In year 7 I attended Xavier High, a Catholic school in Albury.

I remember stepping out of the school bus in the morning feeling like a dark cloud was following me -

I had just watched the most scariest movie the night before with my family.

You may have heard of it - The Exorcist.

For about 6 months after that, bed time was a terrifying ordeal. I would envision my blanket being taken away by an invisible force in the middle of the night and waking up with my bed shaking madly.

As a Catholic, you believe that the Devil is real.

There’s a line from a movie called ‘The Usual Suspects’ that further planted this belief for me: “The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn’t exist.”

Of course for a long time I didn’t question it, mainly in fear.

What I understood then is that Satan exists in order for us to choose God, to choose light over darkness.

And if you didn’t choose God, then you have chosen Satan and as a consequence, the wrath of God may be upon you.

You had to be ‘God-fearing’.

That term, never sat well with me -

If God is all-loving, a divine example of pure, unconditional love…

Then why am I supposed to fear her?

So I became curious and explored this further over the years (knowing in the back of my mind that even questioning it would be sacrilegious)…

Now, if you’re wondering why I decided to explore this subject, it’s because in my advocacy of Conscious Spirituality, I have learned that some people see that to be the works of Satan.

This includes owning crystals, self-development, questioning authority, viewing yourself as God…

A lot of which I demonstrate in my day-to-day living.

I want to share with you my understanding and like everything that I share, you can take it or leave it.

First, if God is ‘all’ and everywhere, then there can be no place where God is not.

This means God is also nowhere - for if God was ‘somewhere’ then he would be ‘somewhere she is not’.

(In case you’re wondering, I’m interchanging God to be ‘he’ and ‘she’ since I don’t believe God to be either).

Then if Satan does exist, God would be part of Satan since God is nowhere where God is not.

Yet, Satan is described as the absence of God.

Hence the existence of Satan or the Devil would be inconsistent to this concept.

‘Evil’ is simply the result of the distancing of oneself from Who They Are, away from the energy of source which is love, resulting in behaviours that are the opposite of divine love.

This is what we see as the ‘polarity’ - those who are moving towards source and those moving away from source.

God is source Love. Love is not ‘evil’. There are only distorted and toxic expressions of Love.

For example, when sadness becomes depression, anger becomes rage, etc.

Love is all. We are born from the energy of Love and goodness (not sin).

If one believes Satan as some sort of dark entity, like an opposite being to God with a conscious who forces himself into human beings against their own free will and therefore we would need to 'drive him out' through the act of exorcism -

Why would God give us free will if he created the Devil to take away our free will?

Once again, this is inconsistent to my understanding of who God is.

Now, for the big question…

If Satan does not exist, then who gives authority over what’s right and wrong? How can human beings know the difference?

When you are able to demonstrate the true essence of who you are (love) then if anything, you are also showing your understanding of ‘right’ and ‘wrong’.

For someone who truly lives with compassion and the understanding of God’s true love isn’t really going to create harm and judgement to others, will they?

We live in a world of duality of light/darkness, up/down - these are important, why?

Once again, to aid us in remembering and demonstrating Who We Are.

You might think of yourself as ‘the light’ but it is only through experiencing darkness will you know AND experience you are the light.

Duality is part of the human experience in order for God to know and experience who God knows him to be.

But in the world of the Spirit (where we all go back to), or the realm of the Absolute, duality does not exist. In the Absolute is all love.

Hence, this would also be inconsistent with the idea that there is such a thing as the Devil or Satan in the spirit world.

It is only in the world of Duality which this ‘evil’ appears to manifest itself - through our toxic behaviours of demonstrating who we are not by hurting, condemning, judging and killing each other which also results in famine, suffering and other ‘bad’ things we’ve done to ourselves and the environment.

Yet God does not judge us for she has given us free will.

This does not mean God condones behaviours that are the opposite of Love, but God gave us free will and understands that we are all doing our best to express Love.

God has simply placed on us endless opportunities to demonstrate Who We Are.

He has given us God-like powers to create and turn our imaginations into physical reality.

What an incredible gift that is!

Now, what does this all have to do with anything? Why does it matter whether we believe in Satan/Devil or not?

One is because the false belief in Satan has actually created not only fear but separation within our species.

We've come to believe that we can be separate from God which means we must be also separate from each other.

It is this illusion of separation that has led many of us to demonstrate who we are not, since if "you are there and I am over here" then we must be disconnected.

As a result, we judge, hurt, condemn and even kill each other. We do harm not just to others but to animals and the environment.

But when you begin to understand Who You are, you realise that everything and everyone are all One.

We are connected both in a Spiritual sense but also in science (see my article, Bridging Spirituality & Science).

We would be able to apply the Golden Rule where Jesus said, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”

This understanding would be revolutionary.

One that I believe, would create a more just and loving world.