Why does a good person who harms us wound us so much and seem to hide in different parts of us so well? If we have souls, it seems to cut to their core. All the good the person has done for us or will do becomes insignificant. This is irrational.
We often fear our wounds so much that the fear itself deepens them when they are inflicted. And once we’ve been hurt in a particular way, it becomes easier for future wounds to cut deeper and linger longer. We get a wound and it brings a threat - that is another wound. How slow or ineffective God is at helping adds yet another wound! A loop system is created - that might get more and more complicated and hence powerful.
Our own evil whether done to ourselves or others leaves a mark too. We will not concentrate on that now.
If we forgive those who betray us or hate us, how real is it when our problem with them has been taken too far?
We respond to harm as if it were an evil force. The subconscious treats it as such - as a mysterious seed or Pandora's box. If we are honest, upon hearing that evil is a mere lack of a good that should be there sound empty so this is not surprising. Our reaction to being harmed is disproportionate.
The hurt and experience of evil is treated as a glimpse of transcendent reality - an existential layer. When someone we consider good harms us, the mind doesn’t just see a social breach; it experiences it almost like a glimpse behind the veil of ordinary reality. In that sense, the harm isn’t just personal—it touches on something archetypal or transcendent:
The subconscious doesn’t just register harm as an event; it interprets it as a threat to the integrity of our world - or spirituality. In our minds, harm isn’t a neutral fact—it’s an anomaly, a crack in the expected order. That’s why it feels like something mystical laden with hidden danger- carries potential for unknown consequences. Our emotional brain instinctively prepares for the worst.
Evolutionarily, our brains are wired to overreact to possible threats. Even small harms get magnified because ignoring them could be dangerous. When someone we trust harms us, it’s not just physical safety at stake—it’s social and emotional survival.
If we have souls, they face dangers too so that adds another complication.
Our minds tend to read meaning into events. Harm is rarely experienced as an isolated incident; it becomes symbolic—like a signal that the world is unreliable, that betrayal exists, or that something essential in our relationships is fragile. This symbolic weight inflates the emotional impact.
A symbol can mean far more than its literal message because it carries multiple layers of significance at once. It has an aura of mystery. The symbol's basic depiction, the cultural meanings people attach to it, and the personal associations individuals bring to it all converge. This ability to compress complex histories, emotions, and ideas into a simple form makes a symbol much richer than the words needed to explain it. Because symbols can evoke strong reactions, shift perception, or guide behavior simply by being seen or spoken, they often feel almost magical. Their power comes not from the symbol itself but from the collective belief that gives it meaning, allowing a small sign to trigger large internal or social effects, much like a spell. Most symbolism, unsurprisingly, has occult or supernatural roots. The subconscious treats the symbol as magic or divine - in a literal way.
The symbol becomes a kind of sacrament - "spiritually", culturally and psychologically. A symbol is more than an image - it has some kind of supposed hold and power. Like a sacrament, it is or transmits what it pictures and you make that "real". Something remains unseen beneath the picture - perhaps something disturbing. You can have symbolism without obvious or organised religion. Something buried deep inside you uses the symbol for transcendence or for some other effect usually associated with religion. You cannot have religion without symbolism. Symbolism is the cognitive foundation; religion is the cultural superstructure built on top of it. Evil has symbolic layers and you give it importance directly and indirectly. For example, something that is hated or mourned too much is actually being given backhanded significance.
Pain becomes a kind of reality, where the fear of evil is an intense part of your life. There’s a fear that even seeing evil lets its influence in. And because you still have a human connection to the one who hurt you, you fear that their evil could contaminate you too—for there but for luck or grace go I.
Jung described the shadow as the hidden, unacknowledged side of ourselves or others. When a good person harms us, it’s a real-world encounter with the shadow—not as an abstract idea, but as lived experience. That encounter has a piercing, almost mystical quality.
In moments of hurt, time often feels stretched. The harm feels larger and more significant because we “live” in it longer internally, replaying it, imagining worst-case outcomes, and integrating it into our narrative of who we are and who others are.
It’s almost as if the subconscious interprets the harm as both a threat and a revelation—a small, involuntary initiation into the complexity of life and human nature.
Ultimately, our disproportionate response to harm, especially from the virtuous, can be read as a tacit, implicit religious or spiritual framework: we treat moral ruptures as cosmic signals, symbolic warnings, or glimpses into hidden dimensions of human existence. Even without explicit faith, the psyche behaves as though it is negotiating with forces larger than itself, attesting to the deeply archetypal, almost theological architecture of human emotional life.
People often find spells, prayers, or other healing practices slow or ineffectual. The very part of the psyche that seeks healing is also the part that reacts to harm as something catastrophic, religious/spiritual and symbolic. The subconscious treats wounds—especially those caused by someone we see as good—as anomalies in the fabric of reality, almost like a crack in the existential order. In other words, we read it as trying to send floodwater back into the sea with prayers and spells. Because the mind interprets harm not just as an event but as a threat, a revelation, and a symbolic warning, it generates a kind of inner “spiritual resistance.” This resistance magnifies fear, mistrust, and vigilance, making the psyche cling to the wound as if letting go were dangerous. Since healing practices require receptivity, this defensive posture slows or blocks their effects. The internal world becomes preoccupied with protecting itself from an imagined cascade of hidden consequences, so any attempt to soothe, bless, or repair feels like it’s working against an instinctive, evolutionarily wired alarm system. In that way, healing feels slow not because the practices lack power, but because the mind treats harm as sacred territory—an existential riddle it won’t surrender until it feels the world is safe again.