The Soul's Night and Awakening

Anyone searching today for Carl Jung and the “Dark Night of the Soul” will quickly discover countless videos, podcasts, articles, and discussions. In many of them, it is almost taken for granted that Jung described the same experience that John of the Cross wrote about centuries earlier. The connection has become so common that the two seem inseparable. Yet there is a problem. Jung himself did not use the term “Dark Night of the Soul” in the sense that John of the Cross did. His language was different. He spoke of individuation, the shadow, encounters with the unconscious, psychological crises, and profound inner transformation. The expression “Dark Night of the Soul” was largely applied to Jung's ideas by later interpreters who noticed striking similarities between his descriptions and those found in the mystical tradition. One could dismiss the comparison as a misunderstanding. But the matter is not so simple. The real question is not whether Jung used the same terminology. The r...

There are forms of silence that gather a person inwardly. And there is another kind of silence that empties them. Most people know contemplation or meditation only in its early form: as calmness, centering, or clarity. The mind becomes quieter, thoughts begin to settle, life feels more structured. One feels more awake, more present, more inwardly stable. That is precisely why meditation today is almost automatically regarded as a method for improving cognitive performance. Concentration increases. Stress decreases. Thinking becomes clearer. But describes something entirely different. And this is exactly where a problem begins that modern spirituality often no longer understands. For according to John, genuine contemplative deepening does not initially lead to stronger mental control, but rather to a darkening of the ordinary faculties of understanding. Not only emotions begin to change. Thinking, remembering, and imagining themselves enter into a peculiar crisis. This is the ...