Spirit Dualism: Good and Bad Spirits

Contents:

1. Discernment of Good and Evil
2. Free Will
3. Psychology
4. Conclusions

	1. Discernment of Good and Evil

Since the dawn of time mystics and religious leaders have tried to discern what types of spirits are behind the events of the world. Importantly, were they good spirits or evil ones? "In traditional religions" shamans and the like would have the important duty of contacting spirits and finding out if they were benevolent or malevolent_{[Momen 1999 p124 & Drury 1996 p32].}

Throughout the middle ages priests would bring in revenue doing exactly the same thing. New Agers and modern mystics pride themselves on how they can "feel" if a spirit in a particular room or location is good or evil, helpful or harmful.

	2. Free Will

It holds that if we have free will to choose our actions whilst alive, and that our life comes from our soul, then our soul is what has free will. Our bodies are just biochemical machines; those who believe in free will and souls no doubt hold that it is the soul that allows free will to be exerted upon our otherwise mindless bodies. As the source of free will, the soul must also have free will after bodily death.

This means that you cannot have spirits that are good or evil: They are capable of free will just as any other higher life. To say that a spirit is "evil" or "harmful" or "bad" is saying that it has no free will to act haphazardly. We all know that the most ill-seeming men can sometimes be the goodguys and that the most openly kind can frequently be the most callous and secretly evil. This brings to mind 2 Corinthians 11:14, "And no wonder, for Satan himself masquerades as an angel of light". If the most evil beings can fool puny Human minds into appearing good, then, what chance has anyone of truly deciding if a spirit is good or bad?

	3. Psychology

Certain rooms, atmospheres are locations lend themselves to a general spookiness. A sense of malaise. This has been studied extensively not only by occult, new age and magical practictioners but also by sociologists and psychologists. It is surely the case that we are only reacting to the environment. Anton LaVey, founder and High Priest of the Church of Satan from 1966 until 1997, held the belief that various factors would determine whether people took kindly to a location or not. Odd angles, smells that are just-below-the senses and breezes, the quality of the air and various other things could all conspire to make people feel unease. This would of course lead to certain places becoming associated with evil spirits. More mainstream psychologists have put forward multiple and varied descriptions of how the subconscious can lead to feelings of being watched, of "presences" of either good or evil spirits. But above all the Human nack of over-simplification and over-confidence that is the final obstacle in realizing the true nature of spirits: neither good nor evil, but gray, just like free willed Human beings and animals.

Fear and emotions generate either bad or good experience of "spirits", the phenomenon is subconsciously self-created, this is also the conclusion of Stan Gooch in his 'Creatures of Inner Space' study of the human subconscious [Gooch, 1984].

	4. Conclusion

The Human subconscious and evironmental factors determine if we find a particular place spooky or whether we think a good or evil spirit might reside there. Most the time it is human projection. But given that the soul is the source of free will in the body it seems that no spirit is either "good" or "evil": They will sometimes be good, sometimes evil, just like Human beings. In addition, evil spirits can trick us into thinking they are good spirits, and sometimes even the most kind and benevolent person simply comes across as nasty: It is dangerous and wrong to pronounce that spirits are "good" or "evil", benevolent or malevolent.