“The whole universe is contained within a single human being—you. Everything that you see around you, including the things you might not love and even the people you despise and loathe, is present within you to some degree or another. Therefore, do not look for the Devil outside yourself.
The Devil is not some supernatural force that attacks you from the outside. He is an ordinary voice within you. Get to know yourself completely; look honestly and firmly at both your dark and light sides, and you will achieve a supreme form of consciousness. Whoever knows themselves, knows God.”
— Elif Shafak, “The Forty Rules of Love”
Whoever knows themselves knows God, but before we come to know the divine within us, we pass through the knowledge of the devil within us. Many people who have embarked on the spiritual path get stuck exactly at this point. Too intent on the light, they fail to see that the shadow behind them has grown immense.
Scientific psychotherapy and spirituality are of one mind in this regard: the inner shadow is what happens when we reject certain unpleasant aspects of ourselves into the basement of the unconscious. The more we reject it, the more it grows. The larger it becomes, the more we lose touch with it and with the instinctive part of ourselves. Eventually, it begins to act as an autonomous complex that thwarts our good intentions.
Sometimes it acts from within; other times, it comes from without. It resembles black magic. But in fact, it is our psychic shadow. Religious people call it the Devil.
Kameliya Hadzhiyska
