I think this is an excellent point. Take the evil of bragging, a mild version of the evil of lying. The braggart is overstating what is good about himself in order to trick us into esteeming him. He is trying to steal love and respect by fraud, albeit a mild fraud .
In Hildegard’s image, heaven is a state of mutual acknowledgment. In heaven I flourish and you acknowledge my flourishing, and you flourish and I acknowledge and love your flourishing. Satan is that aspect of humanity which finds itself lost or thrown out of this world of mutual acknowledgment. The Satanic soul feeling somehow cut off from this world of mutual love and acknowledgment tries to force it from others or trick them out of it.
When Satanic we are reaching out for acknowledgment but we are reaching out towards a state of disconnection and emptiness. We are trying to comfort ourselves with a hug, but since we are lying, or overstating what we wish to acknowledge, no real hug comes back. We are trying to force free acknowledgment. The evil action comes apart into two things — an actual desire for acknowledgment and the perverse attempt to get that acknowledgment through trickery, which makes it misfire.
We are so to speak, hugging nothingness.
At least he reached out to try to grab something! If Satan on the way down to Hell had given up on even trying to reach out and grab something, he would be really lost. Although to be honest even saying to yourself “I’m not going to reach out and grab anything” is an attempt to reach out and grab something in thought, a sort of hugging of yourself. Your self in its emptiest aspect.
