The Dark Lord’s satanic black magic and cult
The shadow of the hero, protagonist
The Dark Lord is he that attempted to overthrow the Father’s will and Kingdom, to raise the ego, the self to be creator and ruler of creation
In all fictionaly stories the bad guy wants to take control of the world, subjugate everyone to his will and vision, become almost comically a ruler of everything
The ego does not merely believe in sin reluctantly.
It needs sin.
“the most ‘holy’ concept in the ego’s system.”
“the ego made its world on sin.”
“A major tenet in the ego’s insane religion is that sin is not error but truth, and it is innocence that would deceive.”
The greatest trick evil/the devil/satan ever pulled is convincing the world that he DOES exist
Evil is a shadow, is the Ego which sits deep within your own mind, enthroned their by your ignorance and fear
It is very real and present IN YOU - yet it truly has no existence at all
And that is the whole Great War, the Holy Jihad - to vanquish the darkness at the only place it exists - deep within you (Yet, again, having no existence or reality at all except as the shadow of your dreaming mind)
Hell is the thought system:
Sin is real. Guilt is justified. Punishment is necessary. Innocence has been destroyed. Separation succeeded.
Heaven is the recognition:
The error did not alter Reality. Innocence remains. Correction is possible. God’s creation is intact.
The Course is asking you to relinquish the belief that anything you or anyone else has ever done possesses the power to change what God created. Mistakes can be serious and can produce suffering within the dream, but they do not create a sinful identity. The Son of God remains innocent because his reality comes from God, not from his behavior. Forgiveness is the practice of seeing error as correctable rather than making guilt eternal. Salvation becomes possible precisely because the Fall did not succeed: creation remains intact, innocence remains intact, and the apparent sinner is still exactly what God created.
What God created cannot be changed by the dream.