Long ago, five men sat around a camp fire. We had hiked in along the “Lost Coast” of California. As was our custom, we spent such occurrences discussing philosophical questions. On that particular night, we tackled the subject of Evil’s greatest creation. One of us called it “the Devil’s Masterpiece of Deception.”

The oldest camper took the easy way out: he suggested that Evil’s greatest deception was the creation of doubt about its existence. Many humans no longer believe in a Devil, a Fallen Angel, a Black Lodge or in Conscious Evil itself.

The second man to speak surprised us all. He suggested that the mirror is the Devil”s greatest artifact of deception. What else produces so much misery? he asked.

The lawyer among us suggested that the “corporate form of ownership,” is the greatest conception of Evil. Corporations can do evil things, without individual responsibility or accountability.

The fourth friend thought that prejudice–ethno-centricity and fear of strangers–is the evil bedeviling mankind. The division of people, hatred, violence, inequality all stem from such ignorance.

These were all good suggestions, but I thought that instilling a fear of death in us, was Evil’s greatest intuition. Once afraid of a change of state and the loss of the inessential, so many miseries, fears and madnesses followed.

We then pondered, each in his own way, which of the five was the greatest evil. So distracted, we did not attend to our fire. Embers only remained of our source of light. Each alone in the dark, then, returned to an isolated tent.

– Raphael O’Suna, Haiku