Depravity – how humanity vents the mother wound
“If it wasn’t for bad, you’d be good,” Elton John sings on the opening track of The Union, his alt-country collaboration with Leon Russell. What’s that got to do with depravity? And why am I even writing about the subject?
Because depravity is an unavoidable—i.e., functional—component of the mother wound at the root of all patriarchal societies.
What is depravity?
Merriam-Webster defines depravity as ‘the quality or state of being corrupt, evil, or perverted.’ The Cambridge Dictionarydefines it as ‘the state of being morally bad, or an action that is morally bad.’ It is typically associated with excesses of violence and/or sexual behaviour.
Like many of our definitions of emotional states and behaviours, these definitions fail to take into account the mechanical, compulsive nature of the Patriarchal Operating System that this planet largely and unconsciously runs on (and is ruled by).
As a symptom of the mother wound, depravity operates on a mechanical basis rather than being a failure to comply with some perceived moral standard. It plays a specific role in the energetic balancing required to perpetuate the emotional irresponsibility of the Patriarchal Operating System.
And, also as a mother wound symptom, it can manifest in any area of life.
The 7 Deadly Sins
The easiest way to understand this is through its correspondence with both the Biblical concept of the 7 Deadly Sins and the 7 chakras of eastern philosophy—the 7 energy centres between the base of the spine and the crown of the head.
Put simply, when human feelings are amped up beyond our ability to contain them, they express in destructive ways. When that pressure is extreme, the area of our life that’s under pressure expresses itself through depravity:
- Root chakra (sex, regeneration)—its depravity is lust/death
- Sacral/belly (food, resources)—gluttony
- Solar plexus (will, money)—greed
- Heart (love of life)—sloth/lassitude
- Throat (communication)—wrath/words
- Brow/‘third eye’ (vision)—envy
- Crown (spirituality)—pride
It’s not necessary to believe in chakras to see the pattern. The analogy breaks down a little with the ‘higher’ centres (throat/brow/crown) but is very clear around sex, death, food, and financial greed.
Depravity can be seen in the Ukraine war and other ongoing conflicts, often based on longstanding community trauma. In Jeffrey Epstein—a classic mother wound victim/victimiser—and his secret world of sex and power. It can even be seen in the American crowd chanting abuse at European golfers at the 2025 Ryder Cup. In the genteel world of professional golf this is depraved behaviour.
As W. T. Gallwey reminds us in The Inner Game of Tennis, “We never repeat any behaviour which isn’t serving some function or purpose.” What is the purpose of depravity?
Venting
The signature of depravity is loss of self-control.
In this loss of control, we see the functional driver for depravity: venting. It’s how humanity vents the pain of the mother wound, as filtered through the 7 chakras or aspects of our being, each of them damaged in its own way by a lack of genuine nurturing.
This venting can be seen in the traditional soldiers’ right in antiquity, after taking a city, to three days of drinking, looting, raping, and killing. After the life-or-death pressure of combat comes the need to release the fear and pent-up tension.
This depravity can be seen much more recently in the 1937 ‘rape of Nanking,’ where Japanese soldiers raped and killed some 20,000 women—and even more recently in the sexual depravity that Iraqi prisoners were subjected to in Abu Ghraib prison by United States soldiers, including Private Lynndie England.
This recent example is a stark reminder that, while we carry the mother wound, we’re all prone to depravity. Caught in the wrong place at the wrong time, we lose self-control. Often, we get away with it without too much damage—except a lingering sense of embarrassment. Afterwards, we cannot understand our own actions and swear never to behave the same way again. But, as Elton uncomfortably reminds us, if it wasn’t for bad, you’d be good.
Next steps
For further resources on the mother wound, both free and paid, please click on this image.
Photo by Timon Reinhard on Unsplash