CATHOLIC DEFENSE AGAINST THE DARK ARTS: Lesson Two: Don’t let anyone tell you what to do.

That most quintessential characteristic of our species is survival, brought forth beautifully by Abraham Maslow in his diagram of the “Hierarchy of Needs.”

From an emotional viewpoint, the natural default for humans is sexuality, or the need to procreate. The difference between animal and human sexuality is that one is held hostage to the prescriptions of animal nature. In contrast, humans, although containing many of animals’ needs, have reason and free will, which means I, as an individual, can override nature. But I have a problem: I don’t know what to choose that is good for me. Should I choose those things that excite my senses, my sexual emotions, which are good, or should I deny them but surround my views of what is good with something deeper and recognized by my reason as being better for me? This is not an intellectual choice where the brain overrides the emotions and feelings I have, but one where I choose to set boundaries beyond what my reason deems reasonable. I have neither the intelligence nor the human energy to go outside of myself to tap into an energy source that makes my reason weep. So, am I adrift on a sea of human confinement to a nature that allows me to tread water but won’t allow me to get into the boat?

The default for me and all humans is, I don’t want anyone, parents, siblings, spouse, pope or bishops, teachers, or my closest friends to tell me what to do with anything. They can make suggestions I consider, and then I choose what I think is best for me. Part of my choice has to do with the boundaries or constraints imposed by the one giving me a choice of what I should do to become more human or what should satisfy my personal feelings. It depends on who catches my ear or on who my heart tells me is best for me. For me, the default choice is always what is easy for me rather than what is right. No one, especially this sloathfully prone egoist, chooses what they think is bad for them.

Boundaries of human nature, allowing us to move to the next level of our evolution, are not without cost, since our species is unsure of what is right or which direction will lead us to what our nature intended. The price for moving to that next level of what is fully human is that we must give up the notion that mere human strength or power can move us. It takes an individual act of that unique free will to say, “There is a power greater than me, one I am not quite sure about, but which will allow me to be raised within my nature to be what we are destined to be.” We must give up our dependence on reason and free will to accept a higher set of boundaries from a higher nature than ours, one that has the wisdom, power, and blessing to save us from being just Spiritual Apes, with no hope of living beyond our personal Alpha and Omega.

This reality is the context in which Satan uses what we, of ourselves, think we know to be good for us, to suggest alternatives, based on our propensity to do what is easy and makes us momentarily happy, rather than what is right, and leads to the joy of having our humanity at all levels in resonance rather than dissonance. This is the big leagues in which Satan and his minions exist to try to foil any attempts we humans, and in particular this human, to choose the cross, a symbol of the victory we have over the mundane, thinking that what is actually evil is good for my movement in consciousness and complexity toward what nature intended. The Devil is a blocker, a suggestor of alternatives that make our animalistic selves happy, like cotton candy, making this food taste so good but having no nutrition.

Satan uses the existential flaws (original sin) in our nature to keep us from advancing toward a higher form of evolution. One of the most sophisticated and subtle temptations is couched at the heart of that unique choice, one where we go with the flow of making us happy, or, going against reason and free will, listen to an energy outside of our frame of reference, one that imposes strict boundaries on how to become more human and sustain that choice in the midst of the Seven Deadly Sins.

For many, many years, I was seduced by Satan (listened to the wrong idea) about what life was about, even though voices all around me warned me of what was taking place. I had faith, but did not nourish it with Christ in the Eucharist and Sacrament of Penance. I did not even realize I was doing something wrong, listening to that ever-so-seductive siren leading me toward animality rather than the deepest level of my evolution. This deeper level is accessed only by individuals who use reason and free will to free themselves from the shackles of making themselves into a false god.

All this while, Jesus shows us how to jump to that next level with His kingdom, His power, and His glory, thus receiving dual citizenship, the kingdom of the earth (my base of operation to find meaning until my body gives out) and the kingdom of Heaven on earth (as the adopted son or daughter of the Father and steward who inherits the kingdom of the Father after physical death, ) in Heaven with Jesus, and all those in the Catholic Church judged to be worthy by the Lamb of God. Think Catholic Universal Church here because I do not judge anyone in the Church and let God judge those whom I consider unwashed with the waters of baptism, as to their worthiness.

ACTIO

• Be watchful!
• See the false gods of self and being the one who makes the rules and to whom alone I am accountable.
• Be aware, when entering the upper room of your inner self, that you are there to listen to what Jesus and the Holy Spirit tell you you need.
• The energy I receive from Jesus by just waiting in silence and solitude is the only energy that can raise me up (resurrection) to that higher level and sustain me there until my physical body returns to dust again.
• The truth is always right in front of me. All I have to do is ask, and it will be answered, knock, and it will be opened, and seek, and I will find it, not inside my human shell, but with divine energy that propels me to my true Omega, the Omega of God.

Copyright, 2026, Michael F. Conrad, The Center for Contemplative Practice. All Rights reserved.