First, it seems to me it would be useful to use the same practice I use in dream interpretation in Movie Yoga. In what way does EVERY character represent some latent aspect in you? Can you say you are fully without hunger for power? That you have abandoned all slavishness in you? That you always use moral reasoning and empathy in all your decisions? Or, conversely, do you not have untapped potentials expressed by the elves and wizards?
Secondly, I have long wondered about the extent of the macabre in Tibetan Buddhism, such as the ritual use of human bones, and their practice of cutting the bodies of their dead into pieces and feeding them to vultures.
Like most people, I have long separated myself from evil. Hell, I have a site dedicated to the exploration of Goodness. Can we really say, though, that evil is out there, and not that it is a quality of energy which is always present to our experience in potentia? It is always RIGHT THERE, waiting, as is Goodness.
When I watch movies, they start trains of images flowing, some from the movie, many completely spontaneous. It is literally like watching movies my unconscious is creating as it goes. Sometimes it is interesting, sometimes not, but I have learned to watch, as there is always something which some part of me is trying to make conscious.
In my meditation, I had images of cannibalizing Gimli. Now, I like Gimli as well as anyone, so what was this? It is rage. Achilles, after he had wounded Hektor, told him he wanted to rip the flesh from his bones and eat it raw. This imagery–and historically in practice–this has been an Ur-image of primal bestiality and anger. This means I am tapping into some unrecognized spot of rage, primal rage. This is a good thing. Kum Nye literally means “massaging the emotional/spiritual body”, and what I found was a pocket of tension.
Immediately after this image, I had images of Saurumon laughing and smoking with Gandalf, in an open spirited and happy way, in a time long before his fall. I had images of Gandalf showing a bad temper in his younger years. We see him only after he has conquered that bad habit. I saw that many of the soldiers for the Rohanese and Gondorians beat their wives and abused their children. I thought of an imaginative book which radically rethought the Lord of the Rings, by telling it from an orc’s perspective: http://www.salon.com/2011/02/15/last_ringbearer/
It seems to me that only by embracing our capacity for evil that we can see clearly, that we can finally purge ourselves of it; or, as I should put it, perfect the process of purging ourselves of it daily, by learning not to cling to ideas, habits, or emotions.
We can posit, I think, that the heart of existence is joy. This is what the mystics teach us, and I believe it. What prevents the emergence of this truth is a protective coating of habits, which the Buddhists and others have described in great detail. One of these habits is rejecting experience, rather than diving into it, and bobbing back up.
Now, what I am describing can of course be abused, and is not suitable for people who are on the edge. But for those with strong wills and solid reality testing, it is quite interesting.