Resident Evil Quotes

Evil resides in the very gaze which perceives Evil all around itself.

Ah, child and youth, if you knew the bliss which resides in the taste of knowledge, and the evil and ugliness that lies in ignorance, how well you are advised to not complain of the pain and labor of learning.

That was so Resident Evil,” Luke said, his eyes wide. “Awesome” I cracked a grin, a little breathless. “It was kind of Alice awesome, wasn’t it?

Alice is fictional. This isn't.

When I say that evil has to do with killing, I do not mean to restrict myself to corporeal murder. Evil is that which kills spirit. There are various essential attributes of life -- particularly human life -- such as sentience, mobility, awareness, growth, autonomy, will. It is possible to kill or attempt to kill one of these attributes without actually destroying the body. Thus we may "break" a horse or even a child without harming a hair on its head. Erich Fromm was acutely sensitive to this fact when he broadened the definition of necrophilia to include the desire of certain people to control others-to make them controllable, to foster their dependency, to discourage their capacity to think for themselves, to diminish their unpredectibility and originalty, to keep them in line. Distinguishing it from a "biophilic" person, one who appreciates and fosters the variety of life forms and the uniqueness of the individual, he demonstrated a "necrophilic character type," whose aim it is to avoid the inconvenience of life by transforming others into obedient automatons, robbing them of their humanity. Evil then, for the moment, is the force, residing either inside or outside of human beings, that seeks to kill life or liveliness. And goodness is its opposite. Goodness is that which promotes life and liveliness.

She was born under the sign of Gemini. And that stands for the good and evil twin. Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde both hiding and residing inside her heart. Her good twin was not bad at all. But her evil twin was even better, and showed up to be way too fatal!

He has a spirit-a soul- and therfore a choice. I will belive that Aurox will chose Light, even if Darkness resides within him. None of us is entirely good. Or evil.

Not evil. Not any more evil than the colored trees are good.Evil and good reside in the heart, not in trees and water.

Expect Nothing

Man’s strength resides in his capacity and desire to elevate himself, so as to attain the good. To travel step by step toward the heights. And that is all he can do. To reach heaven and remain there is beyond his powers: Even Moses had to return to earth. Is it the same for evil?

We saw a pale echo of what is now possible in 1990-1991, when Saddam Hussein, the autocrat of Iraq, made a sudden transition in the American consciousness from an obscure near-ally - granted commodities, high technology, weaponry, and even satellite intelligence data - to a slavering monster menacing the world. I am not myself an admirer of Mr. Hussein, but it was striking how quickly he could be brought from someone almost no American had heard of into the incarnation of evil. These days the apparatus for generating indignation is busy elsewhere. How confident are we that the power to drive and determine public opinion will always reside in responsible hands?

Evil is not just a theory of paradox, but an actual entity that exists only for itself. From its ether of manifestation that is garlanded in perpetual darkness, it not only influences and seeks the ruination and destruction of everything that resides in our universe, but rushes to embrace its own oblivion as well. To accomplish this, however, it must hide within the shroud of lies and deceit it spins to manipulate the weak-minded as well as those who choose to ally themselves with it for their own personal gain. For evil must rely on the self-serving interests of the arrogant, the lustful, the power-hungry, the hateful, and the greedy to feed and proliferate. This then becomes the condition of evil’s existence: the baneful ideologies of those who wantonly chose to ignore the needs and rights of others, inducing oppression, fear, pain, and even death throughout the cosmos. And by these means, evil seeks to supplant the balance of the universe with its perverse nature. And once all that was good has been extinguished by corruption or annihilation, evil will then turn upon and consume what remains: particularly its immoral servants who have assisted its purpose so well … along with itself. And within that terrible instant of unimaginable exploding quantum fury, it will burn brighter than a trillion galaxies to herald its moment of ultimate triumph. But a moment is all that it shall be. And a micro-second later when the last amber burns and flickers out to the demise of dissolving ash, evil will leave its legacy of a totally devoid universe as its everlasting monument to eternal death.

Within the infant rind of this small flower Poison hath residence and medicine power. For this, being smelt, with that part cheers each part; Being tasted, stays all senses with the heart. Two such opposèd kings encamp them still, In man as well as herbs—grace and rude will. And where the worser is predominant, Full soon the canker death eats up that plant. (Inside the little rind of this weak flower, there is both poison and powerful medicine. If you smell it, you feel good all over your body. But if you taste it, you die. There are two opposite elements in everything, in men as well as in herbs—good and evil. When evil is dominant, death soon kills the body like cancer.)

We all have a plan, those of us who love George Romero and Resident Evil. We all keep a sword under our bed, or a chainsaw in our garage. We know the quickest way to the mall, and we practise our stealthy moves when no-one else around is watching. We know where we'll get food, water and gasoline, and where we'll stay until society gets back on its feet.   We know the zombies are coming.

It is interesting that it is not the getting of any sort of knowledge that God has forbidden, but, specifically, the knowledge of the difference between good and evil-that is, abstract and moral judgments, which, if they reside anywhere, reside in the neocortex.

Both men and angels were given the highest gift in the universe, that of free will. We have the power of choice. Evil resides within the problem of choice. It is free will that convicts us. We are guilty of being evil because we can choose good. Free will is the very foundation of love, and the cornerstone of evil.

To kill for murder is an immeasurably greater evil than the actual crime itself. Judicial murder is immeasurably more horrible than one committed by a robber. Someone killed by a robber, knifed at night in forest or somewhere, certainly keeps hoping for a rescue right up to the last second. There have been instances of people whose throats have been cut still hoping for rescue right up to the last second. There have been instances of people whose throats have been cut still hoping, or running away, or pleading for their lives. But all this final hope, which makes dying ten times easier is taken away by that certain; the sentence is pronounced and the whole agony resides in the fact that there’s no escape. There is no greater torture in the world than that. Fetch a soldier and stand him right in front of a cannon during a battle and fire at him, he’ll go on hoping; but read out a certain death sentence to that same soldier and he’ll go off his head or bust into tears. Who can say that human nature can bear such a thing like that without going mad? Why this disgusting pointless, unnecessary mockery? Perhaps there exists a man who has had his sentence read out to him and been allowed to suffer before being told: “Be off, you’ve been pardoned.” That man could tell you perhaps. Christ himself spoke of such agony and terror. No, a man should not be treated so!

He set the RAM on the desk, then reached into his back pocket to pull out his grimoire. The size of a small paperback novel, it'd been a gift from Ambrose to help him understand some of the madness that surrounded him, and to answer some of the "other" questions that came up. "All right, Nashira," Nick said in a low tone. "Talk to me. What the heck is watching me?" He slid his knife out of his pocket, opened the book, and pricked his finger, allowing three drops of blood to touch a blank page. "Dredanya eire coulet" he whispered, waking the female spirit who lived inside the enchanted pages. The moment he finished speaking, his blood began swirling until it formed words: Do not fear that which cannot be seen. For they are lost in between. 'Tis the ones who come alive That your blood will allow to thrive. Nick snorted at the cryptic stanzas. "Not really useful, Nashira. Doesn't answer my question." His blood crawled over to the next page. Answer, answer, you always say, But it doesn't work that way. In time, the truth you shall find. And then you will understand my rhyme. "I'm such a masochist to even try talking to you" Underneath the words, a picture of an obscene gesture formed. "Oh very nice, Nashira. Very nice. Wherever did you learn that?" In your pocket I reside. Ever privy to your deride. But more than that, I can see. And that includes bathroom stall graffiti Nick screwed his face up in distaste. "Oh my God, no. Tell me you haven't been spying on me in the rest room. You perv!" Calm yourself, you evil troll. My job is not to console. But if it is privacy you seek, Leave me in your backpack so I can't peek. Now he understood why other people got so aggravated with his attitude disorder. He wanted to strangle his book.

Perhaps we will meet again. Anything is possible, especially in a place like this.

The truth was, she couldn't stand to let such an opportunity pass; she wanted to see what was behind the closed door, because it was there. Because leaving it unopened would get under her skin.

Therein resides the fundamental systemic violence of capitalism, much more uncanny than direct pre-capitalist socio-ideological violence: its violence is no longer attributable to concrete individuals with their 'evil' intentions, but is purely 'objective,' systemic, anonymous--quite literally a conceptual violence, the violence of a Concept whose self-deployment rules and regulates social realty.

God is near you, is with you, is inside you. Yes, Lucilius, there resides within us a divine spirit, which guards us and watches us in the evil and the good we do. As we treat him, so will he treat us. No man, indeed, is good without God – is any one capable of rising above fortune unless he has help from God?

Orwell's 1984 [...] is political thought disguised as a novel; the thinking is certainly lucid and correct, but it is distorted by its guise as a novel, which renders it imprecise and vague. [...] the situations and the characters are as flat as a poster. The pernicious influence of Orwell's novel resides in its implacable reduction of a reality to its political dimension alone, and in its reduction of that dimension to what is exemplarily negative about it. I refuse to forgive this reduction on the grounds that it was useful as propaganda in the struggle against totalitarian evil. For that evil is, precisely, the reduction of life to politics and of politics to propaganda. So despite its intentions, Orwell's novel itself joins in the totalitarian spirit, the spirit of propaganda. It reduces (and teaches others to reduce) the life of a hated society to the simple listing of its crimes.

But while the residents were shocked by the violence, they were also often surprised by the mundaneness of it all. Discovered the extent of perversity the heart is capable of as they sat at home with nothing to do, and found that it was possible, faced with the stench of unimaginable evil, for a human being to grow bored, yawn, be absorbed by the problem of a missing sock, by neighborly irritations, to feel hunger skipping like a little mouse inside a tummy and return, once again, to the pressing matter of what to eat.... There they were, the most commonplace of them, those quite mismatched with the larger-than-life questions, caught up in the mythic battles of past vs. present, justice vs. injustice—the most ordinary swept up in extraordinary hatred, because extraordinary hatred was, after all, a commonplace event.

An imaginary circle of empathy is drawn by each person. It circumscribes the person at some distance, and corresponds to those things in the world that deserve empathy. I like the term "empathy" because it has spiritual overtones. A term like "sympathy" or "allegiance" might be more precise, but I want the chosen term to be slightly mystical, to suggest that we might not be able to fully understand what goes on between us and others, that we should leave open the possibility that the relationship can't be represented in a digital database. If someone falls within your circle of empathy, you wouldn't want to see him or her killed. Something that is clearly outside the circle is fair game. For instance, most people would place all other people within the circle, but most of us are willing to see bacteria killed when we brush our teeth, and certainly don't worry when we see an inanimate rock tossed aside to keep a trail clear. The tricky part is that some entities reside close to the edge of the circle. The deepest controversies often involve whether something or someone should lie just inside or just outside the circle. For instance, the idea of slavery depends on the placement of the slave outside the circle, to make some people nonhuman. Widening the circle to include all people and end slavery has been one of the epic strands of the human story - and it isn't quite over yet. A great many other controversies fit well in the model. The fight over abortion asks whether a fetus or embryo should be in the circle or not, and the animal rights debate asks the same about animals. When you change the contents of your circle, you change your conception of yourself. The center of the circle shifts as its perimeter is changed. The liberal impulse is to expand the circle, while conservatives tend to want to restrain or even contract the circle. Empathy Inflation and Metaphysical Ambiguity Are there any legitimate reasons not to expand the circle as much as possible? There are. To expand the circle indefinitely can lead to oppression, because the rights of potential entities (as perceived by only some people) can conflict with the rights of indisputably real people. An obvious example of this is found in the abortion debate. If outlawing abortions did not involve commandeering control of the bodies of other people (pregnant women, in this case), then there wouldn't be much controversy. We would find an easy accommodation. Empathy inflation can also lead to the lesser, but still substantial, evils of incompetence, trivialization, dishonesty, and narcissism. You cannot live, for example, without killing bacteria. Wouldn't you be projecting your own fantasies on single-cell organisms that would be indifferent to them at best? Doesn't it really become about you instead of the cause at that point?

Cada amanecer era una declaración de intenciones que anunciaban la inevitable progresión del tiempo, y un recordatorio de que el mundo continuaría girando eternamente sobre sus pasos galácticos, haciendo caso omiso de los sueños de los seres que se consideraban importantes...

Being Scared-off by Evil Lastly, we deny the presence of evil because we are terrified by the horrendously hurtful, cruel, and bloody kinds of evil people tell us about—if we are willing to listen. This was poignantly brought home during an interdisciplinary case conference involving a resident who was counseling for the first time a woman who had been sexually abused. As we worked with him, it became clear that he was resisting entering what he called the 'psychic cave" of her sealed—off experience from which she was shouting for assistance. Because of his resistance, he was not providing her the support and guidance she so desperately needed, and he was not facilitating her working through the abuse and hurt that were continuing to impact her life. As he was confronted about this at one point in the conference, he stated tearfully: "I'm afraid if I help her move into her memories. I will have to go with her, and if I go with her, my view of the world as a basically good and safe place will be shattered. I'm not sure I can handle that for myself, or be able to think about the fact that my wife and kids may be more vulnerable living in this world than I can be comfortable believing" (Means 1995, 299).

I was also part of a post-Vietnam generation that had learned to question its own government and saw how - from the rise of McCarthyism to support for South Africa's apartheid regime - Cold War thinking had often led America to betray its ideals. This awareness didn't stop me from believing we should contain the spread of Marxist totalitarianism. But it made me wary of the notion that good resided only on our side and bad on theirs, or that a people who'd produced Tolstoy and Tchaikovsky were inherently different from us. Instead, the evils of the Soviet system struck me as a variation on a broader human tragedy: The way abstract theories and rigid orthodoxy can curdle into repression. How readily we justify moral compromise and relinquish our freedoms. How power can corrupt and fear can compound and language can be debased. None of that was unique to Soviets or Communisists, I thought; it was true for all of us. The brave struggle of dissidents behind the Iron Curtain felt of a piece with, rather than distinct from, the larger struggle for human dignity taking place elsewhere in the world - including America.

Those secrets residing in their hearts and minds held magnificent Energy. Humans were too inept to see it as anything but evil.

... perhaps an equally dangerous, bewitching power resides in good as in evil. Essentially, the good needs to be regarded as an inherently no-less-dangerous principle than evil.

Chris is our old partner, ye know!

Expect the unexpected, that was the S.T.A.R.S. motto—although

Jack the Ripper became the embodiment, forever, of pure evil. Every Chicago resident who could read devoured these reports from abroad, but none with quite so much intensity as Dr. H. H. Holmes.

The underworld was made up of many different regions. Each area was its own private sector and not everyone who resided here was malevolent. Some beings here were virtuous, while others had yet to decide what they were - their fates having yet to be decided. Not all dark creatures were evil, just as not all light creatures were moral. Corbin and Quentin were the epitome of that dichotomy.

Evil isn't always repulsive. Quite the contrary, it often hides behind masks of beauty and societal acceptance. Modern-day monsters adorned with attractive faces, impeccable hair, prestigious careers, sprawling families, and nice Sunday lunches. They reside in our neighbourhoods, sleep in our beds, and even exist within our own families. Such insidious evil makes it increasingly challenging to discern truth from deceit.

Jill and Barry return to the main hall to find that Wesker is now missing, too. Their brief search for him turns up no clues, which isn’t surprising as it involves Barry yelling Wesker’s name exactly once and Jill running in a circle.

If you die, (transition from physical matter to spiritual matter) you will follow your belief system to the Heaven or Hell of your beliefs. If you stay within the darkness, not the evil, then you will return to Source. Please this is very important. This darkness is not the evil you have been taught by systems or religions. That evil exists on Earth and in Spirit because of belief systems created by humanity but it only resides in the pool of fear and is not the darkness.

The devil lives in the shadow of subtle things--those things people keep hidden from others. They reside in the lies they tell themselves, in order to justify their pain or fear. It is the slight, the dig, the silence and the unspoken truth that we minimize to a passive aggressive status, as if it were a lesser evil. Integrity is not subtle. It speaks loudly, so everyone can hear and be healed. It is something you will never have to search for because it is seen and felt.

These two visions—Darwinian organicism and Christian messianism—seem contradictory today because they reside on different sides of the culture war. But in the Progressive Era, these visions complemented each other perfectly. And Wilson embodied this synthesis. The totalitarian flavor of such a worldview should be obvious. Unlike classical liberalism, which saw the government as a necessary evil, or simply a benign but voluntary social contract for free men to enter into willingly, the belief that the entire society was one organic whole left no room for those who didn’t want to behave, let alone “evolve.” Your home, your private thoughts, everything was part of the organic body politic, which the state was charged with redeeming.

People are vaccinated with dangerous chemicals during their childhood, indoctrinated with immorality through television while growing up, taught to reject God by their teachers, fed with genetically modified food, and led to suspect others by their relatives and friends, and then you wonder why it's so difficult to find a normal person in this modern world, why nobody assumes responsibility for their words and behavior, and why everyone is so selfishly abusive. The biblical apocalypse has begun and the zombies are everywhere. It's just that we call them stupid and selfish instead. But they do act like there's no life inside of them anymore. There are no more normal human beings around. The survivors of this apocalypse are extremely scarce and must be treasured.

Is all wate of the male seed equally heinous? Is mastrupation as evil a sin? -Less so since it does not win others to sin, but souls resident in a man's seed in potentia that might at the last people God's Kingdom are thwarted, nay murdered by an unnatural act.

I am Lady Justice, God´s most special daughter, for my essence flows directly from His own. I reside in Heaven, on Earth, or in Hell: in Heaven for the glory of the saints and blessed souls, on Earth to divide and allot to all their portion of good and evil as they deserve it, in Hell to punish the wicked.

In this world, you are either good or evil. If not, then a court or a teacher or a parent is bound to tag your identity before you've had a chance to figure it out on your own. The gray middle ground, that mucous-thin terrain where most of life resides, is really only a temporary annex, like gestation or purgatory.

And that brings me to my definition of power, which is simply this: the capacity to make others do what you would have them do. It sounds menacing, doesn't it? We don't like to talk about power. We find it scary. We find it somehow evil. We feel uncomfortable naming it. In the culture and mythology of democracy, power resides with the people.

With women, my wiring shorts out. My senses respond to the physical and the chemical, the scent and sheen of her. Evil could not possibly reside in the form of this angel. Or could it? Sure, I'm politically incorrect. I admit it; I confess; guilty as charged. I am, Your Honor, the lowest of the species, still wet from the swamp, webbed feet fossilized in the mud. I am a Man!

Simple … humans must learn to live without government,” Bragador said. “Government, organized force, is the repository of evil. It is the source of corruption, the enemy of civilization and the problem with the world. As long as there is a place where concentrated power resides, it will attract evil people like dung attracts flies. The only solution is to remove the pile of dung.

If they come to this forest, to us here, seeking shelter from the havoc that has been brought upon their lands, at the hands of evil, I say come. I say join us in this fight! The royal throne of Northbrook no longer resides in Gamlock. It is here. Now. In this place. You are its soldiers, I am its king, and we will work together to unite all who are willing to fight alongside us! (Wharick)

Like all immorality, eternity politics begins by making an exception for itself. All else in creation might be evil, but I and my group are good, because I am myself and my group is mine. Others might be confused and bewitched by the facts and passions of history, but my nation and myself have maintained a prehistorical innocence. Since the only good is this invisible quality that resides in us, the only policy is one that safeguards our innocence, regardless of the costs. Those who accept eternity politics do not expect to live longer, happier, or more fruitful lives. They accept suffering as a mark of righteousness if they think that guilty others are suffering more. Life is nasty, brutish, and short; the pleasure of life is that it can be made nastier, more brutish, and shorter for others.

Popular authors do not and apparently cannot appreciate the fact that true art is obtainable only by rejecting normality and conventionality in toto, and approaching a theme purged utterly of any usual or preconceived point of view. Wild and “different” as they may consider their quasi-weird products, it remains a fact that the bizarrerie is on the surface alone; and that basically they reiterate the same old conventional values and motives and perspectives. Good and evil, teleological illusion, sugary sentiment, anthropocentric psychology—the usual superficial stock in trade, and all shot through with the eternal and inescapable commonplace…. Who ever wrote a story from the point of view that man is a blemish on the cosmos, who ought to be eradicated? As an example—a young man I know lately told me that he means to write a story about a scientist who wishes to dominate the earth, and who to accomplish his ends trains and overdevelops germs … and leads armies of them in the manner of the Egyptian plagues. I told him that although this theme has promise, it is made utterly commonplace by assigning the scientist a normal motive. There is nothing outré about wanting to conquer the earth; Alexander, Napoleon, and Wilhelm II wanted to do that. Instead, I told my friend, he should conceive a man with a morbid, frantic, shuddering hatred of the life-principle itself, who wishes to extirpate from the planet every trace of biological organism, animal and vegetable alike, including himself. That would be tolerably original. But after all, originality lies with the author. One can’t write a weird story of real power without perfect psychological detachment from the human scene, and a magic prism of imagination which suffuses theme and style alike with that grotesquerie and disquieting distortion characteristic of morbid vision. Only a cynic can create horror—for behind every masterpiece of the sort must reside a driving demonic force that despises the human race and its illusions, and longs to pull them to pieces and mock them.

Lilac was desperate to maintain hope by holding onto the love and protection she felt for Violet and Rose. They were so young and innocent; they did not understand the circumstances of their surroundings. They were both under five years of age; Lilac tried to shield them from the poison that had spread throughout their new house. She sensed the growing evil residing in their home and was desperately trying to keep its ugly claws from extinguishing her spirit.

I had to watch my uncle get strung up when I was a child,” she finally said after she returned from the faraway place in her mind. “The white man would only sell us the rotten fruit and vegetables from their bug-infested baskets. We had to collect that mess from the back of the store like we were a pack of wild mutts picking through garbage. My uncle had had enough of his apples having maggots crawling out of them, so he started farming his own vegetables for us to eat. The white man didn’t like that. Not. One. Bit. It’s amazing how their minds work. The way their minds work is the reason we call them devils because only a devil could think the way they do. They were mad about the loss of profit because they no longer had us buying the filthy rot they peddled. “My uncle produced such a high quality of fruits and vegetables that he had white folks coming to buy from him. It wasn’t too long after this started, those devils came in their white hoods and burned his garden to ash. Then they strung him up. We were forced to watch my uncle dangle from the neck while he pissed and shit himself. God will forgive my mouth saying it because he knows I only speak the truth. The evilness that resides inside the mind of those devils still exists in the minds of the ones who wear cop’s uniforms and judge’s robes. This is what our boys are up against. Our boys are at war! They freed us from our chains, so that they could lock us in their jails.

The thing that's hard about it—the thing that makes it so hard when the person you love has been taken from you, not by something evil you could have seen coming but by random, pure chance—is that you find yourself suddenly living through a history other than the one you expected to live, through no fault of your own. I feel . . . it's hard to describe, but I feel weirdly outside of time. Ever since the accident I've had these moments when I felt like a visiting guest in this world, not a permanent resident. Like sometimes I look in a mirror and I feel like I can almost see through the version of me on the other side of the glass. And sometimes I feel like I can see the history I used to be in more clearly than the history I'm in now—the real history is one where Philip and Sean and I are all together, being a family and doing whatever family things people do, and this one's like . . . like a fake version of events that I've been yanked into, where everything's gone wrong.

...it is indeed a street of so impertinent a nature, so unfortunately connected with the great London and Oxford roads, and the principal inn of the city, that a day never passes in which parties of ladies, however important their business, whether in quest of pastry, millinery, or even (as in the present case) of young men, are not detained on one side or other by carriages, horsemen, or carts. This evil had been felt and lamented, at least three times a day, by Isabella since her residence in Bath...

Love's mystery resides in oneness, and so does God's. "Whatever is above is also down below." Between the present concrete world and the other, the one to come, there is a link as between source and reflection. God does not oppose humanity, and man, though vulnerable and ephemeral, can attain immortality in the passing moment. In man's universe, everything is connected because nothing is without meaning. Thence the tolerance the Baal Shem exhibited toward sinners. He refused to give them up as lost. If need be, he could understand - though not accept - evil in others. But evil without consciousness of evil he deemed inadmissible. ...To realize himself, the Baal Shem's Hasidism teaches us, man must first of all remain faithful to his most intimate, truest self; he cannot help others if he negates himself. Any man who loves God while hating or despising His creation, will in the end hate God. A Jew who rejects his origins, his brothers, to make a so-called contribution to mankind, will in the end betray mankind. That is true for all men.

Here is the power of my God: it is to be found in my rotting flesh, in my weakness, in the dirt and disease of this world. You have not seen this power because it is in the people you have refused to heed; it resides in those you have tortured and put to death, those who have suffered under your hand. The power of God is to be found in the face of the widow and the orphan, in the illegal alien, and in the outstretched hand of the starving man. This weakness and fragility is the power of God, a power that can overturn the most evil of tyrants.

A theologian of glory, he explained, “prefers works to suffering, glory to the cross, strength to weakness, wisdom to folly, and, in general, good to evil” (in Lull, p. 58); that is, he or she still desires worldly fame and success, just hidden under the cloak of religion. A theologian of the cross, by contrast, recognizes that “God can be found only in suffering and the cross” (p. 58). Luther knew from personal experience that sin’s deceptiveness is such that it comes to take up residence in our best thoughts and deeds, even in our pursuit of God and his glory.

Turns out it’s an old Cherokee legend about the two wolves that reside within each of us: a dark wolf that is evil, and a light wolf that is good. The dark wolf feeds on anger, envy, lies, sorrow, greed, arrogance, and all the negative traits we display. The light wolf is just the opposite, and feeds on joy, peace, love, hope, understanding, truth, and compassion. These wolves are constantly at war with each other, one trying to gain dominance over the other. In the legend, a young Cherokee boy asks his grandfather which wolf will eventually win. The old Cherokee simply replies, ‘The one you feed.

There are no racists in America, or at least none that the people who need to be white know personally. In the era of mass lynching, it was so difficult to find who, specifically, served as executioner that such deaths were often reported by the press as having happened “at the hands of persons unknown.” In 1957, the white residents of Levittown, Pennsylvania, argued for their right to keep their town segregated. “As moral, religious and law-abiding citizens.” the group wrote, “we feel that we are unprejudiced and undiscriminating in our wish to keep our community a closed community.” This was the attempt to commit a shameful act while escaping all sanction, and I raise it to show you that there was no golden era when evildoers did their business and loudly proclaimed it as such. “We would prefer to say that such people cannot exist, that there aren’t any,” writes Solzhenitsyn. “To do evil a human being must first of all believe that what he’s doing is good, or else that it’s a well-considered act in conformity with natural law.” This is the foundation of the Dream—its adherents must not just believe in it but believe that it is just, believe that their possession of the Dream is the natural result of grit, honor, and good works. There

Fear resides in all things, and the heart of fear is the unexpected. Do not frighten your opponent with what is right before their eyes." The Book of Five Rings, The Fire Chapter The Way of Walking Alone Do not turn your back on the various ways of this world. Do not scheme for physical pleasure. Consider yourself lightly; consider the world deeply. Do not ever think in acquisitive terms. Do not regret things about your personal life. Do not envy another’s good or evil. Do not lament parting on any road whatsoever. Do not complain or feel bitterly about yourself or others. Have no heart for approaching the path of love. Do not have preferences. Do not harbor hopes for your own personal home. Do not have a liking for delicious food for yourself. Do not carry antiques handed down from generation to generation. Do not fast so that it affects your physically. While it’s different with the military equipment, do not be fond of material things. While on the Way, do not begrudge death. Do not be intent on possessing valuables or a fief in old age. Respect the gods and Buddhas, but do not depend on them. Though you give up your life, do not give up your honor. Never depart from the Way. Shinmen Musashi Twelfth day of the fifth month, Second Year of Shoho, 1645

Perhaps, but you fail to see the folly of the Reishi,” Bragador said. “The concentration of power that allowed them to ensure peace for so long was the very thing that made them such a potent threat to peace when their power corrupted them, as power inevitably does.” “So what’s the solution?” Alexander asked, a bit more defiantly than he would have liked. “Simple … humans must learn to live without government,” Bragador said. “Government, organized force, is the repository of evil. It is the source of corruption, the enemy of civilization and the problem with the world. As long as there is a place where concentrated power resides, it will attract evil people like dung attracts flies. The only solution is to remove the pile of dung.” “What about crime? What about other countries with powerful governments bent on war? How can there be peace without authority?” Alexander asked. “Therein lies the human dilemma,” Bragador said. “There will always be those who call for greater and greater control, out of fear or ignorance or greed. Until humanity learns restraint in governance, learns how to limit the power it grants to its leaders, learns that those who crave power over others are always deceivers, your kind will know only war and despair.” “If we haven’t learned that lesson by now, I doubt we ever will,” Alexander said. “Some will, most won’t,” Bragador said. “Selfish interest is a powerful motivator. Governments can always be bought or manipulated or blackmailed to set rules that favor some at the expense of others. Evil people see government as a weapon to be used for their own purposes while spreading the lie that it exists to protect the innocent or ensure fairness or defend against some distant threat. The truth is, government has always existed for one single reason … the profit and power of those in government. Of course, there are always those working within government who are good and decent people. But those who vie for power, they can never be trusted.

Sure, zombies can “be a metaphor.” They can represent the oppressed, as in Land of the Dead, or humanity’s feral nature, as in 28 Days. Or racial politics or fear of contagion or even the consumer unconscious (Night of the Living Dead, Resident Evil, Dawn of the Dead). We could play this game all night. But really, zombies are not “supposed to be metaphors.” They’re supposed to be friggin’ zombies. They follow the Zombie Rules: they rise from death to eat the flesh of the living, they shuffle in slow pursuit (or should, anyway), and most important, they multiply exponentially. They bring civilization down, taking all but the most resourceful, lucky and well-armed among us, whom they save for last. They make us the hunted; all of us. That’s the stuff zombies are supposed to do. Yes, they make excellent symbols, and metaphors, and have kick-ass mythopoeic resonance to boot. But their main job is to follow genre conventions, to play with and expand the Zombie Rules, to make us begin to see the world as a place colored by our own zombie contingency plans. […] Stories are the original virtual reality device; their internal rules spread out into reality around us like a bite-transmitted virus, slowly but inexorably consuming its flesh. They don’t just stand around “being metaphors” whose sole purpose is to represent things in the real world; they eat the real world.

The Foreign Office was in contact with the authorities in those foreign countries that were either occupied or allied with the Nazis, to put pressure on them to deport their Jews, or, as the case might be, to prevent them from evacuating them to the East helter-skelter, out of sequence, without proper regard for the absorptive capacity of the death centers. (This was how Eichmann remembered it; it was in fact not quite so simple.) The legal experts drew up the necessary legislation for making the victims stateless, which was important on two counts: it made it impossible for any country to inquire into their fate, and it enabled the state in which they were resident to confiscate their property.

It is relatively easy to accept that money is an intersubjective reality. Most people are also happy to acknowledge that ancient Greek gods, evil empires and the values of alien cultures exist only in the imagination. Yet we don’t want to accept that our God, our nation or our values are mere fictions, because these are the things that give meaning to our lives. We want to believe that our lives have some objective meaning, and that our sacrifices matter to something beyond the stories in our head. Yet in truth the lives of most people have meaning only within the network of stories they tell one another. Meaning is created when many people weave together a common network of stories. Why does a particular action – such as getting married in church, fasting on Ramadan or voting on election day – seem meaningful to me? Because my parents also think it is meaningful, as do my brothers, my neighbours, people in nearby cities and even the residents of far-off countries. And why do all these people think it is meaningful? Because their friends and neighbours also share the same view. People constantly reinforce each other’s beliefs in a self-perpetuating loop. Each round of mutual confirmation tightens the web of meaning further, until you have little choice but to believe what everyone else believes. Yet over decades and centuries the web of meaning unravels and a new web is spun in its place. To study history means to watch the spinning and unravelling of these webs, and to realise that what seems to people in one age the most important thing in life becomes utterly meaningless to their descendants.

To my mind, it’s far from accidental that for the past few decades, every presidential election here in the United States has been enlivened by bumper stickers and buttons calling on voters to support the presidential ambitions of Cthulhu, the tentacled primeval horror featured in H. P. Lovecraft’s tales of cosmic dread. I’m sorry to say that the Great Old One’s campaign faces a serious constitutional challenge, as he was spawned on the world of Vhoorl in the twenty-third nebula and currently resides in the drowned corpse-city of R’lyeh, and as far as I know neither of these are U.S. territories. Still, his bids for the White House have gone much further than most other imaginary candidacies, and I’ve long thought that the secret behind that success is Cthulhu’s campaign slogan: “Why settle for the lesser evil?

Great Discourse on Blessings AT one time the Exalted One was living in Jeta Grove. A certain deity of astounding beauty approached the Exalted One and said: Many deities and humans have pondered on blessings. Tell me the blessings supreme. The Buddha replied: To associate not with the foolish, to be with the wise, to honor the worthy ones this is a blessing supreme. To reside in a suitable location, to have good past deeds done, to set oneself in the right direction this is a blessing supreme. To be well spoken, highly trained, well educated, skilled in handicraft, and highly disciplined, this is a blessing supreme. To be well caring of mother, of father, to look after spouse and children, to engage in a harmless occupation, this is a blessing supreme. Outstanding behavior, blameless action, open hands to all relatives and selfless giving, this is a blessing supreme. To cease and abstain from evil, to avoid intoxicants, to be diligent in virtuous practices, this is a blessing supreme. To be reverent and humble, content and grateful, to hear the Dharma at the right time, this is a blessing supreme. To be patient and obedient, to visit with spiritual people, to discuss the Dharma at the right time, this is a blessing supreme. To live austerely and purely, to see the noble truths, and to realize nirvana, this is the blessing supreme. A mind unshaken when touched by the worldly states, sorrowless, stainless, and secure, this is the blessing supreme. Those who have fulfilled all these are everywhere invincible; they find well-being everywhere, theirs is the blessing supreme. adapted from MANGALA SUTTA, translated by Gunaratana Mahathera

To the Hindu mind there was no real gap between animals and men; animals as well as men had souls, and souls were perpetually passing from men into animals, and back again; all these species were woven into one infinite web of Karma and reincarnation. The elephant, for example, became the god Ganesha, and was recognized as Shiva’s son; he personified man’s animal nature, and at the same time his image served as a charm against evil fortune. Monkeys and snakes were terrible, and therefore divine. The cobra or naga, whose bite causes almost immediate death, received especial veneration; annually the people of many parts of India celebrated a religious feast in honor of snakes, and made offerings of milk and plantains to the cobras at the entrance to their holes. Temples have been erected in honor of snakes, as in eastern Mysore; great numbers of reptiles take up their residence in these buildings, and are fed and cared for by the priests.

…it is far too simplistic to claim that the specter of this self-engendering monster pursuing its ends regardless of any human or environmental concern is an ideological abstraction, and to insist that one should never forget that, behind this abstraction, lie real people and natural objects on whose productive capacities and resources capital’s circulation is based and on which it feeds like a gigantic parasite. (…) the fate of whole swathes of society and sometimes of whole countries can be decided by the speculative dance of Capital, which pursues its goal of profitability with a blessed indifference to how its movements will affect social reality. Therein resides the fundamental systemic violence of capitalism, (…) its violence is no longer attributable to concrete individuals with their “evil” intentions, but is purely “objective”, systemic, anonymous—quite literally a conceptual violence, the violence of a Concept whose self-deployment rules and regulates social reality.

in Dumfries his moral career was downwards. Heron, who had some acquaintance with the matter, says, “His dissipation became still more deeply habitual; he was here more exposed than in the country to be solicited to share the revels of the dissolute and the idle; foolish young men flocked eagerly about him, and from time to time pressed him to drink with them, that they might enjoy his wit. The Caledonia Club, too, and the Dumfries-shire and Galloway Hunt, had occasional meetings in Dumfries after Burns went to reside there: and the poet was of course invited to share their conviviality, and hesitated not to accept the invitation. In the intervals between his different fits of intemperance, he suffered the keenest anguish of remorse, and horribly afflictive foresight. His Jane behaved with a degree of conjugal and maternal tenderness and prudence, which made him feel more bitterly the evil of his misconduct, although they could not reclaim him.” This is a dark picture—perhaps too dark.

With regard to the superstitions of logicians, I shall never tire of emphasizing a small, terse fact, which is unwillingly recognized by these credulous minds—namely, that a thought comes when "it" wishes, and not when "I" wish; so that it is a PERVERSION of the facts of the case to say that the subject "I" is the condition of the predicate "think." ONE thinks; but that this "one" is precisely the famous old "ego," is, to put it mildly, only a supposition, an assertion, and assuredly not an "immediate certainty." After all, one has even gone too far with this "one thinks"—even the "one" contains an INTERPRETATION of the process, and does not belong to the process itself. One infers here according to the usual grammatical formula—"To think is an activity; every activity requires an agency that is active; consequently"... It was pretty much on the same lines that the older atomism sought, besides the operating "power," the material particle wherein it resides and out of which it operates—the atom. More rigorous minds, however, learnt at last to get along without this "earth-residuum," and perhaps someday we shall accustom ourselves, even from the logician's point of view, to get along without the little "one" (to which the worthy old "ego" has refined itself).

I don’t think we can separate the art from the artist, nor should we need to. I think we can look at a piece of art as the transformed or redeemed aspect of an artist, and marvel at the miraculous journey that the work of art has taken to arrive at the better part of the artist’s nature. Perhaps beauty can be measured by the distance it has travelled to come into being. That bad people make good art is a cause for hope. To be human is to transgress, of that we can be sure, yet we all have the opportunity for redemption, to rise above the more lamentable parts of our nature, to do good in spite of ourselves, to make beauty from the unbeautiful, and to have the courage to present our better selves to the world. The moon is high and yellow in the sky outside my window. It is a display of sublime beauty. It is also a cry for mercy — that this world is worth saving. Mostly, though, it is a defiant articulation of hope that, despite the state of the world, the moon continues to shine. Hope too resides in a gesture of kindness from one broken individual to another or, indeed, we can find it in a work of art that comes from the hand of a wrongdoer. These expressions of transcendence, of betterment, remind us that there is good in most things, rarely only evil. Once we awaken to this fact, we begin to see goodness everywhere, and this can go some way in setting right the current narrative that humans are shit and the world is fucked.

It is relatively easy to accept that money is an intersubjective reality. Most people are also happy to acknowledge that ancient Greek gods, evil empires and the values of alien cultures exist only in the imagination. Yet we don’t want to accept that our God, our nation or our values are mere fictions, because these are the things that give meaning to our lives. We want to believe that our lives have some objective meaning, and that our sacrifices matter to something beyond the stories in our head. Yet in truth the lives of most people have meaning only within the network of stories they tell one another. Meaning is created when many people weave together a common network of stories. Why does a particular action – such as getting married in church, fasting on Ramadan or voting on election day – seem meaningful to me? Because my parents also think it is meaningful, as do my brothers, my neighbours, people in nearby cities and even the residents of far-off countries. And why do all these people think it is meaningful? Because their friends and neighbours also share the same view. People constantly reinforce each other’s beliefs in a self-perpetuating loop. Each round of mutual confirmation tightens the web of meaning further, until you have little choice but to believe what everyone else believes. Yet over decades and centuries the web of meaning unravels and a new web is spun in its place. To study history means to watch the spinning and unravelling of these webs, and to realise that what seems to people in one age the most important thing in life becomes utterly meaningless to their descendants.

Sean Penn mourned the death of the fifty-eight-year-old socialist creep. Sean wrote in a statement sent to the Hollywood Reporter: “Today the people of the United States lost a friend it never knew it had. And poor people around the world lost a champion.” He added: “I lost a friend I was blessed to have.” Penn needs to tell you that he knew the guy. A world leader. That’s cool. I guess playing Jeff Spicoli and marrying Madonna wasn’t enough (one made your career, the other ruined your urinary tract). Yeah, this is the same chap who told Piers Morgan that Ted Cruz should be institutionalized. Talk about the pot calling the kettle batshit crazy. If Penn got any nuttier, he’d be a Snickers bar. Of course it would be uncool to point out to Penn that Chávez was no champion of the poor. Under his rule people became far poorer in Venezuela. And in the midst of an oil boom, Chávez engineered a murder boom. The murder rate in his country tripled during Chávez’s tyrannical tenure, hitting a high of 67 per 100,000 residents in 2011, compared with a murder rate of less than 5 per 100,000 in the United States (and that includes Baltimore). And about 10 or 20 less than the last Penn movie. Penn was joined, per usual, by director Oliver Stone, who said, solemnly, somewhere: “I mourn a great hero to the majority of his people and those who struggle throughout the world for a place.” He added: “Hated by the entrenched classes, Hugo Chávez will live forever in history. “My friend, rest finally in a peace long earned.” This is from an adult, mind you. And no list of apologists for evil is complete without Michael Moore. This nugget comes from the Michigan Live website, which reports Moore praising Chávez in a feeble collection of Twitter messages, on the night the Venezuelan viper expired. Hugo Chávez declared the oil belonged 2 the ppl. He used the oil $ 2 eliminate 75% of extreme poverty, provide free health & education 4 all. That made him dangerous. US

But as soon as you enter a university, we witness a radical and communal face of Communism. Here, they propagate the weaknesses and evils of Hindu culture. They manipulate and twist ancient books to misrepresent them and provoke students. For example, they use Tulsidas’ chaupai, without mentioning the rest of the Ramcharitmanas, which is the real context. “ढोल गंवार शूद्र पशु नारी, सकल ताडना के अधिकारी.” Dhol ganvar shudra pashu nari, sakal tadana ke adhikari. ‘The above lines are spoken by the Sea Deity Samudra to Ram. When Lord Ram got angry and took out his weapon in order to evaporate the whole sea, the deity appeared and said the above lines in the context of boundaries that are created by God himself in order to hold his creations.  ‘What Leftists do is that they very cleverly translate it literally in Hindi, ignoring the fact that Ramcharitmanas is written in Awadhi and the same word means one thing in Hindi and another in Awadhi. While the literal meaning of the line in Hindi is ‘Drums, the illiterate, lower caste, animals and women deserve a beating to straighten up and get the acts together’, its real meaning in Awadhi is different. In Awadhi, tadna means to take care, to protect. Whereas, in Hindi, the same word means punishment, torture, oppression. Samudra meant that like drums, the illiterate, Shudra, animals and women need special care and need to be protected in the boundary of a social safety net. In the same way, the sea also needs to reside within the boundaries created by God. And hence, Samudra gave the suggestion to create the iconic Ram Setu. ‘Here, Shudra doesn’t mean lower caste or today’s Dalit. It meant people employed in cottage industries.’ I remember there is a book by R.C. Dutta, Economic Interpretation of History, in which he has said that when the Indian economy was based on the principles of Varna, handicrafts accounted for over twenty-five percent of the economy. Artisans and labour who were involved in the handicraft business were called ‘Shudra’. If there was so much caste-based discrimination, why would Brahmins use their produce? Both Dutta and Dadabhai Naoroji have written that the terminology of ‘caste discrimination’ was used by the British to divide Indian society on those lines.

A shame culture is one in which the source of moral sanctions and authority is perceived to reside in other people, in their ridicule, criticism, or contempt (so that one is shamed in other people's eyes). The feeling of shame actually occurs in oneself, of course, and can occur when one is alone, but it characteristically perceived as something that occurs before an audience, an external judge in whose eyes (and by comparison with whom) one appears weak, failed, foolish, incompetent, ridiculous, rejected, inferior, contemptible — in short, shameful. Thus, shame motivates concealment of those traits in oneself of which one is ashamed, since shame is only intensified by exposure to others. A guilt culture is one in which the source of moral sanctions and authority is oneself, one's own internalized conscience and the moral law one imposes on oneself, violation of which leaves one feeling guilty and sinful in one's own eyes. By contrast with shame, the feeling of guilt or sin is actually relieved by exposure, which is why guilt cultures institutionalize the practice of confession of sins. This is understandable, since the person who feels guilty perceives his sin (evil) as being "inside" himself, so to speak, so letting it "out" through confession can feel like draining a moral abscess, bringing a relief of painful pressure. But why would the perceived source of moral sanctions and disapproval affect either the likelihood or the direction of violent impulses? The answer, I believe, is that what the feeling of shame motivates most directly is the wish to eliminate the feeling of shame, since it is a very painful feeling; and since shame is seen as emanating from other people, that can be done most directly by eliminating other people. It is true that one could also eliminate the feeling of shame, at lower cost to oneself and others, by means of achievements of which one could feel proud, and which would elicit approval, admiration, respect and honors from others. But that is not always possible, and when it is not, eliminating others may be seen as the only alternative. What the feeling of guilt motivates, correspondingly, is the wish to eliminate the feeling of guilt, since it is a very painful feeling; and since the feeling of guilt emanates from the self, the only way to eliminate it may be by eliminating the self (as in suicide, or by provoking or passively submitting to martyrdom). Another way to understand why shame motivates anger and violence toward others, and why guilt directs those same feelings and behaviors toward the self, is to remember that in a shame ethic the worse evil is shame, the source of which is perceived as other people (the audience in whose "evil eyes" one is shamed). Therefore evil resides in other people, and to the degree that one feels shame, it is other people who deserve punishment. Punishing others alleviates feelings of shame because it replaces the image of oneself as a weak, passive, helpless, and therefore shameful victim of their punishment (i.e. their shaming) with the contrasting image of oneself as powerful, active, self-reliant, and therefore admirable, and unshameable. In a guilt ethic, by contrast, the worst evil is to be guilty or sinful, and guilt and sin (to the degree that one feels guilty and sinful) are perceived as residing within oneself. Thus, people who feel guilty see themselves as deserving punishment. And receiving punishment, whether from oneself or from others, relieves guilt by expiating it. Indeed, that is the purpose of punishment, both in the criminal law (in which punishment is the means by which the criminal "pays his debt" to society and thus discharges his guilt) and in the religious sacrament of penance (the self-punishment by which the sinner expiates his sins, that is, relieves his guilt-feelings). Thus, whereas punishment intensifies feelings of shame, it relieves feelings of guilt.

Not a single soul passes through the threshold of this house without me casting judgment—determining if evil resides in their soul. As they make their way through the maze of my dollhouse, I watch from inside the walls. They’re all judged. Every single one of them.

Rae’s thoughts and hope He preached, he prayed, in a place, in a congregation, He possessed an extraordinary imagination, A charm that mesmerised all, made him a believable preacher, But after prayers, the preacher never returned and so did not the holy teacher, Because what he appeared in these holy sessions was a false projection of him, Behind his conscience and veil of charm was hidden an abominable world grim, Like in all of us, he too was a host to a resident beast, Who regularly on his fancies and endless wishes did feast, He had resolved to taming the congregation than the beast he was regularly feeding, Within him evil was constantly breeding, As the congregation left and he eased his hands held in prayer, He frantically shook them to get rid of the evil layer, That he recognised but never wanted to let go, Maybe that is why the priest that stood here was forsaken by his priestly conscience long ago, So after every prayer, the preacher never returned, just a man with the beast did, And then behind the morbidity of thoughts and endless fantasies this man hid, To feed the beast in million ways, In those vacant hours of nights and endless days, Because after the prayers the preacher never returned, only his beast affiliated part faced everyone, As he fed himself on diabolic thoughts and vile imaginations of always someone, a new one, And this is how the preacher lived until his last day, He was still the same and he had decided not to change anyway, And when Lucifer claimed his soul, he was confused too, Because the beast in him was there so was the preacher too, It was difficult to tell them apart, And neither of them alone wanted to depart, They had fused into one and Lucifer gave them a puzzled look, Then he looked inside himself and he was completely shaken, and the ground under his feet shook, The beast had already claimed his soul unaware that he is the God of Hell, the creator of all abomination, So he cast the beast back into the preacher and now they live in this immortal curse of incarceration, Where the preacher feels imprisoned by the beast and beast feels imprisoned by the preacher, Because after knowing the soul of Lucifer the beast had become lot meaner, Thus began the preacher’s never ending curse, He does not die, although he longs for it and keeps staring at the hearse, Because Lucifer did not want a greater God in his own kingdom, Now preacher is victim of his own knowledge of evil and his wretched wisdom, The congregation is free, because they have learned to establish direct communion with the God, And now they never deal with a preacher who always after prayers acted diabolically and in ways odd.

Rae’s thoughts and hope He preached, he prayed, in a place, in a congregation, He possessed an extraordinary imagination, A charm that mesmerised all, made him a believable preacher, But after prayers, the preacher never returned and so did not the holy teacher, Because what he appeared in these holy sessions was a false projection of him, Behind his conscience and veil of charm was hidden an abominable world grim, Like in all of us, he too was a host to a resident beast, Who regularly on his fancies and endless wishes did feast, He had resolved to taming the congregation and not the beast he was constantly feeding, Within him, with a renewed virility, new forms of evil were breeding, As the congregation left and he eased his hands held in prayer, He frantically shook them to get rid of the evil layer, That he recognised but never wanted to let go, Maybe that is why the priest that stood here was forsaken by his priestly conscience long ago, So after every prayer, the preacher never returned, just a man with the beast did, And then behind the morbidity of thoughts and endless fantasies this man hid, To feed the beast in million ways, In those vacant hours of nights and endless days, Because after the prayers the preacher never returned, only his beast affiliated part faced everyone, As he fed himself on diabolic thoughts and vile imaginations of always someone, a new one, And this is how the preacher lived until his last day, He was still the same and he had decided not to change anyway, And when Lucifer claimed his soul, he was confused too, Because the beast in him was there so was the preacher too, It was difficult to tell them apart, And neither of them alone wanted to depart, They had fused into one and Lucifer gave them a puzzled look, Then he looked inside himself and he was completely shaken, and the ground under his feet shook, The beast had already claimed his soul unaware that he is the God of Hell, the creator of all abomination, So he cast the beast back into the preacher and now they live in this immortal curse of incarceration, Where the preacher feels imprisoned by the beast and beast feels imprisoned by the preacher, Because after knowing the soul of Lucifer the beast had become lot meaner, Thus began the preacher’s never ending curse, He does not die, although he longs for it and keeps staring at the hearse, Because Lucifer did not want a greater God in his own kingdom, Now preacher is the victim of his own knowledge of evil and his wretched wisdom, The congregation is free, because they have learned to establish direct communion with the God, And now they don’t have to deal with the preacher who always after prayers acted diabolically and in ways odd.

Pemba and the other Sherpas began to prepare a ritual, with a meaning sunk deep in time. The pattern of the earliest rituals has always been for man to make an offering and, by giving, to achieve a receptive and aware state so as to become part of the interplay between himself, the earth and sky and the gods. When Buddhism came to Tibet in the seventh century, it was absorbed by the resident animist faith of many gods – the B’on religion. Today, the Sherpa religion, Tibetan Lamaism, is a thick mixture of the old animism, manifesting itself in mysticism, magic and demonolatry, overlaid by a layer of Buddhism. The earliest myth of the founding of Tibetan civilisation, concerns the building of the Samyang monastery, the first Buddhist monastery in Tibet. The people, so the tale goes, worked very hard every day building the monastery, but every night evil demons came and destroyed their work. The people were making no progress at all, so they asked the Guru Rimpoche what to do. The Guru said it was no wonder they were having trouble, they weren’t making the gods happy, only spending a lot of money. When he taught them how to perform an offering ritual, the gods helped the people build the monastery, not only keeping away the demons, but also carrying the heavy things and working while the people slept, so that the building was completed in a very short time.

Expect the unexpected, that was the S.T.A.R.S. motto—although that basically meant to prepare for anything.

That’s it, keep rationalizing. Next thing, you’ll be suspecting Captain Wesker of planning this whole thing.

didn’t exist. Maybe, like her, Barry was scared, and sick of feeling like death could come at any time. Maybe

Horseman is the haunting sequel to the 1820 novel The Legend of Sleepy Hollow by Washington Irving and takes place two decades after the events that unfolded in the original. We are introduced to 14-year-old trans boy Bente “Ben” Van Brunt, who has been raised by his idiosyncratic grandparents - lively Brom “Bones” Van Brunt and prim Kristina Van Tassel - in the small town of Sleepy Hollow, New York, where gossip and rumour run rife and people are exceedingly closed-minded. He has lived with them on their farm ever since he was orphaned when his parents, Bendix and Fenna, died in suspicious and enigmatic circumstances. Ben and his only friend, Sander, head into the woodland one Autumn day to play a game known as Sleepy Hollow Boys, but they are both a little startled when they witness a group of men they recognise from the village discussing the headless, handless body of a local boy that has just been found. But this isn't the end; it is only the beginning. From that moment on, Ben feels an otherworldly presence following him wherever he ventures, and one day while scanning his grandfather’s fields he catches a fleeting glimpse of a weird creature seemingly sucking blood from a victim. An evil of an altogether different nature. But Ben knows this is not the elusive Horseman who has been the primary focus of folkloric tales in the area for many years because he can both feel and hear his presence. However, unlike others who fear the Headless Horseman, Ben can hear whispers in the woods at the end of a forbidden path, and he has visions of the Horseman who says he is there to protect him. Ben soon discovers connections between the recent murders and the death of his parents and realises he has been shaded from the truth about them his whole life. Thus begins a journey to unravel the mystery and establish his identity in the process. This is an enthralling and compulsively readable piece of horror fiction building on Irvings’ solid ground. Evoking such feelings as horror, terror, dread and claustrophobic oppressiveness, this tale invites you to immerse yourself in its sinister, creepy and disturbing narrative. The staggering beauty of the remote village location is juxtaposed with the darkness of the demons and devilish spirits that lurk there, and the village residents aren't exactly welcoming to outsiders or accepting of anyone different from their norm. What I love the most is that it is subtle and full of nuance, instead of the usual cheap thrills with which the genre is often pervaded, meaning the feeling of sheer panic creeps up on you when you least expect, and you come to the sudden realisation that the story has managed to get under your skin, into your psyche and even into your dreams (or should that be nightmares?) Published at a time when the nights are closing in and the light diminishes ever more rapidly, not to mention with Halloween around the corner, this is the perfect autumnal read for the spooky season full of both supernatural and real-world horrors. It begins innocuously enough to lull you into a false sense of security but soon becomes bleak and hauntingly atmospheric as well as frightening before descending into true nightmare-inducing territory. A chilling and eerie romp, and a story full of superstition, secrets, folklore and old wives’ tales and with messages about love, loss, belonging, family, grief, being unapologetically you and becoming more accepting and tolerant of those who are different. Highly recommended.

Lincoln was just far enough away from bigger towns that it developed its own friendly character; it wasn’t a suburb. No matter where they worked—thirty miles away in Bloomington, Springfield, or Decatur, or sixty miles away in Champaign or Peoria—residents felt living in Lincoln was worth the drive. Why? Because small-town stereotypes were true.

When you are being victimized by your rivals or intelligence agencies who try to stop your truth, it can leave you trapped in your ways, whether it is in real life or on social media, and it can also lead to harmful conspiracies with social media websites’ teams who work for them. In these surroundings and barriers, there is a great substructure where angelic ones appear who support and protect you to overcome your obstacles caused by the evil-minded elements. I am delighted that I have such ones with a beautiful mindset and a fair and neutral character; you may visit my list of links on LinkedIn, in which many links and books by Universities, scholars, and websites credit me and quote my quotes besides this prose poem, translated into Russian. You are my great support and strong weapon to defeat all those who try to stop me from writing the truth. Empty Of Humanity --- Who takes care for whom In most of the hearts Reside the greed The crafty The capricious The cruelty The dishonesty Everyone kills The compassion The feeling The emotion Heart and mind Of those Who devote Their love and life To cure wounds Heart and soul Of sad and hopeless People under suppressed I often ask myself How and why We entitle To be a human Even we are empty of humanity. — — In Russian by Valery Chizhik ЛИШЕННЫЕ ЧЕЛОВЕЧНОСТИ Эхсан Сегал Кто заботится о других? В большинстве сердец Проживают: Жадность Хитрость Капризность Жестокость Нечестность. Все убивают: Сострадание Чувства Эмпатию Сердце и ум. Из вас Кто посвящает Свою любовь и жизнь Лечит раны Сердца и души Грусть, безнадежность И подавленность других? Я часто спрашиваю себя: Как и почему Мы считаем себя Людьми? Ведь мы лишены человечности.

Human beings are the focus of God’s greater displays of glory—not animals, not angels. Thus, it follows that humans reside in a unique position by which to behold this greater glory. Their special relationship with the Creator means that they become recipients of his actions in unique ways that no other creature experiences. But the greatest glory of God is reserved for the work he does in those humans he chooses to redeem, as we will see. Even the angels long to fully grasp this glorious work of God reserved for the elect few (1 Peter 1:12).

But because God is incomparably holy and transcendent, residing independently on a wholly different plane from his creation or creatures, and because he is supremely in control of all things, then we must be able to say that God is the author of evil in an entirely different sense. God has an asymmetrical relationship to good and evil.5 Since he is the fountain of all goodness as the all-encompassing good God, then all good in the world directly proceeds from him.

Love is the sweetness of life.” “Pray is gold, whereas love is a diamond.” “Love does not wear hatred and bias.” “Love is a fulfillment of life; without that, life is nothing.” Love cannot appear and become true love without respect, tolerance, empathy, sympathy, care, and sacrifice.” “One can love whoever and whenever one wants; however, expecting similar feelings from that whom one loves is a risk of self-hurting.” “Love speaks in your words, sights with your eyes, grows on your conduct, and finally resides in your heart, becoming your heartbeat.” “When your mind is rich in wisdom, and your heart is sensitive and filled with love, you are a person who can change the world.” “Love does not recognize the terms hide and seek. When it happens, it becomes visible without any fear or hesitation.” “Those who care for self-respect show real and true love, and they do not break the trust and certainty of their beloved. Love cannot stay where there is no self-respect.” “If you love someone, and you are also keeping the options, it is not fair to your lover, not even yourself. You are just an opportunist. True love knows no options.” “Love for humanity is the mother of every love; no other love can prevail over it.” “Etiquette, respect, and love embellish and beautify the character while also helping to reach and qualify for success in life.” “Love with motives does not have success and embraces shame and sorry.” “My religion is love, which I have learned from my religion.” “Beauty hits eyes, and love touches heartbeats.” “The billions of beautiful faces exist in the world, but I fell in love with one face.” “The silent love has more truth than the spoken one.” “Please pray for me. I am going to fall in love.” “I do not search for a true friend and true love. I practice becoming a true friend and giving true love.” “I can never feel again such love which I had felt for the first time in my youth.” “If there is no current, the lamp does not light up; similarly, if there is no passion, love does not become the heartbeat.” “Love with the heart validates purity and truth. Love with the mind may evidence diplomacy and tact.” “Real and pure love exists at the age of nine and ninety years; between that lies a risk. However, an exception may become a wonder.” “Love fragrances, and colors, the breath waves that inspire the heart language.” “Love bears two negative feelings; fear and jealousy, overcoming that beautify life; otherwise, these become self-hurting.” “Love is not just a remedy for sex frustration; it is a solemn life pledge to be together for all seasons and circumstances.” “How simple it is, how deep it is, and how true it is, within the two-L-that you are my Life and Love. Do we honestly make also perfumed that?” “Log in Love; log out Hatred and scan evil threats with the purity of thoughts: Life becomes secure and stays smooth and flowery.” “Anyone who indulges only in self-love remains devoid of true love.” "Your words can be constructive or destructive. Love is a positive energy that grows when it is filled up with sweet words and keeps love fresh and alive. If there are destructive words, love will go dry and finally die. "Love is a context of heartbeats; intimacy is its dictionary; use it carefully and properly; otherwise, typos can cause risks.

oh shit that’s a SNAKE—

We are aware now that we reside in the valley with the devil. That, while yes we are accustomed to dealing with brokenness and evil, it’s not often we tangle with madness. Sadism comes from one place, and we hide the truth with our TiVo and Blockbuster, because we know the devil is out there and he hurts, and it’s too much for us, but for this dark moment we cannot pretend otherwise. We cannot pretend we haven’t been charged with catching the devil himself and for those who don’t believe in an almighty Creator it is a crushing thing. Because Satan is real and we see it with our eyes and it burns us, but what if he runs unopposed? What if he has no counter? That would be a hell of a thing to consider and I’m watching men do it right now.

Whether or not you share Lakeman’s conception of the evils of the urban grid, he does identify that great irony of the American city: a nation that celebrates freedom and weaves liberty into its national myth rarely gives regular people the chance to shape their own communities. Municipal governments, often with the counsel and assistance of land developers, lay down community plans complete with restrictive zoning long before residents arrive on the scene. Residents have no say about what their streets and parks and gathering places will look like. And once they move in, it is illegal for them to tinker with the shape of the public places they share, or, as I have illustrated, to use their homes for anything beyond the dictates of strict zoning bylaws.

The day my husband moves out of our apartment is also the day Resident Evil Village releases for PlayStation, and you might be surprised which of these things lands with a greater emotional impact.

At the end, in the alpha and the omega, all that remains as the Ultimate Reality, is but One 'I'. This Universal Self is what resides within you or I, as life. Call it this or that, god particle, soul or God. Or not! Or whatever else that pleases you. For the metaphysical reality is that there is neither a you, or an I. In the Beginning or at the End.

Secretly, when the SS officer in charge of Kanada passed by, I thought of him as Herr Dybbuk. A human man too weak to force out the evil that had taken up residence in him.

Stars from the last night It was a vast and endless desert, Of sand, of dust, of the unforgiving sun, Life crawled on its belly and ever effort hurt, Yet life ventured to fulfil what yesterday was left undone, The sand storm blew from every end, Life was caught in its middle, It had nowhere to go, though it had a universe to defend, I watched life pitted against all forces that prevented it from solving the riddle, The dust, the storm, connived with the hot Sun, And they all held life in its cage of atrocities, While life only thought of the universe whose affairs it had to run, So, it heaved its chest and breathed in all the adversities, And blew it at these forces evil, In seconds the dust settled, the storm turned calm and the Sun shone humbly, Because if life wishes to be; it can be the meanest devil, But that is not what it fancies for it has universe to manage and it wants to do so proudly, Life that deals with million adversities, sees storms of dust as nature’s vanities, Because life that thrives everywhere cannot be contained in cages of temporary storms, Life shall always reward the victor who fulfils his/her duties, And is never scared of anything no matter how loud the alarms, That is why it lives in the desert of dust and sand too, Where everything is against its existence, But life shall do what it has to do, while the desert of savagery will do what it has to do, And there shall be neither any hand nor any role of providence, For life that believes in love and equality of all sorts, Will surmount every peak of resistance no matter how high, And shoot itself at the the desert, at the storm, like brave darts, That only love one thing, one purpose, that to fly, So, I saw life wrestling with storm, with dust, with the desert, and even the Sun, They all held her down like an animal of sacrifice to be offered to the God’s of vanity, Yet life resisted and cast all these forces away, one by one, And I witnessed desert’s travesty of life’s magnanimity, Whenever you are in the desert and you see the storm coming closer to you, Remember the actual fact, the life is always on your side, As long as you do not believe it is the desert that favours you, Because it takes some wisdom to realise that in the day sky the bright stars of yesternight still reside! Just like in my eyes her dreams, her thoughts are as fresh as ever, That no storm, no time can fade away, Because I love her like life, that is in love forever, And it shall be so, even in the tempest of all sorts, anyhow and anyway! So you brave soldiers of life and love, If you love someone, love her true love her the same in the desert and in the beautiful summer, And do not wait for the providence from above, Life of love is not always calm because in the desert of life, you shall witness a storm that ceases never!

Stars from the last night It was a vast and endless desert, Of sand, of dust, of the unforgiving sun, Life crawled on its belly and every effort hurt, Yet life ventured to fulfil what yesterday was left undone, The sand storm blew from every end, Life was caught in its middle, It had nowhere to go, though it had a universe to defend, I watched life pitted against all forces that prevented it from solving the riddle, The dust, the storm, connived with the hot sun, And they all held life in its cage of atrocities, While life only thought of the universe whose affairs it had to run, So, it heaved its chest and breathed in all the adversities, And blew it at these forces evil, In seconds the dust settled, the storm turned calm and the Sun shone humbly, Because if life wishes to be; it can be the meanest devil, But that is not what it fancies for it has the universe to manage and it wants to do so proudly, Life that deals with million adversities, sees storms of dust as nature’s vanities, Because life that thrives everywhere cannot be contained in cages of temporary storms, Life shall always reward the victor who fulfils his/her duties, And is never scared of anything no matter how loud the alarms, That is why it lives in the desert of dust and sand too, Where everything is against its existence, But life shall do what it has to do, while the desert of savagery will do what it has to do, And there shall be neither any hand nor any role of providence, For life that believes in love and equality of all sorts, Will surmount every peak of resistance no matter how high, And shoot itself at the the desert, at the storm, like brave darts, That only love one thing, one purpose, that to fly, So, I saw life wrestling with storm, with dust, with the desert, and even the Sun, They all held her down like an animal of sacrifice to be offered to the God’s of vanity, Yet life resisted and cast all these forces away, one by one, And I witnessed desert’s travesty of life’s magnanimity, Whenever you are in the desert and you see the storm coming closer to you, Remember the actual fact, the life is always on your side, As long as you do not believe it is the desert that favours you, Because it takes some wisdom to realise that in the sky of the day the bright stars of yesternight still reside! Just like in my eyes her dreams, her thoughts are as fresh as ever, That no storm, no time can fade away, Because I love her like life, that is in love forever, And it shall be so, even in the tempest of all sorts, anyhow and anyway! So you brave soldiers of life and love, If you love someone, love her true love her the same in the desert and in the beautiful summer, And do not wait for the providence from above, Life of love is not always calm because in the desert of life, you shall witness a storm that ceases never!

On the Birthday of Murtaza Bhutto My nephew drives on a route that crosses alongside 70 Clifton every day since I am in Karachi. It reminds me that I was then a working journalist. I visited the last 70 Clifton in 1977, the resident of Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, later, Benazir Bhutto, and then Murtaza Bhutto and Fatima Bhutto during the driving towards Karachi Press Club; I asked my nephew to stop near 70 Clifton so that we can click a few pics of it. Today is Murtaza Bhutto's Birthday, and he became the victim of armed evil and murder. I stood outside 70 Clifton, remembering inside the conversations, discussions, and delightful atmosphere in the Bhutto era. I felt sadness and pain, imagining that time when pleasure, joy, and mob walked around it, but today it was dead-quiet and displayed sadness on its walls; the Birthday existed; however, the figure held that day was not there, and his daughter far away from Pakistan in exile-life, though the justice has failed, not the God.

Scottish witchcraft suspect Isobel Gowdie claimed that she had been favoured with gifts of meat (food) by the ‘Qwein of Fearrie’ who was “brawlie clothed in whyt linens, and white and browne cloathes.” This queen had a partner, an anonymous king, as was the case too with the faery queen of the ballad of Thomas of Erceldoune- and from whom her sexual relationship with mortal Thomas had to be concealed.57 Accused witch Isobel Watson was privileged enough to be midwife to an unnamed fairy queen, whereas Alison Pearson, from St Andrews in Fife, failed to achieve such intimate access. She had (deceased) relatives who resided in the fairy court and who were on good terms with the queen, she told to her trial in 1588, but she personally had never met her majesty, who was, by all accounts, quite a moody individual. Sometimes she was good, sometimes evil; sometimes she was present in the court and sometimes elsewhere.58 Another anonymous queen was met by Andro Man of Aberdeen- who entered into a long-term sexual relationship with her and was taught healing and prophetic skills by her. Elizabeth Dunlop from Lyne near Peebles was endowed with the same knowledge by the queen herself.

He didn’t know who she was, but she was too crazy to be holding anything in a test tube.

I have sworn upon the altar of God, eternal hostility against every form of tyranny." --Thomas Jefferson   "If the representatives of the people betray their constituents, there is then no recourse left but in the exertion of that original right of self-defense which is paramount to all positive forms of government." --Alexander Hamilton, Federalist No. 28, 1787   "An unarmed man can only flee from evil, and evil is not overcome by fleeing from it."- Col. Jeff Cooper (1920-2006)   “When bad men combine, the good must associate: else they will fall one by one, an  unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle.” -- Edmund Burke     Interlude   “Da, I’ve got a question for you.  It’s a question I’ve thought about since I joined this session.”  This came from Michelle.   “OK.  What’s your question, Mick?”   “We’ve always read the Bible and tried to be good Christians.  I realize you had to do it for us to survive but doesn’t the Bible say, ‘Do not kill’?”  Michelle asked.   The old man looked at his granddaughter and then looked around at the rest of his grandchildren before answering. “Actually, if you go back to the early manuscripts of the Bible, it says, ‘Thou shalt not commit murder.’  What Reggie, Carter, the other residents here, your parents, some of you and I have done, we

We who are residing in a foreign country, away from the immediate scene of action, perhaps can feel more deeply than those at home the evil effects of the present distracted condition of our country.