It is a problem of traditional concepts of Christianity that it tends to set-up very focal and specific centres of Good - and these are easily subverted. If there is an especially holy place, person, ritual - then it gets noticed, labelled, publicised - and will attract concentrated demonic attention. Goodness comes under siege, is forced to defend and defend, and - sooner or later - the defence is breached.
This is what has happened about sacred places and site of pilgrimage - the more they are identified and discussed, the more that demonic persons will swarm to them. Glastonbury is a clear example. The mainstream churches another. The reputations of great and good persons or events is another.
It happens with everything, because when there isn't much goodness, overwhelming force can be brought to bear - while if goodness is common and dispersed, then this takes much longer to defeat - the forces of evil must act serially, and move from one target to another.
This was, we can now see in retrospect, what was happening through the 1800s into the middle 20th century - individual instances of goodness were identified and - in series - attacked, corrupted, subverted, destroyed or inverted.
But nowadays, when good places, people, things are rare - they can all be simultaneously outnumbered and simultaneously besieged (if they do not crumble instantly in the face of overwhelming force). For example, there are only few people of leadership calibre in any specific domain of human activity, and only a few of these natural leaders are good people - yet when a good leader emerges anywhere, he can be, and soon is, identified, surrounded, neutralised and destroyed.
There is a lesson here, I think: Goodness must now be more inward, dispersed, individual, bottom-up - less dependent on specific and vulnerable material factors. As usual, we cannot rely on looking outside ourselves for strong and stable spiritual guidance (guidance that we need only to obey) - such needs to come from a direct relationship with the divine.
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Jesus answered, "My kingdom is not of this world: if my kingdom were of this world, then would my servants fight, that I should not be delivered to the Jews: but now is my kingdom not from hence."
Pilate therefore said unto him, "Art thou a king then?"
Jesus answered, "Thou sayest that I am a king. To this end was I born, and for this cause came I into the world, that I should bear witness unto the truth. Every one that is of the truth heareth my voice."
From a worldly perspective it will always seem like evil prevails. And yet good endures. The legacy of Arthur was not buried in his tomb, it went forth to those open to truth as a subordinate theme of the great message of Christ. In dreams and visions the spiritual heirs of Arthur, as those of Christ, receive what is forever beyond the power of demons to tarnish or diminish. The institutional church fought over 'ownership' of Arthur's tomb, as they similarly secured an empty hole in which Christ's mortal body once briefly slept. But in every sense that really matters, Arthur's tomb was always as empty as Christ's.
That is not to say that we are wrong to be outraged at the demeaning and vile antics of evil in desecrating the memorials erected to good. But we must not share their error of believing that the good is confined in the memorials, those are but markers and signs pointing to what is true and sacred, they are not anything of themselves but piles of stone.
In the desert, where vegetation is too scanty for its absence to reveal a worn path, trails are marked with small cairns of piled rock. These cairns are helpful way-points to ease the mental effort required to make one's way. It is a fool and vandal who scatters them. But the path is still there, and the cairns can be easily rebuilt by those who know the way.
The recent Jr Ganymede post aptly described the demonic strategy in terms of Bakunin's anarchists:
1. Random and senseless attacks against a selection of innocent victims, followed by,
2. Focused and systematic attacks against any people or institutions who stand up to defend the victims.
The only institutions spared the assault are either not-Good, Good in some very abstract and ineffectual sense, or Pharisaic and focused on attacking the imperfections in people rather than defending them from even greater evils.
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