Summary of text [comment] pages 55 and 56

[The devil lives in the details.

“The metaphor of the devil” as “an order that is parasitic to spontaneous orders” may be useful in understanding our own experiences, as well as biblical witness.

Evil is parasitic on the energy sustaining any spontaneous order, eventually diminishing that order and eroding its abundance.

Ted Peters’ book on radical evil details the process of possession in seven steps. These seven steps may be depicted as an interscoping form:

Blasphemy_3c( cruelty_2c(_1c))

Self-justification_3b( concupiscence_2b(_1b))

Pride_3a( anxiety_2a( unfaith_1a))

All these nested forms are parasitic of the good within their host.]