The Syrian Civil War began in the spring of 2011. Inspired by anti-dictatorship revolutions in Egypt and Tunisia, the Syrian populace began peaceful protests nationwide against President Bashar al-Assad. The government responded barbarically, first by quietly killing activists, then with kidnappings, rape, torture, and the killing of entire activist families. Mutilated bodies were dumped on sidewalks, ditches, and roadsides. Government troops eventually began open-firing on protesters. Civilians shot back and eventually answered atrocity with atrocity.
    As the country collapsed into civil war, armed civilians coagulated into rebel bands. The regime army deployed and fanned out across Syria, shelling, bombing, even leveling entire neighborhoods indiscriminately (a tactic Assad's father, Hafez al-Assad, used in 1982 to squash a similar uprising in Hama). Foreign volunteers and opportunists rushed to the fight and took sides. Accusations rang out, from both sides, of chemical weapons attacks. By the summer of 2014, the death toll had reached 200,000. At the time of this writing, nearly seven million Syrians have been displaced, more than three million have fled to nearby countries, and the millions remaining in place subsist in desperate living conditions.
    Of the opportunists who entered the fray, ISIS, a jihadist group derived from the Iraq War, emerged as the premier rebel group in Syria, Iraq, and now globally. Through mindbending atrocities, millions of dollars from stolen oil, sly recruiting strategies, and stolen U.S. military equipment, ISIS now straddles and controls a vast stretch across Iraq and Syria.

The Sevenfold Spirit, who hovers over world events, is illuminating parallels for our own personal lives through this.