Thanks for the detailed and thoughtful response.

On your first point, quoting “I'm not sure whether you are saying that it's specifically a human problem”, I wasn't referring to the distinction between humans and animals, rather to Genesis 2 where the tree of knowledge obviously exists before Adam and Eve's choice to eat from it. In God's viewpoint there, the possibility of, or tendency towards, evil must exist already, before human involvement with it.

I agree with your next paragraph, which seems to be in agreement with Genesis 2.

Not quite so sure about your next paragraph. There is nothing intrinsically bad about the material world. God declared the creation good in Genesis 1, which it is. The problem started when souls not intended to participate chose to descend into the material world, at least according to Genesis 2. That is my understanding of why the Gnostics hated the body, because, like the Buddhists, they experienced life as suffering, and realised the mistake of the original sin of the fall into matter. That’s also my understanding of the parable of the Prodigal Son.

On your paragraph on Jung and the reality of evil, I agree with your general thrust, although I didn't mean to suggest he believed in 'objective' evil in the sense you suggest, only as it is perceived within the human psyche.

Thanks for your detailed elaboration of your thoughts on the shadow. You make a compelling argument. You sound as though you have done the work. In all our years of correspondence, I'm not clear if you have a name for the path you currently follow. You have at some point participated in the Gurdjieff work, most of what you say seems to conform to Advaita Vedanta, and you are very knowledgeable about Jung and individuation. If you have done the work on integrating the shadow, have you had an experience of the self in the Jungian sense?