Our policy, for the moment, is to conceal ourselves...If any faint suspicion of your existence begins to arise in his mind, suggest to him a picture of something in red tights, and persuade him that since he cannot believe in that...he therefore cannot believe in you.
— Screwtape
In Buddhist lore, Mara is the demon that tried to seduce the Buddha. He is personified as the embodiment of unskillfulness, the death of the spiritual life. He is a tempter, distracting us from practicing the spiritual life by making the mundane alluring or the negative seem positive. He has three sons named Confusion, Gaiety, and Pride.
only seem really real when you viddy them on the screen.
Least we forget, Mara also had three daughters named Lust, Delight, and Thirst. Whatever their names, demons transcend religious traditions, and so these demons are truly real and in no way limited to Buddhists as I'm certain that I have met these and personally know many people still under yet unawares to their influence...not least of all our slumbering culture itself.
The 'Life Force', the worship of sex, and some aspects of psychoanalysis, may here prove useful. If once we can produce our perfect work — the Materialist Magician, the man, not using, but veritably worshiping, what he vaguely calls 'Forces' while denying the existence of spirits — then the end of the war will be in sight.
— Screwtape
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