The perpetrator had no criminal record, not even a wrong parking ticket. Then something in him suddenly burst into the surface and then planned, then executed the shooting of hundreds of people enjoying a country music concert. After the shooter took his life when a SWAT team breached his door on the 32nd floor of the Mandalay Bay Hotel where he had a comfortable vantage position as he squeezed again and again the triggers of his automatic guns on the concert’s audience on the ground below him which included very young children, the number of those whose life he took was 59 and more than 500 were injured.
Where did that evil force that possessed him come from? As if it was a stranger who had lived undetected in the basement, nurturing his evil energy and coming up with an elaborate devilish plan, then he suddenly emerged upstairs, surprising everybody, and started shooting at everyone.
In short, the devil had been there all along somewhere in the killer’s psyche, perhaps in the unconscious, to emerge later in the conscious part of the mind at the opportune time. It was the person’s darker side or the negative side, unexpressed for a good 64 years, the killer’s age. His father after all was a convicted serial bank robber.
Every person and family has a darker side. Some express theirs in a more acceptable way by channeling it in competitive sports and some by literally killing like hunting or fishing. Others are lucky enough to be able to channelize (for energy is energy) it into positive endeavors such as in the arts. This involves some control and discipline for the energy to be tamed. The best way perhaps to get this done is through prayers or meditation or contemplation. Its existence however has to be accepted for it to be channelized to acceptable ways.
Denying this energy’s existence would just make it stronger and stronger in the basement, until it bursts forth in an uncontrollable manner.
The best example of this denied scary energy in the basement was Hitler as would be cited again and again by psychoanalysts the world over. He would be seen on stage as a bit shy or diffident as he begins his speech. Then as his oration progresses, he starts haranguing until he himself appears to have no control over himself, then he has the audience in his total control. So much so that one writer said that even if you went there determined to disbelieve him, you will end up a believer.
Perhaps the simple mischievous energy if denied its existence through duplicity or hypocrisy can become bigger and bigger in the basement until it becomes a monster. Then he bursts forth into the upper floors shooting or killing everybody in sight. **