The Dark Night of the Soul, Initiation and Magic

ONE MAY hear today that it is impossible to experience the Dark Night of the Soul as a Magician or Theurgist, who contrary to a genuine Mystic supposedly doesn’t renounce the material world. However, my own experience and the experiences of other initiates proves beyond any doubt that it is possible and even constitutes a requirement to become a successful Magician or Adept. Thus a Magician, as well as the Mystic, is capable of experiencing the Dark Night of the Soul; all genuine Hermetic initiation creates that effect. I have had several in the past and will probably have several more in the future. 

However, I wouldn’t, as often is seen in discussions, equate the Dark Night with depression per se as it is the direct effect or consequence of initiation and spiritual pursuit, not simply the result of coping with the general hardships of life. Thus one has to separate clinical depression and ordinary or mundane melancholy from the apparent melancholy or frustration affected by the Dark Night of the Soul.

All spiritual paths and the followers thereof distance themselves from the material world to a certain extent, Theurgy as well as Mysticism. Perhaps the modern or post-modern image of the Theurgist (such as in Neo-Paganism) klings to the material world, but if you look at the ancient Theurgists, such as the pagan neo-platonists (who invented the term) they certainly didn’t follow the path of wordly matters. I doubt that they themselves (i.e. the neo-platonists) made this post-modern dichotomy between Mysticism and Magic. The reconstructed “paganism” of today is not the paganism of the ancients, such as the Hellenistic neo-platonists.

Thus the path of Theurgy and Alchemy is about “leaving the material and searching the spiritual” in a gradual ascension. The Dark Night, which is experienced along this path (to test one’s commitment) is about feeling being renouced by God, the experience of lost contact or communication with the Higher Self (or with the Holy Guardian Angel for that matter), the feeling of being alone in the spiritual plane, a spiritual void; loosing your motivation of pursuing the Great Work. Oftentimes one looses focus from the spiritual and start to kling to the material; a species of renouncement of the spirit. It is the counter initiatic force which drags one back to the material; it is a counter-force necessary for the refinement of the soul.

The very essence of the Dark Night of the Soul is the process of first gaining connection and communication with the divine and then to lose it. Thus, this process may be likened to losing a lover or friend, a true crisis of a spiritual nature. Everline Underhill wrote a very good definition in her book Mysticism: 

The ‘Dark Night of the Soul,’ once fully established, is seldom lit by visions or made homely by voices. It is of the essence of its miseries that the once-possessed power of orison or contemplation now seems wholly lost. The self is tossed back from its hard-won point of vantage. Impotence, blankness, solitude, are the epithets by which those immersed in this dark fire of purification describe their pains.

Some post-modern neo-pagans hold that the Christian and Neo-Platonic division between Spirit and Matter is a faulty one, that everything belongs to the whole, that matter is equally spiritual as Spirit. These voices dispute an apparent dualism imposed by the idea of a spiritual ascension, such as expressed in traditional Hermeticism and Qabalah.

For me “spirit” and “matter” are simply two designations of two opposite poles on a contiuum of frequencies which we may refer to as “substance”. There is only one substance which transcends the duality of matter and spirit, yet there is a difference of quality between the finest segment of substance (i.e. “spirit”) and the coarsest (“matter”), although both partake of the same ALL. Alchemy is about changing of the frequency of vibration from coarse to fine, or the reverse. However, the Adept knows that spirit is above matter in a hierarchical order. Spiritual development for me is evolution of consciousness which entails the raising of the vibratory pitch gradually. The Great Work is about spiritualisation of matter, i.e. not to abandon matter but to live in it according to spritual principles, not materialistic and wordly. An Adept is not a man or woman of this saturnine world; he may rule it but he is a child of the Sun, of the Solar World. In a way, the Children of Key XIX of the Tarot reflects the stature of true Adepts.

 

The Eastern principle of Maya, or the sense of illusion, only concerns the reduction of existance to what is tangible, denying the spirit behind the matter. An Adept doesn’t deny the existence of matter but he or she sees it as the outward expression of spirit. As an Adept one tries to raise oneself from the purely Saturnine bodily existance and to awaken the Solar body within oneself. The restoration, or Tikkun ha-Ohlam, is about raising the sparks from the entrapment of fallen matter and to retreive them back to their source in the Light. Tikkun ha-Ohlam according to Isaac Luria and Nathan of Gaza epitomize the goal of the Great Work.

The original question was if the Dark Night of the Soul phenomena can also be applied to Theurgy and Magic. Well, I guess it depends upon which perspective you have on matter. One that recognises that spirit pervades matter and is the source behind it – the one that advocates a “Path of Return” to a more primordial state – surely can incorporate a Dark Night. But if one’s spirituality is matter-based, if it doesn’t entail sacrifice and renouncement of purely materialist pursuits (such as wordly power, social standing and riches) perhaps one may escape the Night. Thus the question is not a dichotomy between “mysticism” and “magic” but rather between one type of “magic” and another type of “magic”.

The traditional view on Theurgy has its basis in Neo-Platonism, which (through its theory of emanation) in fact incorporates the belief in ascension and gradual purification onto spirit. This is also the doctrine of the Holy Qabalah; the Tree of Life is a species of a Jacob’s Ladder, which initiation tries to emulate. That is why the Dark Night of the Soul is a very real experience in a Golden Dawn initiatory context. 

Some clarifications (2014-06-06)

I believe that some clarifications are due because of some possible misunderstandings made by Frater Barrabbas regarding what I wrote in the above paragraphs. I regard the experience of the Dark Night to be a integrated and necessary part of intitiation, and the outcome of the disintegration of the component parts of the initiate or solve phase of initiation; the alchemical nigredo. It is also a recurring phenomenon, as night follows day, and becomes day again after night, etc.; the alchemical process is a repeated circulation of solve et coagula. 

But the loosing of faith is unmistakable in this natural process – however, it doesn’t have to be that one looses faith in Godhed per se, but it may be “limited” to loosing one’s  faith in the initiatory path, in the system in which one is working, a loosing of faith in the tradition that you are adhering to – i.e. one may loose one’s faith in the “religion” without loosing one’s faith in the spiritual dominion or God.

There is also the phenomenon of losing one’s faith in oneself as an initiate, the reduction of one’s own worth as a spiritual person; the feeling of being unworthy as an Adept which makes it akin to depression or melancholy, but still being induced by the spiritual pursuit and initiatory process itself. Perhaps the mystic and magician experiences a somewhat different Dark Night, because the initiatory path is not only based on faith alone, but also on empirical experience. But it is possible to loose one’s faith in or sense of the meaning of it all; one may ask oneself: “Is it worth all the effort and all the sacrifice?”

With detachment or renounciation of the material I actually refer to the life of wordliness and the life of the profane, not the reduction of the worth of matter itself or the elements themselves; when you enter the path of initiation you have to leave your old life behind, sacrifice what you have gained before, what is considered to be valuable in the consensus mind of the profane. To live a spiritual life is not to live a mundane and wordly life; it is a life subjected to higher principles than that of money, riches and wordly power. 

Initiates are seldom successful in the eyes of the profane, although the initiate may be very satisfied with his or her life regardless. It is because the initiate denounces the limited worldview of the materialist; he or she doesn’t measure success with the contents of one’s  wallet, or the social standing, or how many “likes” one receive on Facebook. The path of the initiate is not the path of egotism or petty prestige; although the initiate still has a functioning ego or self, it has to be subjected to the principles of the Higher Self.

Quite often the initiate may become shunned or feared because he or she has choosen a different path of life with entirely different values, which makes him or her dangerous because he or she is a threat to the current world order. Initiates are radical and by their very nature subversive, however not necessarily consciously, but because they are not any longer part of the general paradigm of their times.

I wonder if much of the opposition that I have encountered during the recent days against the though of the Dark Night being part and parcel of initiation is not the result of the post-modern fear of melancholy, the manic quest for happiness and success which is fed to out brains from media and Western authorities. I am not suggesting that this is a kind of fear which has motivated Frater Barrabbas to oppose my position, but perhaps some of his more zealous supporters. Post-modern neo-spirituality and self-help books is part of a general “prosperity theology” which reflects the post-modern commersialist western culture.

In our post-modern society we are taught that feelings of depression, grief and sorrow is something dysfunctional and bordering on antisocial. Therefore, there is the common opinion that it is good to take medication when you are feeling low on a regular basis or during prolonged periods, so that you may return to a prosperous life as a producer and consumer. There is a common fear of the dark and night in our post-modern society as a outcome of this, as it berieves you of your expected success in life. 

The initiatory process goes contrary to this general and consensual opinion; there is ebb and flow in all parts of nature – we are all mano-depressive to a certain extent, as we as microcosms reflect the fluctuations of the macrocosm. Thus the Dark Night is nothing to be shunned or avoided; rather it is to be embraced as a sign post of successful initiatory work. I have written before on the subject of depression as a way to self-knowledge. I am not advocating a romantic view on suffering; what I am saying it that Darkness cannot be avoided and has to be embraced instead of fearfully escaped to be able to be worked through.

Thus, my major point is that the Darkness of the Soul is as natural as Light or Illumination of the Soul; remember that the night is never as pitch black as just before the dawn. However, eventually the sun sets in the West and the Illumination of the soul is temporarly lost (regardless if it it induced by a loss of faith in God, in the Tradition or in Oneself), only to be regained again, and again. This is an ongoing process of cyclic development; thus the Dark Night is a companion on the path of the initiate as is the Light of Day. It is part of the ongoing natural process. 

Image of the Tarot Key No. XIX ‘The Sun’ is ©Tomas Stacewicz.

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