Q: Where do evil spirits come from? The Christian Bible acknowledges them–Legion, for example (Mark 5:9; Luke 8:30).
It is important to understand that in all relative existence there are only the Supreme Spirit, God (Brahman), and the seemingly infinite number of individual spirits (jivas). The individual spirits live within God, which whom they are eternally one, yet distinct from him in a manner only the perfectly liberated spirits can comprehend.
There are not different kinds of spirits, but as spirits enter into relative existence and begin evolving through higher and higher forms, there is differentiation in the energies of which their various bodies are composed. For example, the body of a bird and the body of a human being are vastly different, but the spirit in those bodies are the same: pure consciousness. I recommend you read Robe of Light on our website for a detailed explanation of this and its purpose.
Types of unintentionally negative spirits
There are spirits that harm human beings but have no wish to harm. Some of these are spirits that wander into the world from other dimensions and wreak havoc, but with no negative intention. They just do not understand the world in which they find themselves and are not aware of the effect they are having on human beings.
Also very undeveloped spirits without understanding may harm human beings because they do not understand the nature of a human being. Undines, water spirits, often inspire swimmers to swim far out into the ocean in a kind of euphoric trance and then not be able to swim back, so they drown. The undines want the humans to join them and live in the water. But their influence causes them to die.
Salamanders (fire spirits), sylphs (air spirits) and gnomes (earth spirits) do the same. The subconscious minds of some human beings perceive their “call” to join them in water, fire, air or earth. Those who respond and consequently die are considered suicides, but they are not. Both they and the spirits are victims of their ignorance and incomprehension.
Flawed, or evil, spirits
A spirit may become flawed in its evolution and become corrupted, twisted and negative. Then we say it is evil, though the spirit is never evil, only its bodies, which include the mind and will. Evil spirits are often degraded human beings and sometimes more powerful beings that have sunk down from higher worlds because of their evil vibration which impelled them downwards.
Evil spirits cannot endure high vibration. Those who continually keep their vibrations high through spiritual practice will not be harmed by evil spirits. One of my meditation students lived in the most haunted place I have ever been, and some of the spirits were really evil. Two week later I visited there again and every spirit was gone, just from the vibrations created by the daily meditation of the student.
Q: If everything is made by and from God, why does Satan exist as a spirit?
Free will is a fundamental condition of all spirits. Those who set their wills to evil become “demons.” Lucifer, the fallen archangel, is one of these. He is the most powerful evil spirit operative in the earth plane (solar system).
Satan is not a spirit, though often confused with Lucifer. Satan is a negative, delusive force in the universe which vibrates in opposition to upward evolution and “works” to entrap deluded human beings. It is a conglomerate of aeons of negative energies emitted by negative entities and events (such as war). Since everything is essentially consciousness, the Satanic force operates in a kind of blindly intelligent manner and can seem to be a person, but that is a mirage, a mere seeming.
As with evil spirits, high spiritual vibrations dispel Satanic influence and those leading a spiritual life need not give either Lucifer or Satan a thought, though it is good to be aware that they may intervene in the life and minds of ignorant human beings around us.
Further Reading:
- The Source of Good and Evil, from The Gospel of Thomas for Awakening
- The Origin of Evil, from Religion for Awakening
- Evil, from The Dhammapada for Awakening