Through the centuries it has been far more difficult to explain evil than good. We have seen how evil served a specific purpose in God’s plan. It will soon cease to serve that purpose, but to eradicate it altogether is another matter. This represents a subtle part of God’s Providence, which will become clear as I explain more fully the design of His universe.
Central to the universe are three masses: The sun, the moon, and the earth. The sun radiates what we call the element of Fire; the moon radies the element of Water, and from the earth emanates the element of Soil. Each element Fire, Water and Soil, has its own particular qualities and ways of working. Two of these, Fire and Water, intermingle to form the great atmosphere which surrounds the earth and make it possible for all worldly creation to exist and to grow. God divided His creation, giving everything dominant attributes of either yin or yang. The yin – yang principle endows Fire with the positive attribute (yang) and Water with the negative (yin), so that Fire burns vertically and Water flows horizontally. A dynamic interaction between Fire and Water-is set up and kept in constant motion, creating a woven pattern of flow where indiscernible particles intermesh in currents. The flow reaches way above the earth, forming the layers of air that we call atmosphere. According to the same principle, the dualities of fire and water, heat and cold, day and night, light and darkness, spirit and matter, masculine and feminine, and so forth, are also manifestations of yang and yin. IF we distinguish them in terms of good or evil, yang is spirit, or good, while yin is matter, or evil. Good and evil are thus part of the yin-yang dialectic, whose contraposition in all creation reflects the basic structure of Nature itself.
The same principle applies to the human being. Man is made up of the body, which is visible, and the spirit, which is invisible. Body and spirit are inseparably bound, and a human being is given life from the force generated by the combination of the two. That combination is in turn governed by the law of spiritual predominance over the physical. When the heart, the center of the spirit, wishes something done, it gives orders to the body to take action. But if the spirit is the essence and also master of every man, why does he incline to wrongdoing? This is a crucial question that can be answered only in spiritual terms, for the problem of good and evil, after all, belongs to the spiritual domain. Since man is created with both spirit and body, any science that limits its scope to the body alone will be partial and incomplete, however advanced. It will never develop into a true science unless it embraces the whole. Our teaching, which flows from the knowledge of the spirit and its dialectical relationship with the body, is a true science. According to this teaching, good and evil spring from the heart, and they originate, therefore, in the spirit. If we always remember the law of spiritual predominance over the physical, my explanation of good and evil should become clear.
The formation of a human being originates in conception. Physically, conception is complete when a male spermatozoon joins the female ovum. Spiritually, however, conception means that an individualized part of the Spirit of God enters to become the soul of a human being.
When a fetus is fully developed, a baby is born. Soon after birth, two spirits come to attend the soul. One of the two is an animal spirit, and it usually enters the body when a child is one or two. The soul itself is called the primary spirit, and the animal spirit is the secondary spirit. The other spirit that comes to the newborn child is the guardian spirit. It never enters the body, but is always around the person as his protector. Both the animal and guardian spirits stay with the individual throughout his lifetime, and he finally becomes a unified entity of the two spirits and the soul.
When Mencius said, “Man is good by nature,” he was talking about the soul, the divine source of conscience. The secondary spirit, however, is evil, if one looks within himself, he will feel the unrelenting opposition between the secondary spirit and the conscience, The guardian spirit is a good protector spirit, chosen from among the spirits of an ancestors. It guards him against everything that causes unhappiness; calamity danger, illness, wrongdoing, negligence, degradation, and all else that might harm him in any way. We hear of people having premonitions, ominous dreams, or unexpected obstacles coming across their path. Sometimes we find a person at cross—purposes when things do not go smoothly for him, Sometimes, however, by missing a train, for example, someone is saved from danger. When He is tempted to commit an evil deed, something unexpected intervenes and his action is blocked, This is the activity of the guardian spirit, working to prevent harm or misfortune. The primary and secondary spirits are always at odds with each other Good results when the primary spirit prevails, but when the secondary spirit triumphs evil is allowed to dominate. Man, therefore, exists on a level between God and beast. Virtuous, he attains godliness; overcome by evil, he is like a beast.
Secondary spirits vary according to time and place, but they are usually the departed spirits of animals, including serpents or badgers, foxes or cats, for example. Besides the secondary spirits, there are other alien spirits that enter and temporarily possess individuals. The idea of animal spirits entering one’s body is undoubtedly abhorrent, but when the nature and symptoms of possession are clear, it makes perfect sense, for possession is another manifestation of the truth about man, A person always reveals the characteristics of the animal spirit that possesses him, Although the alien spirit is usually that of an animal, sometimes it is the spirit of a deceased individual or, more rarely, the spirit of a living person.
Why does possession take place? It depends on the degree of spiritual purity. We shall see how every individual has both a physical and a spiritual body, and it is the spiritual body on which sins and impurities in the blood are reflected. These reflections take the form of clouds, The more beclouded the spiritual body, the more vulnerable a person is to the influence of an alien evil spirit and the greater power his animal spirit gains As that power increases, his inclination toward wrongdoing grows stronger. The spiritual body of most people today is heavily clouded, allowing evil spirits to possess them and work through them quite easily. That is why more and more crime is occurring in the world. The spiritual body of those who have faith in God is less clouded and they are likely to be better people in their thoughts and behavior. Their souls are purer and they have stronger power to combat evil spirits. Unbelievers, though they may appear to be good, can be possessed by evil spirits a any time. They are more vulnerable and in a sense more dangerous than believers, in that their inclination toward evil arid destructive activities is stronger. A better society, then, depends on the spiritual state of all people. Our world will improve only with the purification of more souls.
Unclouded souls have a luminous quality that is shunned by animal spirits. They radiate a kind of protection. Yet the souls of most people are so clouded that alien spirits have no trouble possessin.g them. The person becomes a puppet, maneuvered by the animal spirit and plunged into the kind of evil or “criminal” activity that we see everywhere today. Government leaders and lawmakers do riot comprehend the real source of such behavior so they try to repress crime by legal, coercive, or other artificial methods, National legislatures are a good example of this, passing bills which are nothing more than makeshift amendments tacked onto existing laws.
True faith in God the creator is the only way to resolve the afflictions of man and society. Among the deities of the many, many religions that exist today some have truly divine qualities while others do not, but most people cannot distinguish between the two, Ardent faith in and endless devotion toward deities too weak to control the power of evil is not enough to give anyone divine blessing. But people have been nurtured in the belief that their own deities are the true divinities and will bestow blessings art them. They do not realize the danger of their innocent belief There has been no other way to think, for during the Age of Night the Supreme God did riot reveal His light and His truth, No deity, however benign, was powerful enough to defeat evil. Wrongdoers always seemed to be so successful that others tried to follow their ways as history shows time and again.
Many ambitious and talented people triumphed in their lives to become heroes, but if we look closer at such people, we find that they were possessed by powerful, negative spirits. The interesting thing is that they all began their enterprises with a flood of success and were carried along by it, But it did not last, The tide turned and they we’re brought face to face with frustration and finally disaster. At that point the evil spirits left them, Kaiser Wilhelm, Mussolini, Hitler and countless others illustrate this pattern. After their collapse, they became almost imbecilic, some demented, in a development characteristic of anyone suddenly freed of possession by a strong evil spirit.
The king of evil made a total and permanent plan for the ultimate domination of the entire world more than two thousand years ago. He has never ceased in his attempts to destroy everything good, and to this day -the divine spirits have continued in their struggle against him, The Supreme God has caused civilization to develop by setting divine spirits and evil spirits against each other. Evil spirits have been overwhelmingly stronger but now God is revealing Himself in His full power and exerting that power to finally overturn evil for once and for all, This is the impending last struggle between good and evil.