Light and Dark Duality in the Gospels

           “Nothing is [ever] one thing,” said my teacher.  In the yin-yang, light is within darkness, as is darkness in light. A friend of mine is who he is himself and, in wanting to be, is not. Erich Neumann, with a keen eye towards the Jungian, describes an individual’s shadow as containing “all those elements in the personality which the ego condemns as negative values” (The Origins and History of Consciousness, 351).  Let us postulate the existence of a person becoming apparent and acting in matters exclusively light. An example may be Melanie Wilkes’s personage, through Scarlett O’Hara’s perception, in Gone with the Wind.

           Next, let us postulate this person’s existence in an absolute sense as represented by the literary figure of Jesus. Let us consider his narrative, less so as the narrative is seen before it becomes reflected in writing, and rather insofar as the written word can be interpreted using theoretical framework evolved through the scientific explorations of modern men.

           Let us propose that as a figure he serves as a sinless vessel, being made of pure light. Being told he is of pure light, it becomes natural for post-temporal externalities to approach his phenomena as bearing light. Retrospectively, an observer may review a framework of conditions which would reveal his sanctity. Before observers in the “now” can look back, the seeing of such a vessel in action appeared perhaps unrecognizable to co-existents, and this requires faith and the ability to see through one’s world-time into the human spirit.

           In listening to Jordan Peterson’s seminar series on the Book Exodus, the issue of God’s omnipotence came up. To clarify, the “issue” is one that arises from the constriction of being to vocabulary, and exists solely in the realm of logical game. If we humans are extensions of Divine will, and God is omnipotent, then it seems reasonable to conclude that God, insofar as he affects things, can do everything that humans do. Humans sin; therefore God sins. Humans err; there God is powerful enough to err.

A response to this is that God is capable of erring just as much as God is capable of pouring flour into Betty Crocker pancake mix and covering its cooked form in Aunt Jemima syrup with Bonne Maman strawberry preserves. Form is distinct from actualization. God, insofar as he is power, by nature of his state as creator, is suspended in a state of constant opting to do something else, that is what exists. God may be capable of anything, but his ultimate freedom come in the form of enacting what exists in-and-of-itself, through particular things in-and-of-themselves. Thus, I reached the formulation: “God is capable of sin, yet he has never sinned, is not sinning, and never will sin.”

           Such a formulation is rather miraculous to the human mind. In the case of humans,  it is a position to uptake towards presumedly sinless people to be racked with anxiety for when a turn shall take their soul. In short, this is paranoia. An example of this paranoia occurs in the sphere of romantic exchanges between the carefree and the hurt. A person who acts carefree and is treated as such by an insulating friend group, may take on a relative degree of purity of mind, such that he is referred to as “a funny guy/girl who everyone loves.”  However, when coming into contact with a wanting soul, most likely in pain from a previous heartbreak, it is possible for this wanting soul to become involved with the carefree spirit, incur the weight of loneliness, dejectedness, or negative emotion, and then wonder how such a pure spirit in the public sphere can become the root of a personal despair. From here, what may be launched is an investigation into the carefree spirit as harboring a beast in the recess of his/her mind, i.e. “having ulterior motives.”

           Another example of this particular type of paranoia occurs when a local persona launches into a new career path. What may happen is that a local persona undergoes a transformation from within and naturally seeks to externalize it in their conduct. In taking up the new craft, the network of relations which previously harbored this persona within their world is revolutionized. Consequently, people’s previous expectations of what to receive when acting with the local persona change. People—a  construction of mind about people—may  perceive that this new conduct is blocking the local persona from who they truly are, and in so doing so, they equate who the local persona was to them in their corner of the world to who the person behind the persona truly is. If this position is taken up, what results is a period of paranoia surrounding this local persona, who has been transformed by a purity of spirit and direction of mind. In this paranoia, there is constant disbelief in the local persona’s developments and a desire to receive what was once had. From here, a doomsday scenario can be crafted around the developing local persona about “where this new phase of theirs is leading to.” Regardless of any positive effect on the person behind the persona, if this scenario is played out, the paranoid person on the other end relegates all perceived changes as cultish initiations to a deeper, darker force waiting to sweep up the person. In American culture, this is often how religiosity and spirituality is treated among the materialist cycles of being, especially when such religiosity or spirituality places long-term practice over momentary whips and quips to make people behave in expected manners.

           Due to human nature, it is a common practice of the wayward mind to expect sin from oneself and from others, even from those who seem to be undergoing some other process. Thus, from the point of view of the human mind, a formulation that God is always capable of sin, and never does so, is a miraculous demonstration of impossibility. However, through the actualization in the Son, the perceived impossibility is demonstrated as possibility, and an invitation to follow in his ways.

           The previous formulation can be applied in the case of the Son to rectify the apparent contradiction between these two postulates: that nothing is ever one thing and that the Son, a man, was all light. By definition, being the Son of the Highest, the darkness occupied a suspended state of potentiality, thus serving as a demonstration among humanity that such an existence was possible, even up against rejection, ridicule, and persecution.

           Now, let us attempt to analyze the situation from an analytical psychological lens. In the case of humans, it is possible to observe how dark forces within a purified or purifying individual are exhaled into the world-system and surrounding, insofar as the world-system is represented to the mind. I provide a personal anecdote to illustrate this point (emphasis on illustrate the sense of the point, not prove its truth or falsity). Before undergoing earth-shaking personality readjustment and hormonal imbalances, I remember being fascinated by horror movies, but letting my fear keep me from watching them. Instead, I would read summaries and view imagery from the movie to see “what it was about” and recreating the imagery in my head. Particularly fascinating was the game franchise of Five Nights at Freddy’s, particular when Scott Cawthon was creating it. 

This clip is a thumbnail for Youtuber Markiplier’s content playing the game.

This theme is recurring:

(From The Longeyed Project, Markiplier)

(from the gameplay of Five Nights at Freddy’s, a bear animatronic looking into the security camera near the door)

           What I find symbolically significant is that often these scary images which captivated me at the end of my adolescence -- and now today, even -- have a strong affiliation with darkness and pockets of light which shine out from them. A blank screen is not terrifying, but if there is enough light in the darkness to suggest that the darkness has a minimal degree of will or life which it will draw upon to exercise its darkness, all while remaining dark, then suddenly the darkness becomes transient and vivacious. Even the image of two glowing white eyes in the dark can activate my fear sensory system, as if the suggestion that the blank pit of nothing,  on its own being as boring as a blank computer screen, had a sentience and ability to see me and come after me.

           My occasional attraction to such imagery in adolescense is most likely a psychological process that occurs in many growing individuals, i.e. confronting one’s fear of the dark. However, within the framework of the current analysis, what deserves noting is that such imagery only racks my fear senses, only has that alluring effect to grapple with it and look at it, when I myself am in a state of purity. In fact, it is very common for Youtubers like Markiplier who interact with this imagery all the time to laugh at the horrifying, disturbed imagery they come across. It is also a phenomenon for people to scoff or find ridiculous the imagery in Five Nights at Freddy’s, usually on account of its being goofy or ridiculous. I admit that once Scott Cawthon’s artistic direction was husked out of the evolving game design, the franchise took on the ridiculousness that accompanies any game which caters to a large popular audience of children. In its initial conception however, Cawthon’s creative impulses were creating a story of far greater magnitude. He was cryptic and left clues; he created a secretive persona yet public relationship with the online figures who played his games. He created imagery and games that subverted expectations. In the first three games, the player sits still for the entire game and can only move their head. The ingenious experiment of this game design cannot be overstated. Most video games rely on expansive worlds and giving a player the sense of motion to fulfill their sense of adventure. Progressive bouts of action compel players to go to the next level and explore.  Cawthon created against this wave and created a very simple game with a mystery that imbued it with deep alluring power. The atmosphere he created in his game was deeply woven into the storytelling, which was left ambiguous enough to be free play. His work was on form and forging a new genre of gameplay and storytelling.

           I digress. The point being that, you may be able to tell the state of one’s psyche based on how much they laugh at horrifying imagery, whether bluntly terrifying or emotionally perverting.

           Using this interpretative framework, the persecution of Jesus  was a realization of the dark forces expelled from within him. He was able to recognize hypocrisy, unrighteousness, blindness, and demonic possession. We can postulate that to recognize something, someone must have potentiality within them. I draw upon a character from Honeymoon: “if Chris is great, and I recognize him… who knows?” “Greatness recognizes greatness.”  “It takes one to know one.” Etc. There is a logical extrapolation on this. To truly see involves re-representing in one’s mind. When I see a tree, I see that tree within me, and thus am able to recognize that tree. One theory is that I understand a tree’s form and can then apply to specific trees as they come up. Another worthy understanding is whether or not I know the genre of trees, when I see a particular tree, if I truly see it, I allow within my vision, its type and particularity to be constructed within me. In other words, I let it tell me its type and its particular story. It does both in harmony, and I listen. 

 We can postulate that this meant that he must have understood what it meant to  be caught up in sin, thus possibilizing those states within Jesus himself. A miraculous aspect of Jesus as a character in a narrative is that he was able to persist in himself despite all this. The dark forces were exhaled from him, from without his psyche, and in so doing demonstrating for humanity to follow. The dark energy exhaled from his vesselage became externalized and circled back to the vessel to destroy the light which triumphed. Jesus’s opting to follow the principles of salvation and the law connected all his holes, i.e. his lacks in being, into tunnels, i.e. continual flow of energy. There were no dead ends for sin to collect, or for against-oneself energy to collect. The sin, unable to implant itself within stable ground in the vessel of the Son, sought to achieve physical form so that it might overtake its place within the vessel’s spirit. It found this form through the possession of the surrounding world as Jesus came into contact with it. Recall: “All this has happened to fulfill what the prophets have written. Forgive them, father, they know not what they do” (Godspell, Book of Matthew). 

I harken to a point that is a simple reduction of what I have said: “Jesus could have sinned.” Thus a whole heap of Catholics will rise up against me. However, again, I harken to what made Jesus such a miraculous figure, and how his constitution was as the Son of the Father. All possibility considered, he persisted in the light. Every person before him and every person to come was a possibility of who Jesus could have been, in the same way that Man is One, we are we, I am you, and you are me. Thus, it is theologically significant that Jesus led his particular life, all things considered, in the way he led it. 

           This reveals the complexity of the story of Jesus’s life, for such a psychological principle marks a unique, profound, and rare demonstration. The prototypical anecdotes of Socrates, Oedipus, and other victims of tragedy, only contain aspects of this Gospel narrative. For Socrates, his accompanying spirit is his Daemon, and his struggles session is geared towards using human reason against society’s condemnation. For Oedipus, it is the Oracle which seals him as a son to a blind fate of acting against his own family. For Jesus, insofar as the Gospels function as a narrative story, he is the fulfilling of a prophecy foretold to the Jews and an extension of Divine will which would more than just be doled out a fate in a particular story (i.e. receive his trial or blind himself), but who would demonstrate a living that would lay the foundation for man to come, i.e. to save him. Thus it is said, “no one shall know the father but through me.” 

           Now, once the darkness, externalized, encroaches upon the light, its attempts are revealed to be a theatrical production. For, the humiliation of the Son and his Crucifixion only lead to his Resurrection and the retaking of his rightful place among pure Being, among the kingdom of Heaven, and among eternalized existence. Not only this, but the particular externalized forces of the vessel’s shadow dissipate into the wash of general public personas, left to perish upon the last day, each demise relative to his own constitution. Meanwhile, the seeds of the Word, of the Light, become the foundation of the church, insofar as the church is made of innate tethering of spiritual affiliations, as opposed to imposed schedules and structures. Thus, the end of things reveals the truth of things. The darkness sought to pervert the light and destroy it, and accomplished only the deliverance of the light and its return onto the Father.

           Furthermore, through the tale of Jesus, there is the foundation for an ever-evolving kingdom of Light, which is bounded yet constantly growing until Man’s last day. For, revolutions of the great waters of chaos and darkness fold over each other and cancel out progress on a daily basis, hourly basis, weekly basis. Yet, through the Son, as only he could bring it to Earth, unnecessary to bring again to do the same thing, this fulfilled the Prophets (the past), the present (salvation of co-existents), and the Future (the  Church). Temporally, it continued the story.  In the overall picture, this deliverance substantiates the crescent, progressive, and piecemeal establishment of the kingdom of Light upon the Earth.

           I once worried that if goodness grows without end, and if the rewards are truly bounteous, then how is to be good when twenty different situations arise in one day, and each one multiplies into an overload of reward or resource or information? And, if a story is fully realized upon its ending in that it is truly over, then how can I move on from any story and remain in the light that occupied it? The tradition of the Law, the Prophets, and the Son demonstrate how the kingdom of Heaven is more complex than a list of existent things which accumulate over time as humans experience it linearly. It delivers itself onto itself. It exists. What evolves is its manifestation among the tormented revolutions of the externalized darkness. This externalized shadow, although seeming to have substance, lacks it. The mob who persecuted Jesus did not possess a thing which was their evil. The cross was wood, then a cross. Only when put to certain purposes did it become a symbol of their doings; still, even then, there were many crucifixions, and the cross only took up a certain type of symbolism when Jesus was nailed to it. Furthermore, their darkness lay in more invisible realm, more subconscious. It lay in their action as it related to their times, and as it related to innocent creatures which came across their path; which they had become blind to seeing and neglectful to understanding.

           The revolving waters of chaos, or the externalized vapors of darkness are forms which do not have material form on the Earth, but they seek to exist. They, non-existent, seek being, and they seek being through vessels which are capable of actualization. One of the only vessels in the cosmos as we know it who are capable of creating, as we were created, only to a lesser degree, is man. In seeking actualization through man, the chaos really seeks to take credit for all that man does. For, when man creates, by definition he creates a positivity from potentiality. It is an ephemeral phenomenon leaving a lasting imprint. Creation exists, and the non-existent waters are siphoned off from this course. But, through the perception of the human mind, the non-existent can be treated as if it was the substance of the existent, and thus chaos can feel as though it reins, if only to make itself feel its ends achieved. The feeling function of the waters is meant in the way that water seeks out the way of gravity, or the way that pea plant tendrils feel their way through a garden, and less so the way of human emotionality.

           The Last Days are the revealing of things as they are, in-and-of-themselves. The Son, having been returned to the kingdom of Heaven, to pure Being, washes away all the lies and coatings of the non-existent over the existent, and it is through this absolute light of truth that the damnation occurs to the human spirits who have been taken asunder by the persuasive, Faustian powers of the non-existent. It is the very essence of their action and the necessity of the light of truth (which shines through night and day) that places them in pits of hell. The waters of chaos and hell are distinct entities. The former is abstract and exists by nature of possibility between mechanical parts, and the latter is humanity’s relationship to the purely mechanical chaos, which renders humans in need, wanting, and unfulfilled; for that is how those things are. 

           In common parlance, distance is supposed to weaken bonds. However, a more acute analysis reveals that distance washes away the frivolity which surrounds the kernel of the bond. Through spending time apart, lovers discover how fundamental their foundation was, per its construction. Through repetitive rhythms of quotidian behaviors, it is possible for a sea of insecurities and a rhythm of gestures and expressions to cloud the kernel of relationships. As Tom described it, for ten years of marriage, the two can go through life in a rhythm; then one day, raw honesty pours out them both in a way that casts off their cloaks of “dignified civilians” and lets loose the strains. In such a case, it is proximity which actually clouds the ability to perceive. Distance washes away the fluff and reveals the heart.

           Thus, in the case of Jesus’s resurrection, it is a common topic of conversation in laymen catholic circles where Jesus is now, if God has abandoned us, and other frivolous questions which aim downward. Applying the most recent principle, the distance placed between the Son and humanity through his Resurrection is like a long, slow stream of water over the millenia to come, slowly washing away the bobbles and trinkets on people’s hearts and revealing their rawest form. The Judgment Day is the last drop on a millenia-long process, the distance from the Son, from the guiding spirit.

           A reverse process happens with agents more aligned with darkness. Their shadow side is light, and the lightness can be pushed out to be recognizable beauty or out to an interpersonal level in the company they keep, which may be impressionable, beautiful, etc. This externalized greatness is forced to be held at a distance. The interior darkness struggles to maintain its state of existence like an excited electron. Whereas externalized darkness sought to overtake the light and ended up delivering it, the externalized lightness seeks to overtake the dark and ends up delivering it to where it came: non-existence. But, since the darkness’s main orientation is towards wanting to exist, it struggles to hold on. This struggle causes despair which is greater than any triumph that the darkness feels in having pushed out lightness from its vesselage. Then, eventually, either through death or salvation, the darkness loses its grip instantaneously, and all the surrounding light pours in the balance it out. If this happens through death, then the darkness’s place within its world seeps through the hands of history like sand and is carried off to the wind. That darkness, takes up a hole within a person with no way out. If such a hole is left as an inheritance through death, naturally it is topologically neutralized. For, the inheritors of such a hole, in their initial state of acting, are inclined to either climb out or make a tunnel to another hole, thus letting out all the built-up non-existence.

           Such is the Way, as made known through the vocabulary used above.