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In Speaking with the Devil: Exploring Senseless Acts of Evil, Carl Goldberg takes the reader on a trip through regions of the human psyche that most of us try to avoid. Goldberg's central focus in this book is on malevolence, which he defines as “the deliberate infliction of cruel, painful suffering on another living being” (4). For me, it was easily the scariest trip I've ever been on, but not really because of the rogue's gallery of monstrous characters and devilish deeds that Goldberg has assembled for this reflective adventure. Without a doubt, the most powerfully threatening part of the trip was a moment near the end when I found myself staring directly into the face of evil and realized, much to my horror, that the face looking back at me was my own. My initial instinct at this point was exactly the same as it had been 30 years earlier at a similar point in my youth: I wanted to get very far away from my infernal visage as fast as I could. But, unlike my adolescent flight from haunting reflection, I was unable to cut and run on this occasion. Goldberg had me exactly where he wanted me and he wasn't about to let me run away this time. He had worked too hard in this book to create this valuable opportunity to help me learn about myself, and he would not let it go to waste. Instead, Goldberg wrapped the reassuring arms of his rational analysis around me and provided me the mature guidance I had needed during my adolescent flight from the devil within me. In the process, Goldberg taught me a number of very important lessons. He taught me that I have a personal responsibility to understand and control malevolence, not because I am a monstrous freak of nature but simply because I am an ordinary human being and, therefore, the seeds of malevolent behavior exist within me as they exist within all of us. He also taught me about my self-protective instincts to deny these facts and to distance myself from anyone I perceive as an agent of evil. Finally, he taught me to re