The greater the accumulation, the grosser and more ridiculous the man. Google the evidence! In medieval writing, the devil is described as having a single large-holed nostril through which channel it was possible to see the fires in his brain. Taking it in. Burning it up.
Are we human sticky buns, glue-meisters clinging to persons, possessions and relationships? Trouble that way lies. Not that persons, possessions and relationships are inherently troublesome. Not at all. But stickiness? That’s the devil.
Well, yes. But we created him. He’s a creature of the mind. We do our best to cohabit with this malevolence, whom we call ego or—less clinically—skull rat, described by psychiatrist Paul Holman as “memory-bound, amoral and talks too much.”
We cannot help anyone. The most we can do is create a condition whereby someone is enabled to help himself.
Right action relieves suffering; wrong action intensifies it.
The only devil is dependency.
Men's Work 