SHF Podcast Episode 5 - A Closer Look at Evil

In this episode, hosts Miriah Fury and Katherine Finley delve into the concept of evil, recognizing its personal and cosmic dimensions. They begin by grounding listeners in their bodies to navigate the intense themes discussed. Miriah emphasizes the importance of defining evil, distinguishing between personal encounters with individuals with personality disorders and broader cosmic forces.

Miriah expresses her belief that no human soul is inherently evil but can be influenced by evil forces, leading to harmful behaviors. She outlines characteristics of individuals affected by evil, such as an absence of empathy, excessive need for power, and manipulative behaviors.

Katherine adds statistical insights, highlighting the prevalence of personality disorders in society, particularly in positions of power. They discuss the link between evil and sanity, emphasizing the danger of well-adapted individuals perpetuating harm.

The hosts share strategies for discerning and confronting evil, including cultivating indifference, compassion, and trust in one's inner guidance. Ultimately, they advocate for maintaining faith in the inherent goodness of the universe, quoting a verse from Rudolf Steiner for solace and courage.

Listeners are encouraged to deepen their understanding of evil, trust their inner wisdom, and cultivate resilience in navigating life's challenges.

Transcript

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Welcome to the Sovereign Heart Frequency Podcast. I'm katherine Finley with Sovereign Heart Coaching and I'm here with my co host Miriah Fieri of Whole Being Counseling. We recognize that we're living through an intense time on our planet. There seems to be more polarization and division and less connected communication than ever before. We are here to change that. We intention to hold conversations in a container of love and authenticity. We believe that when humans come together from a heart centered place, we can not only understand one another, but we can get creative together, solving problems we couldn't solve alone. It's time to reimagine and rebirth a new world in which everyone's authentic voice is included in the harmonic orchestra of human voices, to create a world that works for all of us. Thank you for being part of this conversation, we're excited to have you. Welcome back, everyone, to Sovereign Heart Frequency Podcast. This is Mariah Fury, and I'm here with my co host, Katherine Finley. And we got a little intense with you our last episode, talking about evil, and we're just gonna dive right deep down into it and stay in the, um the intense themes here for a little bit. Hope you can stay with us. In fact, we realized we hadn't properly defined evil in our last and felt that would be pretty important to do so that we're all on the same page since that word could conjure up who knows what images in people's minds and, It may not be all together there. So, before though, um, I want to just invite everyone listening to ground in your body a little bit, because it can be a little alarming to orient to evil and, and what it is and how it acts, so while we're traversing this, this area, let's just take a moment to feel the seat underneath you, if you're sitting down, or if you're standing, feel the ground underneath you, feel where your body makes contact. And notice where your breath is going in your body without any judgment or any need to control it. Just feel your breath and how deep down, or shallow, or wide, or constricted it goes. And as you listen to me orienting with you, Just notice if there's any tightness, or shallowness of breath, or a little racing of the heart, or any numbness, or any kind of tension that shows up. And there's no judgment if it does. Just noticing is all that is needed. And, um, Of course you're welcome to try and work with it, I'm not saying don't, but also, um, noticing it is enough. So what is evil? This is an age old question, and I do not pretend to be an expert, um, or have the definitive answers, nor could I explain it in a half an hour podcast, even if I did, but, um, briefly, You know, there's the evil that we face in interpersonal relationships, if you've ever been in a relationship with a sociopath or a psychopath or a narcissist, you've probably had, um, the bad taste in your mouth of, of being around that. Um, but there's also what's considered more cosmic evil. Kind of the greater forces of, good and evil or dark and light that, um, you know, are supposedly there since the beginning of creation. And are more abstract than an individual human. So, um, I'm going to start with the more personal experiences with, evil. And I want to Put out there my personal belief that there isn't a human being who is 100 percent evil. Um, there are people who can be corrupted by evil forces and they only commit evil acts in their lifetime. But I believe the nature of the soul is such that, There's something to learn in a lifetime that is wreaking that kind of havoc on life on earth, and I don't believe that there is a human soul that is truly evil. I believe there are evil forces that act on people's souls, and I don't believe that there is a human soul that is fully good, because we have free will. Therefore, we have all. The capacity to make choices that hurt others, or go against life, um, or against our soul impulses, which is kind of a vague definition of evil, if you will, um, but also that, unless you are a saint, and thus, you know, um, going to be ascending into a rainbow body or ascending into the light after you drop this body and never have to reincarnate again. You're probably going to make some choices that are, that are maybe what someone might consider evil or kind of anti life forces. So, no, no one is all or nothing or everything and nothing. And, um, I just want to put that out there, but that doesn't mean that That, that there aren't degrees of evil which we should, regard as, you know, a life sentence, let's say. Um, maybe in their next life they'll have learned a lesson and have, an easier ability to get along with people and to contribute something positive to this earthly existence. But, it is my personal belief that there are people who, for whom Their access to soul energy is cut off from them in this lifetime and so it seems appropriate to also define what I mean by soul energy. And, um, from a, from a psychotherapy perspective, there's qualities of self energy that, um, Also means soul energy. That a person demonstrates when they're in that place in themselves. And these qualities look like compassion, care, curiosity, courage, um, and calmness. So, these are the kinds of qualities that we always associate when we see somebody who's really rich and connected to their their soul force energy. We feel good being around them and we almost feel like we could be that way because it just feels like a place we wanna be in ourselves and never leave., And the, the opposite would be true for someone who is completely cut off from their soul. We might feel really tense around them. We might feel scared, or angry, or, or frozen around them, and kind of, they can, they can um, often by intention try to cut us off from our soul energy. Um, people who are cut off from that soul energy in, in this lifetime have damaged, and often completely absent empathy. And empathy is the ability to comprehend how someone might feel in any given situation. And so, if you can't understand how something might make someone feel, you have no,, regulation to not hurt somebody. it's a, it's basically a free for all. Anything you do, there's no feedback to you telling you that, um, that that would be hurtful and you shouldn't do that. And so, that is a primary feature in all of the personality disorders that, that would kind of lump into the category of evil, meaning psychopaths, sociopaths, and narcissists. They all have a diagnostic criteria of an absence of empathy. And also an excessive need for power and control. An inability to be self reflective or self responsible. Uh, therefore they blame others for the outcomes of their actions. And this often leads to a lot of anger and rage. Their ability to mitigate and moderate all of the emotions under the spectrum of anger are impaired, and that powerful emotional energy is often what, um, people experience as harmful, that rage that goes outward and hurts people. And also, highly manipulative behaviors are a feature here. Um, M. Scott Peck, who wrote People of the Lie, says, wherever there is evil, there is a lie around. So, you can't confront evil without waiting through a whole bunch of lies first. Um, and so those lies are intended to manipulate people to gain the power and control or status that they're seeking. Um, anything to add, Catherine? Well, I actually, um, looked at statistics online about what percentage of our population, um, has these Diagnosed disorders. And, and this was from, this is in the United States. The research that I found that, um, that the American Psychiatric Association said that 3 to 5 percent of our population are sociopaths. Um, which I was surprised. I found that higher than I thought. 1 percent psychopaths In general, 5 percent of our population has some sort of personality disorder, but there are many personality disorders. Um, and then interestingly, people diagnosed with narcissistic personality disorder, or like true narcissism, I found a wide range of 0. 5 percent all the way to 7%, depending on the study. but it looks like the Like, the percentage of our population for narcissism is on the rise in recent decades, which makes sense to me. But I was, you know, 3 to 5 percent, sociopaths, I mean, for every 100 people, 3 to 5. That's a lot. And you have to consider, too, that people with personality disorders such as these are more likely to seek out professions that have a very intense power structure, such as politicians, or corporate executives, or provide a lot of status, um, you know, such as Hollywood, a lot of leadership roles. And so, just the 3 5 percent are probably overrepresented in these fields. So if you look at, you know, anything related to, law, or politics, or leadership roles, it might even be closer to 30 percent or whatever of those subgroups. And I'm, I'm just pulling that out of the air, so don't quote me on that. But, I mean, pulling the number out of the air, not the fact that they do seek positions of power over other people,,that's one of the diagnostic criteria, is an excessive desire for power and control. So. And I want to add to, um, something from the book, we've talked some about People of the Lie by Scott Peck, um, he talks about This idea of sanity and evil. And because we can often believe that evil would only come with insanity. That it wouldn't be a sane impulse to act, evilly. Right? But, um, he, he quotes actually Thomas Merton. I'm just going to read this because I think it's really profound. Um, we equate sanity with a sense of justice. With humanness, with prudence, with the capacity to love and understand other people. We rely on the sane people of the world to preserve it from barbarism, madness, destruction. And now it begins to dawn on us that it is precisely the sane ones who are the most dangerous. It is the sane ones, the well adapted ones, who can without qualms and without nausea. Aim the missiles and press the buttons that will initiate the great festival of destruction that they, the sane ones, have prepared. Um, yeah. Well said. Yeah, feels important to, to state that. Um, with this, even though it's a disorder in the DSM, sociopathy or narcissistic personality disorder, right? It's, it still comes with sanity. Mm hmm. And one other point that, um, M. Scott Peck makes in this book is the bland conformity of evil. That evil is very predictable. And that, ultimately, there is no, because there's no access to soul energy, there's no channel for the spontaneous, authentic, creative inner self that is, um, what our soul drives us to do. And therefore, it's, energies go more into Getting the newest cool model car and having the most money and power and looking the most this way with your surgeries and whatever. So there's this, there comes to be this conformity of evil that is very, um, constricting for the individual, obviously. Um, But also, kind of helps to see through it when, once you tune into it. Um, if you're a person with a soul trying to orient to evil, then it can be a clue on the path of identification I wonder if it's time to transition into speaking of, um, discernment of evil and, tuning into the inner self because when we're in touch with our own soul essence, as you've been talking about, we then, I believe, can. can see when there's energy coming in that is not that or is not encouraging that, right? And, you know, as you were talking about the dullness, I was just thinking about all of the forces, especially in the Western world, maybe even especially in the United States, like all of the forces, trying to really manipulate us into buying their product or staying on the screen, um, continuing to scroll and we could say that these are anti life forces. These are forces. This is energy that is not encouraging us, uh, to live our expansive creative life that is doing the opposite of encouraging us to be connected to our soul essence. And this energy is all around, right? And, and so powerful. so powerful. Like they, they purposely, you know, make certain foods addicting so that you'll keep eating them and keep buying them. Or they'll make, They figured out how to trigger dopamine in the brain with screens to keep your attention on that, right? and that is, um, anti life. It's anti life. It really goes against, the world that I want to dream into of all of us living in our full, soul essences and, and being creative. And so, maybe we can talk about some Practices, or some ways to see when we get caught in this energy, and then, um, what to do with that, once we notice that. Yeah, so, it's important to be mindful of how you respond when you meet evil in the world. Whether it's through a news report, or a meme, or a person in your life, or an institution. Because, as I mentioned in the last episode, um, it's all too easy to blend with the energy that you're, um, trying to position yourself against. And that against anti antagonism, can really sort of just keep the wheel going. While it is important to stand up to evil at times, there are ways to do it more consciously that are healthier for yourself. And sometimes, indifference is the most powerful way to face evil, and when I say indifference, I don't mean, complacency. I mean, you have no power here. Your tricks are so obvious and ridiculous and you'll never, you'll never achieve your evil nefarious agenda with, with that kind of intention. So having the ability to have evil come into your field, to see it, to recognize it, to know that it's evil. And then to kind of laugh in his face at how, um, how silly. Or if you have cultivated, you know, some degree of pity or even advanced degree of compassion for the, the deep suffering that you know underlies the soul of someone who is overcome with evil, then that Also, applies. But, basically you have to be able to see it in order to regard it in this way. And it doesn't mean that if you have compassion for it you go and try to rescue it. Or teach it how to be good. it just really has more to do with your own attitude. And, um, and basically thinking of the The energy that you create in your immediate personal environment, like I'm talking about your aura, right, or whatever you want to call that energetic sphere, the toroidal field around your body, that you can maintain that in a sense of consistency even if evil comes in contact with it. Because what evil wants to do is it wants to make you afraid, first and foremost that's kind of the low hanging fruit for evil. And so with this indifference or pity, um, you really maintain your, your energetic, protection. That, it then has no access into you. And the other thing it wants to do is to,, either kind of make you angry or corrupt you. But fear is really, I think, The most common thing that, that evil energy tries to influence people with. Because it, when we're afraid,, we really kind of leave our body a little bit. Like, we dissociate. And when we are dissociated from our body, there's a vacancy there, right? And why do they call it possession? It's like, there's something inside of you taking up residence when you're not there. So if we can stay embodied, through this kind of indifference or pity or even compassion, then there's really no, there's no contest there for the, the evil intention. and we can stay embodied through just mindfulness of our body, like we did at the beginning of the session. through grounding, that we also did at the beginning of the session, kind of feeling the connection that your body has to the earth. even better if it's actually you're making a direct connection with the earth and actually absorbing the earth's frequency into your body. that's very protective. but also we can use, you know, movement or, or compassionate touch. to, to stay embodied. Really being present is pretty important. So, another pretty important way to stay embodied, that is a nuance of the, the fear technique is what is called hypervigilance. And this is a, A term that's very often used in describing the symptoms of trauma when we're very vigilant about what is going on around us. And that attention that we give out kind of takes us out of our body. We're not super aware of what's going on inside of us when we're hypervigilant, and we don't have to have PTSD. as a diagnosis to experience hypervigilance. I think everybody experiences this when there's times of, very disruptive, unpredictable, events going on in our world. And we can want to orient to what's going on by watching the, the news or, you know, scrolling, however it is you get your information about what's going on in the greater world. but ultimately, it's looking for the answers outside of ourselves. unfortunately, a lot of those sources where we're getting information from are heavily manipulated and controlled, and probably a lot of them by these, types of evil influences. But even if you have a really reputable source for information, you're still, Kind of taking your attention up and out, which isn't a wrong or bad thing to do, but it's, it's good to balance that with also going inward for guidance. And so, you know, taking time to really be still and quiet, kind of in a meditative way, although you don't have to buy a special meditation pillow and sit on it in the dark or anything. Like, just taking the time to be still. intentionally going inward with an openness to, to your inner voice, to listening. Maybe even asking questions to your, your higher self or, whatever you call this inner voice. It could be your, your divine spark or your Christ consciousness, whatever word you have for it. And Catherine, um, you're doing an interesting project right now, so maybe you can Speak to that and share how this is, helping you in, in this area. I'd love to share this practice. I've been engaged in for about eight days now. I really received it through what I felt like was divine instruction. I'm someone that can really be drawn to orient to what's going on in the world through outside sources, not traditional news media, but, orienting through outside information nonetheless, and just taking in a lot of, a lot of information, whether it's from inspirational podcasts or, people speaking that I find, like, really beautiful. I found that I was just I was taking in so much input, I was not, uh, creating space for my own heart to speak and for myself to listen to my inner voice. And so the divine instruction was to take a month, without any input. So I am not reading books. I'm not listening to music. I'm not listening to podcasts. I'm not reading news or listening to news. I'm not taking anything in from the outside, which has meant that I feel a lot of spaciousness. It's really been interesting to see how much of my time I spend taking things in, and then in that spaciousness, my intention is to connect to God, um, to connect to the divinity in myself, and listen. So I've found it to be a beautiful practice. I might never stop. Because I truly believe that when we are connected to our inner guidance and our inner divinity, that, um, that us, you know, our soul is connected to the oneness. And so if there is something important for me to do or know, I'm going to know it and I'm going to be able to choose to do it, um, rather than needing to be oriented to what's going on on the outside. I'm not saying that it, that it's completely unhealthy to, um, to orient to the outside. In some ways, like there is something healthy about kind of knowing what's going on around you. But I have enough, like right now in my life I have enough information from the outside. So it's time to go in and um, yeah, I, I invite or recommend that anyone um, try this practice even for a day and see what it's, see what it's like for you. I might take you up on that, Catherine. I came to a similar conclusion, trying to orient to this rapidly shifting world that we're in, and trying to figure out, What am I going to do next? What do I do if this happens or that happens? And I just exhausted myself to the point where I realized, there's no way to know. There's absolutely no way. I can't predict the future. I mean, I could go talk to a psychic or consult all the astrologers, but even then, it's like the oracle wants you to know what it wants you to know, right? So, who's to say, um, if that's actually what's gonna happen or it's just what I need to hear in that moment. And so, um, I really have committed myself to taking up more practices of listening to my My inner truth, my inner guidance, and I want to share a couple practices with the audience of things that can assist one when maybe just being quiet isn't fruitful. It does take some practice to kind of really sink into those deep levels without any assistance. So there's some really fun and helpful tools that can help tune in to these these soul messages. And so, oracle cards, uh, doesn't have to be a tarot card, it could be any deck that has, unique messages on each card that you can, ask a question to, and, and really kind of let your body decide which one. Um, there are like shuffling methods that you can use, but I really prefer to kind of Just put my hand over, over a deck and choose whichever card kind of makes me feel a little electricity or a little tingle or any, anything distinguishing it from any of the other cards. and then of course trying to interpret it as best you can with your intuition. Before even reading the, the interpretation that the, the creator made for you. and there are Ways that we can almost regard our environment as a tarot deck. Like, we can look for those same symbolisms just in the, in the things that cross our paths throughout the day. I've had a lot of hawks flying in front of my car recently, so I'm like, Oh, okay, maybe I should, um, tune in to that and, and see what that means for me. Another interesting practice is, kind of fun and playful is Radiomancy and Bibliomancy, where you can ask a question to the universe or your higher self or whomever, and, and say, you know, give me an answer in the next line I read in a book or the next song that comes on the radio. And you kind of just choose it at random and, and get what you can from that message. Can I share another practice that I really love as, um, I like nature as Oracle and that is, sitting on the earth with a huge oak tree and bringing the question in your heart to that tree. And then noticing what you notice, um, with the tree, you might get. or you might notice, branches moving a certain way and that causes you to think of something that makes sense for your question. Yeah, that, that answers can come that way. And, and I am an equine coach and I, I'm with horses a lot. and I love tapping into myself with them. And, and there's a science behind it. The way I see it is. You know, horses have these very large electromagnetic heart fields, at least 25 feet. 25 feet is what's been measured, like, in radius. but I believe in feel, that it's much bigger. And when we're around horses in a, harmonious herd, Our heart field can entrain to their very coherent heart field. And, you know, heart math talks about the science behind this, and then when I have a more coherent heart field, I have more access to my, um, myself, my soul. And so, answers to my own questions can come more easily. And I think that's probably what's happening with the oak tree, too. With, with, when we are with nature in any form, when we are connected to that field, right, definitely it creates a more coherent heart field and so that's another one. Yeah. And um, I also use my dreams as guides. Sometimes I'll, ask a question to the DreamMaker in before I go to bed and look for. You know, some clues in my dreams, you know, this requires remembering your dreams and writing them down, but, there can be, some really interesting, relating to our dreams in that way, and a really important one that I think gets sorely overlooked in our culture is our body. Our body has so much wisdom in it, but we're so used to overriding it. I had a friend who shared this quote with me one time, that gut feelings are guardian angels. And I love that, because our body can really tell us when something's off. Um, and when something's safe. And, and, sadly, you know, we aren't really, Encouraged to follow those impulses, so we, we often override them, but those can be a great, uh, opportunity to really deepen in your connection with yourself and also get the guidance, which is a double bonus. I would love to do a whole episode on that, Mariah, because there is this depth of wisdom that's always at our fingertips, right? And I know in my own life times when I've confronted evil in certain ways, and um, it's in hindsight that I saw that my body knew. My body knew. And I would, you know, maybe overrode that with my cognition, and convinced myself of something different, right? Or, whatever the case may be, but my body knew. And That's a whole episode. That's a whole episode. For sure. Yeah. Um Yeah, so, really, that's a, a really, um, I think, well equipped toolbox for anybody to get started. You could always also pick up a pendulum, and, and get a little tutorial on how to use a pendulum, or, um, do automatic writing with your non dominant hand, especially, can be interesting. You ask a question. With your dominant hand and then let your non dominant hand answer in writing without actually thinking about it. Just kind of pen to paper and see what comes out. It can be really interesting. Yeah. So, moving on to the, the final advice that I have about how to regard evil when it comes into your field is to have faith. And And, really, it doesn't matter what you believe in as far as higher power, I assume if you've listened this long into a podcast about evil you have some belief in a spiritual world. But whatever you call your higher power, to have faith that, that love always wins in the end. Good always wins in the end. Obviously, that doesn't mean there can't be a lot of death and destruction along the way, but I want to end the podcast with a verse from Rudolf Steiner for The Age of Michael that we're in currently that gives me a tremendous amount of solace when I might feel overwhelmed at times with what's going on in the world. Here it is. We must eradicate from the soul all fear and terror of what comes towards man out of the future, and we must acquire serenity in all feelings and sensations about the future. We must look forward with absolute equanimity to everything that may come, and we must think only that whatever comes is given to us by a world directive full of wisdom. It is part of what we must learn in this age, namely, to live out of pure trust, without any security in existence. Trust in that ever present help of the spiritual world. Truly nothing else will do if our courage is not to fail us. And we must seek this awakening within ourselves every morning and every evening. Thank you so much, Mariah. Alright everyone, we hope you stayed with us, and we're excited to, bring you the next episode soon. Bye! Christian Class of 2020!