The experience of spiritual connection with God or Satan often produces a profound almost magical feeling and practice. When someone feels joined to higher power, a sacred ideal, or a transcendent force, it can give the impression that goodness exists outside of themselves and is available to compensate for their own shortcomings. People may even outsource the evil they want to do unto others to compensate for their own lack of courage.
As the process is irrational, one treating God that way will easily move on to doing the same thing with Satan.
Reverse projection is a kind of compensatory idealization. That is, the psychological and spiritual tendency to externalize goodness onto a perfect figure or ideal (parent, God, Jesus, a savior, a movement) in order to relieve oneself of the burden of imperfection or dissonance within the self or group.
As errors give rise to errors, so reverse projection will get worse - maybe slowly - over time.
Let’s unpack reverse projection with care and clarity.
Reverse Projection as Compensation
When someone becomes aware (even vaguely) of the flaws, contradictions, or hidden evils in themselves or their community, they might:
Feel guilt or shame
Fear judgment or collapse of their worldview
Be overwhelmed by moral ambiguity
Instead of facing that directly, they offload the “good” onto a distant figure — often one that is untouchable, holy, or abstract — and allow that figure to "cover" or compensate for what is wrong.
This looks like:
“We may be flawed, but our God is perfect.”
“Our nation is broken, but our ideals are pure.”
“We fall short, but Jesus' sacrifice balances it all.”
“Our leader is divinely chosen, so our faults don’t matter as much.”
This creates a subtle moral outsourcing:
“I don’t have to be good enough, because something beyond me is good enough on my behalf.”
Psychological Dynamics
1. Idealization to manage guilt
The perfection of the Other (God, Jesus, the movement) becomes a way to cope with internal shame. Instead of transforming the self, the burden is shifted upward.
“My sin is real, but Jesus' righteousness replaces mine.”
“Our people are flawed, but our divine mission justifies it.”
This may bring comfort — but also inhibits personal accountability and growth if taken as a license rather than an invitation to transformation.
2. Group dynamics and moral balancing
On a collective level, this shows up in:
Religious nationalism ("Our country is chosen by God")
Church culture ("Our pastor is anointed, so questioning him is wrong")
Ideological purism ("Our side stands for justice, so our mistakes don’t count")
Here, the “goodness” of the ideal is used to balance or excuse the failings of the actual people, often unconsciously.
3. Cognitive dissonance management
Rather than saying:
“We’re flawed and must face it,”
…it’s easier to say:
“We’re flawed, but our savior (or symbol) makes it okay.”
It reduces the tension but also short-circuits the work of repentance, repair, and evolution.
The Risk: Inert Morality
When the “perfect Other” becomes a substitute for self-reflection and ethical action, morality becomes passive:
Apology is replaced by belief
Responsibility is replaced by reverence
Justice is replaced by worship
This creates a moral stagnation where people identify with the ideal instead of being transformed by it.
The Healthier Alternative: Integration
True spiritual or moral maturity doesn’t just idealize goodness — it integrates it.
Instead of saying:
“Jesus is perfect so I don’t have to be,”
…it becomes:
“Jesus is perfect and calls me into that likeness — which requires real change.”
Or:
“My ideals are pure — so I must continually live up to them, not just claim them.”
This means:
Facing the shadow in yourself and your group
Taking real steps toward change
Not using divine perfection as a shield — but as a mirror and guide
Summary
Yes — reverse projection often replaces personal and communal accountability with a kind of moral balancing act:
“Our sins are tolerable because our god/Jesus/ideal is good enough for both of us.”
This comforts but also prevents growth if it becomes an escape from responsibility.
The wiser, deeper path is to allow the ideal to transform, not just compensate.
Subconscious and conscious fear comes from realizing that “evil” isn’t always obvious or easily defined. That fear can lead people to externalize it, try to pin it on others, and thus escape the ambiguity and responsibility of confronting it in themselves. They want to avoid the pain of realizing their own ignorance.
The teaching that God is sacred and deserves service and worship blocks people from blatantly projecting unto him instead of others. While projecting unto God does happen, human nature tends to target the vulnerable and the stranger. If there were a choice, it would be better for them to direct their rage at some supposed God.
Let’s unpack how the lack of clarity about what evil actually is and how it arises and manifests virtually makes projecting it inevitable.
1. Evil is Vague, Not Always Obvious
Many people grow up with the idea that evil is clear-cut — like cartoon villains or extreme violence. But real-life moral failings are:
Subtle
Gradual
Contextual
Entangled with “good” intentions
Cluttered often by religious notions and practices
Examples:
A parent justifies controlling behavior as “love.”
A nation justifies oppression in the name of “order.”
An individual manipulates others “for their own good.”
Once someone realizes evil isn't just "what bad people do," but something that can live in good people, in systems, in themselves — it destabilizes their sense of moral clarity.
2. Fear Arises from Ambiguity
When evil isn’t easily identifiable, it becomes uncanny — "What if I’m part of it and don’t know?"
This leads to:
Moral anxiety: “Am I doing something wrong and not realizing it?”
Fear of complicity: “Have I supported or benefited from harm?”
Loss of certainty: “I can’t tell who the bad guys are anymore.”
This fear can be paralyzing — and instead of sitting with it, people often look for relief.
3. Projecting Evil onto Others as a Coping Mechanism
To escape this discomfort, a person might start projecting evil onto others in an exaggerated or overly simplified way.
“At least I’m not like those people.”
“They’re clearly wrong — I must be okay.”
“I’ve found the enemy — so I don’t have to question myself anymore.”
It becomes a moral shortcut: a way to regain a sense of clarity by scapegoating others.
This happens a lot in:
Political polarization (“They are the real threat to democracy/freedom.”)
Religious purity culture (“They are the sinners; I am the faithful.” "My religion's God is the best version to believe in and serve.")
Identity politics (“Their group is evil; mine is righteous.”)
It creates false certainty to mask internal doubt.
4. The Cycle of Avoidance
What you're describing often becomes a loop:
Realize evil is complex and vague.
Feel fear and moral confusion.
Try to make evil simple again by pinning it on others.
You think -"I could be wrong but at least no evil that is coming knows to mess with me."
Avoid deeper self-examination.
Become more rigid and reactive over time.
It leads to black-and-white thinking, dogmatism, or even paranoia — all in the name of avoiding the gray zone of personal moral responsibility.
The Healthier Alternative: Owning the Ambiguity
A mature person accepts that:
Evil is often entangled with good.
We’re all capable of harm.
Moral clarity requires humility, curiosity, and continual re-evaluation.
Instead of projecting, they:
Interrogate their own beliefs and actions
Stay open to correction
Refuse to demonize others just to feel clean
That’s harder. But it’s real. And it leads to actual growth, not just performative morality.
In short:
Realizing evil is vague and not easily condemned can create fear. And to escape that fear, many project it onto others to feel morally secure. But this only leads to distortion and avoidance. The braver path is to sit with the ambiguity, examine yourself honestly, and resist the urge to scapegoat.
A WARNING
Reverse projection is a form of compensatory idealization—a psychological and spiritual mechanism in which we externalize goodness onto an idealized something. We do this not necessarily because we are evil, but because we are deeply aware of our imperfection.
We could do it for we subconsciously detect - rightly or wrongly that there is evil intent lurking within us.
Or because we fear that the imperfection is opening us up to letting evil take seed in us. We feel we are the ones taking the steps towards evil.
We fear, if we believe in God, that he may see evil in us that we have no idea is there. We know that not detecting the evil in us could be itself a cover, for we make mistakes and are not the best detectors. So not seeing the evil could be because we have evil in us that blinds us.
Whatever, all that awareness creates internal tension—dissonance in us. It worsens when we realise we do not actually know for sure how evil or prone to evil we are.
The awareness calls for relief. We relieve by locating perfection outside ourselves.
The Christians however have managed to turn even good into a spoke in the wheel of reverse projection. They say that God assists all the good they do by means of his gift of grace. They reject Pelagianism that says we can do good that pleases God without his grace assisting us. As reverse projection is hardly an ideal or desirable thing - it follows that belief in grace is condescending and encourages the risks, flaws and deceptions of reverse projection - not that projection in any form should be endorsed. Thus grace while claimed to be a non-judgemental and supportive gift is a myth.