This final part will be by far the most difficult to write. This is not for lack of data or history, nor memory or knowledge; but simply because that which I am to write about I do not fully understand, and I imagine never will, at least not in this earthly life. For in this final part I am to write about the ‘tap on the shoulder’ from God, the subtle shift in reality which cannot be ignored, in simultaneity one seeks God, and God equally seeks to find them; one cannot be found if they truly do not wish it to be so.

So, once again, where was I? That’s right, evil. If there is evil, then there is Good, and I knew on which side of that split I’d rather stand. The history here is hazy, and I cannot imagine such a thing as a clear personal revelation, explainable to the detail. For as I was writing/recalling A Methodology of Possession, so too was such a possession opening an extra-sensible vision of what it is to believe. What does this mean in practice? If I had to stretch, and attempt to apply the empirical at this early stage, I would state simply that the abyss of a thousand-thousand nihilist aphorisms is, in trepidation, overcome by a slight fullness of being, and of reality. A warmth penetrates into coldness; frost, in its unforgiving rigidity, cracks apart at even the gentlest touch.

Before I go any further on feeling and actuality, I must attend to an important section of history. It was roughly September 2019 when things began to take a turn. How do I know this? Because this was when, as I look back upon my account, I ordered P.D. Ouspensky’s In Search of the Miraculous. For those that do not know, this book is considered the go-to text on the work, or ‘The Work’, of George Ivanovich Gurdjieff. Now, I shan’t go into the Work of Gurdjieff in full here, but in short it is an esoteric practice which focuses on being more attentive of reality, illuminating, observing and eventually, eradicating negative emotions such as pride, hate, anger etc. It isn’t really a work I can discuss in writing, for most of it is undertaken in very subtle internal practice. (But for those interested I don’t actually recommend Ouspensky’s book first, I would recommend A Study of Gurdjieff’s Teaching by Kenneth Walker) Anyway, why was Gurdjieff’s ‘Work’ so important to my journey back to God? Primarily because Gurdjieff’s Work can be understood as ‘Esoteric Christianity’, in fact, this is at times what Gurdjieff called it. What is meant by ‘Esoteric Christianity’? As one would imagine, it simply means that there are deeper lessons in the Bible than what are read on its surface. Now, here I must add a caveat. I now don’t agree with the term ‘Esoteric Christianity’, because if Christianity is taught to you correctly then it is always-already esoteric. However, if, you are as I was in the first part of these writings, that is someone who had quite a terrible education regarding Christianity, then a correct education regarding Christ will indeed come across as esoteric. Perhaps it would be best for me to give one such example of what is meant by this in the Gurdjieffian tradition. I’ll take a section from a text called The New Man: An Interpretation of Some Parables and Miracles of Christ by Maurice Nicoll, a major student of Gurdjieff, and a great lay-theologian in his own right. The section itself is understood in relation to Mark 10:25 – “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God.”

“Christ has been speaking about how difficult it is for one who is rich to enter the Kingdom. He is speaking of being rich in contrast to the state of little children who are innocent because they have not yet acquired their false ideas of themselves(p53)…In a passage coming a little earlier, where the rich man comes to Christ and says: “Master, what good thing shall I do that I may have eternal life?” The answer is: “Why askest thou me concerning that which is good? One there is who is good. ” Only God is good. No man is good. All goodness, everything that is good, the goodness of anything, whatever it be, is from God. The rich man is rich because he feels he has kept all the commandments. He feels merit. He feels himself justified, and so rich, by acting from Truth, by having observed all the commandments: yet perhaps he seems uncertain, for he begins now to ask about Good and how to act from Good. “What good thing shall I do?” So in one account it is said that Jesus looked on him and loved him. Truth is first and Good is last. Then the order is inverted and Good is first and Truth last, when the man acts from Good. The rich man is told to “sell” all he has and follow Jesus. To act from Good in place of Truth a man must sell all his feeling of merit, all self−evaluation, all sense that he is good, all sense that he is first. For if he thinks he is good, he will act from himself, from his self−love, and that is why it is said that only God is good. In Luke it is said: “None is good, save one, even God. ” (xviii, 19. ) All good is from God, not from Man. If a man thinks that he is good he will inevitably seek a reward” for all he does, for he will ascribe good to himself.” (p57)

Much ‘esoteric’ exposition of this kind is found within the Work of Gurdjieff, especially in relation to one’s internal relationship with the world. Anyway, the Work isn’t so much the factor of primary importance here, what is of merit is the fact that a teaching had begun to introduce me to a real understanding of the teaching of Christ. Now, I would like to reiterate, there are many who will read that prior quote – those fortunate enough to get a good education regarding Christianity – and think nothing of it, but for me it was, quite literally, revelatory; and this, in itself, is an example of how dire my prior education had been – to repeat, what I, up until this point, had considered Christianity to be, quite literally was not Christianity.

So what happened next? What happens when a world inverted is slowly being reverted back to its correct state? I imagine it differs from person-to-person. For myself, someone with a natural predisposition for reading, I began to read voraciously. Firstly, and it shall come as no surprise, I read more and more about Gurdjieff and the Work, and this in itself opened up an understanding of what it is to be spiritual, what it is to pray, what it is to be; as much as I could, out of some strange act of orthodox purification eradicate Gurdjieff from this story, to do so would be a true disservice, I owe that strange, strange mystic much, and his words teach me still. However, as I mentioned, I was reading a lot. Gurdjieff, of course, but also C.S. Lewis. See, as the teaching Gurdjieff began to sink in, an understanding of God, faith, belief and Christianity grew, and eventually it grew to such an extent that it expanded out of the mere theoretical into the actual-spiritual; God was no longer a theory, an idea, an abstraction, the Lord had become a reality which sought to elevate my heart.

~

“Two things in life are infinite; the stupidity of man and the mercy of God.” – Gurdjieff

I had been a fool, but I was a fool much akin to how Gandalf states to Pippin “Fool of a Took!”, for he still loves that fool. For yes, there was, almost at once, as certain principles fall into place and are internalized, a simultaneous moment of embarrassment, apology, sadness and joy, this was in its entire understood from a position of mercy and love. I had been a fool, but men are fools through-and-through, and if all I ever do is work on my own foolishness, then I believe I will have done well. But as a fool realizes himself to be so, he equally he has the realization that he clearly hasn’t a clue what to do, and I sure didn’t. If, almost all at once (the span of two years, which go by like the blink of an eye) your world was inverted, flipped, reversed…however you wish to envision it, what would you do? What can one do if not only their best to understand and help. And so I carried on down this path for some time, at best I would describe it as ‘auto-didactic worship’. Reading bits here and there, occasionally praying, roughly reading the Bible; finding your way, so to speak. But as with all things, there comes a time for the big decision, that of roots, of anchoring.

For these roots I turned to a few texts which call out as I think back now, they are quite denominationally eclectic, and left me quite open as to preference of path. As I have mentioned there was – as there has been with many – the words of C.S. Lewis. I began with Mere Christianity, and read my way through Surprised by Joy, The Great Divorce (my favourite), Screwtape Letters, and later The Problem with Pain. Now, technically Lewis is Anglican, but I personally would describe these books as simply ‘Christian Apologetics’, I’m not sure – at least with my current theological understanding – it would be appropriate to place a denominational value on them. However, it stands that Lewis’ texts gave a firm basis of understanding, as someone who always seeks to approach matters of practicality (how to act) first, Lewis allowed me to see the world with Christian eyes for the first time. However, something was missing, for as many of you know I’m quite a traditional chap, not at all fond of the modern world. So it shall come as no surprise that the book which is next on my list is Nihilism: The Root of the Revolution of the Modern Age by Seraphim Rose. A book with an obvious Eastern Orthodox emphasis, but this text allowed me to see both how what was wrong with the world was a fault of turning from God, and how healing is found in returning to God. After the work of Lewis Nihilism had no work to-do where convincing/teaching was concerned, it was a work of solidification for my mind. And finally there was The Seven Storey Mountain by Thomas Merton, a book that rings out in my mind not for its strict apologetics, nor a defence, nor theory or didactic biography, but of beauty. It is a delicate, sublime and expansive text which not only leads one through the life of Merton to his eventual calling to the Trappists, but does so in such a manner that one understands what it is to be lead by the Lord.

Belief was there, the mustard seed of faith had begun to grow, practice was found in abundance, and yet, I had no home. I had no Church. Before me were varying routes, but many were struck off almost immediately in an intellectual manner. That is to say, historically and theologically speaking, Protestantism just does not, and likely never will, make much sense to me. It was such a denomination which lead me from Christ in the first place, along with this, as I have said, I am a traditional person, and so the choices were quickly trimmed to Eastern Orthodoxy or Catholicism. (I’d like to state I have nothing against Protestants). Of course, with such an amount of time spent with Gurdjieff Eastern Orthodoxy (a key Gurdjieffian influence) was extremely appealing, the mysticism, the music and the ritual are all – from what I have seen – astoundingly beautiful. And yet, I saw myself getting lost, once more, in a culture which was not my own. Perhaps I will stop my explanations between denominations here, for there are other reasons as to why I turned to Catholicism, some theological, but many strictly personal and practical.

And now I have written up to the present day.

I attend a small, humble Church in my local town. Of course I haven’t stopped reading the lives of Catholic Saints since undertaking RCIA. And yet I feel something is missing here, for what I have written of is historical, empirical and academic. The question I sought to answer truly, is, what is it like to be found by God?

~

To be found is to assume one is lost. And if one is lost they must wish to be found, for there is much false-comfort in the labyrinthian trails of the maze, there is much faux-understanding to be believed in the complexities of the complex; it is easy to get lost in that which is purposely complicated as a means to legitimize its claims. For I can state one thing about God, about Christ, with a degree of certainty, He is simple. And it is this simplicity which eludes those who have been drawn into the intricacies of the modern world, wherein there are infinitesimal committee meetings to get even the most meagre change; the Lord isn’t a bureaucracy, and if you so wish you can communicate with a learnt ease. For the question is, of course, ‘How do I find God?’, but it is also ‘How do I allow God to find me?’ and it is this re-framing which allowed that simultaneous finding-and-seeking to take place; to open oneself to an internal vulnerability that perhaps all is not of them, and all is not of their control, to open to that which is in your spiritual peripheral, you’ve always known it’s there, but that which is in the way allows a retention of false-comfort.

Surely we live in a world more solipsistic than ever, each iteration of time, and innovation of material leads us ever-closer to our own atomized personal heaven. But inversely, such a process leads us further away from something else, and what that thing is, as the supposed opposite of material, seems inconsequential, unimportant, possibly even unreal. And yet, as I was reluctant to admit, that feeling was always there, however dim, the flame never died. For in such an admittance is a paradox itself – One can throw as much junk atop that flame in the hope of extinguishing it, but it is belief which keeps it alight, and so the more you seek to deny it, the more you bolster its reality.

I haven’t any strict advice from here, only that if one is thinking on such matters that my emails are always open (hermitixpodcast@protonmail.com) – but prior to this, I would advise only a single thing, prayer.

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So, where was I? Ah yes, I remember, I was 15 years old, then leaving High School, and I was as almost all teenagers are, completely sure of myself. But not only was I your typical arrogant teen, I was equally an under-achiever who consistently got fairly good grades without really trying (not a flex, I was very lazy), and on top of this, I was beginning to utilize my new-found Atheistic faith as a means to bolster my own certainty about myself and the world around me, all the while completely ignorant of the fact I was sinking deeper and deeper into a pit of complete self-deceit. What this part really details is my journey from a-theism to Atheism. My journey from someone within whom religion played no sincere part (your average person), to someone who was staunchly Atheist. Someone who made a point of their atheism, someone for whom their atheism was of them as a religion is of religious person. I wasn’t just a-theist by happenstance, I was atheist, which quickly declines into becoming an anti-theist.

Perhaps I’ll understand, in the process of writing this, why exactly it was I got such a chip on my shoulder about being an (active) atheist? If I was to take a guess this early on, I would put forth the theory that even at a young age (14 onwards) I’d always questioned things, been a bit of a contrarian, and often found ways to intelligently rebel (read: avoid getting in severe trouble). And so once – as I have shown in part one – theism became understood as various rules without root, seemingly enforced for the sake of control, as opposed to betterment, atheism – for the youthful rebel – begins to have a vital appeal. This appeal arises for a few reasons. Firstly, it’s a great feeling, especially when you’re a teenager, to feel like you have-one-over everyone else, to feel like you’ve got it, like you’ve got the answer. Secondly, there’s the aforementioned rebellious aspect, whereby in aligning oneself with atheism, one equally aligns themselves with all the possibilities and ‘freedoms’ it allows, in short, all and every sin imaginable, without real consequence. Third and finally, atheism is, and always has been, positioned as the underdog, and it’s great to feel like you’re internally fighting for the losing side. Quite dangerously, however, such a feeling allows for the development of a form of quasi-virtue into one’s atheistic position, whereby one feels they are a good person for the mere fact they are atheist in distinction to the evil they perceive as being inherent within their ‘enemy’, religion.

One thing I feel I should make clear at this point, it was around this age – if not before – that I started drinking, quite heavily for someone my age to be quite honest, and this didn’t cease until around the age of 22, 7-8 years later. But this I have written of in detail here. I only feel the compulsion to add in this little factoid, because as my drinking got worse, so did my continual descent into the inherent nihilism of atheism. There was a correlation.

And so as I arrived at college (UK college, age 16) my atheism was becoming virulent. It was my scapegoat. It was, for me, the perfect rationalization that religion is the cause of all ill in the world, and when one began to perceive the world via the lens of ‘radical atheism’, it became increasingly easy to blame all of the world’s problems on the great phantom that was ‘religion’. Of course, it should go without saying, as per part one, that at this point in my life I had no real clue what religion, belief and faith actually were, no one had taught me what they were; no one had taught me that you need to be taught what they are – for they are taught in the postmodern a-theistic manner, that is, as loose, free-floating abstractions which are primarily intuited. Hell, even my ‘Religious Education’ teacher in high school rarely taught the basics of various religion’s dogma, and for the life of me I couldn’t tell you one thing I learnt in that class – that is, outside of the underlying imposition that God was some ‘big man in the sky’, hell-bent on domination and control for the sake of it.

So there I was, armed with a topsy-turvy understanding of religion, an underachiever mentality, and a precocious rebellious attitude. What, you ask, could make a teenager more insufferable than this? Well, the year was 2010, Dawkin’s The God Delusion had been published 4 years prior, Hitchen’s God is Not Great 3 years prior, and Harris’ book The Moral Landscape had just been released, this was the New Atheist summer – at least as I remember it – and Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, Sam Harris, and Daniel Dennett were at the peak of their quick-witted, alluring and highly-rational fame. They were my saints, and pure-nothingness my god; all could be reasoned, understood and rationalized via that great free-floating signifier ‘science’. Of course, no one really knew what they meant when they said ‘science’, it was simply a buzzword utilized to represent the idea that progress isn’t a myth, and because we’re the latest humans to be born, we must likewise be the smartest. The term ‘science’ was used without context to disregard debate.

My college days passed me by in a haze of rolled-up cigarettes, cheap beer, the occasional spliff, and a general malaise. As far as I can recall, in fact, it was around this time that my depression began to take hold. Framing itself as a world-weariness, as something which is brought about because one sees the real filth and lies of the world for what they are. And what better way to legitimize negative emotions than this? That you are the only sane person amidst a global insanity. Of course, I was a precocious reader during my college days, and read anything I could get my hands on which was in someway related to Atheism, especially of the ‘Hitchensian’ variety.

Let’s see, there was of course The God Delusion, God is Not Great, The Moral Landscape, The Blind Watchmaker, The Selfish Gene, Mortality, Lying, Letters to a Young Contrarian, The God Argument, you know what? I haven’t the energy to even list them, because for the life of me I can’t remember a single iota of good advice I retained from any single one of these texts, let alone an actual argument against the existence of God. Alas, I don’t seek here to prove such existence, for if one wishes to believe God doesn’t exist – as I once did – they needn’t even read these books, but only utilize them as proof of their own sunk cost and inability to be sincere and honest with themselves. What I will say is this? New Atheists sincerely act as if their arguments are new, and that for 2000 years not one theologian has thought to ask ‘If God real, why bad thing happen?’ Likewise, not one of the New Atheists ever, at least as far as I can recall, dealt with the theology of say Duns Scotus, Aquinas, Maritain, Girard, Origen etc. – they created their own hermeneutic, and disregarded anyone who didn’t begin from their perspective; the attitude of fools.

However, something strange also happened around this time which I equally consider as in correlation to my newfound Atheist faith, and that is, I found ‘alternative spiritualities’, primarily Buddhism. Of course, most wouldn’t consider Buddhism an alt-spirituality, but in retrospect I will consider it one, because the ‘Buddhism’ I practiced at that time wasn’t even close to the reality of actual Buddhism, but some faux-Western-Buddhism which is basically just mindfulness and vegetarianism. A status signal, basically.

But this is all quite meandering. It’s quite sad, I think back now, and truly, I have little to write. The old me would have had tons to write. Nights out, parties, drunken escapades, reckless behaviour and the like; it doesn’t interest me, and hasn’t for a long time. I thought by writing these pieces now I might be able to use a little more of that ‘old stuff’, tucked away at the cringe-teenage sections of my mind, but it seems already too much time has passed, and I’ve simply forgotten that which I no longer find interesting in the slightest. And so that’s that for my college days. It’s quite the gut-punch to write of two entire years of my life in but a few paragraphs, yet in terms of personal emotional evolution, it appears there was next-to-none.

So what’s next? University of course. It was an inevitability for me. Not because I was smart, or talented, or a valuable student, but simply because that’s how things go for the average person in Western countries. You study until you can no longer afford to, and then get a job to pay it all back. Usually it’s only by that time you realize the entire thing is a pyramid scheme, the former half of which also acts as a baby-sitting service. Alas, the youth can’t be blamed, neither can the parents, the whole thing is built atop a system designed to avoid responsibility; if no one is to blame, a scapegoat never forms, and all is well in the land of the perpetually despondent.

University was much alike college, except I didn’t live at home, had far more autonomy, and thus could drink more and party more. The studies were of about the same difficulty. Nothing mattered. I was still an Atheist, it was a foregone conclusion. By about the second year of university, I no longer vehemently read Atheist texts or write-ups, because there was no need, it was a priori that God did not exist. And so, I carried on with my life. I slowly got more and more depressed. Slowly drank more and more. Took up smoking full time.

As these pieces are really about my spiritual journey, I am finding this mid-section – 17-23 – far harder to write than I anticipated. This is possibly due to the inherent relativism of an Atheist outlook. For if there are no cornerstones of value to one’s life, then what do they have to evolve against or for? Nothing. Atheism is inherently nihilism. One could argue that Atheists are free to create their own values, their own meaning; but likewise, they are equally as free to disregard these self-created values and meanings with little-to-no repercussions, and thus, they are useless. Between-the-lines, atheism is just nihilism, but of a distinctly rationally arrogant flavour. Nothing of substance happened during these years, because I had no structure with which to qualify such value. If, during this duration, the Lord himself had thrown sign after sign in front of my face, on an even hourly basis, I wouldn’t have had the eyes with which to see them. To look back now, and struggle to clutch some modicum of worth from the events of those years is difficult for the simple fact that I neither valued or devalued, regarded or disregarded, treasured or cast-aside that time; it was what it was, duration to be filled with various material entertainments; a fleeting nothingness, a pity to be emphasized.

So what happened next is thus both unsurprising and uneventful. I left university, got a retail job, and continued to drink regularly. The run-of-the-mill existence for your average young Western man. Just getting by working, topped-off with unalloyed hedonism in your free time. It could have continued that way for a long time, and it did continue that was for almost two years. Something broke, and even now I’m not sure what it was. The quote from David Foster Wallace – “Submission is more a matter of fatigue than anything else.” – fits extremely well. I remember not being bored, or feeling tired, exhausted, lost etc., but simply empty. And so my submission was quite the reverse than the common one, whereby those in mundane, boring lives eventually crack and go on some booze-filled rampage, or drug binge, or gambling spree etc. No, I was consistently getting drunk and partying and enjoying the fruits of the modern world to a degree enviable by the Kings of Rome, and I reached such a degree of emptiness, that almost all once – relatively speaking, over a matter of a month or so (quick, in the grand scheme of things) – it dawned on me that which was causing my misery, and an almost lifelong acceptance was quashed by an unpalpable boredom. I quit drinking, chose working hours which made it impossible to do so, hit the gym, ate better and got on with a boring life.

I couldn’t tell you where this sudden impetus came from. I was the same person I had been for years. I still played video games, was still an atheist – though at this point I rarely thought about that aspect of things – I had just reached such a intense form of nihilism that there was only two foreseeable exits: suicide or submission. Luckily I chose to submit. But what exactly was it I submitted myself to? I believe, in retrospect, against years of believing the contrary, I submitted myself to a single idea – the idea that life had meaning, and my life had value.

I picked up the slack of the past years very quickly, as I’ve made clear. Gym, healthy eating, organizing myself etc. The usual. Contrary to the common understanding of such matters, take it from me – Turning your life around has very little to do with money, objects, relationships or tangible assets, and everything to do with values, discipline and self-observation. One can turn their life around in a few months if they truly desire to. Only they can know what’s wrong, and only they can sort it out. I was lucky, months, years into my newfound freedom, away from the boredom of modern hedonism, I never relapsed, the appeal of that world, that life, never returned. What came next, and the route there, was, however, extremely unexpected…

So, my life wasn’t exactly perfect, but it was good. It had value. I valued it. And so I took it upon myself to further my education. I applied for a Master’s Degree in Continental Philosophy, and happened to be accepted. We were to study Foucault, Serres, Heidegger, Levinas, Nietzsche etc. I was still an atheist, but no way near as militant, and if my time in retail had shown me anything, it was that the people who came in on Sundays after church tended to be far kinder than anyone else I happened to meet, a memory which sticks with me to this day. Why is the fact I took this course important? Well, it wasn’t the content of the course itself which was important, but where it lead me. This will come as no surprise to those who know my work, but the next step on my journey is my extended delve into the philosophy of Nick Land. A writer whose work I still cherish and read, but whose work – quite ironically, for those that know of it – also plays a key role in my return to God.

See, even though I no longer attended to the ‘philosophy’ of militant atheism, I did seek out an upgrade. Nick Land’s work, especially his early work found within A Thirst for Annihilation and Fanged Noumena, is the bleakest of the bleak. At times it makes the aphorisms of Cioran seem quite jolly. I was upgrading from atheism to what can only be described as ‘Lovecraft, Darwin, Marx, Nietzsche, Cioran, Bataille, Crowley and Deleuze’ rolled into one single heap of dark philosophical tar; Land’s work is a thick smear of pungent asphalt buttered across the idea of academic etiquette. The kind of shit that genuinely could push someone over the edge. But I revelled in it. Quite oddly, my new found soberness allowed me to take to it as a duck to water. In short: If there was no God and religion was pure idiocy (my a priori assumption at the time), then why not accelerate the conclusions of this; if we’re to be nihilists, why not push that to its limit? To cut a long story short with regard to this ‘limit’, nothing happens, you’re kidding yourself. Read Land’s essay A Dirty Joke, that’s the conclusion.

Why then, was Land’s work of such paramount importance in terms of my own return to God? Well, it wasn’t Land’s work in-itself, which triggered some sudden realization of God’s existence. It was those who influenced his work – Bataille, Grant and Crowley – which lead me to the realization of some form of transcendence; a Lovecraftian Outside which was creeping in, even if it was somehow doing so in only a material sense. I wont go into the details of such philosophy here, for it is a long dark road, which I went into in intense detail in my novella A Methodology of Possession – so if you want to see what Landian ‘hell’ is like, read that. And from Land I began to dabble in Thelema, Qabala, the (infamous) Numogram, Hermeticism, and likely some other nefarious occult pursuit I have since forgotten about. At this moment in time he screams internally, please, anything but Christianity! Fortunately for me, none of these paths really reverberated for me, – with the exception of Bardonian Hermeticism – needless to say, I didn’t have the spiritual stomach for the Occult, at least in practice. But such adventures, however damning, taught me one of the most valuable lessons I shall ever learn – evil exists.

Here’s the thing, evil isn’t fun, it isn’t quirky, it isn’t liberating, nor is it smart in a creative way, or emancipative. Evil seeks to control and dominate in such a way that you believe you are free; evil seeks to have you believe misery is fun, and what is corrosive is quirky; pure evil turns the world upside-down, it makes reality topsy-turvy. What is bad becomes good, and good becomes bad. Vice becomes virtue, sin transformed into normality. Evil seeks not to destroy your life, but to have you destroy in its name, all the while believing you are doing the good, the right and the just thing. Evil doesn’t arrive as a demon in your room, a dirty grimoire or a thunderous storm, evil arrives slowly and quietly, finding ways to seep into the most innocuous day-to-day places and situations. Evil is a spiritually-negative cancer, never settled; love turned lust turned competition; charity turned rivalry turned violence; kindness turned comparison turned anger. At first evil teaches you a simple lesson, that nothing will ever be enough, that there is always more to be had in every single one of life’s avenues.

I shall end this part here, for from the realization of the existence of evil must come forth the realization of the existence of good. And so the next, and final part, shall document my return home.

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