Working with clients in psychoanalysis, one of the hardest tasks is helping them to see the negative things they do without realizing it. Self-destructive habits, procrastination of important activities, reckless or careless behaviors -- these all have causes from deep inside that we can't get to without help.

Freud mistakenly linked these to what he called Thanatos -- a death drive -- proposing that we had a drive of destruction directed against life. Freud saw it as a complement to the life drive -- Eros -- and he saw both as part of our nature.

That's a tough one to wrap your head around.

But chew on this: Freud was an atheist. The idea of a struggle between life and nothingness was probable for him. Keppe, though, takes us back a step: we're not programmed for death, so to speak. We're infused with and immersed in life and goodness. Happiness and success is our natural inheritance then. Keppe's eminently hopeful perspective sees problems and anguish as common, but not inevitable parts of nature.

For Keppe, what goes wrong circles back to human doings -- both individually and collectively. Our problem lies in psychological inversion; in a strange way, we're attracted to the dark side, and often repulsed by the good.

Not by nature, then, but by choice.

An even more difficult thing to wrap your head around then.

The Inverted Pleasure in Evil, our episode this time on Therapeutic Theology.

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Back in the 1950s, the CIA and Kremlin got it into their collective heads that figuring out how to brainwash and modify human behavior was a good idea.

Totally illegally, of course. And damaging to any who were submitted to their personality control experiments.

Out of this abusive and paranoid climate came such films as The Manchurian Candidate and Wormwood and even Jason Bourne.

Some have linked various high profile murderers to mind control experiments, but it's difficult to get any final conclusions on those. The whole subject is very secretive, and you get the feeling if you go down that rabbit hole of really sleazy, dark and evil intentions masquerading as national security imperatives.

In Norberto Keppe's scientific work, there is an even more nefarious program going on here on Earth - and it's been happening since the dawn of time. Demonic Mind Control.

And just like it's difficult to find out about those shadowy CIA and Kremlin programs, it's also difficult to find out much about the shady activities occurring on the transcendental plane. And largely for the same reasons - subterfuge. For just as the security agencies hide and deny and obfuscate, so do the spiritual ones. We'll bring some of this spiritual aspect to light today.

Demonic Mind Control, our Therapeutic Theology episode today.

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Dr. Keppe has said many times over the more than 2 decades I've been here in Brazil studying and working with him that no one is good alone. That means we act from influencers in our lives -- and I don't mean the social media kind. Friends and family, lovers and mentors, teachers and priests and padres -- all have had their positive effect on us.

And then, since we're dealing with theology in this series, we have to consider the influence of spiritual forces, too. Those transcendental bodies, like guardian angels and souls that have passed on but reach back through the ether to inspire and direct us.

Beethoven used to say that God was shouting in his head, and the only thing that gave him any relief was to write it down.

And just look at the legacy that left us!

The other side of that statement about not being good alone, of course, is that we're not bad alone either. Negative influences are listened to in our society, from envious critique offered freely at the water cooler at work, to oft observed corruption in social institutions, to individuals demonstrating "flexible" morals.

And then there is demonic suggestion. Much discarded in our modern world, of course, but well accepted in some theological circles.

Following those negative impulses from within and without leads us to some crazy behavior -- the kind that causes us to cringe when we look back at it. And it also causes guilt. Which is good because it shows us we still have a moral compass.

But it doesn't feel all that great, which is why we try to rationalize it away or excuse ourselves or, more seriously, drown it in whiskey.

The voice we hear in those moments when we are tempted to fall is important to understand. Not admitting our guilt and responsibility can lead to some sleepless nights. Or even panic attacks and phobias. But maybe, accusations that are not entirely our own.

Silencing the Accuser in this episode of Therapeutic Theology.

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