I feel as if none of these recent interviews are getting to the question of evil. Not really. It doesn't explain how evil springs up. Hear me out. As Jack Forbes and Brian Hayden (a previous guest) have pointed out, there is a defect in some humans. Not many -- only some. I don't have a good explanation for this but this seems clear in my opinion (and would be another discussion). I would link it to sociopathy and psychopathy. Now, in more traditional and older cultures that practiced a more egalitarian society, these defective people were kept in check. They couldn't horde resources, claim power over people, divide and subjugate. People had little and shared what they had. Not because they were necessarily good people but because they had to. Everyone had a role and had some level of importance. When cultures become sedentary (always when climate is relatively stable) things changed. Agriculture begins to produce surplus, surplus become wealth, wealth becomes power. The defects, the psychopaths, rise to the top. It is in their nature to do so (some of them think they are chosen to do so). In agricultural societies, that landbase becomes denuded from growing these crops and more land is needed to provide for these needs. Plus population tends to go up when populations are sedentary, meaning more land is needed. So, they encounter other societies that live in surrounding lands and take that land from them. They say "join us and live like us OR we will kill you." And as the psychopaths take more and more land, hierarchical states form, along with hierarchical religions (which usually are the state), and eventually empires. And who takes most of the high positions? These defective people.
Now, these defective people do truly believe that their way is the best way and only way to live. And they generally reinforce and brainwash the populace into thinking this way. They hire the most talented scientists and priests and PR firms and magicians to continually reinforce these ideas. They sometimes hide impressive knowledge be it mathematical, spiritual, military, etc and use it as leverage or as secret power. And sometimes people fight back and send the whole thing, or elements, crashing down. And sometimes the psychopaths run the whole thing into the ground causing people to walk away from the culture (sometimes with famines and wars mixed in). Eventual failure is inevitable because it is the nature of this beast.
And since the hierarchical formula springboards the sociopaths (the defective beings) into places of power, sometimes our local communities can have such people running the show or at least attempting to do so. But in many communities, especially if they have some more egalitarian checks and balances in place, they psychopaths may not be running the show. Sometimes the defectives have no power (but they always want and will find that power by dominating women, children, babies, animals, nature, the vulnerable, etc.).
And all this fear-mongering of magic and the occult and extended consciousness is a little bit silly to me. Some good people practice or integrate these subjects and phenomena (magic, occult, etc.) and some do not. Some bad people practice or integrate these subjects and phenomena and some do not. Some people develop government programs dependent on clinical psychopathy to intentionally or unintentionally spread their evil to the masses.
The daemonic realm, itself, is not set on evil. I don't think that. The question is, does it manifest to the intentions of those entering their realm? Will people with good intentions mostly bring good? Will bad people mostly bring bad? Will fear and close-mindedness bring terrifying reactions? Or does this realm have more autonomy than this? Are they like people -- some have that defective gene and some don't? Are we thinking of this realm in the wrong way? Are we being too "Christian" or too "Churchianity" in our thoughts? Is it more like a living metaphor than interacts with our consciousness and is embedded within us? Is it such a mystery that we can't even comprehend it? Now, the Christian perspective tends to get quite literal about this phenomena/realm and tends to think of it as disembodied souls or fallen angels or demons, etc. Many Christians also think that it is this realm that causes this evil. But that doesn't mean we have to agree with that interpretation.