As I always state at my events, the key to healing is in taking an ownership of our own creative potential.  It’s about being responsible for experiences we create in order to perceive the Divine Source from a position of an outsider.  With that in mind, let’s review three typical responses to evil according the the Rosicrucian esoteric Christian model.  

The following essay is inspired by Dr. Robert Gilbert’s book Spiritual Initiation in the Western Tradition.

These three responses to evil are Christic, Ahrimanic, and Luciferic.
1) Ahrimanic spiritual influence is focused exclusively on physical world with no recognition of the spiritual. 2) Luciferic influence is the opposite; it focuses on the spiritual with no regard for the physical.  3) The Christic response is the middle way and is meant to balances the other two, embracing both the spiritual and the physical side. 

From what I’ve seen personally, the mix of all three is most likely to occur; negativity finds its way even into communities aimed to do the good for humanity, to bring healing, protect the planet, etc. 

Christic response recognizes that evil exists for a reason.  Lucifer and Ahriman are not intrinsically evil; rather they adapted their roles to serve as spiritual weight for humanity, and other sentient beings of the Universe, to push against.  By choosing to play these roles, they  are sacrificing their own spiritual progress.

Detrimental influences of Lucifer and Ahriman are essential for our development.  By continuously trying to lead us away from our current line of evolution, they serve a greater purpose of betterment for all sentient beings.  Without this contrast between Good and Evil, it’d be very difficult for us to move up the ladder of spiritual evolution. 

To embrace the Christic response, we must recognize the nature and end goal of the detrimental forces as they work through particular individuals and groups.  The latter come and go, change their name and appearance, but their role is only secondary.  Spiritual forces are the real actors behind the scene, individuals and groups only acting as their conduits.

Christic approach asks us to never hate those who are “sold to the dark side” but rather use the power of Love. 

The Ahrimanic Response on the other hand, uses trauma to cause a reaction of avoidance.  Avoidance prevents us from dealing with important issues in a balanced way.  As a result, our emotional reactions to evil become deeply buried. Trauma creates stagnation in the energy flow; the stagnant areas become anchors for physical illness, breeding ground for dark elementals and access points for detrimental beings.  The dark elementals (aka thought forms) are expressed as impulses towards hatred, revenge, murder, and anger, with a lack of empathy and compassion.  

Ahriman can also create traumatic events on a large scale, as it pertains to whole nations.  Such large scale events are meant to paralyze human development as species.  They create an anchor for detrimental forces to enter stagnant area in the subtle bodies of nations. This is how detrimentals cause hatred, revenge, reactivity, and murder on a mass level.  

It can be helpful to look at negative energies caused by trauma as weights on our soul, both on individual and group levels. Lifting these spiritual weights increases our strength. But detrimental influences are essential for us to push against; they help us develop the strength to reach our full potential.  

In the case of spiritually minded people, Ahriman will choose to drive them into the arms of Lucifer.  Ahriman will again use trauma.  If we get on the course of denial, it becomes a Luciferic response to evil – where we choose comforting ourselves with illusion to avoid  dealing with harsh reality.

Luciferic response is a route of denial.  A typical one is pretending that everything is fine, that things are going according to God’s plan, and /or thinking that we will all be leaving the planet soon.  The idea here is again, to avoid doing a hard work and face trauma in a clear and holistic way.
Understanding these three responses enables us to engage with negative energies on individual and mass scale through love and compassion.

We must always remember that it is not people or groups that are inherently evil but that they are conduits for detrimental influences to enter our dimension. We should then become conduits for balancing forces to counteract and transform these harmful influences; and we’ll be growing and getting stronger in the process.