Evil on higher planes

Cyrus Kirkpatrick is an “astral traveler” and paranormal investigator with his very own YouTube channel, called “Afterlife Topics and Metaphysics”. In this clip, he discusses the origins of evil. I haven´t read the controversial channeled material (known as “Law of One”) the discussion is based on, but I did notice that David Wilcock and Corey Goode also promote it, as do many others. This comment is therefore based solely on Kirkpatrick´s content.

In contrast to much of what passes for New Age, Kirkpatrick believes that evil is a real thing, not simply an “illusion”. This is logical, since his general worldview emphasizes that the astral planes (often seen as a grand illusion) are just as real as our physical existence. Kirkpatrick´s attitude is very “empirical”, so obviously he would regard evil as real, too (it can, after all, be experienced empirically). Nor does Kirkpatrick believe that matter is evil, and that all spiritual entities or realities must therefore be loving and good. Kirkpatrick instead holds that we are astrally embodied (my term) in the afterlife, and that our lives in many ways continue as before. Our “heaven” is a place where we reunite with our loved ones, live in houses, watch TV, perhaps even work. The point of our earthly existence is to “graduate” at a higher level, and I assume that´s one point of our astral afterlife existence, too. Therefore, matter can´t be fundamentally evil. Neither, of course, is spirit, but the point is that evil comes from the spiritual, being a distorted form of it.

Kirkpatrick is not a dualist in the Manichean or Zoroastrian senses either. At bottom, there is only one divine life force, which is wholly good. Evil arises when highly evolved spirit-beings use the life force that manifests through their spirit-bodies for selfish ends, rather than for the collective good. In this way, “service to other people” gets transformed into “service of self”. Kirkpatrick seems to have reached this conclusion by observing narcissists and sociopaths in real life (he says his father was an extreme narcissist), noting that they actually seem to be highly “spiritual” and charismatic, but in a warped kind of way. They do have love and empathy, but only for their own ego! It struck me that many New Age people may follow teachers who are narcissistic and sociopathic, which may explain why they don´t connect the dots.

Another difference between Kirkpatrick and many others is that he doesn´t see evil as entirely chaotic. Sociopathic evil is elaborate and cunning. There is such a thing as organized evil, perhaps even a kind of hierarchy of evil. (Compare the Borg in Star Trek.) Thus, we could imagine an entire planet ruled by an evil dictator who nevertheless manages to keep law and order by making everyone bow to him and cater to his wishes. He might even give the planetary inhabitants certain individual freedoms, the better to keep overall control. (This sounds like a metaphor for…well, 21^st century global capitalism.)

Of course, there *is* an established religion which claims that evil is real, matter isn´t evil in itself, that evil is spiritual, that it´s connected to egoism, that it´s not entirely chaotic. It also claims that a certain Satan was a fallen angel… Yes, that would be Christianity.