Making allowances for the fact that both Huxley and Orwell were here implicitly taking an ultimately political, hence evil, point of view; and thus they stop their analysis at 'power' when they ought to recognise that power is just a means to spiritual ends...
Then this passage highlights that we need to be aware that with evil beings it is 'lust', or motivation, that is being gratified.
Huxley was correct that we need to appreciate that demonic beings enjoy the corrupting of Men into 'loving their servitude' - i.e. desiring their own damnation - as much or more-than inflicting short-term misery. They enjoy long-term manipulation leading to value-inversion (evil seens as Good, Good as evil) - as much as or more-than inflicting acute physical torment and death.
That is indeed the primary motivation behind the Ahrimanic evil that is dominant in the world here and now.
It is an error to suppose that the global Establishment are motivated by a desire to torment and kill the masses - Their primary motivation is to make the masses love their servitude, embrace a wholly materialistic and this-worldly understanding; and thus to desire damnation.
In different words; the agents of Ahrimanic evil enjoy being regarded as Good; and hate more than anything being exposed as evil.
Ahrimanic evil intends that it should be unknown, unseen, denied, hidden; and its agents therefore conceal their own activity behind what is presented as objective, materialistic, abstract Good.
Thus whenever we perceive something evil-seeming presented as wholly-impersonal, just a 'process',/ procedure; mere 'randomness', luck, statistical 'probability', unintended consequences, accident or error...
Whenever causes are put-down to mechanical operations of alogorthm, computer, committee/ bureaucracy... a mere outcome of The System; then we should suspect the presence of Ahriman.
(In effect: Ahriman lives in the imuted impersonal: that is where he hides himself.)
Ahriman, or Satan - as Christians more often call him - never wants to be known for what he is.
He and his servants fear above all being detected; being detected and known as real; being known as beings who are evil in motivation.
That is the weapon with which Ahriman's goals may be fought - whether in our own souls, or more widely.
Seek Ye Satan in the impersonal, in the 'merely' automatic; in the un-conscious, the ignored and the denied...
4 comments:
I largely agree, except that Satan (full of Pride) ultimately wants to be worshipped--like God--rather than ignored.
I see the inversion process largely as setting the stage to compel love and obedience to Satan at the End of history. Take, for example, the recent articles portraying the Church of Satan as something like a woke ACLU. In fact, the views of Satanists largely overlap with most Globalists orgs (see, the WHO). All of society is becoming "converged" towards Evil (I forget who coined "convergence").
Satan wants to present himself on the side of the powerless, a sort-of spiritual "Che" Guevara against the "tyranny" of God and those "bigoted" Christians who worship Him. It appears that Satan has also wagered that he can defeat God on earth. And, as is a model in the Old Testament, Satan has been given certain authority to implement his Evil plans. Satan (and his minions) believe that they will win, and Christians believe that all things will work towards the Glory of God.
I think our discouragement should be buoyed by the knowledge of Christ and the fact that the Most High has a penchant for overcoming what mere mortals see as "impossible" (ex: just think back to Moses leading His people out of bondage in Egypt; Elijah; Daniel, etc...). And--like those times before--we will need Divine Intervention (no worldly politician will save us).
And thus--as you and others have rightfully pointed out--we, few, Christians need to jealousy guard our spiritual lives from the current corruption of the world. Perhaps these coming events will allow us to experience a gift of suffering as our Dear Lord suffered.
@MS - I regard Satan as motivated primarily by the desire to subvert, invert and destroy God's loving and Good creation; and this is more fundamental than any desire to be worshipped (which would entail retaining a lot of created beings in order to worship him).
Ultimately, if he was to succeed and return everything to chaos (which is impossible, not least since Jesus Christ made the actuality of Heaven inhabited by the eternally resurrected)- Satan would be compelled to kill himself, since he too is a part of creation.
But Satan does not really have an end plan: instead his modus operandi is (as we see with its currently dominant manifestation - totalitarian bureaucratic Leftism) a *negative* agenda: of destruction, detruction, destruction of one Good after another...
@MagnusStout: "I forget who coined `convergence'".
"[S]ociety should treat all equally well who have deserved equally well of it, that is, who have deserved equally well absolutely. This is the highest abstract standard of social and distributive justice; towards which all institutions, and the efforts of all virtuous citizens should be made in the utmost degree to converge."
- John Stuart Mill, Utilitarianism, 1861
@MagnusStout I do not think this is true: "Satan (and his minions) believe that they will win".
They know they have lost, and they rage and hate because of it. Satan does not create, and as for a desire for worship, I think sometimes folks take the temptation of Christ a bit to literally there. Satan was not seeking worship for himself, he we was seeking Christ to turn away from God.
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