“To a blind soul falsehood no longer seems falsehood, and the evil no longer evil, and so on, for the darkness appears to be light, and the light darkness. On this account the soul will fall into a thousand blunders in matters natural, moral, and spiritual; and what was wine will have turned to vinegar. All this comes about because of failure from the beginning to deny the pleasure…Since this satisfaction is slight, or not so evil, at first, the soul is not careful and allows it to remain so that, like the mustard seed, the evil grows into a large tree. As the saying goes, small mistake in the beginning, great one in the end.” ~ St. John of the Cross
Author’s note: Porn is the devil’s ultimate deception: it is an angel of death disguised as the greatest icon of splendor; case in point - 1990s porn superstar Savannah (aka Shannon Wilsey) appeared as a platinum blonde apparition of celestial proportions; I was completely caught-up in the aura of her beauty. So taken in was I, and the world, that everyone failed to see the growing disquiet and eventual melt-down that wiped the illusion away; the falsehood masked destruction, and the lure of sexual access hid the pain of evil’s reality.