Thank you for the article. I've wanted to know more about this aspect of Jung's work. Perhaps you might help me out of a spiritual bind.

Here's something that I can't wrap my head around: you point out that we have to embrace our darkness to become truly whole. You note how Mercurius is essentially a symbol that integrates darkness and light. I don't know how to do that. For the past two years, I've progressed, and I feel that my life is filled with more light. Now, I intellectually appreciate the challenge of also embracing and accepting the darkness, but I can't see how to practically achieve that. To my mind, light is progression, evolution, growth, happiness, etc. When you say embrace the dark, I understand that as a lack of spiritual understanding, regression, insensitivity, emotional apathy, etc.

How can I embrace that aspect of myself and continue to grow? I feel I need to, oddly enough, but it feels like a need to return to bad habits that I've spent years training myself against. I've always understood the darkness to mean those aspects of myself which avoid spiritual growth.

These are only words, and the experience defies exact definitions, but hopefully you get the thrust of my question. I'd really appreciate any guidance on this. You'd be doing good. (Isn't good better than bad/light v. dark? . . . sighs in incomprehension).

Thanks, Paul, for another good one. Your article kept reminding me of the ole "Gospel of Philip" saying: "Light and Darkness, life and death, right and left, are brothers of one another. They are inseparable. Because of this neither are the good good, nor evil evil, nor is life life, nor death death. For this reason each one will dissolve into its earliest origin. But those who are exalted above the world are indissoluble, eternal"

First let me get this out of the way. The article....All I kept hearing was 'him him he him'.... where SHE,? Where's 'her'?

Please, IF you were a woman reading this how would you feel?

For you are exploring about supposedly all aspects of reality from the superficial to the depthless yet not a 'her' insight!

An alien reading this would imagine this referred to solely a man's world only!

Jung.

Feminists have given crititques about Jung and his 'God image', and his association with 'the unconscious' as being feminine ..Jung's shit is androcentric:

"Feminist Analysis From a feminist perspective, there are a great many problems inherent in the mythopoetic movement and its program of male spirituality. One of these is that Jungian psychology, which underlies so much of the "new men's movement," is androcentric. This might not appear to be a defect since this literature is aimed primarily at men. But men who claim to be feminists ought to be very suspicious of any system which takes males alone as the standard for what is human. And in Jungian theory, the male ego is normative. Rosemary Ruether points out that "either women can imagine that men and women have exactly the same structure of consciousness, their ego also being `masculine,' their unconsciousness `feminine'--in other words, women become persons by becoming male identified and regarding the `feminine' characteristics as secondary and auxiliary--or else the sex-stereotyping of psychic qualities ends by suggesting that women actually should aspire to a different personality and social roles from men, the motherly and sisterly auxiliary roles. Not for them is the hero adventure": (Ruether, New Woman 157-58). Rohr leans toward the first approach--actualized persons are "men," regardless of their biological sex (223-24). Arnold favors the latter, rigid separation of roles (20-21). When men solemnly tell me that they are integrating their feminine side, or learning to love their "inner woman,"[18] it strikes me as the ultimate in male hubris. Why bother with pesky flesh-and-blood women when they can be infatuated with a concept of the feminine in themselves? Kathleen Carlin says, "When a man espouses this view, I hear this: I think I can actually override my devaluing of women sufficiently to appropriate those `feminine' qualities that will make me a more complete person. I hear this as an attempt to appropriate some exotic artifact that will enhance, enlarge upon his image of himself--and, as a woman, I begin to feel like the witch doctor's mask hanging on his wall."[19] http://www.users.csbsju.edu/~eknuth/xpxx/malespir.html Michael, I completely LOVE your post. I  don't mean this in a patronizing way, but I love its honesty, because usually people who feel like that about the 'dark' won't admit it even to themselves, and refuse to question what thinking they may be stuck in or not. Just wont question

Usually they will proclaim that 'darkness is the absence of light' as though this is saying something....? But, in the words of Alan Watts, 'how would you even know what is light without darkness and vice versa' or words to that effect.

Seriously.

You really have to give time to think about this. It sounds 'easy' but it needs respect of thinking and feeling this question!

You cannot!

We need both. Light and dark are continuum. If the planet was in the light all the time it would die. It needs the soothing dark also. The interplay, the dance of light and dark.

We need the soothing dark to sleep. To eventually enter a state of being that is so 'dark' that it is pre-colour if that word exists I dont know.

Watts, again, would describe this as what the head behind the visions of the eyes 'looks' like. Your seeing out of it, but it is invisible. Likewise you will become aware out of delta sleep. Out of death....Out of darkness...

"Darkness within Darkness, the gateway to true understanding" - Stephen Mitchell's translation of the first verse of the Tao te Ching

In regards to your questions Michael, I think it's important to recognize that darkness ultimately for Jung can be seen as "the dark waters of the unconscious" - those hidden and often inaccessible parts of our mind.

By overcoming and progressing in your own life, you've clearly had to go through your own dark processes and patterns to arrive at the comfortable place you appear to be in now... while there is likely always more darkness "to conquer" for each of us on our paths, it is not necessary to return to any bad habits but rather to turn to understanding and going through the darkness in order to create stronger new good habits.

Trust your intuition.  Don't try to force bad habits back upon yourself because you feel have to embrace more darkness.

All bridges can be rebuilt.

As someone who digs the shadow (pun intended, I appreciate the direction of this piece. I will contend that Christ is an integrated deity because as all the Solar deities of his lineage (Osiris, Dionysis etc) He has journeyed into the underworld of death and the unconscious and resurrection. Now as a neo/pagan world culture seeker I understand that Satan as it is known in the Western World is just a misunderstanding of the Great Horned One, whose image has been distorted for many reasons. Never the less going with the cosmology of Christ, Jesus does directly confront the "image" of Satan who tempts him to use his power for his own mortal benefit. This happens when he is fasting in the Desert for 40 days. The beauty of the story is that he does contemplate his shadow of using his power for selfish gain but instead chooses to use it in service of the divine and the people. It is only when he decides to not be tempted by his purely animal desires for power, does he achieve integration. Not by denial but by choice. Christ also is connected with the femmine in his relation to his Mother and Mary. He also cofronts the shadows of power in the temples. In my mind the trickster is a deity who is a teacher who is an ego destroyer by a sharp edge of a sword. Christ is a teacher of Love and service. Not wimpy love that is the water-down version that this story sometimes is depicted as, but by love beyond death.i.e. going into the Shadow and coming back as the integration of duality. Perhaps most of our popular religious myths do lean towords the male side because Men need the lesson of rememberence of their own connection to the divine more then women. As the Tao says, Know the Masculine but Live the Feminine.

" Oh Nuit continuous one of Heaven, let it ever be thus, that men speak not of thee as one,but as none, and let then not speak of thee at all since thou art continuous". these words are spoken, as part of the ritual, i would add here, that we spoke of her all the time, but also knowing that when speaking of the Goddess, we are on another wavelenght, it would be like the high note that floats above the base note.When i was in a chanting group, this high floating note that appears riding above the sustained note was called the nadam(vibrational sound that pervades all things, it manifests as sound, the absloute sound" or "supersensonic" sound current. when vibrating the names of healing, invoke gnosis, the polarities of sound vibration create a wave above the voice and or musical intrument this is akin to sound alchemy, looking for that golden note that exists above and within everything. you can speak about her, but when you sing her, she comes alive.It sounds like angels riding a thunder bolt, or like a super train of harmonic revery passing over the other tones.

Psyche, sings her song in the green lamp lit in the retort as the athanor keeps the elements at a steady moving excitation, she sings her song in the passage between the two crossing alleys, where the cloaked therapeutes' trade symbolic secrets of flowering essence of the sounds fill the rare aire in that quarter, a strange snaking tongue is spoken, broken bits of ancient light fill the words that pass quickly between the three gathered in his(her)name,

salt plus saturn leaf transcribe fallen ones x repeat shape shift cat like to ten affimation winged lunar black night scents ferment seed of mirror gyp rings vibrate-spoke meow IAO SABAO abrasax abrasax abrasaz backward motion sin rotate channel pass arrow of conqueror root high john met broken vessel add blue ash of mercury trade accent spice on last constant slow the sylable make sign of root smoking doorway...repeat...add cheap wine and wild flowers picked on the nu moon when the cycle is in dogstar make hands dance on strings click the nuance on the verb worshiping the noun before the rose petal is gone.

 

the cloaked figures fade into the surroundings, and some lingering flute riff floates snaking down the narrow walkway like a whisper from her lips.

I see it like trying to understand why a person does what they do. What kind of conditioning they've had, the bad imprints they might have had as a child, which might have perverted their natural instincts somehow - I think it's about seeing that what someone does, no mater how diabolical it is, is always understandable and explainable, and therefore worthy of forgiveness, and applying this also to oneself. Life seems to be a process of either unconsciously being bound by one's conditioning, or the attempt to look into one's 'dark' behavior and understand and reprogram it, if one is able.

Your essays are always such an inspiration. It is a tough think to get your head around, that both good and evil are expressions of deity. Can be a bitter pill to swallow, that both Gandhi and G.W. Bush are lenses through which deity comes into focus.

I think that Christ himself is overly identified with the good by many. I put this down to our natural tendency to think in dualities. However, if you read his teachings then he has a lot to say about shadow work and the acceptance of the dark side of our psyche. He repeatedly encourages us to see our own sin and to accept the sin in others. He does the same with the rejected people of his society. He speaks against those that claim to be completely free of sin. So to say that he cast off his shadow is a misreading of the gospels by my understanding.

You say that Jung says that “The concept of an all-encompassing God must necessarily include his opposite. The principle of the coincidence of opposites must therefore be completed by that of absolute opposition in order to attain full paradoxicality and hence psychological validity.” It seams to me that Jesus achieves this through being both man and God. Sinner and saint. Satan is the shadow of the old testament God and through Jesus we achieve integration.

 I don't understand the idea of Mercurius arising as a counterpoint to christ when alchemy and Mercurius predate Christ. It is likely even that Jesus was familiar with alchemy. His family spent time in Egypt when they fled from herod and his teachings point towards somebody who had completed the alchemical process. I suggest that it was this process that created the state of mind necessary to step into the archetypal process that he did.

 How is the medium the message? Jung is right Mercurius is completeley ambiguous and as such has no message. It'd be like watching the static on a tv screen. It is through Mercurius that the Godhead is revealed but I don't see how he can be elevated to the Godhead himself. I'd say if any thing Mercurius is more similar to the Tao.

 I don't take the bible literaly I'm just fed up with people ignoring it's sophistication.

Great post and dialogue here! This post came to me at the most perfect moment.
I am exploring this theme through my art right now, as I completed a painting about the goddess Boann, which was based on Celtic mythology. The painting focused on aspects of transformation that are required for one to gain wisdom. There are very dark aspects to the myth, as the goddess is maimed and eventually drowned, in her attempt to peer into a magic well containing wisdom. And while the events are dark, the overall result is something positive. It is because of her sacrifice that the salmon of wisdom is released to the world of humans.
This painting made me think about how much contemporary society tries to break things up into black and white, good and bad, positive and negative, etc. I wonder, if we looked at these things more as part of a whole system rather than a dichotomy, perhaps we would have less problems than we do now. Of course this is oversimplifying a bit, but I still suspect there would be benefits.
I am now researching a painting based on the mythology of the Morrigan, a very dark goddess connected to sovereignity of the land and of war and fertility. I think, by delving deeper and exploring these darker aspects, I will gain a better understanding of myself and how I relate to the world.  And, in turn, I hope the painting will help others to not fear the dark parts of themselves.
It is as, some other posts suggested, that the only way we can progress is to acknowledge these dark aspects and move through it. I think a lot of us have a tendency to push it away or ignore it, and such things never just go away on their own. In fact, usually more problems develop as a result.
I am looking forward to seeing how the dialogue progresses here, as I believe there is the potential for some very powerful and transformative ideas yet to be revealed.
Thanks!

DoAn

Interstitial Artist

www.doanart.blogspot.com

" language must be set free from the history"

"I want my very being toward language"

cjmoore,

the more I read of your posts, the more sense you make.

Language is a tool like almost every other manifested aspect of universal life. It can be used well or misused.

I often think, that some people write or talk for the almost solipsistic pleasure of it. Others communicate from and around a factual content.

I tried reading this article , but the repeated references to Christ rendered it worthless . . .

Seems there is some serious difficulty in this white middle class scene in doing away with the cultural brainwashing.

I wish I could write it in gigantic letters up in the sky:

The "Christ event" is a fabrication deliberately devised to manipulate humanity's consciousness on a mass scale and establish a global dominion, and prison.

Anyone who doesn't have the guts and the brains to grasp this , isn't worth reading, personally speaking.

Which is why i have been ignoring several recent RS articles going on about good ol' Jesus with the conviction of born-again christians. A guy even believes he met him personally!

 I'd say take it easy on that ayahuasca folks, and understand how deep your own conditioning and class consciousness runs. Everything you know is wrong.

My family, culture and country has suffered greatly as a result of "the Christ event", so I take offense, in the same way that many Jews take offense at the very mention of the idea that Hitler perhaps didn't kill all those Jews.

It is a revisionism that I find most objectionable.

(darn, Hitler mentioned in thread, I lose!)

I have mentioned this great book at other threads, but feel it most appropriate to here especially.

Here's full title, and you MUST order. That's an order ;):

Return of the Dark/Light Mother, or New Age Armegeddon?, by Monica Sjoo ~~:

" Monica's questioning of the new age movement, from the early teachings of Madame Blavatsky, Annie Besant and Alice Bailey, to Findhorn (yes, Findhorn!), to the Rebirthers and Babaji, to current channelers and others, raises important questions regarding just what is going on. She points out that they are obsessed with the light while disparaging the dark. (Sound familiar? See my article, "The Luminous Dark Mother", in the fall issue of AWe ) The ever tedious dualistic notion that light is good, white, male, sun and God-like , while dark is bad, earth, female and lunar, is painfully alive and well in New Age thinking. She asks why any so-called New Age healing modality would be sexist and racist. Good question! Monica is the kind of crone-woman who inspires the crone in others - the crone who sees and questions, and doesn't care what others think of her, is sharp and wise and doesn't accept what is said just because it might be from an extra-terrestrial. She follows her heart in deep questioning and stays with her own sacred authority as she most certainly goes against the grain. She sees the awakening of the Goddess as the answer to the transformation of patriarchy, and she would like to see this transformation take place as soon as possible. So would I. Blessed Be. Order Monica Sjoo's new book, Return of the Dark Mother, from Powell's Bookstore." http://www.awakenedwoman.com/sjoo.htm

& http://www.monicasjoo.org/artic/challengingpatriarch.htm

 

Crucially, IF one accrues a notion of oneself as full of light, and ever so pure or ...getting there real soon. Then what becomes being ignored--all that aint the phony self images--can get very stagnant, and stinky, and extremely extremely dangerous.

So yes, embrace the dance of light and dark and all in betweens

Cit ecolocal:

"Which is why i have been ignoring several recent RS articles going on about good ol' Jesus with the conviction of born-again christians. A guy even believes he met him personally!"

I share your thoughts, and have tried not to let these articles go unopposed in my comments. But real communication with the 'saved' seems to be impossible. At best you get interminable biblecitations, at worst they expect you to play the entire game at their rules.

Cit doan: "I don't need to get the religion mixed up in the message. Perhaps that will help you?"

I (we?), who am critical to christianity in both its original form and later church forms, am aware of the differences between its original content and later church-doctrines. And sweeping comparisons of Jesus with other 'divine' messengers doesn't help to make the christian message more acceptable.

Cit zezt:

"the crone who sees and questions, and doesn't care what others think of her, is sharp and wise and doesn't accept what is said just because it might be from an extra-terrestrial."

This sounds like someone, who's willing to examine belief-systems critically. But other parts of it sounds as dogmatic as the new-age marmalade, she wants to distance herself from. It doesn't bring anyone closer to truth, if one belief-system is just swapped for another.

.....that's the point. I mean where were you years ago when Sjoo almost singlehandedly challenged the insidious might of the 'New Age'?

What exactly are you putting foreward anyway?

it is very easy to just lash out at people as being dogmatic.

where are YOU at?

There, I have asked a question ;)

I challenge you to put yourself on the line and share with us what you believe. your myth. Your vision. 

actually I respect your request for clarification on my part.

Cit: "....where were you years ago when Sjoo almost singlehandedly challenged the insidious might of the 'New Age'?"

I take this as a question of my position on 'new age'. I was one of the original 'sixties people' in my part of the world, and when I saw the degradation of the original experiments over the next ten year period, I reacted very critically to it. Occasionally by going out publicly in a small scale. I was never a 'big name' in public, as I then prefered to demonstrate my points at a practical level.

"....where are YOU at?"

I feel, that if anyone writes articles etc. it can have two purposes. Either it's missionary one-way preaching, OR it's meant for communication and debate. If it's the last, there must be a common ground for communication, a startingpoint which the implied persons can agree on. Otherwise it'll just be a lot of people yelling dogmas at each other.

STARTING with serving ultimate 'answers' like christian dogmas, subconsciousness like a proven fact, the need of mother goddesses, non-dualism etc makes communication difficult.

I would rather find functional startingpoints and methods. Generally speaking epistemology and methodology.

Starting and going part of the way together makes it easier to respect and accept final differences in the outcoming answers.

Personally I'm more than willing to revise some of my own opinions, if I'm exposed to good arguments in a two-way communication.

But having a holy book or a socalled 'authority' thrown at me as 'proof' is what I protest against.

I have tried to answer your questions, as well as I can. Should there be uncertainties I apologise and try again.

Zezt - who says darkness is earth, female and lunar? Surely this must be an opinion shared by the few as darkness to me is everything that is destructive in oneself and others. Unless, of course, you are talking about witchcraft and sorcery which to me has nothing to do with darkness. Rather a childish and infantile game played by insecure, bitter man haters. And what do you mean by Monica not accepting what is said just because it might be from an extra-terrestrial? Is this to mean that the extra-terrestrials are all the people in power? Or even all the people in power controlled by aliens? Or is it just an analogy for greed in our world? Or simply a way of saying that she doesn’t listen to anyone but herself? Please clarify this for me as I see it as very important for further discussion. Confusing the whole embracing the darkness with black magic mumbo jumbo is nothing but a rebellion towards everything conventional (like a teenager rebelling against his parents) ….and why not spice it all up with a little alien talk…And it all surfaces and becomes, you guessed it, DOGMA!!

SugarMag

Not to say that conventional is a good thing...it´s dogma just as well. A thought construction like anything else that exists. But let´s keep the unreal real you know... SugarMag

Cit:

"But let´s keep the unreal real you know..."

True. But there are so many 'realities' in circulation, that it can be confusing at times.

What did Monica Sjoo mean about even questioning an 'extraterrestrial'...? LOL, it means that she would question so-called 'channelers' who claimed to be channeling an ET entity.

As well as those professing to be channeling 'Masters', whatever.....

Not that she discounted the possibility of authentic channeling, which is very ancient. But that she would challenge what was claimed to being channeled.

If it was racist, misogynist, against Nature, etc. That she questions.

 

How to chill you out about darkness.

Do you sleep with the light on? ;)

I mean you must see some value in darkness.

OK, you associate darkness with evil. Does all evil happen in darkness? Or does it also happen in daylight too? Do all evil people look 'dark' or do some put on airs and graces, so much so you dont realize how destructive they are? Can you not understand that if you turn your face away from your darkness, your unknown, your unconscious, that you suppress your whole being?

and so i was drawn to the light, but in my study of the things that were called dark and the things called in the light, i saw a huge dark and a huge light.Now it was no longer a matter of angels or devils or words used to say this is and that is that.Now it was like a great opening to some yet unknown.All the rest was some baggage that we carry behind us like in the Dali movie Un Chien Andalu.And speaking of Dali, he came up with a theory called Critical Paranoia, that was described as self induced psychosis, i will not launch into a history of its use or Breton's hailing of it and also his own critique,but i will say that it opens up infinite possibility, it begins as a child's game of looking at clouds and seeing different things in the cloud shapes.If you take this to its far extension and apply it to everything you read, including channeled information and all the serious writings of social figures that pretend to some knowledge about the "real world" and or all the so-called new age light people to the followers of some Cthulhu cult it all becomes quite overwhelming, where is religion in the middle of the static that we are bombarded with by corporate- scientists and leering faces in the media, oh they are on the side of good, and if you don't agree you are dark. after this the absurd nature of reality becomes so huge that these huge concepts of light and dark just become one big blur of noise made by machines and talking heads.

As far as transformation of the God image, i remember sitting in the SC University library reading Jung like my consciousness depended on it.And maybe it did.Jung played a key roll in expanding on Freud, but they both have their cultural signifiers, and this too is part of the baggage, perhaps it's the others that were there and also were part of these experiments in unconscious collective memory.The ones that did their parts in the great unfolding of theory and transcendence, in transformation of the Image-God that cannot be made into a mask of tyrants.

"Nevertheless, please define the darkness you are referring to as I would like to bring it in to our unified objective reality. I still don’t see why the Female Gaian aspect is Darkness. It is merely the Masculine Ego turned inside out. That’s it. Men tend to think that they are the creators of the universe through their own manifesting powers as women see themselves as part of the whole (generally speaking). Two sides of the same coin. SugarMag "

Do you agree that you cant have dark without light and vice versa?

Where is up where is down? In comparison to what? Darkness manifests in repetition. Stop and the light shines through. Change perspective and reverse.

Hi Michael Matejka, About embracing the darkness: the root source of the darkness is our own clinging and grasping, which explicates over different levels of experience as demons, evil, etc. Seen as a dream, the seeming darkness “out there” is a reflection of the darkness within ourselves. In fighting against the darkness, whether it be in the outside world or within us, it is as if the darkness is trying to get rid of itself, which clearly just perpetuates the darkness. When we realize that the darkness we are fighting against is not only within us, but is an aspect of our monstrous totality, a process becomes initiated in which the darkness becomes integrated into the light of this realization. Our sense of who we are expands to include the darker, (self)-destructive parts of ourselves, as we begin to realize how we are creating our own suffering by our clinging and grasping. We would never have had the light of this realization without the darkness, which is to say that the darkness is a disguised expression of the light of this realization. The darkness is a manifestation of the light, as without the darkness we never would have reached the higher-dimensional light which includes and unites the light and the dark.

Don't take this as a strong criticism. It's not intended so.

But I do feel, that the present discussion looks a bit like former times medicine, where the symptoms were sometimes the main object of interest in illness, and the symptom removal was seen as a cure.

The same way with 'inner darkness'. If the 'spiritual patient' starts on a real cure, by achieving enlightenment, realisation (or whatever it's called), inner darkness goes away. So the only function darkness can have is to make a diagnosis.

Who is talking about enlightenment? What I am saying is drop the whole darkness/light bit and just focus on ridding one self of any habitual behaviour that brings chaos to ones life. When the clouds are dispersed one sees that the sun has always been there. We are already there. It´s just as magical driving a car on a concrete road in downtown Manhattan as it is seeing visions in a remote cave in the Himalayas. It is down right completely and utterly amazing that we exist at all! On the other hand it would be just as amazing (if not more so...) if all there ever was was a great big eternal nothing!

Cit Sugar M: "On the other hand imagining a great big eternal nothingness is equally hard (or harder...) to comprehend!"

Too late. I've already been there in the great big eternal nothingness, and it definitely beats even motorcycle-driving.

Besides the bad name of 'nothingness' isn't quite correct. It's more like stillness.

It's ofcourse a personal choice if anyone wants to go there or not. And how.