Dissecting the Spectrum of Good and Evil in Human Nature

Have you ever found yourself wrestling with the question of whether people are born bad, or if they're shaped by the shadows of their past? It's a conundrum that we try to unravel as we engage in a stirring dialogue on Pagan Coffee Talk. With the infamy of characters like Jeffrey Dahmer and Charles Manson as our backdrop, we delve into the complexities of moral accountability and the murky waters where personal ethics meet external influence. It's a conversation that hits close to home, examining how we react to the missteps of our loved ones compared to those we don't know, and the societal desensitization to misconduct that's creeping into our collective consciousness.

Strap in as we navigate the intricate landscape of ethics, morals, and the perception of evil, illuminated by the real-life struggles of siblings growing up with a parent's alcoholism. Our discussion takes a philosophical turn as we question the impact of religious and spiritual beliefs on our ethical compass, pondering everything from pagan views on energy to the existence of true evil. And, as we inch closer to finding balance in our judgments of others, we reflect on the importance of aligning with personal values and making the tough choices about who we let into our lives. We invite you to grab a cup of coffee and join us for this heartfelt exploration, and encourage you to reach out through our social media to share your thoughts and continue this meaningful conversation, until our paths cross again on the next Pagan Coffee Talk.

Transcript

Lord Oswyn: 0:26

Welcome to Pagan Coffee Talk. Here are your hosts, Lady Alba and Lord Night.

Lady Alba: 0:33

Do you think we attribute too much bad behavior to other things? Yes, okay. So the question becomes I guess, why can't somebody just be a bad person?

Lord Night: 0:48

I have no idea.

Lady Alba: 0:49

Well, give me examples of what you're running into.

Lord Night: 0:52

Well, when you hear some of this stuff news reports and stuff like this it was because of this trauma or because of that trauma, or Mmm. All right, I see, and I'm sorry, I can't sit there and look at somebody like Jeffrey Dahmer there you go. Oh yeah, that's trauma. I can't sit there and look at somebody like oh God, what's his name that put the thing on his head.

Lady Alba: 1:18

Oh, charles Manson, Charles Manson, the swastika, yeah, yeah.

Lord Night: 1:21

Are you going to? I mean, yes, he's nutty, he is a fruitcake, but couldn't he just be a bad person?

Lady Alba: 1:28

So okay, well, typically when it comes to serial killers, right everybody just goes oh, they're sick, they're sick, they're deranged, they're crazy, whatever.

Lord Night: 1:40

But there are people out there they choose. There's businessmen out there who choose to do unethical business practices. There are politicians out there that will take the bribe. I mean, these people do this stuff, oh yeah.

Lady Alba: 1:53

I mean, we don't have to search very far unless you're talking about a sociopath to know that the grand majority of people know right from wrong, at least from a basic moral perspective. You can have this conversation with most five-year-olds. So what I think you're getting at here is that some people they want to attribute it to something else or they want to blame the behavior, on blame something else versus just accepti ng

Lord Night: 2:34

Right and I mean I'm not downgrading or yeah. I'm just saying why don't we see people sometimes are just this way.

Lady Alba: 2:43

Well, I think it depends on how close we are to them. I think it's easier to say that someone is just like you said they're just a bad person, they're just shit people. It's easier to see that when we're removed, right, we don't know them personally. When it's a family member, a close friend, a love interest, that's when we tend to start making excuses.

Lord Night: 3:14

See, that's the problem that gets me. Are we making excuses?

Lord Night: 3:19

there, because my thought is that there's really problems there and you know there's problems there, you're going to go seek help or something to fix that problem, but these same people will sit there and not do that,

Lady Alba: 3:37

No, some people don't. I mean, that's the God's honest truth. Some people are like, yeah, I know what I did was wrong, I don't care.

Lord Night: 3:47

This seems to be an attitude I keep on seeing in modern day, more and more.

Lady Alba: 3:52

I think we're seeing it more and more because people are put under a microscope more and more right.

Lady Alba: 3:58

Like everybody's looking for somebody to fuck up, everybody's looking to poke at what they did wrong, which of course then opens up the bigger question of what's right and what's wrong, and you know it starts in with that kind of shit. There's so many, especially comedians, right? I love, I love stand up comedy for this. Comedians will say all kinds of off color stuff. Oh yeah, and most of them right now have the same attitude. They're like cancel me, go ahead, I don't care. What I said was funny. If you don't like it, that's your problem. But there's nothing wrong with what I said. And part of their theory is right it's jokes. It's just jokes. Ok, ok, I can get that right. A joke is not an action. No, somebody can make a joke about something as horrible as, I don't know, pedophilia. Yeah, and I mean, I hate to say it in the right context. It could be very funny, but it's not. They're not doing it. They're not actually acting upon said thought. It's just a thought.

Lord Night: 5:06

Right. Well, now, what about this? Like we've been hearing lately about the people, about the free Palestine from the river to the sea, which actually calls for the genocide of the Jewish, people OK. All right, I mean again, I'm not going to sit here and call these people that are calling for this evil, because I'm not sure if they actually know what they're saying.

Lady Alba: 5:29

That's also a big broad group. I mean then we're talking about. You know there's much bigger things at play there. I think we're better off to stick with the individual and look at the smaller microcosm picture.

Lord Night: 5:44

But like because I've seen the same people do the same thing and we will both sit there and look at, like Hitler and the Nazi Party. What you did is bad. Right, this is evil.

Lady Alba: 5:56

But I'm back to who decides that, who says that Like OK, so fine, Hitler. The slaughtering of hundreds of thousands of human lives Wrong.

Lord Night: 6:15

Yes.

Lady Alba: 6:17

The thought that you represent a superior race of people. It's thought. It's a thought, it's not wrong.

Lord Night: 6:28

Hold on, let me give you your phrase back to you it's a choice.

Lady Alba: 6:33

Kind of Kind of it's a choice. I mean, would most people probably be like, yeah, that's a little messed up. You maybe don't want to share that with others, but you know. But again, is it criminal or wrong or morally rep, I don't know, because it's a thought, it's an idea, but again, the population in Germany did not start off this way.

Lord Night: 6:54

This was a slow, methodic.

Lady Alba: 6:57

That's what I'm saying. Like, even if you wrote, like if Hitler was around today, I mean I can't believe I'm saying this, but if Hitler was around today, if he was around today, if he was around today, if he wrote a book and was like I believe there's a master race of humans and they are superior and they are blue-eyed and blonde, right, and he laid it all out, he'd be on CNN tonight debating this with somebody on the opposite and going you're out of your mind, what is wrong with you? How could you say that? But if he's just going, it's just a book, it's just a theory. This is my thought process. This is what I think. If there were no action taken in relation to the idea, is it bad? Hmm, see, that's where I think traditional craft is interesting. We live by deeds, by your deeds. You shall be known. My thoughts and my deeds are two very different things. In any given day, how many thoughts do you have?

Lord Night: 8:12

How many thoughts do I have that I know will never come true?

Lady Alba: 8:15

Also, though, how many thoughts do you have that you could say are controversial or negative or wrong? Someone else would disagree with Loads. I mean, come on, if we really want to get honest, I would venture to say that half of a human being's day is spent processing and rejecting thoughts. Yes, yeah, but it doesn't mean you don't have them.

Lord Night: 8:42

Don't mean you don't have them. I mean there's a lot of times you sit here and listen to stuff and go, OK, that's just bullshit, Move on.

Lady Alba: 8:49

But I mean, I even see my dog wrestle with this right Animals will do. Should I do that? I don't know, I want to eat that. I'm going to get yelled at if I eat that, but I want to eat it. And then sometimes they go for it and sometimes they don't. But yeah, I don't see, that's what's messed up. We will stand here and defend thoughts all day, every day. Now then we also, though, right, have the Crowley ism of craft. Right, do as thou will. Is the whole Is the whole of the law.

Lord Night: 9:31

Right.

Lady Alba: 9:33

But is doing again. It's doing, not thinking.

Lord Night: 9:38

Well, again in, if you even change your moral structure, this suddenly became okay. Well, this isn't as bad as I thought, yeah.

Lady Alba: 9:50

This is so. This is really interesting. So some people yes, clearly we know this they do something. The majority of people find it to be wrong and they don't care, they did it anyway, they're fine with it. And then you have those who know it's the majority of people are going to find it wrong, or they themselves is deemed it wrong, which is more important.

Lord Night: 10:16

Right.

Lady Alba: 10:17

And they did it, but they feel bad about it, or there's guilt or remorse or whatever there might be, and then, yeah, you have society pushing on us with a whole bunch of ideas of what's wrong in the first place.

Lord Night: 10:35

So so let me ask you could we ever come up with someone, Can you think of anyone who is actually evil, like Sauron or one of the from the history, from the, from these great stories where the guy just seems to be evil for no reason?

Lady Alba: 10:51

For the sake of being evil.

Lord Night: 10:53

Evil.

Lady Alba: 10:54

Um.

Lord Night: 10:55

Because I don't consider people with issues doing bad stuff as evil. This is just your, your thought process, kind of.

Lady Alba: 11:04

But see, then we also get into my personal views on nature. There are plenty of people that go. Volcano in Pompeii wiped out an entire civilization, right killed all of these people, and some people at the time attributed it to what God's being angry. Right, right, the volcano doesn't give a shit. Nope, the volcano did what volcanoes do. It had no agenda. It didn't do it with malicious intent, it just is. But people don't necessarily operate that way. So that's where it's rough. Even in the mental health community, there is a very strong belief that a mental health diagnosis is not an excuse for bad behavior. But I have also challenged that notion because I'm like, yeah, it is.

Lady Alba: 12:16

Yeah it absolutely is, because if I'm an unmedicated schizophrenic and I go and shoot a bunch of innocent people, right, it's an excuse for my behavior. It doesn't make you right.

Lord Night: 12:33

Well, don't you remember when it was going around? Well, I'm on Prozac. Don't piss me off, mm-hmm. It's an excuse to.

Lady Alba: 12:40

But that's what I'm saying. It is an excuse for the behavior, because, literally, what do people say? Oh well, he was an unmedicated schizophrenic. That's an excuse. Now it still. We're not debating the right or wrong, oh, the morality of it, just the act is then excused in a way. It's explained, if nothing else, right.

Lord Night: 13:02

Right.

Lady Alba: 13:03

So that's where it gets rough, because I have dealt with that firsthand and I have always kind of stopped and gone. Yes, it's one thing to say the mental illness is not an excuse for bad behavior but at the same time, when you talk to people who are mentally ill, they will tell you all the shitty things that they did when they were unwell. Yes, and just based on the fact that there is nothing they can do to go back in time and fix it, they must accept what has transpired, because if they don't, it'll eat them alive.

Lord Night: 13:45

See, if I had a friend back in the day and he had serious mental issues, he would have moments where he thought he was God and would go driving and sing. Christian music everywhere, sure, and he would tell me about some of the stuff he would do and it's like in my head, it made sense, it was rational, it was logical.

Lady Alba: 14:11

As is often the case, exactly so in that moment, if that individual is not in control of their faculties or they believe in that moment that they're not doing anything wrong, then, yes, the mental illness is absolutely an excuse for that behavior. Yes, so it's kind of messed up. I've also had to wrestle with is the behavior a result of the illness, or is it just the person? That's where it gets funky, that's where it gets really messed up.

Lord Night: 14:47

Can you elaborate on this a little bit more?

Lady Alba: 14:50

So I will, because it's so fucked up. Like, okay, so if you have, if you are in a committed relationship with someone who is bipolar, and that individual cheats on their partners, this is just a known pattern of behavior for that individual Right, they are not faithful and then they go out and cheat on you. Which came first, the chicken or the egg? Is the bipolar imbalanced? What made them go out and have an affair? Or did they have an affair? Because it's literally what they do. It's just that person. Because you could have another individual, also with bipolar, who would go I would never cheat on my spouse, what I will? Run naked, screaming through the streets.

Lord Night: 15:51

Well, I mean, it's again what we've argued before. Ethics is something we get from our environment. Morals is stuff that we do internally, and even in families. Siblings don't always hold the same.

Lady Alba: 16:03

Morals Not at all, and that's what's so wild.

Lord Night: 16:08

Because I mean that drives me, because what drives me of the wild and the thought is is you have the kids of an alcoholic. One will drink and the other will never touch it again.

Lady Alba: 16:16

Correct. You had two kids that went through the same thing, but yet they're handling it in two separate ways. Yes, I live in that household. I know that household. Yes, my mother was an alcoholic. Her father was an alcoholic. My sister is absolutely a functioning alcoholic. I am not, I barely drink, go figure.

Lord Night: 16:40

So I mean, if siblings can be that different what about friends?

Lady Alba: 16:45

Well, sure, I mean, that's chasm.

Lord Night: 16:47

Which is funny. We just talked about everybody's normal.

Lady Alba: 16:51

But I think it comes down to like so okay, in a lot of spiritual instances people will go. It's a spiritual problem, this person needs God, right. How many times have we heard you need Jesus Right? I mean, that's a common expression down here.

Lord Night: 17:10

I mean because what I think the real estate is. You just need this ethical framework Bingo.

Lady Alba: 17:14

You need the teachings of this structure, this morality, right, ethics, whatever to guide you. Yes, the function in society, whether it be right. The Ten Commandments, the Koran, the Old Test, the Torah keep on keeping on right so many of them. Yes, that's exactly what people are saying when they say that I think the truly devout might be taking it a step further in saying, like you need Jesus in your heart, right, like that component. But what do pagans do? We are a little different.

Lord Night: 17:55

A little.

Lady Alba: 17:56

We get interesting on this. So the first thing we do, I find, or that I feel like the community does, is we talk about their energy. Yes, they have bad energy. No, they just have energy. They just got energy. Same energy, you have same energy, I have it's their energy. Yes, it's the thing that keeps them alive. So they have it. I'm not disputing that. But it is not warped in some unnatural fashion.

Lady Alba: 18:26

So then it turns to okay, then it becomes right there. There, I mean, there's any number of expressions here, right? They're morally bankrupt.

Lord Night: 18:38

Right.

Lady Alba: 18:38

Spiritually bankrupt Yep. More often than not, though, rather than just stop the discussion, the conversation at that person is either not well or simply a bad person. We go into what Retaliation mode? Vengeance.

Lord Oswyn: 19:02

No.

Lady Alba: 19:03

I kind of feel like most people do. I feel like that's where spell work and hex work suddenly becomes very dominant.

Lord Night: 19:12

I guess it would depend if they're coming straight after you. Just because a person's an evil person or something does not mean that they're necessary. They're necessarily attacking me.

Lady Alba: 19:21

Agreed, but most of these distinctions that we make, we make because we've been wronged. We make because there's been something that's happened to us. So that is the funny thing, though, and so ruminating is a big thing. I'm a ruminator when something happens to me good, bad or otherwise I have to think about it and think about it and replay it. And how did it go down, and why did it go down that way, and could it have been different? And part of that, ironically, is craft training. Yes, because I'm always trying to pick up the cube and look at it from every single possible angle and outcome and understanding what the fuck I'm getting involved in.

Lady Alba: 20:13

But mentally that has not always proven to be the best game for me, because I can run away with those thoughts and then it becomes unproductive. It sort of ends up doing the opposite of what you wanted it to, but that's it. People will not just walk away. It's that simple cutoff of I don't need that in my life. No, we make excuses, we try to fix it, we try to manipulate it.

Lord Night: 20:51

No, we don't try to fix it. We try to cast a spell on top of it so we can put a bandaid on it, so we can cast another spell.

Lady Alba: 20:58

Correct, but in that person's mind initially they think they're fixing.

Lord Night: 21:04

They think they're fixing it Right.

Lady Alba: 21:06

OK.

Lord Night: 21:07

Because we both know spells do not fix problems.

Lady Alba: 21:12

Well, spells also do not fix personalities. Nope, this is the one that nobody likes to hear. You are not going to bind a pedophile and never have them act on those impulses again. That is why they need something else, right, whether it be incarceration. We have sex offender lists. They need to not be around kids. We can agree on that, yes. But people think, right, I can bind, twist, bend, do All. Right, I'm going to ask a difficult question, but you're going to laugh at me.

Lord Night: 22:02

So what would you call evil? What is this person who is evil just for being evil? What does this look like? What do you think this would look like?

Lady Alba: 22:14

I can honestly say I've never encountered it.

Lord Night: 22:17

I would have to. To me, this would have to be a person who would just want to go out and hurt and destroy things just because I can, they can Right and it's fun, the image that I have in my mind it's Godzilla.

Lady Alba: 22:31

Yeah Right, it's Godzilla on a rampage, it's. I'm doing this simply because I can, not because I gain anything. I mean, even Thanos wasn't that bad.

Lord Night: 22:44

No.

Lady Alba: 22:45

You know. So I don't believe that that exists, I don't. I find it very hard for it to but even all the stories of all the gods, all the deities, right who we consider to be.

Lord Night: 23:06

Darker, dark yeah.

Lady Alba: 23:09

The problematic ones. There's still something there, there's still some, there's still look. Best I ever heard I think it was a stand up comic Even a serial killer loves someone.

Lord Night: 23:25

Yes.

Lady Alba: 23:26

Right, I mean, for all we know, jeffrey Dahmer loved his mommy. Yeah, there's no one is just pure, unadulterated awful. I have never seen it. I've not seen it in physical form, I've not seen it on the spiritual plane, I've not, no, I've just never seen it.

Lord Night: 23:48

But yet people seem to go around and call people this other in evil that we have never actually seen in the world.

Lady Alba: 23:55

to begin with, Because the reason that idea even exists is because it's a counterbalance. Right, if we can have something so good and so pure and so perfect, virtuous, there has to be its opposite. But that's the point that doesn't exist either. No, it doesn't, it just doesn't. That's one of the reasons why I have always been a little forgiving towards the Christian God.

Lord Night: 24:27

Okay.

Lady Alba: 24:28

Jesus is a separate entity to me. Right, I'm going to put him aside for a minute. But the Christian God? Sometimes he's an asshole, sometimes he's great. How is that any different from any of ours? Right, that's very pagan. Yes, sometimes God gets mad and does something, or God seeks retribution or vengeance or whatever it might be, and acts, quote unquote, unlovingly. Yes, right, but the counter to that was Christ, who was supposed to be effectively flawless.

Lord Night: 25:08

But yeah, we don't have but yet he turned the tables over in the temple.

Lady Alba: 25:14

I mean yeah.

Lord Night: 25:16

He had a little bit of a hissy fan.

Lady Alba: 25:19

Yeah, but I don't think that the devil played as active a role in the Bible until we had the Christ figure.

Lord Night: 25:30

I can see that To balance it out.

Lady Alba: 25:33

Yeah, I just that's the one I don't. I have such a hard time accepting because I'm like it's not. No one is all or nothing, one or the other, no, yeah.

Lord Night: 25:46

There's too many shades of gray in this.

Lady Alba: 25:49

There is Now. Does it mean that we have to try to find the good in everybody? No, that is not your job. It's not, it ain't, and don't feel like there's some kind of weird obligation there. You do not have to go try and appeal somebody back like an onion.

Lord Night: 26:09

To find that one good layer.

Lady Alba: 26:11

No, screw it, it's just, it's not. Think about what it's doing to you.

Lord Night: 26:16

Well, see, lord, lord me and told me this a long time ago and he's just like. It is a fact of nature. There is going to be somebody out there in the world you are not going to like and, no matter what and what you do, you're never going to get along. You're never going to like each other. And it's best to go ahead and accept it and at least stay civil enough with each other to do the bare minimum to get by. It does happen.

Lady Alba: 26:45

I think, ironically, people who live a relatively authentic life, to use a very modern phrase. Depending on who you talk to, that person is either a saint, or a sinner. Yeah, and that's kind of how you know, because when everybody only has the best to say, there's something they're not seeing.

Lord Night: 27:16

They're not seeing.

Lady Alba: 27:17

There's some darker stuff there that I would much rather hear someone say oh, they're an asshole, but they're also the most loving person you'll ever meet. I'm like that's honest, I can. I can work with that.

Lord Night: 27:32

I mean, I could sit here and tell you very open and honest, my mother was the most lovingest woman she could be, but she was the biggest freaking bitch. If you there, you go.

Lady Alba: 27:41

That. There you go and that's okay. That's okay. It's again where we're constantly striving for balance and things. It's okay to, but it is okay to see that in someone else and make a judgment based on your life and what's important for you, whether to stay away from it or engage it.

Lord Night: 28:06

And about it man.

Lord Oswyn: 28:11

Thanks for listening. Join us next week for another episode. Peg and Coffee Talk is brought to you by Lifetime and Seminary. Please visit us at lifetimepleseminaryorg for more information, as well as links to our social media Facebook, Discord, Twitter, YouTube and Reddit.

Speaker 4: 28:29

We travel down this trodden path, the maze of stone and mire. Just hold my hand as we pass by a sea of blazing fires. And so it is the end of our day, so walk with me till morning breaks. And so it is the end of our day so walk with me till morning.