Demonising karma

‘To hell with the consequences’. This cliché sums up the ruling elite’s foolish ‘Great Work’ (to try and dodge our karma) and suggests to me that karma (cause and effect) has been given by philosophers a ‘hellish’ quality. Our collective karma is swept under the carpet; swept underground to hell, so to speak.

Western religions/philosophy have been mostly dismissive of the Eastern idea of karma, but that rejection belies that Western philosophers gave karma a demonic quality, thus karma was transformed into the character known as the Devil. Just to confuse matters, karma is divided into ‘good karma’ and ‘bad karma’, so it is the bad karma that is associated with the Devil, while the good karma equates with the ‘good’ Christian God. Muddying the waters further is the Christian God who alternates between ‘good cop’ and ‘bad cop’: one minute he’s a loving, forgiving God, the next minute he’s angry and vengeful. That vengeful quality denotes a karmic quality, as vengeance implies that faults are being accounted for.

NEMESIS is both the name of an arch enemy and also the Greek Goddess of justice and divine retribution.

There’s nothing ‘evil’ about karma (cause and effect), but the Ruling Elite want you to believe that there’s something flawed about it; not to be trusted; or just plain non-existent. Modern scientists have been proposing that cause-and-effect is illusory, so too time itself. I disagree. “The finest trick of the Devil is to persuade you that he doesn’t exist”, says a fictional Christian preacher in the 1864 short story, “The Generous Gambler”, written by the French poet/philosopher/art critic CHARLES BAUDELAIRE. The story’s narrator gambles his soul to the Devil, of whom the latter complains of having been unfairly demonised by the whole world.

The slaying of a dragon (or some monster) is a common theme in mythology/religion/etc, and signifies to me the slaying of karma. ‘Slaying your demons’ = ‘Casting out the devil’ = purging your sins = removing your karmic debts.

The Christian church doesn’t acknowledge karma explicitly, though there are implicit references in the Bible, e.g. reaping what you sow: “for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap”. Sins and debts are equated with each other in the Bible: “And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors”.

The LORD OF KARMA is the name given by astrologers to the planet SATURN, which sounds like SATAN. The Roman God Saturn equates with Father Time, and is a God of time, agriculture and death. Saturn wields an agricultural reaping tool: the scythe (or sickle), as does the Greek time god, KRONOS. Saturn’s name is derived from the Latin words SATUS and SERERE, meaning SOW (as in ‘what you sow, you reap’). Astrological Saturn rules the area of the night sky called CAPRICORN, symbolised by the goat, which in turn symbolises the Devil.

The GRIM REAPER (aka the GRIM) is a personification of death who harvests dead souls with his scythe. GRIM (or GRIMR) is thought to be an alternate name for the Devil and for the Norse war God ODIN (aka WODEN).

A God of Death and of the underworld is the Hindu God YAMA, who took on a karmic quality in Buddhist mythology as the King of Karmic Justice (DHARMARAJA), and was also known as the KING OF HELL. The Buddhist Yama is a fearsome, wrathful god who protects DHARMA (cosmic law and order). Yama became known as KING YAN in Chinese mythology, who is portrayed as a large man with a scowling red face, bulging eyes, and a long beard. Similarly, the Devil is portrayed with a beard and red skin.

The name YAMA can mean TWIN, indicating duality, which is a key notion in ancient creation stories and also with karma (cause and effect are twin brothers, so to speak). Another duo are Heaven and Hell, of which Heaven is free from sins (karmic debts).

Karma and the Devil are subtly linked by the notion of selling one’s soul to the Devil in return for a favour, e.g. in the Shakespeare play “Henry IV (Part 1)”, Sir John is accused of selling his soul to the Devil in exchange for food and drink, hence Prince Henry says of Sir John, “He will give the devil his due”. Note the word DUE (that which is owed) means TWO in Italian. I say more on this etymology in my article “Etymology of Time, Karma and the Devil” in the Symbolism section. Suffice to say that the English word DOUBLE sounds similar to the Spanish word DIABLO, meaning DEVIL. Also, the word TWO in French is DEUX, which is similar to the Latin word DEUS, meaning GOD. The Roman God DIS is associated with the underworld.

DOUBLE-ENTRY Bookkeeping is so-called because debts and credits are recorded on opposite sides of the book: debts are on the left side, while credits are on the right side. This might explain why the left hand side in general has been traditionally associated with evil.

The legendary EVIL EYE could be a reference to the All-seeing eye of God, which in turn could symbolise the God-like quality of karma. The eye is equated with the Devil in Jewish esoteric literature, because the Hebrew letter AYIN (meaning EYE) is linked to the astrological symbol of CAPRICORN the goat. A goat represents the Devil.

The Devil and other demonic creatures have been portrayed with blue skin, as has the Hindu deity KRISHNA (aka VISHNU), who teaches about removing karma. A blue angel, possibly Satan/Lucifer, appears to the left hand side of Jesus and is behind three goats, in a mosaic in the Basilica of Sant’ Apollinare Nuovo in Ravenna, Italy. Some art historians claim that the mosaic contains the first depiction of Satan/Lucifer in western art.

Another blue skinned Devil is in an old mosaic in the cathedral at Torcello, in Venice.

A blue nose is on the face of GILTINE (also known as Giltinė), the Lithuanian Goddess of Death, though she only got her blue nose after escaping from her entombment in a coffin.

Also imprisoned and also blue is the GENIE in the Disney version of the old tale of “ALADDIN and the Magic Lamp”. In the original version, the Genie (JINN) is released from the lamp as a blue smoke. A Genie has a karmic quality, in that it grants wishes. It’s imprisonment and subsequent release is equivalent to the imprisonment of the Biblical Devil/Satan/dragon/serpent in a bottomless pit for a 1000 years, until its’ release, although Satan is eventually imprisoned one more time (in a lake) for eternity. Also in a lake is the lady who holds the magical sword EXCALIBUR out of the water and offers it to King Arthur.

A lake of ‘fire and brimstone’ is where the Devil ends up. Fire is associated with purification and the cleansing of sins. The mythic PHOENIX bird is burnt in a fire, but rises from the ashes. Genies (JINN) are created out of the fire of a scorching wind. One type of JINN is the SHAITAN (or SHAYTAN), a name that derives from the Hebrew name SATAN.

Fire is stolen from Heaven by the rebellious Greek TITAN called PROMETHEUS, an in-law of PANDORA, of whom the latter releases the evils of the world when she opens a jar (or box) that contains sickness, death, plagues, etc.

Another release from prison is in the old fairy tale, “The Spirit in the Bottle”, in which a boy discovers a magic spirit called MERCURIUS trapped in a bottle that is buried amongst a tree’s roots. The base of a tree is where Buddha meditates, and where Adam and Eve are tempted by Satan. Mercurius is the Roman name for the God MERCURY. In alchemy, the MERCURIUS is an essential substance, of which the psychoanalyst CARL JUNG quoted an ancient philosopher: “When the Mercurius is purified, then Lucifer will fall from Heaven”.

Mercury equates with the Greek winged messenger of the Gods, HERMES, one of numerous winged deities, and probably an inspiration for the Biblical winged angels that deliver God’s messages, so could be described as possessing a karmic quality. The Jewish angel RAGUEL is usually referred to as the archangel of justice, vengeance and redemption. His number is 6. For more on the number 6, see the numbers section. Nemesis is portrayed as a winged goddess.

Lucifer/Satan is an angel, and although he is not described in the Bible as having wings, subsequent writers/artists have done so. Dragons usually have wings.

Angels blow wind (spirit), as does the fabled BIG BAD WOLF who tries to blow down the houses of the 3 little pigs. Do the 3 pigs symbolise the attempt to escape from karma?

Fictional villains strive to escape the consequences of their crimes, e.g. the villain BENEDICT in the fantasy/action movie, “Last Action Hero” (1993), in which the main characters travel between the real world and the fictional movie world. Benedict, who has an artificial glass eye, says: “If God was a villain, he’d be me”.

The perfect crime might utilise time travel and/or time manipulation in order to evade the law – a theme in some sci-fi stories, e.g. Arthur C. Clarke’s “All the Time In the World” (1952).

“Crime of the Century” is a song (and album) by SUPERTRAMP, whose various song lyrics appear to me to contain occult references. In “Crime of the Century”, criminals “rape the universe”, but they turn out to be you and me. Also on the album is the song “Hide In Your Shell”, a good description of the Rebel and the Great Work. The lyrics read: “Shelter behind painting your mind and playing joker”. Other songs include “Dreamer”;
“Asylum” – “Don’t arrange to have me s-sent to no asylum, well it’s only a game I’m playin’ for fun, yeah I’ve been tryin’ to fool everyone”);
“Rudy” – “Rudy’s on a train to nowhere…He needs time…Now he’s just come out the movie – Numb of all the pain”.

In the Supertramp album “Breakfast in America” (1979), the song “Goodbye Stranger” features a rebellious narrator who wants to break free: “Now I believe in what you say is the undisputed truth, but I have to have things my own way, to keep me in my youth”. He wants to find his “paradise”; to “feel no pain”. He says goodbye to Mary and Jane, which could be a cryptic reference to the mind-altering drug MARIJUANA (Mary Jane), but I suspect relates to a God-like entity (karma?) that speaks the “undisputed truth”. Another song on the album is “Child of Vision”, which says:
“You tried to be a hero, commit the perfect crime, but the dollar got you dancing, and you’re running out of time…You’re poisoning your body, you’re poisoning your mind”.

The Devil is an adversary and a tester, as is THE GREEN KNIGHT, whose major role in Arthurian tales includes being a judge and tester of knights. He is so-called because his skin and clothes are green. Some scholars have identified him as the pagan GREEN MAN or as the Devil.