{"id":151436,"date":"2013-08-27T19:21:00","date_gmt":"2013-08-27T16:21:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/espirited.com\/a-new-light-born-in-darkness\/"},"modified":"2026-02-01T22:06:18","modified_gmt":"2026-02-01T20:06:18","slug":"a-new-light-born-in-darkness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/espirited.com\/en\/a-new-light-born-in-darkness\/","title":{"rendered":"A New Light Born Out of Darkness"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cConiunctio takes place in the underworld; it happens in the dark, when there is no light left at all. When you are completely desperate and consciousness has gone, something is born \u2014 in the deepest depression, in the deepest despair, a new personality is born. When you are at the very end of your strength, the moment arrives when coniunctio occurs: the coincidence of opposites.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

Marie-Louise von Franz, Alchemy: An Introduction to the Symbolism and the Psychology, p. 180<\/em><\/p>\n

Any presentation of spiritual transformation from the perspective of C. G. Jung\u2019s analytical psychology<\/strong> would be incomplete without addressing despair. For Jungian analysts, the role of despair in these processes is crucial, because they know that \u201cthe closer the mystic\u2019s soul comes to the Divine essence, the darker and more confused it becomes.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

For them, despair occupies a central place in the alchemical formula that transforms the lead of our suffering into the gold of the Self<\/strong>. Without despair, inner transformation cannot occur.<\/p>\n

\u201c\u2026precisely when nigredo is at its worst, a secret birth takes place in the unconscious. In catastrophe, amid depression and conflict, a new symbol of the Self is born. It is born in the unconscious, so that the person does not yet know what has happened and only dimly senses that, although they have fallen into this terrible depression and the anima figure has collapsed, something has been born.\u201d (p. 234)<\/em><\/p>\n

Despair is the expression of the failure of ego-will<\/strong>, but it is a success for the hidden work of the unconscious. Of course, when we are desperate, the last thing we think of is success. Quite the opposite \u2014 we feel like complete failures, unable to understand what is happening to us or why. Yet once the storm has passed, we realize that only crises of despair help us relinquish control \u2014 again and again<\/strong>. Through them come humility and spiritual capitulation.<\/p>\n

Within despair, as Jungian analysis tells us, lies the condition for coniunctio<\/strong> \u2014 the union between the earthly and the divine aspects of ourselves, the ultimate aim of the process of individuation. Coniunctio is the moment when the inner conflict stops tearing the soul apart, not because its opposing sides have reached agreement, but because something new has been born within us<\/strong>. That new thing is the realization of the Self.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat is involved is the birth of a new light \u2014 a third thing \u2014 born in coniunctio. A new light born in darkness, and then all neurotic symptoms, illnesses, and weaknesses disappear\u2026\u201d (p. 193)<\/em><\/p>\n

Despair occupies a very special place in the alchemical formula for the birth of light from darkness \u2014 a message echoed by many spiritually awakened teachers whose texts I have already shared on this site:<\/p>\n