Dark Night of the Soul: The term "Dark Night of the Soul" originated from the writings of the Christian mystic and poet, St. John of the Cross. It refers to a profound and transformative spiritual experience characterized by a sense of intense inner turmoil, isolation, and a feeling of being disconnected from the divine or the higher self. This period is often seen as a crucible for personal growth and spiritual awakening. It may be considered an adult rite of passage, and one can find themselves feeling as they’ve gone mad, the point of no return in any hero’s journey. As we are confronted with our shadows, we realize that much of what, if not all, of what we’ve believed had been a shadow. A giant lie. A lie perpetuated by our personal ego resistances to what is, lies force fed to us by media, and other trusted authority figures cuts to the soul and we are forced to confront whether or not we are going to continue playing the game of our persona, image, or pleasing God, Mom and Dad at the expense of our individuation.
The Dark Night of the Soul is the after glow of the awakening. This is where the work happens, and madness is a possibility……Shit or get off the pot….do the work to source your true essential self, that’s the whole point.
Anyone who refuses to look into their own shit, and face their shadows is telling the whole world, I’ll show up when you all make a change. Deal with it.
We are over run by grown ass psychopathic children, leading grown ass victim children raising little brats who are entitled to it all without earning it, and want to affect public policy without living as an adult yet themselves.
These are literally the people calling us crazy, and we have to stop taking it in the cheeks. When a crazy kid tells you what to think or do, why would we listen?
To those who are awake, I invite you to take a look at your shadows, and make sure you are not going into child mode. If you’re working somewhere that will fire you for your social media posts, so you self censor, fucking quit. You’re a part of the problem you’re bitching about. You don’t want Mommy and Daddy to yell at you, and the rest of the family to shame you. You’re dependent on them for your identity and self esteem. If you’re a Christian, look deep into if that’s Jesus or Lucifer running you.
If this is the battle of good and evil, why the fuck are you on team evil?
Did you take the jab to work or travel, or get into Starbucks?
You’re the fucking problem, stop denying it.
How’s that feel?
What resistances and justifications came up?
Did you tell me to fuck myself?
That’s what the awakening does, shadows are brought to light, and if we’re individuated, we revere these opportunities. If we get angry and act out inside or out, we’re in our shadow.
Dark Night of the Soul in Psychological Terms: When we consider the Dark Night of the Soul from a psychological perspective influenced by Jungian concepts, it could be seen as a period of intense self-confrontation and transformation. During this time, an individual might experience a profound encounter with their own shadow aspects and archetypal energies, leading to a disintegration of the previous self-identity.
The experience of the Dark Night of the Soul might entail:
Confronting the Shadow: The individual may face suppressed and denied aspects of themselves, which can lead to a sense of inner turmoil and existential crisis.
Archetypal Struggles: Archetypal energies related to transformation, rebirth, and confrontation with the unknown may play a significant role in the experience. These energies might challenge one's established beliefs and identity.
Isolation and Despair: Similar to the feeling of disconnection from the divine, the person might feel disconnected from their own sense of purpose and meaning. This can lead to feelings of isolation, depression, and despair.
Integration and Growth: Just as St. John of the Cross saw the Dark Night as a transformative experience, this psychological interpretation suggests that through confronting the shadow and integrating these deeper aspects of the self, an individual can emerge with a greater sense of self-awareness, authenticity, and personal growth,
Carl Jung's theories of the collective unconscious and collective consciousness are fundamental concepts in his psychological framework that help explain the interplay between individual and shared human experiences.
Collective Unconscious: The collective unconscious is a concept proposed by Jung to describe the deep and universal reservoir of shared experiences, memories, symbols, and archetypes that all humans inherit as a part of their common humanity. This aspect of the unconscious is beyond personal experiences; it's a kind of psychological inheritance that goes back generations. It's the wellspring from which certain universal themes, symbols, and patterns emerge across cultures and societies.
Jung believed that the collective unconscious is made up of archetypes, which are innate, primordial, and symbolic images or themes that have been present throughout human history. These archetypes represent fundamental human experiences and feelings, such as the Hero, the Mother, the Shadow, and more. They serve as foundational elements that shape our thoughts, behaviors, and dreams, often without our conscious awareness.
Personal Conscious and Unconscious: On the other hand, the personal conscious and unconscious pertain to an individual's unique experiences, memories, thoughts, and feelings. The personal conscious includes what you're currently aware of and thinking about. The personal unconscious, like the collective unconscious, contains elements that are not in your immediate conscious awareness. These could be forgotten memories, repressed emotions, and other aspects that have been relegated to the unconscious due to their perceived insignificance or emotional charge.
Relationship between Collective and Personal: The collective unconscious and the personal unconscious are interconnected. Jung believed that personal experiences and expressions are influenced by the broader archetypal patterns from the collective unconscious. These archetypal influences can shape dreams, myths, art, religion, and other forms of human expression. They also influence the way individuals perceive and relate to the world around them.
In a sense, the collective unconscious provides a kind of shared psychological framework that underlies and shapes individual experiences. It's like a well of universal human themes that can manifest differently in each person's personal unconscious and conscious thoughts.
Jung's theory of the collective unconscious and collective consciousness suggests that there is a shared reservoir of symbols, archetypes, and experiences that all humans inherit. This collective level of the psyche influences and interacts with an individual's personal conscious and unconscious, shaping their thoughts, behaviors, and experiences in complex ways.
Carl Jung, Shadows, and Archetypes: Carl Jung, a Swiss psychiatrist and psychoanalyst, introduced the concept of the "shadow" as a crucial aspect of the human psyche. The shadow represents the unconscious, repressed aspects of an individual, including thoughts, feelings, and desires that they have disowned or denied. These elements can contain both negative and positive aspects.
Jung also introduced the concept of "archetypes," which are universal, innate, and symbolic images or themes that arise from the collective unconscious. Archetypes are common across different cultures and societies and can manifest in various forms, such as the hero, the mother, the trickster, etc.
Similar to the Enneagram Personality typing system I use with Archetypes, we use our archetypal nature to develop. For instance, the collective unconsciousness is stirring up a lot of warrior archetypes as well as heretics, hermits, vicitms, prostitutes, saboteurs, wounded and perpetual children. When we adopt an archetypes nature in us to deal with the personal and collective inner and outer worlds, we must be mindful to not become tranced and stay tuned to our highest self. For example, a person who is living as a Warrior who is full of love and wants humanity to wake up and fight tyranny, needs to be careful not to create wars with wounded children, as he may realize his shadow is to bully those that disagree because they are a threat to his perceived safety. The higher self move here is to go into the father archetype and give them through love and empathy, the security in you they seek in the media and politicians. In Enneagram speak, the 8 goes to 2 : ). This warrior will be a true master when they learn to use their personal archetypes/Enneagram to manifest their highest self. From that place, they will truly be able to unconditionally help humanity, and the collective evolve beyond fear, anger, and anxiety traps.
In short, awakening opens up the doors to where we need to invest the time on our inner worlds, and when we refuse to, and instead project onto others, we become what we’re fighting against.
As a Christian, Buddhist, Muslim, Jew, Hindu or any other religion, how willing are you to ask the hardest questions of your faith? Is your God willing to be asked? Did my beliefs come from personal relationship and experience, or was I made aware of what I should believe and how I should ritualize my spirituality?
It’s so easy to see a man in a dress who insists you call him a woman and say they’re not living in reality (they are in shadow), but if we’re unwilling to ask the deep and dark questions of ourselves, our god, and our community, then we are just projecting our shadows onto the left.
The real works starts now…..
Deepen the process of individuating yourself and you will be a much better follower of Jesus, Buddha, RA, Elohim, Yahweh etc…
Where to start.
Learn to know how you are using your personality to form a false identity. You are NOT your personality, or your career, hobbies or interests. If you play in the NFL for 15 years, and don’t know that YOU ARE NOT A FOOTBALL PLAYER, you will have a major dark night of the soul as your football player identity dies and you didn’t plan a funeral or resurrection.
Know what your true core motivations are in life at the levels of spirituality and personality.
Find out what you are resisting as a consequence of thinking you are your persona or personality.
Put the work in to shine light on your shadows, and stop pointing to everyone else’s/projecting. You may need a guide for that, and I recommend a personalized consultation before you begin this critical work.
In case you haven’t noticed, there’s a very organized effort to keep us dependent, which is a complete lack of individuation. The pedastalizing of mentally ill, other psy op tactics are deadly effective at keeping us from being whole and individuated. Why? It’s easy to believe you’re not a part of the problem when “those people” are hitting the streets.
I invite you to consider looking into your projections and shadows, not because you need it more than anyone else, but because the people who need it the most will not, and they will drag you into further disintegration. Gaslighting.
Lefitsm is trying to take over with the notion, that they are the victim, you did it, and you need to pay for what was done to them. If we’re not careful, we adopt the same energy, I’m a vicitm, you did it, and you need to pay. These 3 on some level, are objectively true, but, what in the collective, and personal conscious and unconscious allowed that?
Happy Shadow Hunting My Friends!
Peace, Much Love, Live Well!
Coach Jerry
The Collective Shadows: Dark Night Of The Soul