He wrote another book later, "People of the Lie", which was less popular, and followed a much darker tone.
That book discussed some of his patients who he had to conclude were simply "evil", spiritually sick, or possessed, or something worse.
It seems that such spiritual illness has become epidemic, like it has at certain times in human history.
Platitudes will not fix this, just as when Moses came down off the mountain, just as when Noah was building the ark, just as when Lot was retreating from Sodom and Gomorrah.
See this link for Peck’s distillation of what evil is. At the top in gray. ...”the exercise of political will” to interfere with or stop another’s spiritual growth.
http://www.gurteen.com/gurteen/gurteen.nsf/id/X0038E2E2/
I lived through this. I had to go down to the Pit earlier in my life, after a failed relationship. It changed me.
Many have lived well and without a lot of harm or having to see or live in evil places or with evil people. Now they’ve become unwilling to see evil.