We have explored the fluffy side,now for our Dark side.

[MaskedOne]

Re: We have explored the fluffy side,now for our Dark side.

I think balance in these matters is essential.

---------- Post added at 06:01 PM ---------- Previous post was at 04:20 PM ----------

One perspective I would like to hear from is the Abrahamic Traditions.

I'm not Abrahamic, however, I do ascribe qualities to 'Light' that I think far too many Pagans try and render as solely the province of our 'Darker' natures. Angels carry bright, shiny swords and they USE them. Apollo can and has used that bow he carries to kill people. I'm not even touching the various personal deeds of the Lord of Hosts. I actually wanted to reply to this hours ago, stopped and had to think about what various "Light" representations can and will do when they see fit. Yes, Light is often a very positive thing but only because we don't ever face it unsheltered. This is actually my problem whenever Light/Dark comes up in discussion. I always feel that people are seeing a one-dimension happy go lucky Light and my interpretation is quite happy to be that... but it also carries a flaming sword.

Anyway, I think we should face our demons. We should learn when and how to unleash them for the betterment of ourselves or others. That holds regardless of symbolism. I don't treat this as a balance of good/evil so much as self mastery. For me Good and Evil come in caps and there's no way in hell that I want them to balance but they also aren't directly connected to facing your demons. The existence of inner demons is human, they only register Good/Evil if your choices in response to them happen to register on that scale.

[GabrielWithoutWings]

Re: We have explored the fluffy side,now for our Dark side.

I think balance in these matters is essential.

---------- Post added at 06:01 PM ---------- Previous post was at 04:20 PM ----------

One perspective I would like to hear from is the Abrahamic Traditions.

I'm not Abrahamic, however, I do ascribe qualities to 'Light' that I think far too many Pagans try and render as solely the province of our 'Darker' natures. Angels carry bright, shiny swords and they USE them. Apollo can and has used that bow he carries to kill people. I'm not even touching the various personal deeds of the Lord of Hosts. I actually wanted to reply to this hours ago, stopped and had to think about what various "Light" representations can and will do when they see fit. Yes, Light is often a very positive thing but only because we don't ever face it unsheltered. This is actually my problem whenever Light/Dark comes up in discussion. I always feel that people are seeing a one-dimension happy go lucky Light and my interpretation is quite happy to be that... but it also carries a flaming sword.

Anyway, I think we should face our demons. We should learn when and how to unleash them for the betterment of ourselves or others. That holds regardless of symbolism. I don't treat this as a balance of good/evil so much as self mastery. For me Good and Evil come in caps and there's no way in hell that I want them to balance but they also aren't directly connected to facing your demons. The existence of inner demons is human, they only register Good/Evil if your choices in response to them happen to register on that scale.

This is one of those topics where I'll be lucky for it to come out coherent. It's one of those topics that make sense in my head but ends up very difficult to translate.

God and the Devil seem like two sides of the same coin. That makes sense because humans are a mixture of two opposing forces: Order and Disorder. God seems to be that side that desires peace and quiet, goodness, stability, diligence, integrity, honor, self-sacrifice, and all-around selflessness. God is the urge to jump in front of a bullet to save a stranger's child or doing what you think is right when no one's around to praise you for it. The Devil is the side that desires change, for secrets and rebellion, for progression and trickery. The Devil is the urge to stand in front of a tornado and scream or the urge to have sex in the middle of a thunderstorm.

I see Jesus Christ and Lucifer as really being two sides of the same being, like Heru and Set (they combine to form a composite being called the Bawy).

I'd be a terrible mainstream, orthodox Christian. I'd have no choice but to hold to apocatastasis since it makes the most sense to me. All things will be reconciled at the end, Hell included.

---------- Post added at 10:30 PM ---------- Previous post was at 10:26 PM ----------

As far as there being real, monolithic Good and Evil? I'm still not sure about that. It seems more likely that Evil should actually be Ignorance but I have a hard time looking at a child predator and thinking, "Well, if that fellow wasn't so ignorant he wouldn't do that."

Is that because my base definition is incorrect and Evil is a real thing or is that because I'm actually right but I haven't fully adopted that paradigm yet? Hard to say.

[Medusa]

Re: We have explored the fluffy side,now for our Dark side.

I'm not a scientific person by any means of the imagination. But I whole heartily believe in the idea of the Reptilian brain. We think this is the 'darker' part of ourselves. When it's merely the older part of our brain evolution. This area of the brain deals with the more basic and primal issues such as love, hate, lust etc.

[DanieMarie]

Re: We have explored the fluffy side,now for our Dark side.

I don't have much of one...It's not me forcing it down, I just don't really have it all that much. I hate lying (even if no one would know), I hate gossip, I could never steal, if I feel like I hurt someone it tears me up, etc. I think the worst I get is that I get depression spells and stress sometimes and can live in my head. I think the degrees of a darker side people can have vary. Though, maybe you can't truly know where you'd stand unless you went through something extreme, like Germany under the Nazis or something.

[Stoph]

Re: We have explored the fluffy side,now for our Dark side.

I know my Darkside well...ish. Back when i used to play Warcraft i played a Villain who was all about the whole "Destruction of all life bar the pure" mentality. he did a number of sacrafices and murders for his dark master. during this time i delved into my darker side for ideas and.. well... it sure can be creative!

Ever since i was young i knew there was a darker side to me trying to break though, but i managed to keep it in check for the most part. i know for sure that its pretty sedated right now, has been for a while.

Hope that dont make me sound crazy or anything, its never been a threat to anyone O.o

[Siloh]

Re: We have explored the fluffy side,now for our Dark side.

I agree that we need to work with our Shadow, not against it. When I was 12, I visited the DC Hocaust museum and went catatonic. It actually managed to bring on my then only partially unearthed PTSD full-blown. It was terrible. But a mentor of mine told me that I should learn everything I could about something if it horrified me, and then I could understand it, and thus overcome my paralyzing terror.

I've only just begun reading The Lucifer Effect, by Zimbardo, of the Stanford Prison/Zimbardo experiment, but for interested folks I highly recommend it. It's a dense exploration of the (often) latent capacity for evil/hate/malice in people who are, for all intents and purposes, normal civilians.

I think that not necessarily the concept of balance but the concept of relationship is really important here, as has been said. In my correspondence with some people trying to convert me (to Christianity), I took apart the Eden serpent passage and all its consequences and basically asked these fellows what eternal life even means (the ability to die seems pretty inherent in what we call living organisms), what good is in a world without evil, etc. Light a candle in a dark room. Behind the illumination is the shadow cast by its flame.

[Miranda]

Re: We have explored the fluffy side,now for our Dark side.

Dark is what one gets when one turns out the light. So does light result from turning out the dark?

[B. de Corbin]

Re: We have explored the fluffy side,now for our Dark side.

Technically? No.

(sorry. I have no poetry in my soul.)

[Miranda]

Re: We have explored the fluffy side,now for our Dark side.

Oh, honey, you should get some. Life without poetry is like life without a bunch of metaphors that don't make sense.

[ChainLightning]

Re: We have explored the fluffy side,now for our Dark side.

....yeah, like a fish without a bicycle.

[B. de Corbin]

Re: We have explored the fluffy side,now for our Dark side.

Wow. That's worse than a herring without a shepherd.

[Siloh]

Re: We have explored the fluffy side,now for our Dark side.

I'm glad to see we're really getting in touch with our dark sides here.

[anunitu]

Re: We have explored the fluffy side,now for our Dark side.

Not yet,we haven't broken out the Karaoke machine yet...Starts really bad attempt at Thunder road...

[Miranda]

Re: We have explored the fluffy side,now for our Dark side.

If the Karaoke machine is coming out it is time for me to get in my jammies and head for my teddy bear and wee cot.

Sorry to derail the original discussion. My dark side seems to be plagued with... fluffiness, I am afraid.

[Tylluan Penry]

Re: We have explored the fluffy side,now for our Dark side.

I was brought up (many years ago) in a family of witches (not wiccans) who practised nothing but hexing. That wasn't for me, but it did teach me a number of very interesting lessons. The most interesting lesson I have kept with me is this: 'I can be a vengeful old cow if you press the right buttons.'

And yes, I love poetry, I really do. A sunny day, a firkin of cider and a book of Shakespeare's sonnets and I'm away. I think it was Coleridge who said that prose was words in the best order, but poetry was the best words in the best order....