Wetiko: The Necessity of Facing Evil Within & The Trap of Externalizing All Evil

By Bernhard Guenther, August 31, 2024

“If only it were all so simple! If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line separating good and evil passes, not through states, not between classes nor between political parties either – but right through every human heart – and through all human hearts. This line shifts. Inside us, it oscillates with the years.”

– Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

Topics:

- Misconceptions And Distortions About Wetiko
- Wetiko Makes Us Think The Problem Is Outside Of Us
- Wetiko Hijacks Your Creative Potential And Turns It Against You
- Evil Within You Is Not Always That Obvious
- The Blindspot Of Many Anarchist and Alternative Communities Within The Truth Movement
- The Charlatan, Evil Persona, And Shameless Impersonator Within You
- The Necessity For Psycho-Spiritual Work For The Next Stage Of Humanity’s Evolution
- Resources For Inner Work
- The Four Ignoble Blindnesses Of Wetiko

Paul Levy, the author of three books on Wetiko, defines Wetiko as a contagious psycho-spiritual disease of the soul, a parasite of the mind, that is currently being acted out en masse on the world stage via an insidious collective psychosis of Titanic proportions.

This “mind virus” – which Native Americans have called “wetiko” – covertly operates through the unconscious blind spots in the human psyche, rendering people oblivious to their own madness and compelling them to act against their own best interests.

I have referenced Wetiko extensively in my writings over the past ten years since Levy published his first book, Dispelling Wetiko, in 2013. Paul was also on the Cosmic Matrix podcast three times, where we explored this topic more deeply in the context of current and past events:

The topic of Wetiko has become more popular over the past few years thanks to Paul’s incredible research and revelations based on personal experiences. More people are also open to this information out of necessity, considering the state of the world as people look for deeper answers and insights.

Misconceptions And Distortions About Wetiko

However, with the popularity came many distortions and false ideas about Wetiko. I have noticed that many people have made up their own concepts and assumptions without ever having sincerely researched the subject.

Paul has also encountered a lot of distortions and premature assumptions about wetiko over the years to the point of making up a name for it: Premature Comprehension Delusion, or PCD:

“Wetiko has myriad ways of derailing any serious investigation into its nature. Oftentimes, for example, I’ll meet a person or a group of people who seem genuinely interested in wetiko and want to learn more.

They’ll ask me a couple of questions and then, after hardly any time at all, they think they’ve got it and feel they sufficiently understand what it’s all about—an attitude that short-circuits any deeper inquiry into realizing the endlessly mind-blowing revelation that is wetiko.

When this plays out, instead of them “getting” the radical nature of wetiko, wetiko has “gotten” them. I have come up with a name for this syndrome: premature comprehension delusion, or PCD.”

– Paul Levy, Undreaming Wetiko

One significant distortion is the tendency to see only Wetiko [and evil] in others, a particular group, or the “system.”

It’s the same trap and illusion to see the matrix only “out there” [in its various 3D manifestations] and not realize how the matrix and wetiko also work through us. It is based on the illusion that the outside world is separate from us.

Ironically, the insistence on only seeing evil out there and projecting the matrix externally keeps Wetiko and evil in power while people fight shadows on the wall. As a result, many people – even within the truth movement – have become “infected” by Wetiko, projecting it onto others and the world at large.

“We all potentially have wetiko, as it pervades and informs the underlying field of consciousness. Any one of us at any moment can fall into our unconscious and unwittingly become an instrument for the evil of wetiko to act itself out through us and incarnate in our world.

If we see someone who seems to be taken over by wetiko and we think that they have the disease and we don’t, in seeing them as separate we have fallen under the spell of the mind “virus””.

– Paul Levy, Healing the Mind-Virus That Plagues Our World

You can see it in people who are primarily negatively oriented and only see psy-ops out there with very over-simplified black-and-white views of “good” and “bad” based on psychological splitting and lacking nuance.

Lack of psychological self-awareness [inner work] and blind to a spiritual higher vision [in the context of the evolution of consciousness], many people hardly recognize any goodness [and the Divine Force] anymore but become harned, nihilistic, and disembodied (caught in the head.)

As a result, they are disconnected from Essence and their creative potential. Being disconnected from their true self, Wetiko installs a counterfeit false persona mistaken for the “true self.” This false persona becomes the vessel through which Wetiko and, as an extension, the occult hostile forces create their desired reality through negative projections.

Wetiko Makes Us Think The Problem Is Outside Of Us

One of Wetiko’s favorite strategies is to make us think the problem is outside of us while, in truth, the real problem is our misconception of who we are. As Levy writes, “Once we realize this, we can turn our attention inward, which is where the source—and the solution—of our problem is to be found.”

“When we connect with our authentic self, with our true nature, we discover that our nature is naturally creative. To remember who we really are is to connect with our creativity; and in a positive feed- back loop that generates abundant life, to express oneself creatively deepens our knowledge of who we truly are and further reveals our essential nature.

Since the root essence of the wetiko mind-virus is not knowing one’s true nature, not recognizing who we truly are, this then insures that our true nature, instead of expressing itself creatively in service to ourself and others, will be channeled destructively in a limited and uncreative way that drains our life force.

If we don’t mobilize our creative resources, wetiko is more than happy to use our inner assets in a way that serves its agenda rather than our own true nature. Instead of endlessly tapping into our source and resourcing and refreshing ourselves, our own natural reserves get turned against us in a way that creates a nightmare, just like the one we are currently dreaming up in the world.”[…]

Wetiko subversively turns our “genius” for reality-creation against us in such a way that we become bewitched by the projective tendencies of our own mind.

Falling under wetiko’s spell, we become entranced by our own intrinsic gifts and talents for dreaming up our world in a way that not only doesn’t serve us, but rather, is put at the service of wetiko (whose agenda is contrary to our own). Our creativity then boomerangs against us such that we hypnotize ourselves with our creative genius, which cripples our evolutionary potential.

To the extent we are unconsciously possessed by the spirit of wetiko, it is as if a psychic tapeworm or parasite has taken over our brain and tricked us, its host, into thinking we are feeding and empowering ourselves while we are actually nourishing the parasite.

Wetiko is a virulent, psychic pathogen that insinuates thought-forms and beliefs into our mind which, due to their misleading and false nature, when unconsciously accepted and acted upon, feed it, and ultimately kill its host – us.”

– Paul Levy, ibid

As I wrote in “Facing The Deep State And Psy-Op Within Yourself—The Essence Of Shadow Work,” most people, normies, and “awake” truthers alike indulge in their projections (sometimes truthers even more than normies, ironically).

The mind and reality (by extension through the process of projective identification) will always give them a “reason” and “justification” to indulge in their projections—augmented with thought injections by occult forces [and wetiko] that trigger their unconscious shadow to feed off the emotionally charged projections of the suppressed shadow.

As Paul Levy explained in his work, this is also the modus operandi of wetiko tagging into the shadow – it feeds you what you want to see to feed off you even more. That’s why trying to expose all the lies, psy-ops, and conspiracies “out there” in the world is an endless feedback loop because “you” and the collective psyche will “dream up” more of the same, living under the illusion that the outside world is separate from “you.”

Until you stop externalizing, withdraw your projections, focus the vision within, and start living from within—grounded and embodied in Self – and reclaim your creative potential that has been hijacked against you. The wetiko-infused psyche and suppressed shadow will pull more of the same out of the “magician’s hat” to justify your projections, and you become like Don Quixote, fighting illusory windmills or shadows in Plato’s allegory of the cave.

“Wetiko is powerless to control our true nature, but it can control and manipulate this false identity which it sets up within us. When we fall under the sway of wetiko’s illusion, we simultaneously identify with who we are not, while dissociating from and forgetting who we actually are – giving away our power, not to mention ourselves, in the process.”

– Paul Levy, ibid

Wetiko Hijacks Your Creative Potential And Turns It Against You

As you identify with the counterfeit version of yourself and externalize all evil, augmented by Wetiko, you will see and create more of what you claim to fight against externally. It’s an endless loop. Living in that externalized state – especially constantly glued to the internet in a disembodied state – you are more vulnerable to manipulation and control while you believe [lie to yourself] that you are “awake”, “free”, and “sovereign.”

As within so without. What we see playing out in the external world disguised as conspiracies, psy-ops, or the deep state is also related to our personal and collective shadow. That which we don’t face within ourselves is also manifested in the outside world as “fate” on an individual and collective level. Hence, all there is are lessons.

It’s very important to understand and see within ourselves how we can easily become unwitting agents of Wetiko, for we all have the potential for evil within. It’s part of our shadow.

No one is exempt, and if you think you are exempt and think you are only “good” and “virtuous” and see only evil “out there” in others, then you have already become a wetiko-infected agent of evil – and the matrix “has you.”

This is how Wetiko disguises itself. You are blind to it within yourself but only project it externally, creating more evil via projective identification. That’s how most humans are trapped in a frequency prison distracted by the shadows on the wall, creating and feeding more of the same, just in different disguises.

Wetiko-infused evil is not always apparent but works in more subtle ways. It tags into your unacknowledged shadows, traumas, ego blindspots, and weaknesses, giving you thought suggestions and desires that are not of your own but that you think are your own. It works with temptation while targeting your lower nature of vanity, lust, narcissism, envy, jealousy, greed, self-importance or self-pity, and poor-me consciousness, and so on.

Most of all, it feeds on fear and revels in blame and victim consciousness, caught in the endless drama triangle of victim-rescuer-perpetrator.

Evil Within You Is Not Always That Obvious

“In general, looking at one’s own shadow is purely disagreeable, it is no fun, and the results also are not very amusing, but it has one great advantage: the more one knows about one’s own wickedness, the more one is able to protect oneself against that of other people.

The evil within oneself recognises evil within the other. If I am naive about my own evil intentions, then I shall fall victim to those of others. Everybody can lie to me and I shall believe them, or they will play tricks on me, and I shall fall for it every time and be the poor babe in the wood, the fool who had such good intentions, but whom the evil world has treated badly.

That does happen, especially to young people, and generally to naive people-they are really harmed by evil people. But indirectly, they themselves are guilty, for they haven’t sufficiently realised the evil within themselves.

If they knew more about that, they would acquire a kind of extrasensory perception for the evil of others. The idealistic fool who gets cheated by everybody and always has bad tricks played on him cannot be helped by pity, but only by being led to his own shadow.”

– Marie-Louise von Franz

Evil, in this context, doesn’t have to be apparent wrongdoings and crimes like murder, violence, rape, etc. In Buddhism, there is the concept of far enemies and near enemies of the four Divine Virtues (Brahma-Vihara). These Divine Virtues are:

1. Equanimity (Inner Balance/Peace)
2. Loving Kindness
3. Compassion
4. Sympathetic Joy

Every virtue has a far enemy, its opposite, which is very obvious. The far enemies of equanimity are instability, agitation, craving, and paranoia – for Loving Kindness; they are hate and ill-will – for Compassion; they are cruelty and sadism – for Sympathetic Joy; they are jealousy, resentment, and envy.

The near enemies of these virtues are more challenging to discern, especially in ourselves, and that’s how Wetiko easily gets in under the disguise of distorted virtues.

The near enemies of equanimity are indifference, cynicism, and apathy – for Loving Kindness; they are sentimentality, selfish affection, conditional love, and co-dependence – for Compassion; they are pity and feeling sorry for others [diminishing them] – for Sympathetic Joy; they are hypocrisy, phoniness, and exuberance.

All these near enemies are aspects of “evil” [i.e., they are not aspects of the true Self], and we all have them inside of us—unless we are enlightened and continuously live in Joy, the state of our eternal soul’s being of the true Self.

Many pathological traits have become normalized in today’s sick society. We live in a wetiko-infected world, and it’s within all of us, at the very least, in the potential. For example, when you look at another person’s behavior and say, “I could or would never do that,” or shame others with projected anger, envy, superiority/inferiority online or offline [even non-verbal via your thought projections], wetiko has you in its grips, and you don’t know it.

The Blindspot Of Many Anarchist and Alternative Communities Within The Truth Movement

Wetiko operates nonlinearly, nonlocally, and multi-dimensionally. You can’t hide from it or escape from it physically.

Over the years, I have witnessed many “anarchist” communities and movements striving for “sovereignty” and “independence,” trying to ”exit the system.”

However, their lack of spiritual (and psychological) development and insight (primarily via externalizing everything and not sincerely facing evil within but only projecting it externally) resulted in disintegration and many other issues – a classic example of what Gurdjieff called the “trap of the revolutionary mind.” It’s how easily Wetiko can take over these communities through its members unconsciously.

“One of the reasons wetiko is so hard to pin down is that it has multiple channels of operation: both covert and overt, inner and outer and everywhere in-between. Wetiko simultaneously operates intrapersonally (within our own mind), interpersonally (through our relationships), and transpersonally (through collective world events).

Each of these—our individual, relational and collective processes—are internested iterations of a deeper fractal – which is to say that these different dimensions of our experience are actually indivisibly interconnected and inter-reflective of each other. All of these multi-dimensional processes are informed by wetiko in different yet similar ways.”

– Paul Levy, Healing the Mind-Virus That Plagues Our World

It doesn’t imply not striving for communities and self-sustainability. However, if it is a mechanical reaction under the assumptions that matrix or “system” is something we need “exit” or “escape” from physically not realizing that the outside world is a reflection of our internal landscape and unconscious, and we are only fixated on seeing the problem “out there” [as Wetiko tricks us into thinking], then Wetiko has us already in its grips, and nothing will change fundamentally in the outside world.

The Charlatan, Evil Persona, And Shameless Impersonator Within You

“This hidden foe lodged in the human breast Man must overcome or miss his higher fate. This is the inner war without escape.”

– Sri Aurobindo

Wetiko feeds through you and makes you feel “better” about yourself in comparison to others [looking down on “normies,” “sheeple,” or “statists”]. It strengthens the false self you mistake for the true self. It’s an extremely hard addiction to break, for it indulges in your lower nature and is supported by society and your peers of consensus reality overtaken by a group hive mind entity. It feeds on identification with a side, belief, ideology, movement, group, etc.

Be honest with yourself. How quickly do you judge anyone you see on social media with your projected negativity as you scroll down the timeline? How much do you feed off of any attention you get? Wetiko is right there in you, and it’s very mechanical and without “free will.”

Your ego-personality and wounded self will rationalize, justify, and deny the potential for evil within you. Even as you read this article, wetiko is already trying to give you excuses for denying it all.

Wetiko will overinflate you with narcissistic self-importance or dimmish you with self-pity, false humility, and avoidance, trying to hide from everyone. It acts out in passive or overt aggressiveness. It will try putting others down [even just within your mind via thought injections] to make you feel better about yourself. It will get you stuck in pride, not being able to admit that you are wrong and lying to yourself.

Side note: Letting go of pride and blame is a crucial breakthrough in one’s spiritual evolution based on the map of consciousness (David Hawkins) to rise above 200. Eighty percent of humanity is below 200, which is also the frequency where Wetiko and the occult hostile forces have easier access. More here:

I put this mirror right on me. I can see all the traits within me, all aspects and potential of evil, lurking and waiting to project and act out if there is anything unconscious within me it can grasp and tag into.

All these are seeds of evil—of “The Ignorance,” as Sri Aurobindo called it. In his work of the Integral Yoga, Sri Aurobindo also hinted at Wetiko, the false counterfeit version of us. He referred to it as:

“…An incorrigible charlatan and actor, full of hidden movements…a shameless impersonator,…covering himself with a sevenfold overcoat of tragedy and gloom, and he would not feel his existence justified if he couldn’t be colossally miserable.

At every moment he [the seeker] must proceed with a vigilant eye upon the deceits of the ego and the ambushes of the misleading Powers of Darkness. Wherever desire and ego harbor, passion, and disturbance harbor with them and share their life.”

– Sri Aurobindo

Sri Aurobindo also calls it the Evil Persona, mimicking the true self as Wetiko does. It attaches within us and is the exact opposite of what we are trying to achieve on our path toward awakening:

“A person greatly endowed for the [Great] work has always or almost always, a being attached to him, sometimes appearing like a part of him, which is just the contradiction of the thing he centrally represents in the work to be done.

Or if it is not there at first, not bound to his personality, a force of this kind enters into his environment as soon as he begins his movement to realize. Its business seems to be to oppose, to create stumblings and wrong conditions, in a word, to set before him the whole problem of the work he has started to do.”

– Sri Aurobindo

Similar to Wetiko, Sri Aurobindo also points out in his own words that the “pathogen” of the evil persona is also the “medicine” and, when utilized correctly, helps one to advance in the work and accomplish the goal:

“It would seem that the problem could not, in the occult economy of things, be solved otherwise than by the predestined instrument making the difficulty his own. That would explain many things that seem very disconcerting on the surface.”

As The Mother explained:

“You have a special goal, a special mission, your own particular realization, and you carry within yourself all the obstacles needed to make this realization perfect. Always you will find that shadow and light go together in you: you have a capacity, you have also the negation of that capacity.

And if you discover a very dense and deep-rooted shadow in you, you can be certain there is also a great light somewhere. It is up to you to use the one in order to realize the other.”

– The Mother Mirra Alfassa

The Necessity For Psycho-Spiritual Work For The Next Stage Of Humanity’s Evolution

Witnessing its mechanicalness within is what Gurdjieff called coming face to face with the “terror of the situation” or the “trickster and charlatan within,” in Sri Aurobindo’s words. These are just different expressions for facing wetiko within oneself. That’s when the real work begins. Anything else is just shadowboxing or spiritual bypassing.

But I also know that wetiko ONLY has power if it is left unchecked—if I deny it within myself and shove it into the shadow of my unconscious or project it on others in an oversimplified black-and-white manner where we only see “good” or “bad” without nuance—the process of psychological splitting.

That’s where Wetiko thrives, and the occult hostile forces take over and tag into – in the parts of yourself, you are not aware of or any pathologies you have normalized and justified within yourself. As long as I pretend to be all “good,” I have given Wetiko more power as it drives my life unconsciously. It comes out in mechanical self-sabotaging ways, even potentially hurting others.

As an extension, by shoving it into the shadow, you feed and “create” the evil “out there” collectively. You then also feed the hostile forces that feed on all human unconscious mechanical behavior and projections. The only way to defeat wetiko and evil is to make it conscious and turn the pathogen into medicine, for it contains its remedy.

This is a highly vulnerable process because you need to allow yourself to feel feelings you have suppressed for years and even lifetimes. “Toughing it out” or escaping into the head creates more armor, avoidance, and entry points for Wetiko.

Paul Levy also points out Wetiko’s teaching function. By engaging in inner psycho-spiritual work, we turn the “pathogen” into “medicine.”

“Its own self-revelation, wetiko disease provides its own psychic medicine, but in order to receive its healing ‘benefits’ we have to recognize and more deeply understand this miracle in psycho-spiritual health care.

The very thing that is potentially destroying us is at the same time waking us up. A potential catalyst for our evolution as a species, we are all co-creating and dreaming wetiko up together.

Wetiko is a truly quantum phenomenon, in that it is the deadliest poison and the most healing medicine co-joined in one superposed state. Will wetiko kill us? Or will it awaken us? Everything depends upon if we recognize what it is potentially revealing to us.

The powers of darkness are coming up, and we need to come to terms with what they are revealing – or suffer the consequences. Contrary to solely being a sign of increasing moral degeneracy or decay, the revelation of darkness is a necessary and critically important part of the next stage of humanity’s collective psycho-spiritual evolution.”

– Paul Levy, ibid

Before we can awaken, we must admit to ourselves how asleep we really are. Before we can truly discern truth and lies in the world out there, we must face the lies we tell ourselves first and foremost, which is the hardest part for the avoidance, justifications, and rationalizations of the wetiko-infected mind will avoid the necessary “disillusionment” at any cost, getting stuck in blame and victim consciousness, self-pity, or self-importance.

That’s why working alone is hard and limited: Your wounded ego will trick you, as you cannot see yourself objectively. We need to engage with others in the same Work so we don’t get off the path. This has also traditionally been the role of a “guru” or “teacher”: a mirror to help you see yourself clearly, not someone who saves you or gives you knowledge and information.

I would not have been able to do the Work over the years without my teachers, mentors, friends, and partner. There is a limit to how much self-work you can do on your own, for wetiko will eventually trick you.

Before we can do ”good” in the world and “help” others, we must face the potential for evil within ourselves, our selfishness, and our narcissism and recognize how we already contribute to it. Again, I’m not taking myself out of the equation.

Great humility is needed, but not a distorted humility of self-diminishment. We need the humility to admit how insincere we actually are without blaming ourselves or falling into a spiral of internalized shame when we face the parts of ourselves we’d rather not see or acknowledge.

But the only way out is through. In my exploration of the shadow within and Wetiko entry points, I have also found the Divine, my essence and true Self that rises above all, for Wetiko can’t take over, possess, or affect our true nature.

But no steps can be skipped, and it’s easy to slip off at any point during the Ascent and Descent.

There is still much more work to do. The resistance of the lower nature and collective slumber of the masses are palpable, but we are far beyond the point of return.

Everything is interrelated. Nothing is isolated.

As within, so Without. As Without So Within.

Resources For Inner Work

Learn more about how to do this inner work and ignite your creative potential, bringing forth your true Self and closing off any entry points for Wetiko and occult hostile forces:

The Four Ignoble Blindnesses Of Wetiko

A play on the Four Noble Truths of Buddhism by Paul Levy

1. You are blind to your own blindness, i.e., you are doubly blind. You’re blind and you do not know you are blind and in fact imagine that you can see clearly and come to believe that you can see more clearly than those who are clear-sighted. You then become unaware of what it is to be sighted, as you have no reference point for comparison.
2. You are blind to the very existence of wetiko and its malign effects within your mind. You do not see how you are unwittingly colluding with wetiko’s pernicious effects and thereby you are unaware of how you are having negative or ill effects upon others and the world.
3. You are blind to your own light, which is to say that wetiko blocks you from seeing both your own darkness as well as your own light. You are blinded to and incapable of seeing your true nature and identify instead with a false imposter of who you truly are.
4. You are blind to the fact that wetiko is a revelation. Being blind to your blindness, being blind to the existence of wetiko, and being blind to your own light necessarily results in being blind to wetiko’s revelatory function. Wetiko is potentially revealing your own creative genius, power and agency. Recognizing that wetiko is a revelation is to realize that wetiko contains encoded within it not just its own medicine and cure, but a blessing, for it is helping you to wake up to the dreamlike nature of the universe and to remember who you actually are.