"Where fear is present, wisdom cannot be." – [Lactantius]

Imagine having a pup that at some point starts pulling down your washing. And because of this you decide to severely beat it as punishment. Due to the fear you are inflicting, what likely will happen is that it will develop an uncontrollable compulsion to remove washing whenever it sees it. And the more severely it is punished, the more likely it will pull down the washing. This will happen again, and again, and again, until such time that you are forced to give the poor dog away as it would then, because of its fear, have become a completely uncontrollable beast. And though you may yet be successful in controlling the behaviour, in doing so in all likelihood have irreparably diminished the stature of the unfortunate creature.

This is basic animal psychology, and I would suppose basic human psychology as well. To understand the greater dynamic behind our own compulsion to do wrong, one must realise what temptation is beyond its general religious context. The most important, if not the only appreciation, is that temptation cannot exist without fear, and specifically, the fear of the negative consequences of our actions.

So for instance the person that fears heights is in fact tempted to jump. And what prevents them from jumping then, is that they resist the temptation within pulling them to do so against their conscious will.

And equally if we become fearful of committing sin, unfortunately based on the aforementioned deeper dynamics of mind, we similarly will be more tempted into sin. This ironically is because the myth for those who so strongly fear sin have become so real that their greatest fear is that they will fail in this monumental endeavour, and therefore to one day be cast into the eternal furnaces of hell. Sadly then they are so desperately praying for what they don’t want, that in doing so get sucked into the hell on earth that they so dearly wanted to avoid.

This is also the primary reason that many of the victims of sexual violation feel such extreme guilt. They indeed feel as if they had sinned because of the negative religious connotation of the act of sexual intercourse as sin. And thus, since the sexual act had taken place – albeit against their will – are overwhelmed by how they may have been complicit in such an abominable act.

The realisation one must make is that these uncontrollable compulsions within one that seems to draw us to do things that are not in our best interest, using the language of the religious, is in fact the devil that results from our distorted thinking. This is particularly the case in how we formulate our fears. And therefore the devil does not exist, except for how we advocate for him within our psyche.

To appreciate the distinction between temptation and other forms of attraction one must distinguish temptation from tantalisation. According to the dictionary definition: to be tempted is to be attracted to do wrong, whatever our definition of wrong may be. While to be tantalised is to be attracted to something that is considered good, but usually perceived as being somewhat out of our immediate reach.

Therefore based on the definition, temptation is a negative attraction that usually goes against what we may consider as good or beneficial and thus its association with fear of its consequences. By creating the mental delusion of sin and the consequences of heavenly judgement, those who have bought into it have inadvertently allowed a monster to enter into the subterranean depths of their consciousness. And now have to be constantly vigilant, or be doomed to eternal damnation.  

This is a human nightmare no matter how one looks at it. For those who succeed to stay clear enough from this deadly Vortex must remain on guard for the remainder of their lives. They are forced to maintain a perpetual state of neurosis not to succumb to their sinful desires, or else face God’s wrath. While those who fail are taken along a path of darkness and despair that only the most fortunate can ever return from.

And ironically those who believe they are pure and beyond sin – the self righteous amongst us – are not truly spiritually alive to begin with as they are too cowardly to live their authentic life. This is because they are too concerned about the faults of others, than living their own life. And their hell is senility as they have failed to nurture their timeless essence, so remaining a prisoner held captive by their own limited thinking.  

© Newton Fortuin – 2006

Shade Four of The Seven Shades of Darkness