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Selling one’s soul to the devil is more than a fire and brimstone tag line or the modus operandi of some satanic ritual. An alarming number of people engage in this spiritual transaction, although not in the literal manner reviled from the pulpit.
While serial killers, mass murderers, terrorists and other denizens of cruelty and horror make us wonder if there are actual demons in our midst, I suspect most who sell their souls to the devil, so to speak, do so without negotiating with fire-breathing, horned fiends. If there are demons involved, it’s more likely those residing inside our minds, not in the fiery recesses of the netherworld or Dante’s Inferno.
The most common inner demon is a puffed-up ego that resides in a me-myself-and-I mental bubble, one that strives to elevate its narrow self-interest above all other purposes. Notorious egos run amuck include the likes of Hitler, Stalin, Timothy McVeigh and Osama Bin Laden, to name a few, but there are many others who have sold their souls in ways that attract far less notoriety and attention. The currency in these spiritual transactions can be anything the ego honors above all else—money, power, fame, pleasure and the rest. Bernie Madoff, the disgraced Ponzi scheme perpetrator, is a case in point. He bartered away his integrity and betrayed those who trusted him in exchange for what his ego convinced him was of greater value—wealth.
That Little Tyrant
What one attempts to gain by selling one’s soul is not so important as the actual decision to do so. This choice represents a pivot point where one turns away from what Lincoln called our “better angels” and becomes a slave to what some gurus term “the little tyrant”—the ego. This inner devil whispers in our ears about how we deserve whatever temptation it dangles in front of us, about how everybody else is doing it, and how we have to look out for numero uno. It tells us that nothing else in one’s life—not people or honesty or love—is as important as acquiring the just-gotta-have-it reward to be gained by doing its bidding.
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We find an apt metaphor in the belief by some Christians that the Devil was once a numinous angel named Lucifer who, in seeking to elevate himself to divine status, defied God and fell from grace, becoming the demonic enemy of all that is good. Whatever one’s beliefs in this regard, the analogy holds true. Advancing one’s own importance beyond all others and above all else constitutes a spiritual fall from grace that opens the door to beliefs and actions that create evil in the world.
Now, selling out to the devil isn’t always an entirely conscious choice. It has been said that evil’s greatest power is to convince us it doesn’t exist, and I suspect the same may be true inside one’s psyche. The ego is capable of deceiving the larger self into thinking that doing its bidding is the right thing, and to hell with anyone or anything that gets in the way.
At a less egregious level, we all conduct this kind of self-seduction. It’s called rationalization. So, on occasion, many of us are persuaded by our egos to betray our principles or the greater good in the pursuit of narrow self-interest. For most, this is a temporary condition. However, for some, a true and lasting fall from grace occurs, often emerging in a series of smaller egocentric decisions that, over time, add up to an ominous change in one’s life path. Among these folks, many reach a point of no return in selling out to their inner devil, while some manage to reverse course at some point, reclaiming their lives for better purposes.
Losing your soul may or may not land you in hell itself. But it will surely create one for you, and others, here on Earth.
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