Twisted Architecture: Evil manisfesting itself visually
Mississauga, Ontario
The folks at the Orthosphere have an interesting discussion about evil in a recent post. In the comments on the post, J. Smith writes:
Have you ever walked into a room where really bad people were doing really bad things? I have, once or twice, and it seemed to me there was something hanging in the air like a bad odor. It wasn’t an odor I smelled with my nose; I sensed it with my soul, much as I sense beauty or goodness. When we sense beauty, we often say that it is “sweet.” When I sensed evil, I would say that it was fetid, like the combined odor of soiled laundry, rank garbage and stale urine.I agree with him, that some react viscerally to evil. I think I do. I think it is a manifestation of my whole body trying to find beauty, and when it is absent, or rather when it's opposite is present, I react viscerally. I literally get scared, and there is nothing seemingly tangible to make me afraid. If I say " I don't like this place, let's leave," people often look at me as though I'm a little unstable.
I react to smell. This is natural, an unpleasant smell can mean an unwashed person, or a dirty road (with stale urine, as J. Smith writes). But the smell I detect is rancid, pervasive, and has an odd pungent sweetness about it. As though it will not go away, and will embalm me as well. It can be on a person, in a room, or in some public place like a park or a store. In one grocery store, I finally had to tell the manager that the smell is unacceptable. He tried to air the store (clean the floor with detergent, spray air freshener, etc.), but the smell never went away. And I stopped going.
I react to sound. But these days, everything is at a higher volume, from the sound in movie theaters, traffic on the road, and even people's conversations. Many times conversations are conducted on cell phones, in extra loud voices, as though being on the phone renders one deaf. And these days in Toronto, there are a lot of loud, foreign languages. Indian and Chinese dominate. The Chinese languages especially seem harsh and aggressive, as though they are a manifestation of the people, their character and intentions. I avoid restaurants during rush hours, or sitting next to groups of people I know will converse at a higher volume. Thus, it seems as though the universe is getting louder with ugly noises, and with people blithely participating in those noises.
I react to taste. Food that smells bad often means food gone bad, so this is again a natural, physiological reaction. But I seem to have acquired some kind of "inner" taste, where I detect a ingredient that I cannot define, but which makes me unable to eat the food. And it is not a matter of cleanliness, or the food gone bad, but something unpleasant about that "ingredient" which closes off my appetite.
I react to objects. My Reclaiming Beauty website is really an attempt to bring back visual beauty into our otherwise ugliness-infested world. But, wherever I go, I see ugliness: in badly constructed buildings, in the drab grays that people wear, in the lack of simple etiquette of "thank you" and "excuse me." This afternoon, as I was riding up the elevator, I saw a man carrying a child approach the closing doors. I pressed the "open" button so he could get in. He did make it in, and stood at the corner, without even a sliver of a thank you. "You're welcome" I said, looking at him. Nothing. He looked Philipino, or from one of those hybrid Asian countries. The fine art of etiquette is out the window (or the elevator) if people can no longer even make small talk in elevators, for whatever reason.
There is some kind of animalistic, aggressiveness behavior that is seeping into our atmosphere. It is not simply narcissism, but a dearth of sensitivity, and humanness. In some cases, it is downright callous as though people have become possessed with something strong and evil.
As another commenter at the Orthosphere writes:
Some part of me believes that the Lord is allowing the Enemy to run rampant in the world so people like me can open their eyes, recognize supernatural evil, and reach desperately for God’s mercy. I hate sounding like a millennialist. Perhaps it was always this way. However, this degree of evil, such that the powers that be call evil good, and good evil, seems better explained by some horned influence. Everything seems to be so outside the acceptable range of moral behavior; its cognitive dissonance makes me believe that there is something supernatural at hand. It may be a blessing in disguise, because if the prince of this world is out there, so is the Lord. However, it pains me to think about my children, who will inherit an Earth under Satan’s dominion, and will have to endure trials that perhaps few of us are prepared to endure.I really think we have reached that stage, and we need to prepare ourselves for the consequences.
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Posted By: Kidist P. Asrat
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