The Descent
In all accounts of Spiritual Progress, one must start by going inwards and downwards. Fortunately, this almost seems a natural tendency for most of us; we are naturally inclined towards that which is spiritually harmful. Some of us question this tendency rather than accepting it, and our decline fascinates us as much as it hurts us.
The Divided Self
Our sense of being arises seemingly singularly, yet at some stage it becomes apparent that we are intrinsically divided. Freud classified these divisions into an instinctive and animalistic ‘Id’, an idealistic and elevated ‘Super-Ego’ and a poor, divided ‘ego’ mitigating a path between these. In the Kabbalah, we call these ‘nefesh’ (animal soul), ‘ruach’ (intellectual soul), and ‘neshamah’ (spiritual soul).
The Limitations of Reason
Initially, we can use our rational mind to build a satisfactory model of existence, which functions adequately up to a point. Our rational mind cannot answer some questions. These become problematic to it and are often dismissed with vigour and disdain. Our rational mind cannot initially understand that the suffering it is trying to comprehend arises through and is compounded by its attempts to understand it.
We create a concept of self based on dualistic qualities that are essentially meaningless, and we try to extract self-worth from this sorry mess. The more we struggle with who we are, the more we become divided.
The Alchemical Process
The Alchemist must turn and face this inner mess of memories and unpick their very constituents of being. One must become fearless, achieved through overarching curiosity and a genuine dislike for self. Often the most challenging times are when we refuse to accept an aspect of self because we fear losing it.
The Dark Night Begins
The Night begins when one realises that at the heart of one’s suffering is oneself. It is a tedious process of unremitting inner strife where one’s only focus is ‘to understand.’
Life might be exceptionally difficult, and it is hard not to blame others and feel victimised. One can then oscillate between anger and victimhood whilst enjoying the self-destructive qualities of both. Once one realises that the only goal seems to be to ‘tear oneself apart’, it can help, albeit darkly.
Frustration can bring back infantile consciousness, and we can find ourselves in rage and tantrum, despising others and fostering dark hatreds. These hatreds can progress into numbing doubts and paralysis, and even psychosis.
Understanding Manifestation and Existence
Consider the difference between ‘existent’ and ‘manifest’. A mountain that looks like an elephant might exist. It is real, at least from a conventional point of view. Yet, its shape reminds us of an ‘elephant’, but is there an existent elephant?
No. There is no real elephant, just a pattern or shape that ‘reminds’ us of an elephant. The Elephant is ‘manifest’ but not real.
The Nature of Creatures
In occult terms, a creature manifests – appears to exist – as a product of the pleroma, whose feature is differentiation – ‘go forth and multiply’. In simpler terms, a creature is the label we give to a being who we expect has a degree of autonomy or even sentience.
We only are aware of the creatures we can perceive. Thankfully, those creatures of immediate relevance tend to be easily perceived, especially if they are of similar size, and are either seeing us as food, or we see them as food. Yet, many more creatures remain hidden, either because they are much smaller than us, or neither of us has any use for the other. In a single tree or shovelful of earth, there are whole kingdoms of hidden and perhaps irrelevant creatures that have always existed but remain hidden.
Confronting the Demonic
The idea of demons is strangely repulsive to many, and even some of our clergy are hesitant in discussing them. Maybe it’s more coincidental rather than strange as our world suffers from moral ignorance; we are blind to what might be instruments of its propagation.
Remember how we have this tendency to lump our experiences together into a sense of self? This is a process or habit that eventually, as alchemists, we must learn to stop. Yet, it is a deep and habitual process of the unenlightened mind. And those experiences which we have forgotten or deny will lump themselves together into sub-personalities of increasing manifest reality.
The Shadow Self
Depending on just how we break, we fall apart into subgroups of self that we accept, our dominant personality, and subgroups of self we reject, our subconscious or shadow personality. These rejected or lost sub-personalities become the demonic forces that confuse us. They are manifest, i.e., can appear as urges, thoughts, perceptions, but in truth, they don’t exist. This might be hard to get your head around initially; the best way is to try to accept that they are both real AND not real!
The Path of Integration
For the alchemist, one must learn to recognise one’s own demons and through love and curiosity wish them to become integrated. We are not interested in cherishing and supporting their individuality, neither do we look for gifts. We must recognise the toddler within us and when it wants to tantrum. We must embrace our jealousy, rage and pride, not to embellish, but to contemplate.
We probably start off small, recognising our deceitful speech or actions, before moving to ‘deeper’ issues such as lust, envy and finally treachery. Only when one recognises the most terrible being in our mental schemata has to be, and always had been ourself, can we fully identify with our own inner darkness.
The Breakthrough
It’s both terrifying and dreadful to approach and embrace this inner darkness, yet bringing this all together heals all. One instantly accepts both the worst and the best, and unified, we find ourselves at the lowest sense of being. We recognise our most terrible sin, which is the betrayal of being, which arises when the false and empty simulacrum takes residence in the mind through the act of naming.
Yet, at the peak of the dark night, we recognise this simulacrum to be utterly empty and just a composite of the complete range of duality, which fuses for a single moment into an empty unity. This brief sense of empty unity, which cannot have either a centre or edge, is the breakthrough moment, where all hope is lost, and letting go, transcendental awareness manifests.
The Dawn
Whilst this moment might be obvious, one’s suffering doesn’t suddenly abate. Yet, there seems to be one moment where, upon awakening, the rays of the dawning sun suddenly bring the hope one so longed for.
In this final transformation, akin to the Buddhist concept of satori or the alchemical opus magnum, we discover that the darkness we feared was merely the shadow cast by our own light. The journey through the night, though harrowing, reveals itself as the necessary path to wholeness. As the dawn breaks, we understand that the demons we fought were aspects of ourselves seeking integration, and the darkness we traversed was the very ground of our awakening. This is the paradox of the spiritual journey: that which we most feared becomes the gateway to our liberation.
Further Reading
Essential Books
- Dark Night of the Soul by St. John of the Cross
- The Interior Castle by St. Teresa of Avila
- Modern Man in Search of a Soul by Carl Jung
- The Red Book by Carl Jung
- Inner Work by Robert Johnson
Online Resources
- Ajahn Punnadhammo’s YouTube Channel (youtube.com/@AjahnPunnadhammo)
- Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Mysticism (plato.stanford.edu/entries/mysticism/)
- Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Medieval Mysticism (iep.utm.edu/mystic-me/)