https://youtubetranscript.com/?v=HBopS5yWcxo
I think anybody who pays attention and has paid attention for a while in their adult life knows that demons are real. Not real in the literal sense, in the sense that my demons would still be here and exist even if I were not around. No, that crosses the line to literal territory. And I think that not only is wrong literally, but it flattens the message of the metaphorical world too much. But if I don’t cross that line, that there are demons within me, it’s an obvious fact of existence. There are the demons of addiction within me that are insatiable and will eat myself alive if there aren’t the angels of teleology and meaning that keep them in check. You could describe almost the entire depth and richness of human conscious life with the language of angels and demons. And I think therein lies the profound truth of religious language. But I would push back a little bit on saying that they don’t exist outside me. And the reason why I would say that is because I can gain insight about my demons from others. And so I recognize that other people are dealing with the same demon that I’m dealing with. And so although its manifestation is purely individual, you could say that if there’s this fractal structure that there’s an analogous aspect in me, a passion, this is the way that the Church Fathers talk about it, there’s a passion in me that’s out of control and that passion corresponds to something which is transpersonal. This transpersonal thing will hook on to that and then will run like a program in you and will, let’s say, will run this parasitic program inside you. And so I can read a Church Father from the 5th century and that Church Father can help me deal with my demon because they had to deal with the same demon, let’s say. I will agree with you even there. The distinction is how we use the word I, right? Because you said, well, there are things outside me. What is the me? I think if we call the I our core subjectivity, I think there is nothing outside that because the core subjectivity in me is the same as that in you and it’s the core subjectivity of the divinity itself. It’s that field of transpersonal subjectivity that underlies all nature. Nothing exists outside of it. So all angels and demons exist there and they are outside my ego. My angels and demons are certainly outside my ego and that’s why it’s useful for the ego to talk of them as external entities. But I don’t think they are outside my core subjectivity. Right. So if you understand the fact that you are connected to the ground of being at the core of who you are, like the divine spark or Christ in you or different ways of expressing it in tradition that at the very core of you is the same, right? That one ground, I’d say.