Graham Hancock on Good and Evil

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1. A Robin says:

   I know exactly what you are talking about Graham! We have apparently come to the same almost exact conclusions regarding the existence of good and evil. It took me many decades to finally come to the conclusion that good and evil don’t exist anywhere except in our imagination. Humans invented good and evil, they didn’t discover or uncover good and evil. This means that this “duality of reality” that we have created within our imagination, actually is a tool of the mind that has been provided for us to use, i.e. — Good and evil are useful tools for successfully interacting with reality, as are our delusions and imagination.

   Some relevant Jungian quotes in this regard from my studies of good and evil…

   “What is ‘good’ and what is ‘evil’? The unconscious is not just evil by nature, it is also the source of the highest good: not only dark, but also light, not only bestial, semi-human, and demonic but superhuman, spiritual, and, in the classical sense of the word, ‘divine’ … Since this is so … all definitions of good and evil become suspect or actually invalid” (Collected Works of Jung, Vol 16,para 389-390)

   We are all sources of evil. There is no “evil out there”; within all of us we all have a little bit of Osama Ben Ladin in us, as well as a little bit of Mother Teresa.

   “In themselves, spirit and matter are neutral, or rather, ‘utriusque capax’ — that is capable of what man calls good or evil” (Collected Works of Jung, Vol 9i, para 197).

   What that means is the suffering of existence is not evil but rather neutral, serving the purpose of awakening us by communicating an important message: that all of our existential pain can be overcome in a place deep within ourselves, a place that is free of ignorance, fear, and greed. Before we can ever reach that sacred place within ourselves, we must first learn how to tell the difference between what is ‘within’ and what is ‘without’. This in turn requires that we develop our egos to the point that they can learn to relate, interact, and get to know reality outside of our limited selves, the world of the ‘not-I’.

   “But evil is real. It is not innate but acquired, and it is never the reverse of good, but rather its destroyer…When one day the ignorance arising from childhood repression is eliminated and humanity has awakened, an end can be put to this production of evil” (Banished Knowledge: Facing Childhood Injuries, Alice Miller, pp.142-143)

   While good and evil are not objective qualities of things, that doesn’t mean good and evil aren’t real. We make it real because they are personalized interpretations and/or judgements of objective qualities of the things we adore or of the things that we abhor (for whatever arbitrary reason).

   “The view that we can simply turn our back on evil and in this way eschew it, belongs to the long list of antiquated naiveties. This is sheer ostrich policy and does not affect the reality of evil in the slightest. Evil is the necessary opposite of good, without which there would be no good either. It is impossible even to think evil out of existence” (Collected Works of Jung, Vol 9i, para 567)

   How can good and evil exist in “real life”, if they are only imaginary concepts?

   “We know that the mask of the unconscious is not rigid — it reflects the face we turn towards it” (Collected Works of Jung, Vol 12, para 29)

   “…it is quite within the bounds of possibility for a man to recognize the relative evil of his nature, but it is a rare and shattering experience for him to gaze into the face of absolute evil” (Collected Works of Jung, Vol 9i, para 19)

   You have done exactly that with your book, ENTANGLED. You turned your conscious “face” towards your unconscious brain, and you saw a great evil that only exists in your conscious mind.

   Just like me, you have seen reality instead of the delusion, and you just don’t know it yet.

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   22nd May 2025 at 1:39 pm