this profoundly important question. Where does evil come from?

Our economic problems are symptoms of a problem we have with evil. So if we want to address our economic problems, we have to deal with the root problem — the ascendancy of evil and its effective use of invisible weaponry, including financial weaponry

How do we navigate in a world where it is impossible to obtain the information we need to see our way clearly? If the mathematics of time and money can not help me understand phenomenon, then I try to navigate through common sense and the human heart. I view events through a spiritual prism, trying to live with uncertainty — to know what I don’t know and embrace this ambiguity with faith and grace.

This is why I have always enjoyed Jeff Wells’ blog Rigorous Intuition. Wells has a masterful way of dealing with some of the darkest and weirdest aspects of life on planet earth. Here is a man whose search for truth is without censorship. There is little urge to seek a shallow certainty. There is courage here.

Wells just published a new book, Rigorous Intuition: What You Don’t Know Can’t Hurt Them. If you want to contemplate real life outside of any bubble, this book is recommended. In a series of short essays drawing from his blog, Wells gives you many more questions than answers, some profound insights, delightful laughs and the pleasure of spending time with a fine writer.

Wells can not yet answer the question, “Where does evil come from?” Rather, he invites us to explore with him and helps us to stare into the abyss of evil and unknown with integrity and humor.

25 Comments

  1. I do so enjoy dropping by from time to time to catch up with the blogs and musings…As Catherine is a guest on ‘Coast to Coast AM’ late night radio from time to time, this may be an appropriate tidbit…
    Some time ago, it may even have been George’s predecessor, had a ‘Technical Remote Viewer’ on as a guest.
    The challenge to ‘find’ or ‘indentify’ the anti-Christ had been given on an earlier appearance. It seems the TRV group got together and worked on the topic. Interestingly enough, all the TRVs came up with sketches of ‘coins of the realm’ and different currency notes, as opposed to a face or a name of a person.
    Hmm…kinda makes ya wonder, doesn’t it? Now, what’s the old saying? “Can’t serve two Masters”…

    Keep up the great work. Thanks, db

  2. The human mind knows by contrast.
    We would not know good without evil.
    Evil comes from good and good comes from
    evil.
    They arise mutually.
    It is the duality of opposites that
    are the principles of the universe.
    Just as you can’t have light without dark
    or life without death, male without female,
    nothing without something so good and evil
    go together as two sides of the same coin.
    The trick is to find the balance between
    the two.

    Alan Watts on The Yin and the Yang
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S3LJ5HNfNEY

    Alan Watts – Identical Differences
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gO9vJS2BScE

  3. Why are people so evil and remorseless? They are likely to have psychopathic traits. Here is an excerpt from an article “Psychopaths in History”, written by John de Nugent, published in the Jan-Feb 2007 issue of The Barnes Review magazine:

    What is a psychopath? Are psychopaths usually in prison—or are the vast majority of them moving among us, or lording it over us in society? Are they one in a million or 40,000 in a million? And what about “mattoids”—those dynamic and “gifted” psychopaths who rarely end up in prisons? Who are the most prominent and successful mattoids of today —and yesterday?

    Alarming yet enlightening research in the last 15 years has concluded that full or partial psychopathy may be shockingly widespread— one American in 25, and far more in leadership positions. The key traits of the psychopath: he (usually a male) is radically self-centered, slick, lying, manipulative, ruthless, sadistic, focused and, sometimes, insanely fearless.

    Here is a list of identifiers for psychopathy, compiled from several authorities. If an individual has at least any four of the below in a very pronounced form, there are grounds for concern. Many people have a touch of several of these traits, but few have a majority of them in full measure. They are:
    1) Glib and superficial charm;
    2) Grandiose sense of self-worth; narcissism; seeing the self as the center of the universe; feeling “no one else is human, only I”;
    3) Focused self-advancement without losing any energy on others except as stepping-stones;
    4) No moral taboos or inhibitions as to methods, aiding career success until caught;
    5) Need for constant stimulation, action, and new ways to avoid boredom;
    6) Lying as an art form to fine-tune and a source of pride;
    7) Targeting and manipulation of the gullible;
    8) Enticing people they do not love to naively love them;
    9) Skill at faking emotions, including love, sincerity and regret;
    10) Doing good work and good deeds solely to advance oneself;
    11) Ruthlessness and “stopping at nothing”;
    12) Enjoyment of the power to coldly end close relationships;
    13) “Getting” others back as a peak experience;
    14) Desire for vengeance when spurned;
    15) Pleasure in firing or ruining people. In the U.S., where highly profitable firms routinely cut good employees to boost stock values, there are professional terminators who roam the country cutting staff and personally firing them;
    16) Abuse and literal torture of living creatures;
    17) Humiliating others physically, verbally, emotionally, psychologically or sexually;
    18) Denigrating one’s own child or mate;
    19) Callousness; lack of empathy and compassion;
    20) Shallow or no feelings for others, even mates, children and friends;
    21) No ability to feel remorse or undergo inner repentance;
    22) Regret solely at being caught, embarrassed or punished;
    23) Incomprehension of the angry reactions of those they hurt;
    24) Underestimation of their own anger;
    25) No sense of responsibility for one’s actions;
    26) Parasitical world view: living by scams and not hard work;
    27) Contempt for those who “play by the rules”;
    28) Criminal talent, energy and innovativeness;
    29) Warlike courage far above the norm;
    30) Playing on the sympathy of others. To this one might add—in the purely subjective, non-scientific eye of many beholders—a curious dead look in the eyes of a psychopath, and that is the chilling part. Others speak of looking into such eyes and “having a feeling that nothing is there.”

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