This is not a broken mirror, although it is heading that way. It is certainly not working as intended.  Seeing someone else in the mirror is usually a sign that things are pretty bad. But sometimes you only fail to see yourself.

I woke up this morning (which is a good thing) and what’s more, I woke up to the clock radio (another good thing, as it had somehow failed to wake me yesterday, as the volume was mysteriously turned down to zero, causing me to come a bit late to the course where we learned to use our new software tool.  I caught up though.)  The song they were playing was certainly suited to wake me up as well. Even not knowing who was singing (Anne Grete Preus turns out to be fairly famous here) I knew this was a work of the Adversary, that is to say, the spiritual current that takes me farther from my goal.  Your goal may vary.

The song was plain and had the more impact for it.  I shall simply translate it into plain English as well.  (Norwegian readers should be able to locate the lyrics by searching for the word “spøkelseshær”  (army of ghosts), which is uncommon in our language. )

A song about when you see yourself in broken mirrors
And dig up the terrain when the map is wrong
When the world goes against you
is anyway
no one as hard-working as
the demons inside oneself.

Let’s pause there.  So far it is disturbingly true. Of course, there are more than one type of demons, we’ll come back to that soon.  But the blatant demons that make life hard for even those who don’t believe in demons, they are more reasonably described as “mind parasites”.  I picked up that phrase from Robert W. Godwin, not sure if he made it himself.  Jung called them complexes. In computing, we actually use the word “daemon” about independent processes that mind some limited task on their own, like fetching or delivering mail.  In essence, these are parts of our psyche that don’t answer to the conscious I.  They do what they bloody well want, either to help or to hinder or simply ignoring their host as they pursue their own agenda.  At worst, they seem to take a perverse pleasure in making life miserable.

To no small extent, these mind parasites are downloaded from one’s parents or other family members during early childhood, which explains why they are so resistant to logic: They were ingrained before we had even a coherent view of the physical world, much less abstractions like logic. It is certainly possible to acquire, cultivate and even create mind parasites later in life as well, but the early ones tend to be the most powerful, and often there are early events that carry the seed for later ones.  For instance, our very early exploration of sexual and erotic nature may not be very positive, but this is unlikely to become much of an issue until puberty, at which point it may get magnified to disastrous proportions.  Also our relationship with food may take years or decades to reach its full magnitude, and yet in the end may maim or kill us.

No opposition from outside is likely to reach quite the level of tormenting power that a complex or mind parasite has, lodged in the very psyche like some kind of festering infection.

I don’t want to see you there anymore
You fight with shadows and an army of ghosts
For you are good enough
more than good enough
Good enough
as you are.

I’m not usually tormented by the voices in my head.  There is some reasonable paranoia (reasonable in the context of having spent all my adult life in a job which would strongly motivate some small part of the populace to attack me on sight if they knew, or at least make my life unpleasant in whatever way they could get away with).  But for the most part, I lead a rather paradisical life.  But that is not really my goal.  Well, in theory it is not.  In practice, it is very hard to break out of paradise upward.  Which is why most of those who have escaped it and continued their spiritual journey, have done so by being forcibly evicted from paradise.  Illness, economic ruin, the death of a loved one, or some other calamity.  I would rather not incite fate that badly, of course.

The Adversary, as I mentioned above, the countercurrent that contradicts the cosmic love, will happily keep the tormented in torment for as long as they live.  But failing that, it will work just as hard to keep the oblvious in oblivion.  And so for those of us who were comparatively blessed in terms of upbringing and temperament, or who have by grace or serendipity been able to reach a safer haven… for us, the voices in our head whisper still.  Now they whisper:  “You are good enough, more than good enough, as you are.”

For those of you still steeped in the Christian lore, you may remember the pharisees and scribes of that time.  There are people like that today as well, but more disturbing, there is an inner pharisee lying in wait for any of us should we come so far as to become distinct from ‘tax collectors and “sinners”.’  You don’t even have to be actually religious, although it doesn’t hurt unfortunately.  Once you are no longer reminded by your conscience (or the police and creditors), once you can take a breather with the burning Sodom safely hidden beyond the hills, the voice is waiting for you.  To tell you that you are better than the rest, that you deserve to be treated with respect and enjoy privileges.  And above all, that there is no need to press onward.  You are good enough, more than good enough, the way you are.

In closely related news, I bought Sims 3 today.  Full report later. Perhaps.  If I manage to break out from the paradise that playing the new game is.