The Six Markers of Evil | How to Identify and Combat Malicious Intent

[Olga]

This reflection on evil sheds light on how subtle and insidious it can be. The most chilling aspect is that evil often hides behind the guise of righteousness, making it difficult to recognize until it’s too late. It’s a powerful reminder of the importance of vigilance, self-awareness, and the continuous pursuit of moral growth. Understanding these signs can help us protect ourselves and others from the harm that unchecked evil can cause. Ultimately, it calls for us to remain committed to learning and improving, as that’s the path to truly counteracting the effects of evil.

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I've often encountered evil, and what’s interesting is that every time it happened, I only recognized it as evil in hindsight—when it was too late to change anything. It was only in the rearview mirror, so to speak, that I saw it for what it truly was. By then, all I could do was regret not responding to it as I should have.

Most of the time, I blamed myself for not saying the right thing, not doing the right thing, or not reacting in the right way. I’ve met people with an incredible ability to intuitively recognize evil immediately. These people always knew when circumstances gave them the right to cross a line they wouldn’t normally cross. I never had that ability. 

Once, after yet another situation where I replayed in my mind how I should have responded, I decided that this couldn't continue. I resolved to create a list—a cheat sheet of sorts—of the signs of evil so that I could recognize it not when it was too late, but when there was still time to act. 

I've been keeping this list for years, and today, I want to share with you six signs of evil that have helped me recognize it in both myself and others.

1. Evil Believes It Is Good

No one sets out to commit evil. No one wakes up thinking, "I want to do something evil today." Evil survives by disguising itself as good. It fights for justice, seeks revenge for pain, or wants to make others see the error of their ways. People don’t commit evil because they feel invincible; they do it because they believe they are right. That’s why dealing with evil is so difficult—it genuinely believes it’s doing good. This belief is so sincere, so strong, that it’s tempting to treat it with understanding and respect. But you can’t reason with evil or convince it that it’s wrong. If you encounter evil, your priority should be to protect yourself, not to argue with it.

2. Evil Is Always Violent

Evil never negotiates; it is always aggressive, seeking to achieve its goals at the expense of others. Violence isn’t just physical—it's any action that forces someone to go against their will or desires, whether through threats, manipulation, or deceit. Ask yourself: who, in what circumstances, forces you to act against your will? Every instance of this is a form of violence. Although there are rare cases where violence might be justified, unjustified violence is far more common. Remember, it’s not the goals that define evil, but the methods used to achieve them.

3. Evil Speaks in Generalizations

Evil needs justification for its violence, and it often finds it in generalizations. It doesn’t address you personally but rather a category it has placed you in—based on age, gender, nationality, profession, or social status. Evil assigns qualities to you based on these categories: stingy, aggressive, lazy. If someone discusses your character rather than the circumstances, it’s time to defend yourself.

4. Evil Thrives in the Gap Between Perception and Reality

Evil flourishes in the space between how things should be and how they actually are. It doesn't respect reality and always tries to reshape it through violence to fit its ideals. Evil’s goal is to deny reality the right to define itself.

5. Evil Is Lazy

Evil always takes the easiest route. It’s easier to lie than to tell the truth, easier to break a promise than to keep it, easier to force than to persuade. Doing good requires effort; evil does not. Often, those who cause pain do so because they don’t want to invest the time and energy to resolve a problem in any other way.

6. Evil Is Ignorant of Goodness

Choosing between good and evil isn’t a matter of decision but of skill. Evil requires no learning; it just happens. Goodness, however, is something we must learn throughout our lives. The fundamental difference between good and evil is the willingness to learn and strive to be better.

 

[Anderson]

Misconception of Good and Evil
In childhood, we were taught that pain and rejection of evil are noble. But I believe this is a misunderstanding. It’s not the rejection of evil that is noble, but the presence of good. We must also accept evil, and this acceptance should come first. Any evil is a distorted understanding of love, a suffering of the one who does evil, even if they do so with joy and a smile. What we perceive as evil, unpleasant, or bad is a reflection of our own hands, our soul. It is our judgment and a result of the lack of harmony within us.

True Happiness and Removing Masks
The world where everyone is happy is simple. It is populated by people who do not wear masks. We are authentic there, as we are in our souls. This is paradise, the very biblical paradise spoken of by priests, and it is available at any moment, anywhere in the universe. To access it, we just need to remove our masks and be ourselves. Each of us has an infinite ocean of goodness and love. I became convinced of this through various experiments with unsuspecting strangers while learning sales. In conversations with strangers, I managed to find an approach to completely different people in 15-20 minutes.