"Evil and evil spirits, devils and devil possession are the outgrowth of man's inadequate consciousness of God. We must avoid thinking of evil as a thing in itself - a force that works against man or against God, if you will"
About this Quote
The subtext is a quiet rebuke to religious theatricality. Demon language can externalize responsibility and turn moral struggle into paranormal spectacle: the devil made me do it, the world is cursed, other people are agents of darkness. Butterworth counters with a metaphysical psychology that keeps the struggle internal and corrigible. Your job is not to win a war against an entity; it’s to widen awareness, to recover a sense of God as the underlying reality. That’s why the phrase "if you will" matters: he acknowledges the rhetorical convenience of imagining a force "against God", then gently dismisses it as a category error.
Contextually, this sits squarely in 20th-century New Thought-inflected spirituality, where "consciousness" is not just a mood but a lens that shapes experience. For an educator-preacher in that tradition, demystifying evil is an ethical project: reduce fear, reduce blame-casting, increase agency. The risk, of course, is that it can sound like a spiritualized way of soft-pedaling harm. Butterworth’s intent isn’t to deny suffering; it’s to deny evil the prestige of metaphysical independence.
Quote Details
| Topic | God |
|---|---|
| Source | Verified source: On The Air: Talk 3 , The Devil Myth Exploded (Eric Butterworth, 1981)
Evidence:
So, evil and evil spirits, devils and devil possession, are the outgrowth of man's inadequate consciousness of God. I'll say that again. Evil and evil spirits, and devils and devil possession, are the outgrowth of man's inadequate consciousness of God. William James, certainly one of America's most distinguished philosophers, says, "There can be no existence of evil as a force to the healthy minded individual." We must avoid thinking of evil as a thing in itself, a force that works against man, or against God, if you will. (Talk 3; lines 85-86 in transcript). I found this wording in a primary-source transcript of Eric Butterworth's own talk 'The Devil Myth Exploded,' part of the 'On The Air' series. The transcript page identifies it as 'Copyright 1981 Unity, Unity Village, MO 64065.' The quoted wording commonly circulated online appears to compress and slightly alter the original punctuation and lead-in. I did not find evidence, from the sources available, of an earlier book or printed publication containing this exact passage. So the earliest verifiable primary source I could confirm is this 1981 Unity talk transcript/audio page. |
| Cite |
Citation Formats
APA Style (7th ed.)
Butterworth, Eric. (2026, March 7). Evil and evil spirits, devils and devil possession are the outgrowth of man's inadequate consciousness of God. We must avoid thinking of evil as a thing in itself - a force that works against man or against God, if you will. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/evil-and-evil-spirits-devils-and-devil-possession-162117/
Chicago Style
Butterworth, Eric. "Evil and evil spirits, devils and devil possession are the outgrowth of man's inadequate consciousness of God. We must avoid thinking of evil as a thing in itself - a force that works against man or against God, if you will." FixQuotes. March 7, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/evil-and-evil-spirits-devils-and-devil-possession-162117/.
MLA Style (9th ed.)
"Evil and evil spirits, devils and devil possession are the outgrowth of man's inadequate consciousness of God. We must avoid thinking of evil as a thing in itself - a force that works against man or against God, if you will." FixQuotes, 7 Mar. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/evil-and-evil-spirits-devils-and-devil-possession-162117/. Accessed 26 Mar. 2026.
