Why does choosing destruction in some way seem to be more popular at present than creation? Why is ‘evil’ in some way more attractive and able to outcompete ‘good’? In order to really create a more beautiful world we may need the vital powers and energies that at present are locked up or hidden in the world of destruction and greed. These may be at root essential and vital sources of lifeforce, which we have hidden or repressed. Although they may currently manifest themselves in harmful forms, in forms in which they are ‘acted out’ in an unconscious way, behind them may lie essential benevolent life energies and powers.

In a sense, as Nietzsche suggested, we need to go ‘beyond good and evil’ This is not a case of finding a ‘balance’ between good and evil, which is a terrible idea, but rather of unlocking, being present with, processing and carefully integrating the innate animal energies and repressed instincts chthonic forces which lie behind destructive behaviour. These forces are often essentially benevolent or helpful, they only manifest in a harmful way because they have been unrecognized or have been pushed down or repressed.

It is not a case of colluding with the force of destruction; we can still stand up to and resist their unconscious manifestations. There is a time to stand up against destructive behaviour, to say ‘No’ to it, to resist it, to stand up for justice, to create boundaries and even to fight back. But there also may be a time to process the fears and essential fierce energies that lie behind destructive tendencies and to hold and integrate them more fully into the individual and collective psyche, thus cutting off the potential for causing real harm and malevolence at the root.

When we learn to tap into the unconscious aggressive and destructive forces in the psyche in a healthy way, we may even sow the seeds for the eventual future total liberation of the human imagination, the creation of a new world and the benevolent fusion of the dreamworld and reality

There is hidden gold within all the powers we have pushed aside and labelled as dark, taboo, ugly, aggressive; within the very sensory embodied experience there may be treasure. When we bring carefully process, integrate and bring consciousness and tenderness to the body sensations, inner images and myths, body movements, belief patterns synchronicities and relationship patterns that accompany the feeling we have pushed aside, they may begin to alchemically transform and reveal some kind of medicine power.

So many people in the leftist world or in the ‘spiritual’ world secretly desire to pursue power or influence, have aggressive or furious feelings but push these desires down considering them to be wrong or unethical. They are content to walk round being humble with a peaceful smile whilst animalistic energies lurk within that have not been met or fully honoured. People in the mainstream ‘respectable’ world may have wild bestial energies within them that they are ashamed of and which need to be fully seen with consciousness and tenderness and processed.

The problem is that once they have been pushed down these desires then tend to emerge in unconscious and hurtful ways as abuses of power and secret tyrannies. It can be helpful to actually get in touch with these powers, emotions and energies, to consciously ‘enjoy’ them, and process and transform them in a healthy way, in some kind of alchemical therapeutic held vessel, supported by trusted people.

We may also need to process our most hidden and shadow like feelings and urges together in community, bring forward and bring consciousness to all the power imbalances, hidden resentments, secret tyrannies, grief, anger, sorrow, ghosts and spirits of history that are present. We may need to bring consciousness to past oppression, repression and hurt and allow the feelings associated with these things to be seen in a safe way. The integration of the parts of ourselves and of our communities which are most unknown, the most repressed, can bring a river of life energy to a community and to the whole culture.

Why is war, for example, so attractive to many people? War fulfils many of inner mythical and instinctive urgings, the urge to be a warrior, the urge to be aggressive, to find discipline, to find deep companionship and finally even to touch death and grief. When young men are born into a disconnected culture without initiation rituals; a world starved of mythos and meaning and starved of companionship and adventure, to attempt to find meaning in war looks like an attractive choice to some

If we want less war in the world we need to we need to make everyday life as mythical and as awe-inspiring as war is. We need to teach people to go out into the wild and discover their true soul calling, to learn the value of risking death in the pursuit of some greater calling in service to our community and to learn how to fiercely confront, listen to, empathise with and communicate with people we hate or disagree with.

Instead of sacrificing people’s lives to the Gods of war some of us may need to sacrifice our survival based self and to find ways to stand up against, resist, communication with, shapeshift into and listen to the grief and rage of those who existentially threaten us. We need to ‘go to peace’ with the same ferocity, intensity and aggression as in the past men have gone to war

And what about the secret shadow form of war, terrorism? Terrorists are often motivated by feelings of hatred, rage against imperialism. They have no forum in which they can speak or be heard, they have no voice and they have no mouth. It is like they are trying to scream without a mouth, without a voice and the only expression for their feelings that they can give is in the form of futile and bitter acts of violence. They are the symptom of the famine of human community and the lack of forums for processing of sociopolitical tensions, power imbalances, trauma and rage that exists in the modern world.

If we want less terrorism in the world one thing that would help would be to create a culture in which people of different religions and secular people can come together in open forums and town meetings and share their anger, their aggression, their rage, their grief, their frustration, to speak about their humiliation, abuse, despair, hopelessness and oppression and to be met and heard in these things.

We need to help the terrorist articulate their rage as a demand for justice and respect, rather than self destructive brutality and violence. We may need to help the mainstream to listen the voices of out of order and crazy angry people. We need forums in which both oppressor and oppressed can communicated with each other and listen to each other’s grief. We need to create council in which the ghosts of history, rage, madness, imperialism, and grief and the voices of the unquiet dead can be heard and listened too.

Why is making as much money as possible in the business world, whilst supporting political and economic policies which repress the poor, destroy nature and shrink the commons so popular? Why is hoarding wealth so popular, but sharing it with others, investing it in the restoration of community and nature and returning it to the commons less so? The world of the rich business person can sometimes be deeply disconnecting from people in the land and on the street and from the earth. But also it fulfils many hidden cravings many people have to be powerful, to be determined and focused and to display swagger and shamelessly display power.

If we want to create a different world we need to make a world in which the sharing of wealth and abundance, the creation of community and the recreation of the commons and nature is as exciting as the hoarding of wealth. We may need to encourage people to become stewards of wealth and not hoarders of it. We may need to create a world where people are so overwhelming attracted and aroused into ecstasy by the idea of the creation of regenerative earth based communities, sustainable technologies, holocratic and mutualistic businesses, and a more beautiful world that they come to it crawling across the floor in ecstasy and offer their wealth and their service to rebuild the commons as one might offer themselves to a tantric God or Goddess. We may need to enflame in people an immense sensual lust for a more abundant, sustainable and socially just world.

We may need to embody a world of beauty, where grief, the grotesque and the troubling are also safely held and honoured, and we need to embody such a world with enormous ferocity, tenacity and passion. We may need to re-create abundant traditions of wild story, song, dance, music, deep ceremony and re-introduce vast and immense mythos, elaborate sensual clothing and rituals back into everyday life. We may need to embody a world in which life becomes a mystery theatre in which we can metamorphosis into or communicate with fierce animals or birds together and in which we can gather together in council and bring forward all the ghosts and tensions in our communities to be seen, listened too and processed.

We may need to tell stories that have such mythic numinous power they will recreate reality itself. We may need to embody a world in which everyone is filled with such cultural, ceremonial and mythological richness that it is as if they are a walking abundant universe in themselves. A world in which we touch into the medicine powers behind hatred, apathy, numbness and addiction and alchemically transform them into love, cunning, grief, ferocity, playfulness, wonder and magic.

We may need to create a world in which technology, indigenous wisdom and mythos become one and human beings learn to re-dream the world alongside the spirits of nature in sweet sacred magic. We may need to embody a world in which business, art and community become one. We may need to create a world on which we learn to stand up fiercely in solidarity against the people we hate and despise but also in which some of us learn to listen to the people we hate them with such grief, aggression, compassion and love that we can feel their feelings in our own bodies and we become momentarily one organism.

We may need to embody a world in which children are free of oppression and can play in the magic. A world in which people are not just born human but become human through many deep ceremonial initiations through their life. We may need to learn to ride the dragons that dream, history and time and the world into existence instead of letting them destroy us. We may need to embody a world in which the Gods of destruction and conflict that manifest as the chaos that we see everywhere in the world today are seen as exhilarating ecstatic powers that we can respectfully tap into to help us find power and build stronger loving community