In the Bible, the devil is a less-than-prominent figure in the Old Testament, but his role expands in the New Testament. What is perhaps most curious about his role there is that he is portrayed, not as `a' tempter, but as `the' tempter of people. When it seems clear to the reader that a passage is describing a person being tempted by his own ego, these texts state quite unequivocally that it is the devil which is tempting them. When, after having just received the `Spirit of God' and all the power that implies, Jesus then went into the desert to confront the ambitions of his own ego, the Bible states that the devil tempted him. When Peter's ego swelled so strong he dared to rebuke Jesus (Matthew 16:23, Mark 8:33), Jesus actually called Peter `Satan'. And in another place, Jesus also calls another disciple, Judas, "a devil" as well (John 6:70); He doesn't say Judas `had' a devil, or even that he was `possessed by' a devil, but that he actually was "a devil". Imagine that.

Jesus once told a crowd of people that they all were the children of their "father, the devil" (John 8:44), and they wanted only to do his bidding. And in other cases the devil is described as `entering' someone, who would then (from the perspective of the reader, at least) give in to the temptation of their own egos to do something or other (as in Luke 22:3).

And Jesus himself, perhaps the only human ever to completely overcome and subordinate his own ego, testified that he saw Satan "fall like lightning from heaven".

If the devil is not the human ego, it certainly seems at the very least that he does all his work through it!

In the conscious world, a certain psychological element is known as the human `ego', but somehow, it seems to be fundamentally related to the spiritual world's `devil', the legendary master of hell. Moreover, it seems self-evident that those most likely to end up in that hell would be the people who, while alive, always treated their own ego as their `master'.

Could this be? Could the devil and the human ego both somehow be the same thing?

If both heaven and hell indeed do find their existences within the deepest levels of the human psyche (the Primordial Soul, or collective unconscious), the `collective' nature of that largely alien mental dimension would probably produce some extra-ordinary and unanticipated consequences. While in a single individual the ego might only be an insubstantial psychological element, in the collective after-death realm of the unconscious, where completely different rules would be in effect, the relative significance of this `psychological element' could be dramatically changed.

Those most likely to go to hell, according to tradition, would have egos which, having never been subordinated to anything beyond their own self-interest and self-aggrandizement, would be demanding, controlling, selfish, defensive, and generally malevolent to others. And once trapped within the unconscious (a dreamlike realm in which `like' always merges with `like'), such warped egos would find themselves becoming `collectivized':

The deeper layers of the psyche lose their individual uniqueness as they retreat farther and farther into darkness. Lower down ... they become increasingly collective until they are universalized.... BR> - The Collected Works of C.G. Jung, Volume 9, translated by R.F.C. Hull, Princeton University Press, Bollingen Series XX

As the natural effects of the unconscious took effect, the normal distinctions between things would first become blurred, then indistinct, and then virtually nonexistent; all those multiple past- life egos would start to meld, intertwining and coalescing together, eventually forming a single undifferentiated mass of self-absorbed Ego. Growing larger with the death of every new insubor dinate soul, it would grow in time into an impossibly huge megalomaniac of an Ego, a monstrous mistake of the unconscious, an artificially generated entity born and existing exclusively within the unconscious half of reality ( in psychological terms, this would be recognized as a huge "complex"), whose evil characteristics would seem to be virtually indistinguishable from those of the traditional ‘devil'.

The unconscious does not distinguish between `self' and `other'; this is its subjective nature, and all its experience is perceived through this `collective' lens. The deeper into that unconscious one peers, the more absolute this `collective' nature becomes. In life, this is what allows one soul to bond with another, providing one person with the ability to sense and empathize with the feelings of another; as all social workers learn, conscious effort must be made to prevent such natural subjective, sympathetic reactions from overwhelming the rational intellect.

According to Division Theory, of course, in death there would be no conscious mind to make that effort, and so those sympathetic reactions could be expected to reach their maximum effect. Since there is no reason to suppose this `collective' nature would otherwise be altered by death, this tendency of the unconscious to disregard differentiation and perceive all things as connected would seem likely, after death, to allow the multiple past-life egos within the unconscious to meld together, coalescing into a single unit, which, perhaps, is that same psychic entity known since ancient times as the `devil'.

A story in the Gospels provides an excellent illustration of such a `many-into-one' pattern. Jesus asked a certain `evil spirit' possessing a man to identify itself. This entity, repeatedly identified in the scripture as a single entity ("an evil spirit, "he", "him") obviously perceived itself as a single entity as well, since it used the phrase "My name". Yet it apparently also understood that, while single, it was at the same time also composed of many separate individuals, since it later also referred to itself as "we":

When Jesus got out of the boat, a man with an evil spirit came from the tombs to meet him. ...When he saw Jesus ... he shouted "What do you want from me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God?" ...Jesus asked him, "What is your name?" "My name is Legion," he replied, "for we are many."

According to ancient legends and traditions, when the dead enter hell, they become the pos sessions of the devil, becoming fully enslaved to his will. But might this not be because they already had, during their lives, pledged eternal devotion to him? Not knowingly, of course, but the devil may, in effect, disguise himself in life -- as their own egos! And when these lost souls go through life placing the concerns of their own egos above all else, they would, unknowingly, be placing themselves in eternal servitude to the devil himself.

This collective unit would function as a single entity, indeed, as Lord, in that unconscious world, holding complete control over all its members. All those in hell would have gotten there by being fully, unquestioningly devoted to their own egos during life; and once they had become residents in the unconscious realms and were no longer able to think clearly, they would be locked forever in the same belief and behavior patterns they supported when they first entered. The end result of this would be that, while on earth, the ego might merely be an insubstantial personality element, in hell it would attain the status of an evil, omnipotent despot who holds absolute control over all its members.